It can be argued that changes made to a long-running franchise tend to be for the better, yet one Pokemon fan is making a compelling case that one aspect of the series has gotten worse over time: the colors of the Pokemon themselves. Taking to TikTok, they illustrate how, in this modern era of 3D character models, many classic pocket monsters from previous Pokemon generations aren’t as vibrant as they were back when they were 2D sprites.
Pokemon is a bit of an unusual video game franchise next to others that have lasted decades, since the key facets of its gameplay and aesthetic have virtually stayed unchanged since the 1990s. Of course, the series has grown both with new gameplay features and Pokemon, yet Pokemon’s core gameplay hasn’t changed all that much in 26 years. The same can be said for the designs of classic Pokemon, even as they made the jump from pixel-based 2D to full-on 3D, though that’s not to say there aren’t any differences between how a Pokemon looked back then versus now.
According to TikTok user Serentix, these differences have been detrimental when it comes to coloring. In a brief video, they highlight this issue by taking the modern 3D models for Gengar, Camerupt, and Kecleon and adjusting their coloring to match the colors of the Pokemon's late-2D-era sprites. The change isn’t anything near as big as, say, the difference between Shiny Pokemon and their standard look, but it does a solid job conveying just how muted the color scheme for Pokemon in general has become in the current 3D era.
Serentix has several videos exploring similar topics where they swap around Pokemon' colors like in the above example. A recent video showed what Pokemon would look like with their normal and Shiny color schemes mixed together. Another also took a stab at predicting the Shiny coloring for some of the new Pokemon debuting in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet next month. Throughout a few of these, though, Serentix does point out some of more unfavorable changes made to Pokemon coloring, with a repeated example being how the difference between normal Gengar and Shiny Gengar has become less distinguishable over time.
It does come off as rather strange that the color scheme for Pokemon has become more muted over time, considering the brightly colorful vibe of Pokemon's world and its creatures is one of the franchise’s strongest selling points. Then again, perhaps the transition to 3D made that a necessary evil. With how detailed Pokemon game worlds are becoming, perhaps the visuals might’ve come across as too saturated had they remained as vibrant as their pixel-based predecessors.
At any rate, it makes for an interestingly niche topic for Pokemon fans to ponder as they await Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Those games are slated to launch on November 18, so fans don’t have much longer before they get to see how colorful the next generation of Pokemon gets.