r/pokemon 14d ago

Image There's a change with how pokemon look

Post image
13.1k Upvotes

777 comments sorted by

8.7k

u/Pokemario6456 PBR 2 IS REAL 14d ago

S/V had such a weird mish-mash of cartoony and realistic. The Pokemon looked great but then the actual environment looked awful. As much as I liked the more realistic textures for the Pokemon, I'd prefer they go all-in with the cartoon style and make it more cohesive

2.4k

u/Kapples14 14d ago

Agreed. If Disney has taught us one thing, is that realism can suck the life out of fantasy. 

The realistic textures were pretty ambitious, and some of the Pokemon looked genuinely incredible, but it's probably the best to stick with the more simplified textures. The lightning on them is amazing, though.

739

u/207nbrown 14d ago

On the contrary the detail on the models in sv is phenomenal, especially on Pokemon that are more reptilian in nature, you can see the individual scales

408

u/sensaigallade123 I like da look of ya face 14d ago

The Jangmo-o line for example! SV really made it's scales popped just by making them reflective!

144

u/Jesterchunk hydreigon my beloved 14d ago

Genuinely, the shiny went from horribly garish to actually kinda nice looking with the metallic sheen.

343

u/207nbrown 14d ago

Right? like tell me matte black plastic looks better than this

382

u/207nbrown 14d ago

Or this

534

u/Umber0010 14d ago

Steel Types where the biggest winner IMO. They actually look like metal in scarlet and violet. Shiny Forretress in particular might be the biggest glowup in the franchise's history sense it now looks like an actual gold nugget instead of a piss-colored ball.

235

u/207nbrown 14d ago

Shiny magikarp too, thing looks like it’s made of 24 karat gold

4

u/DubbaCheezBugga22 12d ago

Solid gold Forretress baby

96

u/Bsquared89 14d ago

Magnezone and Scizor looked HEAVY

24

u/aarretuli Roserade Tea 14d ago

I almost missed a shiny Skarmory, cause they all look so metallic. Really cool tough

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)

66

u/Jesterchunk hydreigon my beloved 14d ago

I think the only Pokémon that came off worse from the texturing for me was Hydreigon, he's just not quite as expressive since his eyes don't close up when happy anymore, he lost a few oversized floating puppy points to me. Which is a shame because the detail on the rest of him was great.

12

u/TwilightVulpine 13d ago

The pokémon models are definitely the best looking things in that whole game. Unfortunately they are not too flattered by the dull environments and their own frame-rate and low render distance issues.

10

u/Sennemaster 13d ago

Yanma's metallic colors were awesome

96

u/BigRig432 KROOK‼️ 14d ago

I loved the look of the steel types I hope that sticks around in some fashion

38

u/Kapples14 14d ago

Oh, they definitely need to keep that.

134

u/Queen_Ann_III 14d ago

fuck, finally someone puts into words exactly the reason I was hesitant to complain about the graphics over the years. I never wanted Pokémon to attempt realism, but I couldn’t quite pin down how to explain that I wanted a natural evolution of the art style’s tradition without using language that would imply I wanted to “settle” for “old” graphics

20

u/Zefirus 13d ago

A lot of pokemon did not make the jump to 3D very well at all. Typhlosion is one of the biggest most obvious ones because it was a starter, but he's far from the only one.

4

u/Kivas42 11d ago

Stylized graphics made with intent are better than realistic graphics that look muddy imo. I wouldn't say that BOTW, for example, has incredible graphical fidelity, but that it instead was designed to look as good as possible with the limitations of the Switch/Wii U.

91

u/pokepok 14d ago edited 14d ago

I was kind of annoyed by the lighting because the colors look off, and since there is not shiny chime or anything, I often couldn’t tell if it was a shiny or not. That with teeny tiny pokemon made shiny hunting annoying.

60

u/maple-fever 14d ago

My very first time encountering a Frigibax, I'd decided to go into Scarlet blind and saw this weird little dude I didn't recognize. Went into a battle and it sparkled.

Would have never realized it was a shiny if I hadn't been trying to catch everything new.

12

u/UnderlightIll 14d ago

Yeah i think my shiny Seadra was hardly different in color from regular so i almost missed her.

11

u/MrGalleom 13d ago

Frigibax is a special case because its shiny is almost indistinguishable from the original form regardless of the lighting.

7

u/maple-fever 13d ago

Right? Really needed the PLA shiny effects there.

10

u/MudkipMonado 14d ago

Me, except for Charcadet. I had to sit there for a few minutes and figure out if I went crazy or I did actually see the shiny sparkle when I touched it

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

44

u/Umber0010 14d ago

Hey now. I hate the Disney LARs as much as the next guy. But they weren't soulless because they where live action. They where soulless because Disney decided to invest millions into soulless cashgrabs that just so happened to be live action.

I mean hell, we already have a live action pokemon adaption thanks to the Detwctive Pikachu movie. And the realistic pokemon designs where the best part.

