Best Generation of Pokémon

Started by Guy November 19th, 2010 12:36 PM
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Which generation of Pokémon had the best set of designs?

Guy

just a guy

Age 31
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Seen March 26th, 2016
Posted January 22nd, 2014
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14.7 Years
I'm not talking about the features, plots, characters, games, or anything of that sort here. I'm referring to the Pokémon in specific; not just a select few either, but they as a whole in their respective generation. To put it in simple terms, which "Generation of Pokémon" had the best designs?

All biased thoughts aside, and nostalgia glasses put away, Generation III had the best designed Pokémon in my opinion. When it came to the first generation, they played it safe. The Pokémon designs were simple, cute, and a good start for the franchise, but they weren't something to go "wow" over after awhile. Generation two (second to Generation three), had the next set of best designed Pokémon. They still had that simple factor from the first generation, but they put more originality to the Pokémon.

With Hoenn, the designers took more of a jump in their designs. Being both original, going outside the safe zone, and still keeping some simplicity, the designs went pretty far and wide. To me, the best out of all generations so far, give or take a few.
Seen December 5th, 2010
Posted December 5th, 2010
19 posts
12.5 Years
Haha so you are saying from there it just went downhill then XD

I really think the first generation is the best because without it, there would be no other generations. This safe zone you're talking about is odd because it can be thought of as relative. When there were no pokemon to begin with there was no such thing as a safe zone. The first gen blazed the trail ^^. I can remember 90% of the names of the first gen, with the others it is more like 30-40%.

Also I am doing the 151 pokemon drawing challenge so I may be a bit biased, I am sorry XD

Edit: and it's also my personal opinion, I'm not saying yours is wrong :D! Diversity of ideas is a good thing! Woo!

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Dooonerz

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For me it was Hoenn, as it was the Gen that really got me into Pokemon gaming with it's eccentric and creative ideas that separated the third gen from other gens, and blew away any rivalry.

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Guy

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Posted January 22nd, 2014
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After the third generation, Sinnoh didn't do a bad job with their designs. I just find Hoenn's Pokémon to be more memorable if I had to compare. Generation V is still taking some getting used to though. To me, they put in too much humanoid-like Pokémon and that kind of ruined it. Plus, they based some of the new Pokémon off of the first generation, which didn't make it so "original" or creative when you think about it.

When I say the First Generation was safe in their Pokémon's designs, I mean it didn't stray far from what they were basing it off of [give or take a few]. So, it was a simple start to the franchise, as I said in my first post. That said, it was what it was, a start; not a bad one.

PlatinumDude

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Seen July 31st, 2020
Posted May 30th, 2020
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12.7 Years
Tied between Hoenn, Sinnoh and Isshu, but voted for Isshu. Isshu had very well-designed Pokemon (Daikenki, Doryuzu, Sazandora, Shandera and Ulgamoth in particular). Sinnoh had some well-designed Pokemon as well (Gallade, Lucario, Empoleon, Porygon-Z).

Elite Overlord LeSabre™

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I'd say it's tied between Kanto and Hoenn because on my main team, three of them are 1st gen and three of them are 3rd gen. I need to issue the caveat that I have not had a chance to go over 5th gen Pokemon in great detail.

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Kirbychu

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Posted July 28th, 2020
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13.9 Years
All biased thoughts aside, and nostalgia glasses put away, Generation III had the best designed Pokémon in my opinion. When it came to the first generation, they played it safe. The Pokémon designs were simple, cute, and a good start for the franchise, but they weren't something to go "wow" over after awhile. Generation two (second to Generation three), had the next set of best designed Pokémon. They still had that simple factor from the first generation, but they put more originality to the Pokémon.

With Hoenn, the designers took more of a jump in their designs. Being both original, going outside the safe zone, and still keeping some simplicity, the designs went pretty far and wide. To me, the best out of all generations so far, give or take a few.
You pretty much summed it up for me. Kanto was simply to simple. Sinnoh started to add way too many humanoid (And just plain stupid) designs, and the Pokemon had way too many round features. Isshu, despite losing some of the roundness, is garbage. Something about the Isshu designs just screams laziness. They look like Pokemon I made when I was a little kid; no joke. They took good concepts but their execution was awful. The Pokemon don't look natural at all, their are too many humanoids. I prefer more animal-like designs.

What bugs me the most is that as the series has gone on the designers have been gradually paying less and less attention to anatomy. This problem started in Hoenn, but I can't even look at most of the Sinnoh and Isshu Pokemon seriously. Pokemon like Reshiram and Zoraork are some of the biggest culprits. Reshiram doesn't look anything like a creature built for flight, and Zoraork's proportion are just out of whack.

