Right, obviously, ORAS didn't have sprites, I should have realized that. I just went and checked, this isn't a fan sprite, it's his BW2 sprite. His in game model in ORAS has the same issues though.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
the remake Brawly did actually make him look like a fighting type gym leader rather than some guy, ill give them that
we were both wrong so its not a big deal. i do feel like in this case, theres 2 things to consider
1. rs sprites are known for not being made to be seen raw, like other sprites in the series. they were colored accounting to the gbas whole color ordeal, and some end up looking pretty weird when viewed thru an emulator/extracted
2. even if the color was intentional... i think it might be a spriters error? stevens artwork most likely was for concept art, so whoever sprited him either ran out of color placements or just did not check the color of his hair proper, because it seems to always have been this bright blue. its only like 1 or 2 values desaturated compared to the new one, not a big change, and most likely the result of scanning compared to the new one being a digital drawing
Eh. Not really? Not gonna paste dozens of images but https://imgur.com/a/rse-compared-to-oras-5GyMZ has a bunch of comparisons and there's very few major changes: a couple don't change their outfits at all and even for the ones that do - Roxanne, Sidney, Norman, Wattson - the changes are minimal or just make what they're wearing a bit more detailed. Roxanne is probably the most overexaggerated, but she just goes from demure-and-fairly-unremarkable-woman-in-modest-dress to more-fashionable-genki-girl in a more provocative pose.
Obviously the exception is most of the Aqua/Magma characters, who run the gamut from small to complete redesigns.
I find the RSE sprites make most of the characters look older, but that's just the way it compresses their faces down. Flannery looks way more youthful in B2W2 than in RSE.
He's also more clearly a surfer dude between the surf goggles, wetsuit top, shorts that are probably swim trunks, and water shoes. His original design was a bit too overdressed to give surfer dude energy.
At least ORAS made Brendan's hat/hair situation clear.
doubt this is all that of an unpopular opinion but I wish his hair was white rather than it being confirmed to be the weirdest hat ever
I don’t really feel too strongly one way or the other about Brendan; both designs look fine to me (I hate Emerald Brendan’s shorts-over-pants outfit, but I like that it added green as an accent color for both Brendan and May, and I’m pleased that ORAS kept that). However, something about ORAS Brendan’s posing combined with the sheen on his outfit does make him seem like he’s made of something elastic.
Wally is a big improvement.
May, I’ve got mixed feelings about. The bandanna to bow is a downgrade, and the original top, gloves, and biker shorts were more unique, and that all contributed to giving her a memorable tomboy vibe. But at the same time, her legs are drawn way out of proportion to her body and that has always bugged me. RS Roxanne has the same problem.
I like that RS May had a collared shirt. Designers often just think 'hot location -> show more skin' but collars are much more sun-smart. For the most part, the redesign makes her outfit slightly frillier and girlier without adding anything interesting, which is a shame.
To me it's her waist that throws things off. I feel like her hands and legs look proportional to each other, but they both seem way too big for her torso.
The electric double edge clone that only one pokemon can use..
With May, it feels like the redesign kept the same basic elements and colors, but without understanding them, and then built clothes to match. The silhouette is the same, and the colors are the same, but:
Skirt over shorts becomes shorts over shorts
Bandanna tying her hair back becomes a hairband with a bow
Tight polo shirt becomes a tank top over...either another tank top or a sports bra. Which both are unlikely for very different reasons.
And it's not that any of those are bad decisions, or unjustifiable. But they feel more like someone just mimicking the original design and getting it wrong than intentional choices.
Given the amount of event pikachu forms that can't evolve or be copied by breeding, there are a lot more than four non-overlapping evolutionary lines that learn Volt Tackle. See? It has a perfectly reasonable distribution. Please ignore how many of these lines have the exact same stats, typing, name, and movepool.
Her new shirt actually fits, her shorts could go. They could have kept the bandana over the ribbon though.
The black undershirt is actually surprising since from the back it looks like a sports bra.
The one ORAS redesign that bothers me is Tabitha. His old design is just a Magma Grunt with a cape, sure, but that at least shows rank. The tweaks to his new outfit aren't really different enough from the rank-and-file so it comes of as his only distinguishing characteristic is being chubby, especially with his portrait not showing the pattern on the lower part of his jacket.