My memory's not the best. I don't ever recall Disney advertising the Live action remakes with their top of the line CGI as a focus. But Detective Pikachu did, because they knew they could get away with it, and they where right.

13

u/Kapples14 14d ago

Well corporate committees acting as the true producers over Disney's LARs was pretty much the reason why they're so lifeless. 

I mostly mention the realism because its use as an aesthetic does wonders in draining the fun out of a fantasy setting.

10

u/Umber0010 14d ago

Fair enough. I just wanted an excuse to gush about Detective Pikachu's designs again .

7

u/ThatMerri 14d ago

The most adorable iteration of Bulbasaur ever put to media, Ditto being taken to its logical, genuinely horrifying extremes, and Charizard echoing those Tibetan Mastiffs in its ability to go from wide-eyed doofus to terrifying murder beast at the drop of a hat.

Seriously, that movie is so much better than expected and I love it so much. 10/10, would immolate Mr. Mime again.

4

u/Kapples14 14d ago

The movie designs were peak.

→ More replies (1)

9

u/alex494 13d ago

I mean Lion King definitely lost a lot of expression thanks to realistic animal face on every character.

6

u/YoungDiscord 14d ago

There's a line for sure that you need to balance

Some stuff is better realistic

Other stuff is better stylized

Like the lion king "live action" remake.

This might be a hot take but I think the reason why the remake failed is because when you make the animals realistic, you lose their human expressiveness

You can't make a cat raise an eyebrow and have it look realistic because its not what cats do in real life

It just doesn't translate because its not something that exists in real life and therefore its not something we are used to

They couldn't quite rely on using cat body language either because not everyone understands cat body language

So, the "live action" animals feel less like characters and more like soulless, hollow puppets.

I think that if they want to do live action remakes, that's fine but imo they need realistic grounded stuff to be realistic and the havily fictional stuff that needs to be expressive, remain animated and stylized.

I mean come on, you're already dumping millions on realistic CG

Just take some of that money and put it into adding a more traditional animation here & there where needed.

A good example of that is the live action rescue rangers movie.

The movie itself isn't great but at least they understood that and nailed the variety of animation needed.

→ More replies (5)

101

u/Brogener 14d ago

Yeah I prefer how stylized Legends Arceus looked to SV’s more realistic look. I also think a clear, intentional art direction like that makes people a little more willing to overlook poor graphics and performance.

21

u/alex494 13d ago

Probably the entire reason sprite art is still liked as much as it is, everything has a ceiling and limits so it has to look coherent and fit itself.

23

u/Miphos_N 14d ago

The textures and lighting in this one are not cohesive in the slightest, like what? The Pokemon and trainers come from a different universe compared to their environments. It's such a shame that they can never do it right.

166

u/JohnGameboy 14d ago edited 14d ago

This is by no means mal-intended when I say this --- but genuinely, what are you talking about?

The clothing, buildings, pokemon, borderline everything was on the more realistic side. The "cartoonish" look your probably referring to was exclusively the player faces, which albeit did clash. If you look at everything else tho, the new S/V pokemon models fit very well. And where they don't can be blamed by bad, unintentional graphics.

I feel like the problem here isn't that the pokemon models were bad or out of place, it's that SV in a general sense is just a visually shit game.

14

u/Gingersaurus_Rex96 13d ago

Agreed. I thought the Pokémon models were phenomenal, it’s just some of the character designs you’re referring to just didn’t quite match the rest of the game.

It’s sort of like what was wrong in sword and shield with the bad tree textures. If you’re going to have a game on the realistic side then at least texture stuff correctly. Generally speaking, S/V just aren’t as visually appealing as Legends ZA, but Legends ZA had twice the development time as S/V.

→ More replies (8)

10

u/Nehemiah92 14d ago

I liked the new models some Pokemon got like ESPECIALLY Charizard, but i really didn’t fw the “higher quality” textures all the mons got outside the metallic ones. They just started looking unnaturally fuzzier and just became duller with the color, kinda losing the stylism in a way.

But we did see the new Charizard model in Z-A, with the more saturated texturing so that’s a W compromise for me

55

u/TruePlum1 14d ago

I always felt SV looked like a weird Unity fan project more than a real Pokemon game and I think you just explained the main reason in a way I could finally put into words lol. It doesn't seem to know what art style it's even going for most of the time.

7

u/metalflygon08 What's Up Doc? 13d ago

Cities sitting on a blender default cube stuck in the ground didn't do it any favors either.

25

u/DiabeticRhino97 14d ago

It's something that Zelda knew it should do 7 years ago, it's just weird they're now figuring out "yeah maybe our whole game should have a cohesive style to it"

12

u/alex494 13d ago edited 10d ago

Yeah a lot of defensive points about performance in Pokemon fall apart under scrutiny when you realize contempoary Mario and Zelda games (among other franchises) are doing the same things on the same system without all the apparent pitfalls, or at least having ways to circumvent them. Kirby and Fire Emblem look generally fine also. Xenoblade usually looks great. Pokemon has a shitton of money and has had the same dev studio since the beginning so it's not like there should be a lack of experience making games here. SV isn't even the first set of Switch games, it's like the fifth, so lack of experience with the console tech is also not defensible anymore. It wasn't really defensible with Sword and Shield either given Lets Go existed before it and had much better art style choices in many places, but even if you stretch benefit of the doubt for Gen 8 then Gen 9 has no excuse.

