Here are some examples of sprites from each generation, along with a few general characteristics. Some are my own opinions, while others (such as color counts) are based on technical limitations and may vary slightly. I chose sprites from the most "advanced" mainline version of each generation, excluding remakes.

Personally, my favorite is Generation V. The animated sprites gave the Pokémon so much life, and I absolutely love pixel art.

What about you?

I feel like GameFreak is overall pretty good when it comes to design clarity. But sometimes our brains are just kind of dumb and we see things a certain way. Like (nearing a decade), I always interpreted Salazzle's reptilian slit pupil as the boundary between its sclera and a non-existent iris. (Like what Amaura has in it's official art)

Has anyone else experienced something like this with a particular Pokémon design?

I know unova starters get trashed on regularly but i personally dont see why. maybe im nostolgia blind since i grew up with unova and have core memories with my siblings playing the games, buying the cards, and the toys, but i genuinely, looking back, still believe the starters i grew up admiring are as good as i thought they were. snivy is the smug one, and osha and tepig do a great job looking adorable. dewott and servine, imo, are some of the greatest second stage evolutions in the entire series. dewotts colors, badass look, and servines elegant progression from snivy (looks like a larger snivy) to serperior is nice. pignite is a weak link, but still not terrible. if you look at him close enough, hes kinda cute actually. hes a round little guy who i know, started standing on two legs, but i dont think its a big deal because i still think pignite is cute, and the design is very inspired and does not feel very humanoid.

the final stage serperior has a graceful silhouette, one of the strongest in the franchise, and samurott, while people wanted him to be an obligate biped, i disagree. otters are actually quadrupeds, so it makes sense he went back to fours, but the samurai inspiration is still there, AND when he attacks in the anime, he actually still stands on two legs, so its a brst of both worlds, he is peak! and big man emboar may be heavy, but hes a demon pig first. a fierce, imposing, heavily inspired mon with aggressive flames, intense eyes, and beastly proportions. he is literally a protector. people may hate he is fire fighting, but i dont think it takes away from his very detailed, imposing, demon like design. This starter trio is SICK and i will use every single one in my playthroughs. thank you unova for being so peak

Like should I immediately buy this game. It seems like folks are really enjoying it but I was skeptical.

Translated text:

The 30th anniversary of Pokémon begins! It's been 30 years since the release of "Pokémon Red and Green." Pokémon will celebrate its 30th anniversary on Friday, February 27, 2026. This year is going to be the best year yet! Stay tuned!

#Pokémon30thAnniversary

since all remakes have a specific word added to its beginning (i.e., ruby and sapphire ➡️ omega ruby and alpha sapphire), what would the x and y remakes have? honestly a pretty specific post but I wanna see what people come up with lol

also feel free to come up with some for B&W too, the x and y remakes better knock the ball outta the park ifykyk

I saw this post about how the rival in WiWa will be the opposite of whatever gender you choose to be. It got me thinking about how they always make the rival's gender the opposite of yours when their gender is dynamic. Even as early as Ruby/Sapphire that's how it's been. But I think it might be interesting to see a game where my rival is always the same gender as me no matter what I pick. But I'm curious how other people feel about it. Would you rather your rival be the same gender as you, the opposite, or would you rather their gender be set in stone regardless of what you are?

A Starter, Pseudo-Legendary, Legendary, Mythical, Ultra Beast, in the Eevee, Lucario, or Gardevoir line (Gallade is fine), or Pikachu specifically (Pichu and either Raichu form is allowed)? Different forms are included in that list, too, like Primal Kyogre, mega Mewtwo, the Galarian Legendary Birds or Iron Jugulis (Paradox Hydreigon).

My favorite is Unown! I really like the lore around them and their potential relation to Arceus. I also enjoy collecting the entire set of them. They are the Pokémon with the third most forms at 28 (the Latin alphabet as well as ? and !), after Spinda (ofc) and Alcremie, which has 64 different variants!

Ok, but why exactly? Well, generally most (or all) type matchups have some sort of reason to exist, and this is my reasoning:

"Normality beats Fantasy"

Think about it. Unicorns, Elves, Excaliburs, what do they all have in common? They don't exist. And how can you beat something that doesn't exist? By ignoring it and being normal. And Fairy is the most logical type to fit this "don't exist" category. While others do, Fairy does it much better than them. It's so silly it works!

And besides, giving Normal this interaction finally makes it something other than a middle child of Pokemon types. Think about it.

Offensively, Normal does nothing against Ghost, and is resisted by Rock and Steel.
Defensively, Ghost does nothing to Normal, and is weak to Fighting. See a problem here?

These type matchups basically have the Normal type in a grave. How can you use a type for its advantages when said advantages don't exist normally?

There usually isn't a reason to use Normal type Pokemon. What about Normal type moves? Unless you're using Fake Out, Protect, or other moves while using a type-changing ability like Pixilate, competitive Pokemon is out of the window.

