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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
oh my god thank you. im sorry i have massive beef with gen 5 sprites and their pretty ass tweening. so many movements look floaty and weightless because they dont have squash or stretch applied, the way pokemon contort looks unnatural and janky, and the fact a lot of them just reused plat sprites for their base movement means they also carried plats jank on top of it lmfao.
yeah the 3d models have a lot of issues but really, they have a lot of potential to look lively if they just locked in, positioned them better and added some more library of animations. still a lot of work, but a lot of work that can be reused. the gen 5 anims need to be scrapped and redone for like 70% of the dex
Yeah those are good points. I used to like the Gen 5 sprites a lot more, but now I have to admit a lot of those animations look clunky, especially for non-Unovan mons. It feels like the devs behind the animation work had to conform to a universal template/method of doing idle animations that may be a good fit for some mons, but just doesn't fit the majority of the roster otherwise.
That being said, if we ignore the completely valid objective of having idle sprite animations that look natural, it does at least lead to some funny animation loops that also sort of make sense, like this one :
Plus, I reckon that the various happenings during battles (move animations, the camera movements, HP bars depleting after a hit) do a lot to mask the weird feel the Gen 5 sprites tend to have when taken in isolation, by distracting the player from looking at them at all times.
These sprites are a very imperfect way of representing Pokémon on the field ; but to me, there's enough going on around them that I can look past it more often than not, or even be more engaged in a battle because of the constant + exaggerated Pokémon animations.
Though said engagement is pretty artificial, in a sense, given that the sprites themselves tend to look janky.
argument accepted. schmoovement off the chartslil guy be schmoovin
I have a more mixed opinion of the Gen 5 sprites, namely that the concept of them was cool and a nice bridge from static 2D sprites to more fully animated 3D models, and in hindsight they do look janky.
That said, my opinion is more that they highlight a general trend of Pokemon: they work really well with anything that was introduced in Black and White, but when applied to old-gen Pokemon they look pretty bad because old-gen Pokemon were simply not made to be shown with that level of movement in mind design-wise.
With the Pokemon introduced in the gen itself, however, there are some good designs build around the animated sprites.
Usually the starters are the ones who shine the most with the particular design quirks of the generation and the sprites/models of that game, and in this case the final form Unova starters shine with their personalities poking through. Serperior not taking its opponent seriously, Emboar pumping itself up for combat, and Samurott having an imposing presence striking fear through its foes.
But then there are different flavors of sprites, particularly Pokemon who have design features that pop with the looping animations:
Things like Zebstrika and Blitzle flashing yellow at times, Cofagrigus retracting into its coffin and back, or Ferroseed's spinning and Ferrothorn clinging to a ceiling are things that couldn't be conveyed with a static sprite.
More prime examples. Seismitoad's vibrations, or Eelektross's spots glowing.
Then there's cases where the animated sprites showcase expression and personality.
The evolved elemental monkeys in particular. While the Pans look pretty good in the BW animated sprites, the Simis showcase unique personality traits through these animations. Simisage's rougher, outgoing, enthusiastic personality with its thumbs up and its jumpiness reflecting a more punk like personality, Simisear's easygoing and carefree demeanor, and Simipour's gentle and friendly, yet smug face with it constantly waving hello.
Scraggy and Scrafty are another major highlight. Scraggy's "baggy pants" shine as a major design feature, but Scrafty's rough, hooligan, and abrasive personality shine here.
Bouffalant getting ready to charge.
Escavalier jousting its two lances, or Accelgor showing its ninja-like grace while also standing cross-armed.
One of the most masterfully designed Gen 5 families. The animated sprites show off the Sandile line's personality well: Krokorok is one of the coolest middle stages, with its cross-armed pose and general personality shining through, though Krookodile's more aggressive personality also shines.
And next, there's....KLINKLANG
The Klink line, while often clowned upon, is a line that really shines with BW's animated sprites: the looping motion shines with their gears spinning around in constant motion, and the speed at which they turn is also believable based on how many gears they have. This line is one of the few Gen 5 lines that transitioned well to 3D since it's in constant motion in a way that still works.