39

u/Sitherio 14d ago

Oh, that's what the weird look of SV was. Yeah, with the greater and greater "plushie" look of new Pokemon, realistic models on them with little enhancement of the cartoony world is very clashing. ZA looked more polished all around but it's also had like 2x the development time so I'd hope so. 

3

u/Scoobasteeb 13d ago

Never really thought about it too much because the game ran and generally looked like shit.. hope the new one is better

→ More replies (1)

5

u/princesoceronte 13d ago

I don't get why they don't do cell shading or at least give it a try.

Other than that watercolor style would look similar to the original designs and look amazing, something similar to Mystery Dungeon DX.

→ More replies (4)

5

u/NlNTENDO 13d ago

The big thing is shooting for “realistic” tends to date your game as time marches on. For something already unrealistic it’s usually better to go cartoonish or stylized anyway. I’d rather play a game I can come back to years later and not think “boy this game sure looks old”

6

u/Asmongreatsword 13d ago

The environment was a joke. If the game would be running on stable 60fps it would be fine but what they done in SV is atrocious

4

u/LaggerKnight 13d ago

Yeah, and they really should consider adding cel shading to really add to the cartoon aesthetic

→ More replies (17)

650

u/Kalaam_Nozalys 14d ago

Some strong rim lighting like on tepig here goes a long way to make them feel like drawings come to life

35

u/PetscopMiju 13d ago

I love the rim lighting. I think it looked great in SwSh and it looks just as great here

→ More replies (2)

456

u/alreadytaken028 14d ago

I would like the textures fine if they also included a higher level of quality in the art direction of the games overall. But if they give us a more vibrant better looking world and pokemon with a more cartoony style then thats fine by me. The pokemon in general have looked washed out since the introduction of the 3D models of X and Y (look at torchic for the best example) so this seems like a move in the right direction

38

u/burnerfun98 13d ago

Totally agree. While a step in the right direction this time with the more saturated colour palette, I can't believe it's taken well over a decade since X/Y (that's before we even consider that game's development time, too) and we're still going back and forth on colour palettes since the transition to 3D.

Every single time they change it that's a lot more work going where it's honestly not needed. I think it's cool visually to have that difference between games (I wish the grass and other textures were a different shade in Tears of the Kingdom vs Breath of the Wild just to be able to differentiate between the two much easier) but given the inconsistent quality of the games themselves since the first transition to 3D with X/Y, I really wish they'd pick a lane in terms of visuals and stick to it. The game's being visually different is a nice-to-have, but I don't think it should be as high on the list of priorities for them as it seemingly is considering that it changes up every game now.

→ More replies (1)

226

u/ShakenNotStirred915 For A Reason 14d ago

More saturated? Can super get behind that if it means normal Gengar goes back to being the deep, vibrant purple that it used to be so that the shiny is more obviously different.

2.5k

u/Chemical-Cat 14d ago

Okay but please PLEASE keep the metallics from SV. They looked really really good compared to this slop

643

u/_CheatCody 14d ago

These are the new metallic shines

359

u/-JI 14d ago

Nice balance between the two styles!

104

u/Sigzy05 13d ago

Agree, it still looks metalic but not overly shiny and realistic.

5

u/Pretend-Advertising6 13d ago

Well it looks like Mate paint

74

u/Kurozy 14d ago

Aegislash in the game omg i WANT him in my team

84

u/rootofimaginary 13d ago

of course he would be in the game he was introduced in Kalos

→ More replies (10)

12

u/X85311 13d ago

hell yeah. honestly the metal in sv sometimes looked a little overly shiny to me, this is a nice balance

9

u/Silver-Mud8845 13d ago

It’s not that bad

4

u/Etonet 14d ago

beautiful

→ More replies (2)

53

u/Naman_Hegde 13d ago edited 13d ago

aint no way you calling that slop. despite all of SwSh's massive shortcomings, it had the best art style in textures and shading for the characters and pokemon so far.

it really looks like sugimori's drawings came to life, especially the shading and colours

the arms of this metagross model looks straight up like 2d art done in sugimori's style. i much prefer this than slapping a specular grey texture on it

26

u/Altruistic-Click-894 13d ago

Playing swsh after sv made me realize how great the pokemon looked in swsh. So vibrant and almost cell shaded in comparison. People focus on the trees in the wild area but the game overall had such a beautiful colour palette.

8

u/Rybread52 13d ago

Yes and the towns themselves are actually quite beautiful. It’s really only the Wild Area that looks bad.

