Greetings all! As a player of Pokemon since the dawn of Poke existence i have become increasingly annoyed
as time goes by. By what you may ask? By the shoddy work Gamefreak are doing with their New pokemon designs!
As time has gone by they seem to have become lazier and lazier..
Let me make a few examples:




Salamance has got to be the worst example of them all, those wings are the crummiest things
ive ever seen. Kids draw wings like that when they cant comprehend proper wing joints such as those seen on Charizard

The anatomy and perspective seem really warped on Dialga as if he was born without knees..I'd love to see an Xray of some of these guys
And poor old houndoom, good god if ive ever seen a more generic pokemon then slap me silly! Poor thing has no ears just some glued on corny as horns
and a devil tail..sigh..
Post your opinions! Comments! Anything!!!

Kay, what the hell are you talking about. All of those pokemon happen to be super-epic.
There sprites are awesome, though I will have to agree on wings. There is nothing wrong with , , or . And I can't seem to figure out if your complementing Charizard or not.

Wow, thanks for speaking for everybody in the world. I think he's entitled to base his opinions regarding Pokemon on whatever the hell he wants.

I personally think there is a general decline across the Generations as well, but not as exaggerated as "DURR EVERYTHING AFTER THE ORIGINAL 151 SUX" that so many nostalgia people tout as truth. The Hoenn and Sinnoh Pokemon are a little more stylized whereas more of the Kanto and Johto Pokemon look a lot more like real-life animals. I prefer the earlier designs, but they still make enough good ones that I follow the franchise so heavily.

Not to be a brown-nose, but I agree with Frost. The originals were more like real animals, and then they just change it every year. They don't necessarily get worse each year (though, personally, I don't like the Sinnoh Pokemon much...), in fact, I like the second 100 better than the original 151. But, seriously Zerzulen, its hard to come up with creatures when you've already used up pretty much every animal on the planet. Give GameFreak a break, they're trying, but if you were set out to create Pokemon, you probably wouldn't the job any better than them.

WOOT! I have finally managed to coax some opinions out of people!
Now I'll make a few things clear.
Yes nostalgia is a dangerous thing indeed..I'm not saying any Pokemon that are not part of
the 150 club are lame. Or that the quality of the games are declining(thats a whole other post right there)
Simply that some of the designs are slack.
Those Pokemon are I'm sure very powerful, but I'm only addressing visual aesthetic here.
Speaking from a "nostalgic" point of view I'd say that Pokemon such as Dialga or Groudon lack the same
amount of personality and character as say Charizard or Lugia.
My opinion does not rule over all that much is sure.
I was more interested in seeing other peoples opinions and to encourage some good old fashioned
heated debate
Ah, as for Charizard, he has a soft spot in my heart as he was the first starter I ever raised.
I was simply using him as an example of good and bad wing anatomy.
For me, Pokemon always had this sense of character which set it apart from similar "monster" type games/anime
such as Digimon.To see them transition into creatures i couldn't distinguish without the pokemon logo stamped into them
is a little disappointing.

First Gen brought us the likes of:
A ball
Another ball
Gum
A flatus
And a walking afro among other not-so-creative critters.

Gen IV gives us:
Blue, humanoid magic puppies
A cooler looking flatus
A freaking mamoth thing
And whatever this is

I'm not trying to champion the new Pokemon and certainly not trying to bash the old. I also know I selected only a couple good/bad examples. My point is that for every few crappy Pokemon they put out, there's at least a few who are cool/different enough to balance that out. Sure, some of the new guys look really, really stupid . Point is, not all of the first creations were exactly "outstanding." For these reasons and more, we cannot say effectively that the design team at Nintendo is slacking off, but rather that they have just stumbled a few times. I yield my time to the floor.

It's true that each generation seemed to have a different 'feel' to the sprites. I personally don't really like the look of many Gen III Pokemon as compared to Gen I, but there are exceptions.

HAH im lovin the flatus reference!!
If ghastly is a flatus..then what does that make ghastlys more..err substancey (not a real word i dont think) evolutions?

As Frost pointed out, the first two generations have more of a natural feel, with Pokemon resembling a lot more like animals and plants then the third and fourth, which contemplates more stylized, theme-diversed monsters.

I personally don't have a preference of one generation over the other. But I always say the third is ahead of the others in my book because it was the first Pokemon game I actually bought and the closet Furry part of my mind just loved all the humanoids this generation brought (hello, Blaziken and Gardevoir!).

I don't think it's "falling apart". I think it's more of a gradual change, that many people are disliking for a reason or another.

I don't know exactly who is in charge of coming up with the Pokemon designs, but, in my opinion, this change is happening due to the fact that Pokemon are becoming more and more unique in general. Nowadays it is a lot easier to look at a cartoon monster and say "wow, that looks a LOT like a Pokemon!" then before. It's not that Ken Sugimori's style wasn't already distinct in the first generation, but now this is a little more noticeable.

Another thing I myself believe happens is that each generation has a specific, subtle theme behind it. First generation is pretty much centered around how Pokemon are connected to nature, so we have this whole fauna and flora feel, and there's nothing really special about the region. Second generation seems to be more folkloric, basing itself around legends, and lore, and both the Pokemon and the region reflect that. I'm still in doubt about what's behind the third generation, because it looks like it's the beginning of the whole transition, so the Pokemon look more like toys and are less "natural"; I can't exactly point out the theme, other than "weather and climate", but that's it. And then there's the fourth generation which, in my opinion, is the most distinguishable of all, with Pokemon the less natural looking and more robotic, techno looking; but it suits the "universe" theme this generation is about, I guess; something completely different from what we're used to (aliens and modernism and abstract come to my mind).