And then there's Hydreigon
Hydreigon's constant head-biting with its two hand-heads is something that really works here.
And lastly, there's the cover legendaries:
The glowing tails of them shine here.
Now granted, I agree everything else looked kinda ass in BW and BW2. But the Gen 5 roster in particular brought some unique designs that shined with these animated sprites. These designs wouldn't have worked in the older gens' static sprites, and they're designed in such a way where not all of them fully transitioned well into the 3D era. The 3D models have their own strengths, and some of these design strengths still shone through, but these designs had something unique about them that worked in BW and BW2.
They contrast the older gens' static sprites, which have aged more gracefully overall, but the mons designed in those days were designed to look good in stationary poses that could be drawn. The mons from later gens were designed around motion selectively that shined at different points, whether a design feature that popped while attacking, dynamic facial expressions (Amie/Refresh), a clean walking/running animation, or design features and details that could only be seen looking at the Pokemon from all sides of the camera.
That said, my opinion is more that they highlight a general trend of Pokemon: they work really well with anything that was introduced in Black and White, but when applied to old-gen Pokemon they look pretty bad because old-gen Pokemon were simply not made to be shown with that level of movement in mind design-wise.
With the Pokemon introduced in the gen itself, however, there are some good designs build around the animated sprites.
Usually the starters are the ones who shine the most with the particular design quirks of the generation and the sprites/models of that game, and in this case the final form Unova starters shine with their personalities poking through. Serperior not taking its opponent seriously, Emboar pumping itself up for combat, and Samurott having an imposing presence striking fear through its foes.
But then there are different flavors of sprites, particularly Pokemon who have design features that pop with the looping animations:
Things like Zebstrika and Blitzle flashing yellow at times, Cofagrigus retracting into its coffin and back, or Ferroseed's spinning and Ferrothorn clinging to a ceiling are things that couldn't be conveyed with a static sprite.
More prime examples. Seismitoad's vibrations, or Eelektross's spots glowing.
Then there's cases where the animated sprites showcase expression and personality.
The evolved elemental monkeys in particular. While the Pans look pretty good in the BW animated sprites, the Simis showcase unique personality traits through these animations. Simisage's rougher, outgoing, enthusiastic personality with its thumbs up and its jumpiness reflecting a more punk like personality, Simisear's easygoing and carefree demeanor, and Simipour's gentle and friendly, yet smug face with it constantly waving hello.
Scraggy and Scrafty are another major highlight. Scraggy's "baggy pants" shine as a major design feature, but Scrafty's rough, hooligan, and abrasive personality shine here.
Bouffalant getting ready to charge.
Escavalier jousting its two lances, or Accelgor showing its ninja-like grace while also standing cross-armed.
One of the most masterfully designed Gen 5 families. The animated sprites show off the Sandile line's personality well: Krokorok is one of the coolest middle stages, with its cross-armed pose and general personality shining through, though Krookodile's more aggressive personality also shines.
And next, there's....KLINKLANG
The Klink line, while often clowned upon, is a line that really shines with BW's animated sprites: the looping motion shines with their gears spinning around in constant motion, and the speed at which they turn is also believable based on how many gears they have. This line is one of the few Gen 5 lines that transitioned well to 3D since it's in constant motion in a way that still works.
And then there's Hydreigon
Hydreigon's constant head-biting with its two hand-heads is something that really works here.
And lastly, there's the cover legendaries:
The glowing tails of them shine here.
Now granted, I agree everything else looked kinda ass in BW and BW2. But the Gen 5 roster in particular brought some unique designs that shined with these animated sprites. These designs wouldn't have worked in the older gens' static sprites, and they're designed in such a way where not all of them fully transitioned well into the 3D era. The 3D models have their own strengths, and some of these design strengths still shone through, but these designs had something unique about them that worked in BW and BW2.
They contrast the older gens' static sprites, which have aged more gracefully overall, but the mons designed in those days were designed to look good in stationary poses that could be drawn. The mons from later gens were designed around motion selectively that shined at different points, whether a design feature that popped while attacking, dynamic facial expressions (Amie/Refresh), a clean walking/running animation, or design features and details that could only be seen looking at the Pokemon from all sides of the camera.