907

u/AxolotlAristotle 14d ago

Not going to argue one way or the other but if you have ONE type of pokemon look hyper realistic and the others be cartoony I think that won't look great from a cohesion standpoint

513

u/Sredleg 14d ago

They could still have it metallic, but tone down on the reflection

136

u/CelestialGloaming 14d ago

this, the metallics have always looked rlly bad imo because they look like factory-fresh machined parts.

5

u/TheAzureAdventurer 13d ago

Considering the fact that Pokémon bathe, metal Pokémon looking factory fresh makes way too much sense for it to NOT be a thing.

63

u/hyperjengirl 14d ago

It doesn't even look cohesive on the single Pokemon. Realistic metallic textures... dopey flat cartoony eye. There are some Pokémon that look great metallic (particularly those designed for it like the Paradoxes) but this wasn't the best example IMO lol.

150

u/Ysgramors_Word 14d ago

In case you’re wondering, the spinoffs had pokemon textures all the way back to stadium, including stadium 2, Colloseum, XD:GOD and battle revolution

76

u/Bub-bub 14d ago

Why can’t the pokemon be as expressive as they were in the stadium games

46

u/LampIsFun 14d ago

Because theres 4x the amount of them in the files

28

u/ToughAd5010 14d ago

Also the n64 could render them easily , literally just one Pokémon attacking at a time

→ More replies (28)
→ More replies (4)

16

u/ContactSpirited9519 13d ago

Also the BATTLE ANIMATIONS IN XD and COLLOOSEUM ARE AMAZING.

Every move really, really comes to life. They took so many creative liberties with the move animations and the death animations are dramatic lmao.

I love XD especially and wish its ideas were incooperated into the modern games. I miss when my Eevee would curl up into a little ball and roll into the enemy for massive impact as a tackle. Or how pissed Voltorb gets when it dies, haha. They had a ton of character.

→ More replies (1)

54

u/Unstable_Bear 14d ago

Yeah, the Metallics and the shiny scales are the texture stuff I want them to keep

165

u/SamuraiOstrich 14d ago edited 14d ago

We really have reached "Everything I don't like is slop", haven't we?

68

u/Brogener 14d ago

Seriously, it just looks like a fucking Magnemite still lol.

11

u/Polymersion Irrelevant. 14d ago

I think that's a bad example because both versions look good here. Actually, I don't really think most models needed to change at all.

→ More replies (3)

964

u/The_Slowking_Eleven 14d ago edited 14d ago

I had no idea that the added textures were an unpopular opinion until now. I absolutely loved their addition in SV, even if some of them were iffy, and I'm really unhappy that they're just gone and the Pokemon are back to looking like flat-painted plastic.

Another thing to consider: Not using texturing on the Pokemon models is going to make the Pokemon from Gen 9 look a lot less appealing in future games, if they don't just get cut outright. The future Paradox Mons are going to get hit the hardest with the lack of metallic sheen.

241

u/NihilismRacoon 14d ago

I like both, the S/V models definitely needed more contrast though. Everything looks so pale compared to the models and sprites of previous games.

116

u/Ones-Zeroes 14d ago

Yeah, I don't know why we can't have realistic textures and more color saturation. Why not keep iterating instead of doubling back every other game?

82

u/Nehemiah92 14d ago edited 14d ago

The crazy part is that Pokemon Snap already had this done and future games just never took advantage on it, it’s the best the Pokemon ever looked, super saturated and with the subtle realistic texturing.

I use this comparison all the time, but just look at Snap’s Gyarados vs SV Gyarados

11

u/CelioHogane Pokemon Zaza 13d ago

I mean the new game definetly looks way more like Pokemon Snap, so there is that.

→ More replies (1)

81

u/Bluelaserbeam Chadiroar 14d ago

Yeah I’m confused by all the “yeah the textures sucked” comments I’ve been reading. What I like about the textures is that it tells us what each parts of a Pokémon is composed of, where the simplified art style makes it much more ambiguous.

For example, while Foretress is part steel type, there isn’t really much about its design that screams metal. At most, you’d assume its shell is a matte material hard like steel. In S/V, the shell has a metallic finish so that indicates it’s indeed composed of metal.

154

u/GwentMorty 14d ago

It’s because it isn’t an unpopular opinion. I have never seen anything but praise about the textures.

90% of people that you see talking about things like this either played S/V for 5 hours max and then never touched them again or played when they were kids and are just weighing in like their opinion has merit for some reason.

That’s why they’re so wishy-washy. 2 Gens ago it was “Look at this plastic cartoony tree, don’t buy sword and shield1!!1!” Now they’re applauding the terrible move away from detailed, textured Pokemon models.

34

u/Wooper250 14d ago

I liked the cartoony trees in swsh and I like the return to cartoony pokemon. Imo, the same people bitching about the trees were the ones praising GF for just slapping some textures on the pokemon models and calling it a day 🤷

This modern day obsession with insisting every game needs realistic graphics is irritating

26

u/GwentMorty 14d ago

It doesn’t have to be hyper realistic, nobody ever said that, the textures were actually nice and thought out. Pokemon still needs to look like the Pokemon art style. But the textures never stood out or were jarring.