I don't know, that's just the general feeling I get from each era.

As for your examples... The thing about Salamence and Charizard's anatomies, in my point of view, is exactly the fact that they belong to two completely different generations. While Charizard reflects a more realistic lizard, Salamence is more of a toy; its rounded, geometric design requests more geometric, less anatomically correct wings. It's not that the creator of the concept made a mistake or were being lazy, it's more like they tried to come up with a solid, well-balanced design, and, well, succeeded.

I do agree that Dialga looks weird; its legs are always bended like a crab's, and I personally find it terrible. But, then again, it has the excuse of being a "legendary", and, to me, legendaries can look as weird as they please because they aren't really supposed to look natural, or like other ordinary Pokemon in the first place (being unnatural, one of a kind entities and such).

In my opinion, Houndoom's design was, uhm, softened. It's not just an ordinary canid, it's a hellhound. It's horns, in my mind, are supposed to remind you of a ram's, which are often used in pictures of demons. It also explains the devil tail and it's Dark/Fire type. The fact that it has no ears is that they tried to make it as simple and easy on the eye as possible I think; adding ears would make its head too detailed and it would loose its smooth, linear like design. Houndoom's composition is perfectly fine the way it is, and it could look a lot WORSE in my opinion if they followed its theme to the extreme.

Groudon is just... Yeah, I don't really know what it's really supposed to be... It's ugly as hell, true, but it fits its role of "something that came from the depths of the Earth". The only thing I find unnecessary are the spikes, but I do agree that its pretty much terrible in general.

Whatever GameFreak (or whoever is in charge of the Pokemon designs) does, I'll still follow Pokemon because even though there are so many aberrations out there, they are still capable of coming up with interesting monsters. I just hope they don't make the freaky ones the majority of them.

Dialga Has knees.

Wow /vXv\. You have some pretty descriptive diagrams. You went through alot to prove that. I must give you props for that.

I meant it as a every basic animal like "Dog, cat, monkey, bear, sloth... etc" Not subspecies because its sometimes difficult to tell some sub-species of snakes from one another, and that goes the same for other species. What I'm trying to say is that most all of the basic animal types have been used already. Also, the reason I said it like that is because if they used sub-species such as the ones you mentioned what would your reaction playing a game with all those pokemon in it would be? "Oh... Another Snake Pokemon..." Not "OH! A spitting Cobra wow!" So, as I said, most all of the basic animal types have been used. If you can name 1000 animals that look ALMOST nothing like the current pokemon, then sure, I'll give you that, but if its just different subspecies it proves nothing.

Good point. You're right. I don't really have much to say because I agree with what you said...

I personally prefer the older two generations because they were more realistic animals. There are ones in the newer generations I do like, though.

The starters in Gen III were pretty good; was done well; was a really nice substitute, much easier to catch in the wild and easier to evolve; seems like 's lost twin, and fun to use... I could go on, but that would take a while.

I would rather see them go back to some more natural styles. I feel like some of the newer Pokémon would stick out like a sore thumb in their habitats.

I like the older generations a lot, and their artwork too, but 3rd and 4th gen aren't too bad. When fourth gen first came out, I didn't like the Pokemon. (Except for a few such as Palkia, Uxie, Azelf, and Mesprit.) Now, however, I like them a lot more. You could make the argument that Pokemon is falling apart, but personally I think DPPt and HGSS were steps in the right direction. (We'll see about Generation 5 though.)

@Cactuar - Well, the graphics look good so far, and aside from the fact that the new Pokémon is more humanoid than I'd like to see, it's got a lot less bright colors and less awkward shapes to it. I'm hoping that they get more of that in the new Pokémon.

I've been feeling like there's been a gradual change in Pokemon. I'm not going to say it's a decline, because it's not like the art has been getting crappy, it's just the style. I don't really like where its going, though. I really liked the natural and simple style of the first two generations. The R/S/E Pokemon were okay, too. However, I've noticed, that the designs have been getting more complicated, especially with the D/P ones. I don't like this, particularly in the legendary Pokemon; they seem over the top, and all of the extra ...stuff takes away from the awesomeness. Seriously, which designs are more inspirational, Ho-oh/Lugia or Dialga/Palkia? For me, Ho-oh and Lugia inspire more awe. Personally, I think the Black and White legendaries, or whatever they are, look pretty lame.

Also, when you think about it, complicated doesn't mean better. Nature tends to be as simple as possible. And when it comes down to it, the more natural things are the most pleasing to the eye. I'm not saying they need to be based on real flora and fauna; the designs just need to be simpler.

I think Groudon looks kind of like a lobster.

I personally like the second gen's sprites the most. Generation three I see as a segue into the fourth generation, but I like its pokemon almost as much as generation 2.

Well for me I think the games have always been good, the anime has lost completely all of it's meaning, and the pokemon designs, god, well that I mean I like basically all of them but not all are very creative like and such but just look at real-life animals, I mean in real life not all animals are creative or cute or ugly or cool looking, there's such a wide variety and seeing how pokemon uses not only animals but spirits, mythical creatures and inanimate objects! So like in real life, there will be a wide variety of creatures!