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Art Style Analysis Thread

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So I thought this was worth bringing up because it’s neat to see how each main series game is distinguishing itself while still feeling naturally Pokémon.

Right away I love the Mediterranean feel we’re getting in PokéSpain. The towns look incredibly vibrant especially in comparison to Galar. I just love the brightness of everything.

We have to address the Copperajah in the room, though, and that’s the new human designs. It’s taking me a little getting used to but I’m not ready to write it off as bad. We’ve only seen two models so far (player character male and female), but they strike me as a cross between the XD/Battle Revolution style and Go’s more realistic look.

Also, girl protagonist >>>>>> guy protagonist.
 
Somehow these new games and art styles keep getting brighter and more colorful and I absolutely love it.

I still haven't warmed up to the protagonist's designs either, and I think it will definitely take seeing some more characters to get used to the changes. The models actually remind me a bit of the ones from New Pokemon Snap, particularly with the eyes, but still a little different.
 
It looks more realistic than PLAs, like it's blending that one with SS

I think the models for the buildings and such look better, but yeah the male protag is kinda weird. It's the eyes for me
 
I'm not entirely sure why people hate the designs of the protagonists. What is the issue with them? Is it that our player characters are little kids again?
 
I mean, the graphics look really dated honestly. Maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me but I feel that the rendering looks like a Playstation game in many areas.

It also looks like a downgrade on SWSH and PLA. They still have lots of time so hopefully it improves massively.
 
To be fair, I don't think the various shots of Pokemon would be in the game? They are fairly zoomed in.

But those don't look great, especially the Stonjourner area. Both that and the Clauncher/Pelipper bit. No sense of weight because the sand doesn't change at all. Looks like a cut scene from 20 years ago.
 
I'm not entirely sure why people hate the designs of the protagonists. What is the issue with them? Is it that our player characters are little kids again?
Human characters had eyes like this:

Screenshot_20220227-213457_Chrome.png Screenshot_20220227-213628_Chrome.png
Elongated oval type eyes or big round eyes.

The player characters from SV have smaller, more realistic eyes that are perfectly round:
Screenshot_20220227-214245_Chrome.png
They don't really fit in with the previous protags and look more like they're from a spin off game like Detective Pikachu or New Snap.

Edit:


Someone edited the eyes to look better and I couldn't agree more.
 
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I just hate their outfit design. Like the worst of all the school kid uniform things in one unpleasant package. Put the dude in long pants and the girl in a knee length skirt or something and give them a nice little dress jacket thing over that T-shirt and tie and the outfits would be fantastic. Maybe give the girl the option of pants too (not everyone is like me and likes wearing skirts and things after all and gods know they aint gonna be nice enough to let the boys choose skirt or pants).

I can live with a young protagonist, I'm just gonna change their age in my head anyway. But gods does that outfit choice make it feel like instead of being 11-12 possibly (like I can see for them if I just look at their faces alone), that these kids are like just turning 10 at best and are still in the middle of their elementary school years. And should be about as tall as the school kid trainer class. This is the first time I've actually felt like I need to get to a clothes shop asap to get something else on my character. Ye gods.
 
Also, girl protagonist >>>>>> guy protagonist.
When is this not the case though? Not including remakes, where nostalgia for the original male protagonist wins out, the female protagonist is always the popular one. People prefer drawing her and dressing her up in different clothes. They made a ton of memes about Scottish trainer too. I think the main reason for this is that the male protagonist isn't really that cool looking where people gravitate toward him, he is kind of on the cute side too. But the girl is always cuter, so she automatically wins the battle.
 
So I thought this was worth bringing up because it’s neat to see how each main series game is distinguishing itself while still feeling naturally Pokémon.

Right away I love the Mediterranean feel we’re getting in PokéSpain. The towns look incredibly vibrant especially in comparison to Galar. I just love the brightness of everything.

We have to address the Copperajah in the room, though, and that’s the new human designs. It’s taking me a little getting used to but I’m not ready to write it off as bad. We’ve only seen two models so far (player character male and female), but they strike me as a cross between the XD/Battle Revolution style and Go’s more realistic look.

Also, girl protagonist >>>>>> guy protagonist.
Yea, it's like they have their own art styles sometimes.
 
Yeah echoing feelings above I don’t really care that the protagonists are younger, but their outfits and overall designs just feel particularly… bland? I’m not sure if it’s because they were going for a sense of realism or because customization is pretty standard these days so they thought ‘we’ll dress them up anyway’— but I still would much rather have protagonists that look like their own characters before I personalize them.

I also agree the round eyes were an odd choice… I’m gonna assume they’re trying something different artistically with this game, Pokemon’s been experimenting a lot lately, after all.
 
I agree it is definitely sometimes a good thing! But the designs, well… it feels like I’m looking at ‘default character templates’ rather than characters themselves who I just so happen to self-insert into. They feel too bare bones to me, I’d rather them feel like their own characters first and foremost tbh. That’s just my Onion™️ though.
 
Backgrounds and textures good. Faces on the trainers bad. I liked the art style of swsh, would prefer more cartoony faces like that
 
I liked how LA looked... whenever I wasn't in a cave, not sure why it was a thing but man the edges of models looked bad in caves for some reason. Not the highest quality graphics sure but it was nice.

As for the humans, honestly I've grown used to them, they still don't quite feel like Pokemon Franchise Humans but I've gotten past that.

Honestly my bad at telling graphics brain thought the lighting and shadows looked perfectly fine and didn't realize some people had a problem with them until I read this thread
 
I liked how LA looked... whenever I wasn't in a cave, not sure why it was a thing but man the edges of models looked bad in caves for some reason. Not the highest quality graphics sure but it was nice.

As for the humans, honestly I've grown used to them, they still don't quite feel like Pokemon Franchise Humans but I've gotten past that.

Honestly my bad at telling graphics brain thought the lighting and shadows looked perfectly fine and didn't realize some people had a problem with them until I read this thread
The shadows are sometimes very flakey, and the anti-aliasing doesn't seem to work properly yet. It results in jagged textures, very shiny surfaces, etc.

There are definitely still issues with it, apart from the abysmal framerates.
 
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