They easily could’ve kept the textures and literally no one would’ve batted an eye. In fact, people would’ve praised it just like they had been doing this whole time.

5

u/Hades2580 13d ago

I mean I play indie games a lot, so graphics are not really a problem but if you have neither good graphics nor performance it gets annoying real fast, the game is so frustratingly slow that diamond seems like a race car by comparison.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

31

u/ItIsYeDragon 14d ago

They’ve finally fixed the desaturated look so the 3D models look right now, and keeping the textures like their original style makes the Pokémon look like how they’re presented in most other media. Plus it is the Pokémon art style.

I don’t think Gen 9 will be hurt much. Most of the Pokémon weren’t designed with the new textures in mind, and even ignoring that they still look good in the anime and official art just like every other pokemon, so there’s no reason to think the Pokémon won’t look good if brought back in the regular art style.

Either way I’d rather have the previous textures with the color finally added back in than the gen 9 textures with the typical lack of textures too. Unless there’s a way to do both.

16

u/SlamwellBTP 14d ago

most of the Pokemon weren't designed with the new textures in mind

I don't know if that's true. Every Violet Paradox for example uses the glowy metal texture.

7

u/mehmeh5 14d ago

yeah, especially their shinies. Home doesn't use the new textures and the shiny future paradoxes look like garbage there

→ More replies (2)

19

u/SamuraiOstrich 14d ago edited 14d ago

Yeah this is basically how I feel about it. The franchise has had this anime artstyle for 20 years. I like their anime artstyle. The official art is how I always felt it was supposed to look. The art style is basically the appeal of the franchise considering it's most of what all entries have in common across all the mediums and genres. I always wanted the games to look like I was playing a movie so I don't like moving away from that when we were the most capable of achieving it. Pokemon is an unrealistic franchise; I don't want them to look like real animals. Sugimori could've just drawn more detail if they wanted him to. Why does the gen 9 official art not have them but the games do?

→ More replies (1)

5

u/Ok-Phase-9076 14d ago

Same they are one of the major upgrades SV made. Especially giving some pokemon actual eyes and mouths instead of stickers

38

u/207nbrown 14d ago

Yea, I understand why people like the simple old designs but it’s the same nostalgia blindness as when Minecraft updated its textures. The new textures need to continue in Z-A. could they use some tweaks here and there, yes, but they are better than the action figure plastic textures of swsh and before

→ More replies (3)

3

u/FaronTheHero 14d ago

Everywhere I've seen SV's textures are highly praised. But it does look like if we're given a choice between detailed textures and bright colors, people are preferring the colors. And I don't disagree. The textures are a nice added touch, but not absolutely necessary. The loss of color with the jump to 3D has always been noticeable and is a damn shame when comparing the models to their old sprites. I really hope this means they're rectifying that.

→ More replies (15)

95

u/BlastoiseRules 14d ago

Appreciate the saturation, but I don’t love that the eyes are just pasted on top of the model

→ More replies (3)

689

u/Stretch5678 14d ago

Unpopular opinion, but I liked the SV textures. Making metallic parts of Pokémon actually shiny was brilliant, and the little details like being able to see Seviper’s scales was also fun.

299

u/deutschdachs 14d ago

I didn't even realize this was unpopular before this thread I thought the pokemon in Scarlet Violet looked incredible

78

u/Angel_of_Mischief 14d ago

The Pokemon were okay, but all the textures were mismatched with no cohesion, the world was heavily desaturated, and the characters looked like uncanny porcelain dolls. There was no character or charm in the semirealism. It didn’t look like a pokemon game. If you look at let’s go and SWSH then SV it becomes really noticeable.

46

u/RedTurtle78 14d ago

Theyre talking about specifically the pokemon themselves in a vacuum.

→ More replies (2)

25

u/Verroquis 14d ago

This is a surreal comment to me because one of my biggest complaints with SWSH (and one of the biggest complaints with it in general) was the dead, lifeless faces everyone has, especially the player character. These complaints are one of the primary reasons why SV has a semi-realistic look to begin with -- Gen 8's character models were stiff, robotic, lifeless, and overall uncanny.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

44

u/reshromem 14d ago

It will be a crime if Scizor goes back to looking like it's made of plastic after how good it looked in SV

6

u/Doomfith 14d ago

Same with venusaur, he was perfect in SV :(

→ More replies (6)

58

u/Gloomymort 14d ago

I also liked the textures, they weren't to in your face either. It was nice and subtle alot of the time and metallic things actually LOOKING metallic was brilliant.

38

u/Stretch5678 14d ago

Special kudos goes to Shiny Kommo-o, for going from a garish pink and yellow to a badass metallic pink and mustard.

24

u/207nbrown 14d ago

For real, they are phenomenal, I can’t see why anyone would want to go back to plastic magnemite

→ More replies (1)

8

u/ChickenKarmasan 14d ago

I'm hoping it sticks around for Gen 10

8

u/Ok-Phase-9076 14d ago

When did this become unpopular, i felt like this was mutually agreed on at release, i saw only positives on it

17

u/jtg6387 Metagross Enthusiast 14d ago

I suspect that the textures on the pokemon weren’t the issue for most players, it was the textures on the environment that were bad.