Frankly my opinion of the gen 5 sprites is as simple as "never bothered me back then so they weren't atrocious on principle" and in fact they felt like a breath of fresh air. Even replaying BW1 many years later didn't make me hate them or anything, I disliked them a lot more in the sequels, which could be because what ScraftyIsTheBest is saying, you can't convince me the Emboar sprite for example looks bad.
I think their main problem, as someone who used to do a lot of Fakemon reusing gen 5 sprites, is that most parts of the body were animated separately and that ended in some Pokemon moving too much, which is specially noticeable when they picked up older sprites and tried to give them unnatural puppet-like moves. A case-by-case custom animation for every Pokemon was probably too demanding so I get while only the newer ones look better, specially considering BW1's approach to the regional Pokedex.
It isn't really that different from a lot of pre-SV models looking pretty bad except on newer mons that were literally designed with them in mind (trough even then, I would argue a lot of them looked way worse because of these incredibly awkward flying stances, I will never understand why they made Xatu fly) or not having custom animations like Blastoise used to lack. I don't understand why people see them as either aberrations or the peak of Pokemon because I can't see how they are any of the two. It's the same as when someone tries to argue 2d is what Pokemon should have stayed like but someone else points out it looks pixelated out of the console.
I think their main problem, as someone who used to do a lot of Fakemon reusing gen 5 sprites, is that most parts of the body were animated separately and that ended in some Pokemon moving too much, which is specially noticeable when they picked up older sprites and tried to give them unnatural puppet-like moves. A case-by-case custom animation for every Pokemon was probably too demanding so I get while only the newer ones look better, specially considering BW1's approach to the regional Pokedex.
It isn't really that different from a lot of pre-SV models looking pretty bad except on newer mons that were literally designed with them in mind (trough even then, I would argue a lot of them looked way worse because of these incredibly awkward flying stances, I will never understand why they made Xatu fly) or not having custom animations like Blastoise used to lack. I don't understand why people see them as either aberrations or the peak of Pokemon because I can't see how they are any of the two. It's the same as when someone tries to argue 2d is what Pokemon should have stayed like but someone else points out it looks pixelated out of the console.
The flying ones get me cuz they DO have idle standing and stand attacking anims
It's for Amie
Even the leaks show GF oddly prioritizing Sky Battles early in dev, despite having these. Why Sun Moon never used it baffles me, and the fact SV uses it *specifically* for Pokedex images and if a mon spawns in, only to switch to flying for the rest of the time baffles me more
It's for Amie
Even the leaks show GF oddly prioritizing Sky Battles early in dev, despite having these. Why Sun Moon never used it baffles me, and the fact SV uses it *specifically* for Pokedex images and if a mon spawns in, only to switch to flying for the rest of the time baffles me more
I will concede on Xatu and Skarmory but Eelektross' idle is absolutely hysterical and beautiful and people who hate on it are joyless and miserable
Until you realize a lot of these mons sucked or were working incredibly hard just to offset that blatant flaw.
Me getting ready to bash Gen 5's ugly ahh sprites.
Let's start with the obvious, thank you, they DO look janky af.
But let's remember why. The reason is simple, there's a technical issue with them. These sprites aren't animated in the traditional sense of having frames to convey movement, they also have a disgusting stretching filter on top of everything. So all the vibing they do is straight up stretching and moving the sprite instead of animating it.
And if we're being real, the 3D models themselves aren't unsalvageable as people say. They need idle animations (and some real color saturation).
For example, here's Hitmontop.
Better than all the A-pose mons we got like Lucario, innit? That's really all it takes.
I'm still convinced the people who decide the stats and the people who decide the learnsets and movepool are often different people. Game Freak continues to give mons interesting or diverse TM selections for a stat that is not even remotely suited for it.
I'm also so glad the series has progressively moved away from the "who cares about STAB" style learnsets
Oh boy another playthru of an early gen where a lot of mons typing is purely defensive and they just use the same strong physical moves everyone else does, I sure am so much happier.
shoutout to the japanese hitmontop meme that always gets stuck in my head whenever I see its animationFor example, here's Hitmontop.