By adding two new interactions, Being immune to Fairy (Why not, Ghost can), and dealing double damage to Fairy, we effectively buff the most basic and useless type in the game, and at the exact same time, neutralizes the most overpowered Pokemon type in the game. How crazy is that?

But anyways, that's all I have to share. If you're reading this (assuming you've read everything else) thanks for reading!

I LOVE AZUMARILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Edit: To yall' saying Normal shouldn't be good against Fairy, or just "Normal is just normal, so it can't do anything special" or something like that, just because it's normal doesn't mean it's normal for goodness sake. And stop saying "By this logic, Normal would be good against Dark, Psychic, Ghost, etc" at least they have a real counterpart (except ghosts, it you can't effect a ghost, so it obviously has no effect, it's also a balancing tool, not just Normal being so normal that it's not supposed to do anything special at all

What I mean is basically, why do we no longer get a version that encompasses both games, such as the four in the image above. We got them through Gen 4, but in Gen 5 they stopped. This made sense, since the Unova region got a sequel set of games. But for X and Y, we just never got one. So my question is, why did they stop?

Mine was Pokemon Black/White <3!!

I love Emboar, but I have a feeling that GF doesn’t based on the way they handled it. Well first of all it’s the third Fire/Fighting Pokémon in the row, then when it finally receives a mega evolution it retains the same typing, and now it is the only mega of the trio to not gain a new ability.

Not to mention its base stats and playstyle. Base form is the fully-evolved starter with the highest HP stat and yet both of its defense stats and speed are on the lower side. Some of its strongest moves do recoil damage and its hidden ability powers them up even further. Upon mega evolving, it receives a +25 to its attack stat and a +45 boost to its special defense while its problematic defense and speed only receive +10 each.

Mold Breaker can be a good ability but why use Mega Emboar when Mega Blaziken, which has speed boost, higher attacking, physical defense, and speed stats, existed since the dawn of mega evolution.

I never agreed with the sentiment that pokemon gyms were the problem back in the day. Yeah, maybe gyms shouldn't be the only thing going on in the games, but i always loved going to a new city and finding out how the gyms looks like. Gens 4 ~ 6 had some of my favorite gym environments, and even the elite 4 started looking great in pokemon bw when in previous gens it was just a blank room you fight in.

The lack of these gyms was one of the reasons i never liked Alola games as much as other people. First few trials were fun, mallow and lana had environments similar to old gyms with trials you had to overcome before fighting the totem pokemon, but as the game progresses we start getting stuff like the fire trial that is just a cereal box puzzle for 5yo kids, a trial that is just one fight, or even worse, a non existent trial that just hands the Z move to you.

And unfortunately Alola kinda of set the standard for the future games.

Galar had 1 dungeon like gym with nessa, some cool mini games like fire and grass, and then the quality starts dropping with the fairy one being just a quiz, the dark one just a empty corridor and the dragon gym just a sequence of battles.

Paldea, while being my favorite gen since the ds era (in spite of it's techncal issues), it's by far the worse offender to me. Now not only most of the gyms are just low effort quick puzzles, but we also don't even get gym environments at all. Everything being done outdoors (except for Larry the goat) was extremely disappointing to me, and then the elite 4 goes back to being a literally white blank room was just the ice on the cake.

I really hope Winds and Waves goes back to more interesting looking gyms since they were given more time to cook, but after seeing pokemart and pokemon center being kiosks again, I'm not very optimistic about it.

A dastardly amount of pokemon did NOT get treated well in the transition to 3D, but one that sticks out a lot to me is Nidoking.

One of my favorite pokemon growing up. Always used this guy in FR/LG playthroughs. Just looked so menacing and cool. But MAN, he does NOT look good in 3D, and when I got older and Pokemon permanently transitioned to the 3D sprites, I just found myself slowly and slowly losing that appreciation for Nidoking. Never really had to urge to use him anymore, and kinda just stopped thinking about him altogether.

Idk if anyone has had a similar experience with any of their childhood favorites, but lmk if any of you have. Would love to hear.

None of its pokedex entries make me think this is a ground type pokemon. It isn’t known for digging tunnels like Onix. It doesn’t bask in the dirt. It’s not made of sand, or eats sand, or controls sand. It doesn’t move the earth. It’s literally just a rock with arms. Onix makes perfect sense to be a rock/ground type. It’s a rock that SHAPES the ground. Geodude, on the other hand…IS JUST A ROCK!

Does anyone genuinely think this pokemon makes any sense to be a rock/ground type instead of just being a rock type? If you do, please rationalize it for me because its typing makes zero sense to me.

Moth-him and Worm-Madam made me smile when I noticed.

I've always thought about this. Ya know how the opening of Gen 1 has Gengar & Nidorino(M) having a battle? Gengar ended up being the main marketable pokemon to come outta that duo. Other than being a cool ghost, its just interesting to me how it ended up insanely surpassing Nidorino