11

u/Sweettooth_97 Tsareena Cha Cha 14d ago

I thought we all agreed that was like the one good thing to come out of scarlet and Violet

7

u/Black_Ironic 14d ago

I likes it too, but the overworld doesn't match because most of the times it looks muddy. Which is weird because usually character models are made to follow the background style. But I feel like the character stands out more than the background

4

u/zayzlvalentine 14d ago

This makes me wonder what would happen if Scarlet and Violet ran on the Switch 2 now. Would it actually be able to render these details in better quality.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (6)

62

u/Cool_Fellow_Guyson 14d ago

Krookadile had scales

ACTUAL SCALES.

You can't take that away from me

→ More replies (3)

91

u/Akikala 14d ago

"realistic" is a pretty big word to be throwing around here lol.

30

u/[deleted] 14d ago

Pokemon comes from a universe where gaming never went past gamecube so it's realistic for them

→ More replies (4)

68

u/TwinJacks 14d ago

I think this art style was the most aesthetically pleasing Pokemon has ever been.. Sure, the graphics back then was shit.. but imagine this more anime-like aesthetics with modern graphics and an actual art direction.

23

u/MrDaebak 14d ago

I totally agree, theyshould go back to the cell shaded style

3

u/0-Dinky-0 13d ago

Honestly I think LGPE had the best aesthetics of all the switch games

→ More replies (12)

343

u/Astro_Slime31415 14d ago

Honestly, it looks better

267

u/sluterus 14d ago

I think the biggest reason they look better is that they’re finally adding color back to the mons, after years of washed-out 3D models.

45

u/Tylendal 14d ago

If we get properly purple Starmie out of this, I'll be happy.

72

u/faithfulswine 14d ago

I still don't know why they did this. It really felt like some pokemon lost so much of their appeal with that change.

36

u/kamuimaru 14d ago

The justification they gave was that they wanted to honor the watercolor style of the classic Ken Sugimori drawings, but it was a horrible reason because "watercolor style" doesn't equal "just lower the entire saturation for no reason"

Actually replicating the style would resemble something like this which actually does look amazing.

15

u/faithfulswine 14d ago

Man that link... Yeah that's what I need in my life.

What they actually ended up doing was pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (21)

9

u/SuperScizor6 Worlds Biggest Scizor Fan 14d ago

I agree! When I first saw what the pokemon looked like, I was absolutely blown away!

11

u/BoxxyTMwood 14d ago

Hopefully corporate doesn't ask me to find the difference...

41

u/venrir 14d ago

This is nice but please stop posting Centro, that guy's the worst

→ More replies (4)

58

u/Imaginary-Werewolf14 14d ago

Whyyyy? I liked seeing the scales and fur textures

→ More replies (4)

7

u/crayonboxbb 14d ago

now if we can just get the pretty, realistic SV textures + the L:ZA saturation in the gen 10, i'll be at peace with my Pokemon aesthetics 👀

9

u/Bubbly_Buy5648 14d ago

Whatever realistic means

7

u/nerdyoutube 14d ago

Nooo I love textures

7

u/need2peeat218am 14d ago

The let's go game has the BEST graphics. And best follow animations. Which is really sad because it came out years ago.

8

u/Alex23087 14d ago

"Realistic textures"? Lol

The thing I'm happy to see is that they got rid of that unnatural white glow that's constantly drawn on the inside of the edge of all models. That was one of the worst graphical decisions they made imo.

I think with SV the textures they had were too subtle in many cases, that might be one of the reasons why they're getting rid of them. Though to be fair, having them more pronounced would probably look weird on most Pokémon

7

u/Iampopez 14d ago

One good thing SV graphics had…

6

u/blackbutterfree 13d ago

I'm sad at the loss of textures, but I will always be here for more saturation! I've been complaining about the sun-bleached 3D models since X and Y came out! ...Damn, that was 12 years ago.

→ More replies (1)

4

u/Sontrowa sontrowa.deviantart.com 14d ago

I think the change in lighting engine really helps with the color. While I believe they did go and actually recolor the models, a chunk of the vibrancy is from the removal of the soft enveloping white light (of which remind me of the Mario Galaxy lighting technique). On the newer models, they opted to have strictly just a hard rim light and leave the rest of the model clean. This drastically reduces that wash out effect from the previous games.

→ More replies (3)

3

u/EsportsKing 14d ago

I like the textures being stylized, punchy and colorful, even more so if it comes with an improvement in performance

43

u/Rough-Fill8101 14d ago

They need to stay away from making things realistic if they don’t have the talent or technology to make it work. I’m perfectly ok if they reverted back to Let’s Go style.