EXACTLY! I have been saying it for years, trough for some reason people lately are defending both it and Sky battles. You have the models right there just please use it, I doubt there is something avoiding it except stubborness.
I was one of the people who complained a lot about the saturation a lot in XY (and people apparently argued the sprites were the opposite and too vibrant, but come on look at Mega Charizard Y's artwork then at its XY model and tell me there is no need for saturation) but I didn't really notice it nearly as much in SV or even SWSH, trough my memory on the last one is foggy. I don't think that's a problem anymore.
My hot take is the 3D idle animations are fine.
I don't need them to look super aggressive because I imagine the Pokemon battles to be less like the anime, and more... Turn-based. They're waiting for their command, and generally look more neutral and inquisitive, then get aggressive when attacking and hurt when hit.
That seems normal to me.
I don't need exaggeration but that's because I never envision Pokemon battles as needing to look hyper-active, or masking the turn based battles as just a way of displaying a real time scene.
What I do want is better UI and UX.
edit: SV actually tried to give more Pokemon those more aggro idles in battle and I think they look pretty bad as a full bunch, with some standing out as better.
My favorite Pokemon, Espeon, loses its catty nature and just feels too aggressive and like a generic mammal. Abomasnow they like, turned around to be like "angry" but I think it just looks awkward and displays the design less.
Not every Pokemon is designed for very aggro posing.
I don't need them to look super aggressive because I imagine the Pokemon battles to be less like the anime, and more... Turn-based. They're waiting for their command, and generally look more neutral and inquisitive, then get aggressive when attacking and hurt when hit.
That seems normal to me.
I don't need exaggeration but that's because I never envision Pokemon battles as needing to look hyper-active, or masking the turn based battles as just a way of displaying a real time scene.
What I do want is better UI and UX.
edit: SV actually tried to give more Pokemon those more aggro idles in battle and I think they look pretty bad as a full bunch, with some standing out as better.
My favorite Pokemon, Espeon, loses its catty nature and just feels too aggressive and like a generic mammal. Abomasnow they like, turned around to be like "angry" but I think it just looks awkward and displays the design less.
Not every Pokemon is designed for very aggro posing.
Sky battles were a cool concept and we could have done with a lot more thought along those lines. The problem was just* that the player was never focused on them. You generally had exactly 1 mon that could participate and either the trainer was easy, in which case it's essentially just a trainer battle where you're forced to use a specific mon, or it was one of the endgame Sky Battle trainers, in which case your Talonflame gets it's butt kicked by a Rotom or Aerodactyl and there's no reasonable way you can win.
The concept of a battle type which restricts the eligible mons and changes mechanics is cool, and you could easily see battles which only allow mons that can learn Surf, or only mons which resist fire-type moves. And maybe that would work well for a battle frontier setting or similar. It's just that an in-game team is always going to have trouble with that sort of thing, and I wish there was a way to make it work.
*okay also there's no excuse for the idle animations
i think id want idle animation breaks more than id like them to change the current idle animations. you could have your standing mons, with them doing a more interesting animation a bit more often. all mons have one and sv also gave them all a look-around universal idle, but i think one more idle with a bit more frequent cycling would be perfect
They don't need to be all aggro, but especially fighting types not putting *any* guard up is bewildering.
Apparently, Espeon lost its great idle pose too, so you should understand where I'm coming from. All these mons are literally just standing there in the most neutral pose possible for the most part.
Where's the personality, the passion, the ferociousness, the calmness, anything!?
Tbh I thought it was understood that the fandom's main issue with the 3D transition was the animations and not the models themselves. I cannot recall a single instance of people complaining about model quality outside faded colors like you mention, but that's a texturing issue if anything.
As an aside, it's entirely possible that the reason the 3D models have very subdued idle animations in battle (outside of the obvious "they weren't given enough time to animate over 600 Pokémon for Gen 6") is due to performance issues. The Gen 6 and Gen 7 games already don't run well during battle because iirc the Pokémon models are super high poly, so minimizing animation when you have 2+ mons on screen probably helped prevent the games from tanking frames even further.