I like fairy, but I'm not sold on it being mandatory for balance. They didn't have to make it.
Dragons naturally tend to be strong(kinda duh,) but the attacking TYPE stinks, with only one Se Target.... who hits you back equally rofl. I mean maybe a slight nerf on dragons/more strong steel options. Or even make fairy just a resist. It seems strange, dragon is now a pretty awful attacking type, bar like STAB DM But that's for bp.
Idk, maybe that's too simple of a look. Since fairy has other type stuff to it than drgn ofc. It probably hurts bug and offensive dark too much, but is practical for buffing fire and hurting fighting both ways and dark defensively.
Dragons naturally tend to be strong(kinda duh,) but the attacking TYPE stinks, with only one Se Target.... who hits you back equally rofl. I mean maybe a slight nerf on dragons/more strong steel options. Or even make fairy just a resist. It seems strange, dragon is now a pretty awful attacking type, bar like STAB DM But that's for bp.
Idk, maybe that's too simple of a look. Since fairy has other type stuff to it than drgn ofc. It probably hurts bug and offensive dark too much, but is practical for buffing fire and hurting fighting both ways and dark defensively.
The big thing is Dragon can afford to only hit itself SE because it has next to no resistances and its users have massive stat totals. Whereas something like Fire is resisted by common defensive Waters, a Dragonite or Salamence with Outrage hit only slightly less hard than some SE moves with lower Base power
252+ Atk Dragonite Outrage vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew: 220-261 (64.5 - 76.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Tyranitar Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew: 294-348 (86.2 - 102%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
The result is a lot of teams could get away with just spamming Dragon attacks to overwhelm the opponent on sheer power without playing the type chart, especially since Dragon's only answer pre-Fairy was Steels that were already fairly expected to cover for (Drag-Mag being a common style).
I agree Fairy is a type with more negative effects than positive, albeit I do think it being a defensive Dragon asset was important. It's kind of a fumbled repeat of Gen 2 introducing Dark and Steel specifically to buff Fighting and nerf Psychic, fumbled because it brought several unnecessary knock on effects (I think it needed one more resistance and/or to be neutral to Bug at minimum)
I'm still annoyed all these years later they decided to nerf Bug with the addition of the Fairy type. I don't think it being resisted by Fairy makes a lot of sense even from the Japanese "Bug type is tokusatsu reference" angle. That leak from a while ago now showed they almost made Bug WEAK to Fairy so they were really on something. I'm not exactly sure why they had the idea of nerfing Bug to begin with in Gen 6, given I don't remember it being that oppressive in Gen 5. It wasn't like Normal in Gen 1 where it being nerfed by Steel made a lot of sense.
If I had to guess why it's because of U-Turn? If that's the case it would make sense I guess but I never liked the widespreadness of U-Turn, mostly used by non bug types. Feels like it would be a more unique thing for them if you had to specifically use a Bug pokemon to be able to U-Turn, like how most users of Volt Switch are Electric types.
U-Turn was made Bug type because the Japanese word for a u-turn contains the word for dragonfly. Volt Switch and Flip Turn were intentionally made as Electric and Water moves, U-Turn is Bug purely for pun reasons.
The nitpicky thing about it is that Yanma and Yanmega, the dragonfly Pokémon, doesn’t have a high enough Attack, though U-Turn being a pivoting move makes up for it, granted.
I can imagine more pun-based moves like “Mantis Fists” or something like that to allow more new moves ideas.
Defensively I think Fairy did a pretty good job overall, the immunity to dragon was the easiest solution. To many people forget that it was so easy to break past steel types back in the days, and steel types are common enough that using them to then break past Fairies would lead to a repeat of Dragmag.
What I can't excuse is the resistance to Bug types because of U-turn, giving another resistance for Fire types, and completely replacing Psychic for a lot of people teams as the Fighting type destroyer all while getting Dark types at the same time. Bug and Psychic are already the two worst types in the game, they really didn't need to gimp those two more
I don't really agree with the idea that Psychic is one of the worst types when Game Freak clearly keeps giving them good tools like Psyshock/Psychic Noise, their own terrain, and a bunch of awesome mons. Meanwhile, you can barely count the number of good Bugs on one hand, and the only move of note they really have is U-turn. I'd rather put Ice in the "among the worst" category because it's consistently supplanted by Water existing.