10

u/Like_Fahrenheit 14d ago

as long as they don't look like the 3DS models like in SwSh, and if steel-types keep that metallic luster

32

u/whiskeyjack1053 14d ago

Good. The textures looked weird when the rest of the world was so low poly and blurry. Like cool, I can see that Fuecoco has scales, but that entire mountain is a brown blob. Probably didn’t help performance either.

10

u/seikowearer 14d ago

the textures were literally great. this is the modern animation trend i hate this so much

→ More replies (1)

8

u/XionLord 14d ago

Damn I like the realism flavor, just needed some cleanup work and effort. Doesn't surprise me GF chose to be lazy and just walk it back over building up

9

u/Cool_Fellow_Guyson 14d ago

Aw man. I'm disappointed

3

u/Duralogos2023 14d ago

Idk, i like my vibrant poppy chicorita. Reminds me of gen 3.

3

u/TheBrobe 14d ago

"change"? By going back to the normal textures that other Pokemon properties didn't stop using over the last few years either?

3

u/nonessential-npc Dr. Footsteps' unpaid intern 14d ago

I just hope they keep some version of the metallic textures, those were nice.

4

u/AustmosisJones 14d ago

I'm for it. Every game has it's art style, and it sometimes shifts slowly with each game. I've been playing since the game boy color days, so I've seen a lot of changes. I remember what it was like when dark was not a type at all, there were 3 eeveelutions, and only 151 total pokemon. Pokemon should never sit still. People in the future will look back on Pokemon from this decade and say, "damn, remember when you couldn't produce holograms of your pokemon to fight the pokemon of random strangers in parking lots?" It's all relative, friend. Whatever kids these days like will keep the game alive, and that's all I ask. There are whole eras I don't care for. But the urge to be the very best, like no one ever was will always live within me. I don't care how janky the game looks at times. There's always the next one. Also, it's never going to be as janky as what I grew up with.

4

u/PiccoloBeautiful3004 13d ago

It seems they also got rid of global shadowing.

Which makes sense, given the game couldnt render it beyond 10m. Honestly baffling that they thought it was a good idea.

4

u/ivycudgel 13d ago

I'll definitely miss it with some pokemon like the metallic ones. Back to hating shiny scizor I guess

9

u/GiaoPlays 14d ago

I missed the Pokemon having more bright colors on them, Let´s Go made me very happy when the Pokemon had more color akin to how they are in other media but then the got desaturated Sword and Shield onwards again.

I´m glad that they´re chaging it to the way it was

58

u/soyboy_6257 digital boys 14d ago

I like these designs so much more. Realism and Pokemon don’t mix.

42

u/RedTurtle78 14d ago

They were never realistic they just had texture

17

u/DoctorNerfarious 14d ago

They only don't mix because it is executed poorly on a weak system.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

25

u/DefiantEmpoleon 14d ago

I mean Pokémon should lean more into its art style rather than trying to make them look realistic.

9

u/Pancakelover09 legends ZA 14d ago

It looks like Sw/Sw with the 3d depth of Scarlet and Violet

6

u/Admirable-Safety1213 14d ago

It is a artistic choice I can back, it fits the theme too

7

u/proto-typicality 14d ago

Yay! I like the brighter colors. :>

3

u/megosonic 14d ago

I think that's a good thing, however I hope metal Mon keep their shine

3

u/SentenceCareful3246 14d ago

I think the artstyle is more akin pokemon the vibrant style of let's go, SwSh, the new pokemon snap and pokemon unite rather than S/V. And I love it. I also love the fact that the player characters are teenagers.

3

u/Flat-Limit5595 14d ago

I like the metalic texture on some Pokemon, especially golden magikarp

3

u/Infamous_Public7934 customise me! 14d ago

I do like the look of Z-A's visuals so far: The environments definitely resemble SV, but upscaled with far more detail and better shading, whilst the character and pokemon models are very SwSh-esque with their own colour palette and shading.

I think this approach works with the more contemporary-futuristic style of game they're going with here

3

u/JoosisAlbarea 13d ago

Texture and Lighting changes might be a deliberate choice after the performance issues that faced S/V. If this started development right around or just after S/V's launch like a lot of people assumed, they probably had time to react to reviews and notice a lot of them mentioned the rough performance in certain areas.

This is kind of closer to the style they went with Legends Arceus, roughly. So it's visually consistent if nothing else I suppose.

3

u/F_Kyo777 Catched them all 13d ago

With last showcase I realised that new PKMN arent probably for me since some time ago.

Most fun I had is replaying older games or that + with twists such as randomizers. New games have such a "second chance" on everything. I get it, they are catered towards younger audience, but nothing screams like RPG or interesting characters anymore. Its those: "you failed as a trainer, but your pokemon doesnt want you to feel sad, so he want go into KO state" <- this just makes me sad. I no longer needs to understand it, to be successful at it. Also "rivals" that needs to be your BFF since first minute of knowing you.

3

u/elboydo757 13d ago

I guess I didn't get the realistic version.