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I think a lot of people's concerns they expressed at Sword/Shield are valid but I feel like the big reason the reaction was more intense in general was we went from 40 dollar games to 60 dollar games, and iirc the increase from 3DS to Switch was a lot more intense in other currencies.
I'm not trying to downplay any of the concerns people had about how the pokemon and environments looked in Sword/Shield, those complaints probably would've happened anyway but the level of intensity I think is directly because of sticker shock. I imagine it's going to be like that for when Gen 10 releases and its 70 or 80.
This kind of thing isn't unique to pokemon either, a lot of games will have the same practices or issues that people generally have problems with but unless there's some sort of catalyst the reaction doesn't get intense enough to be major discourses that break thru to the mainstream gamer.
I'm not trying to downplay any of the concerns people had about how the pokemon and environments looked in Sword/Shield, those complaints probably would've happened anyway but the level of intensity I think is directly because of sticker shock. I imagine it's going to be like that for when Gen 10 releases and its 70 or 80.
This kind of thing isn't unique to pokemon either, a lot of games will have the same practices or issues that people generally have problems with but unless there's some sort of catalyst the reaction doesn't get intense enough to be major discourses that break thru to the mainstream gamer.
Because the models used for XY weren't newly created for them (aside from the Gen 6 mons) they were made for Pokedex 3D, a standalone 3DS app where looking at the Pokémon in hi-def HD 3D was the whole point. And then when XY came they just used the models they already had and matched the style with the new ones, it's the same reason they're animated idling in a generic pose rather than a battle ready one.
Possibly, but I also thing general trends in fandom towards polarization definitely didn't help. Not only do you have fan backlash that you definitely did have, but you also have the trends towards "This thing is either the best thing ever and you should be shot if you don't agree or it killed my grandma and you should be shot if you don't agree." The environments would have probably been criticized, but without Dexit, the price increase, and general negativity increasing I doubt it would have been that big a deal. I mean you do have some complaints over graphics in L:A, but because the game is better received over all, you really don't hear much about it.
mainly i dont understand because they changed espeon *specifically to be more like what people say they want*, like more aggro
espeon SHOULD stand there
now it looks aggro and like it wants to battle and passionate. and that sucks because it's supposed to be a cat with psychic powers, it shouldn't GAF
if they were to change it they should've changed it to be more like its gen 2 or similar sitting sprites, lean into it being more of a psychic cat
i agree w you that it needs to be case by case but i just ultimately am fine with the status quo. i prefer the more subdued approach in the animations than like
have yall seen
i cant find it oof
there was this person on twitter a few years back who got a lot of dickriding bc they did this delphox battle idle animation where it basically constantly swings its wand from side to side and it's supposed to look more like a gen 5 aggressive animation. and i mean aggro as in like, the animation was like 0.75sec loop total of it swinging back and forth
and i saw so many people say that was better and i dont get it
like i think it looked like shit and when i look at some of the new idles im like "please tell me they didnt see this reception and go 'yeah we do this now'"
it doesnt fit the mon at all
sorry to double-post but i was yapping on discord about the TeraLeak stuff and how they're trying to subpoena the guy, and some thoughts on the Discourse I've been seeing, and something I don't really see people talk about
i wanna add that even if the public reacts positively, it still isn't right. just because pokemon is huge doesn't mean the labor that went into it and the workers discussions should be public
im not saying we shouldnt discuss it, the cat's out of the bag, but that i think people just naturally go "it's awesome that this is public now" when like if we remove the brainrot lens, this must be a fucking nightmare for anyone involved
i wanna add that even if the public reacts positively, it still isn't right. just because pokemon is huge doesn't mean the labor that went into it and the workers discussions should be public
im not saying we shouldnt discuss it, the cat's out of the bag, but that i think people just naturally go "it's awesome that this is public now" when like if we remove the brainrot lens, this must be a fucking nightmare for anyone involved
I have to disagree pretty hard with the second example. I would definitely not characterize the Fenniken line as the stoic and reserved kind of mage. Whether the extra movement is working through somatic components or drawing shapes with a sparkler, I feel like it would fit them. At the very least, Delphox should have its weapon out during combat. Braxien at least has a design quirk related to the wand being stowed, Delphox has no such excuse.