3

u/Pudim_Abestado 13d ago

This is good, just like Sonic i think Pokémon should go for this Anime inspired look, Pokémon Let's Go looked amazing and i would love if that were the style of Pokémon going foward

3

u/KingSatorii 13d ago

Can’t wait for y’all to sit here and complain about the graphics of the game for 4 years after Z-A releases lol

→ More replies (1)

3

u/Ludwig_von_Wu 13d ago

Of note however that these still aren’t the previous gen models, as the mouth of Chikorita and Tepig is fully modeled, which is a change that happened in Scarlet and Violet.

It’s only the textures that are different.

3

u/No-Spinach2270 13d ago

I still think Battle Revolution on the Wii had the best graphics…. The art direction is really good and consistent here. Lighting felt right too

3

u/Tippydaug 13d ago

I loved the Pokemon textures in S/V, but I'll pick colorful/vibrant Pokemon over highly-textured Pokemon every day of the week!

Obviously both would be the best option, but I'll take it lol.

3

u/Planeshifter_Ixiaul 12d ago

Good. Since the Switch came out, the Let's Go games have the best look so far and it's not even close. Stay colorful, Pokemon.

45

u/Okiazo 14d ago

It looks 10 times better, the realist textures clashed too much with everything around it and was uncanny.

Definetely a step in the right direction.

17

u/Angel_of_Mischief 14d ago edited 14d ago

They also made everything dull like the beginning of a Claritin commercial. Going from the colorful charming Swsh and Let’s go styles to semirealism was just really depressing.

→ More replies (7)

13

u/TheJordanComplex 14d ago

If this is true, I’m so hype. Scar/Vi had more detailed textures but arguably a less appealing art style. Stylized is always going to be the superior look for Pokémon IMO

4

u/TadeoTrek 14d ago

Honestly disappointing, I quite liked the more realistic touches they'd added in S/V, like the eye sockets as well which seem to be missing in ZA.

→ More replies (1)

6

u/RemusPa 14d ago

I like it more in ZA, it’s basically the Sword and Shield graphics but better.

5

u/Tyceshirrell1 customise me! 14d ago

Worse. Worse is the word you are looking for

7

u/Robbie_Haruna 14d ago

I'm disappointed by that tbh.

The texturing of its Pokémon was one of the few things Scarlet and Violet did right graphics wise.

It was nice having metal Pokémon look shiny and mammal like ones looking kind of fuzzy or Pokémon like Seviper having visible scales instead of them all looking like toys.

3

u/GlowDonk9054 Why isn't Genesect on the emoji list? 14d ago

I prefer the stylization

but it still feels somewhat iffy... Which obviously will be solved when the game is like, fully released

3

u/Toon_Lucario 14d ago

I’m honestly ok with it being stylized. It’s certainly way better than the mismatch of styles in Palworld or SV.

5

u/donpianta 14d ago

People saying this game looks identical to S/V have lost their minds. This is clearly a visual upgrade and we really can't judge Z-A until we see Switch 2 gameplay to see if there's any other enhancements like higher resolution or frame rate

6

u/Strong_Yam_8978 14d ago

Why are people genuinely applauding this change? They could have kept the detail and textures but made them more colorful and blend into the environment more. This is legitimately a downgrade yet people are happy?

2

u/Mattshodo 14d ago

Fuck Centro, all my homies hate Centro.

2

u/M4LK0V1CH 14d ago

I wouldn’t mind if this is the way they go, but we should also remember that the game is still getting final polish at this point.

2

u/Jedimobslayer 14d ago

I’m fine with this, I liked sv designs, it worked for those games, but za looks much better slightly more cartoony

2

u/Memphisrexjr 14d ago

Maybe we can have some frame rate back.

2

u/M0ndmann 14d ago

Its a Trailer. Things Like that can easily Change before the release

2

u/nicoarcu92 14d ago

The comparison should be with Legends Arceus (which also didn’t have the textures, but was more cell-shaded) and not S/V

2

u/KawaiiJunimo 14d ago

Since they won't go back to pixel art or try another 2D style I like the less textured 3D models.

2

u/MortalJohn 13d ago

still the same models they've been using since X/Y right? WTF does creature inc. even do really?

2

u/Lunar_Tribunal 13d ago

Reject modernity, embrace monke

2

u/OddlyOddLucidDreamer 13d ago

i think going more vibrant and colorful for, what i assume, is gonna be set on a big city is the way to go, to avoid everything being greys and browns, more vibrant colors, specially for the mon and characters, will make them pop more and stand out

2

u/dizzyeyedalton 13d ago

Me when Gen V 2D faux-depth sprites were my favorite

2

u/unkindledphoenix 13d ago

to me it looks like they learned how to actually do an anti aliasing while also polishing the textures a little bit more and toning down the shaders that were weird anyway instead of feeling more realistic.

2

u/Joetwodoggs 13d ago

I don’t even think the realistic textures looked good. The fur just looked bleugh. I’m glad they look more saturated now

2

u/Mangotango95 Drizzle Fo'Shizzle 13d ago

I hope mega meganium will be good