You might be saying "Pokemons aren't real, they don't have to be realistic". While that may be true, I prefer more realistic designs. It's an artstyle choice, nothing more.

My favorites are Johto and Hoenn. Hoenn gets my vote because it had a much more diverse variety of Pokemon.

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18.9 Years
>I liked Kanto, sure, but they get a bit boring and... normal after seeing them so much.
>I didn't have too much to do with Johto as a whole, and I don't mind the Pokemon, but not many wow me.
>Sinnoh for the most part felt too random in design. I can't quite pinpoint why, but... I didn't like 'em much. They feel like toys rather than creatures.
>Isshu definitely has too many humanoids, and many I feel shouldn't really be possible even in the Pokemon world. As previously mentioned, anatomy has been being screwed with. It just looks too... distorted and unrealistic. :/

>Hoenn had a nice balance between real animals and uniqueness. The Pokemon are pretty cool all around, well designed with attention to basic structural anatomy. The coloration was well done with them and they were very suited to their region. Um... they were also very diverse, which I liked.
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Shadow Ball

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Posted December 1st, 2010
157 posts
12.5 Years
I'm going to have to say Johto is the best in my opinion, with Kanto a close second. It's not because I was a pokemon fan from the very start, or because I'm biased... I just think that simplicity is beauty - and if I wanted a bunch of weird looking humanoid or mecha creatures that I could not make sense of, I would probably have been a YuGiOh fan. I like the animal designs - Pokemon are pet like creatures that are raised along humans. They live naturally in the wild. While Kanto was practically all animal designs, Johto took the concept of the animal designs and added some uniqueness to them... without making them look like a cluster of "wtf". For example.. Pidgey was just a common bird design... okay, that can get boring, I agree. But I adored Skarmory - it still looked like a bird, just with some slight modifications to fit it's type, without getting too messy. After Johto, each generation seems to get worse to me, on that concept. I didn't mind Hoenn that much, and liked many of the designs actually... but after that I was just wondering if they were running out of good ideas.



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インフェルノの津波

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Seattle
Seen March 28th, 2020
Posted June 8th, 2014
3,899 posts
13.4 Years
Isshu.

Because

- It has a Kanto feel to it. You see Pokemon that makes you go "WOAH!"
- Ulgamoth. A flipping giant fiery Atlas moth. Thank you.
- Zekrom. A dragon with a freaking turbine.
- This game was epic, I tell you. I never had so much fun playing a Pokemon game.
- But I mainly like it because the Pokemon there feel a bit more realistic than Kanto. I mean...you're fighting a humanoid martial artist. Compare that to a kicking-whatchamacallit. The starters there are the most interesting of the bunch, because they're a Snake, a Pig, and a Otter. Win. And finally, every single one of those buggers I love. So yeah, I like me some Isshu.
Age 26
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Seen November 14th, 2015
Posted November 14th, 2015
18 posts
12.5 Years
In my opinion, after Hoenn, Pokemon went downhill. I am not a big fan of the fancy 3D graphics in D/P or HG/SS, but the plot subject is basically the same. Game Freak took out the bad graphics and bad story lines that I loved as a kid and replaced them with really good graphics and a not much better storyline. The Sinnoh Pokemon took it a little far.... But once again it's only an opinion.
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Age 33
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Seen April 29th, 2011
Posted December 11th, 2010
48 posts
12.5 Years
I voted for Johto's, because I remember how excited and awed I was when they first came out. The new Pokemon all had brilliant designs, and those that evolved from Kanto Pokemon felt like proper continuations of their evos/prevos.
Pokemon designs have steadily gone into decline after Johto, in my opinion. Some of Hoenn's designs were awful, but they still felt like Pokemon at least. Sinnoh showed just how lazy the designers had become in the gap between the third and fourth generations. Isshu's 'Pokemon' disgust me more than I can put into words.
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116 posts
13.6 Years
For me it has to be a mix of Hoenn and Isshu.

Hoenn was a region that i didn't care about at first. But then one day i decided to sit down and play trough Emerald. During that time i found plenty of pokemons that i liked. Such as Hariyama, which is my Favorite Fighting type. I also really liked Manectric, Sceptile, Metagross and Gardevoir.

As for Isshu, i can agree that some of the designs are ''out there'' but that's probably why i like them. I think that the region gives a nice mix of simple and more ''complex'' designs. Some of my favorites for that region are Kirikizan, Daikenki, Jalorda, Rankurusu, Erufuun etc. It also has my favorite starters of any generation design-wise.
Age 28
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USA
Seen December 23rd, 2012
Posted February 7th, 2012
546 posts
12.7 Years
I'll definitely have to say Hoenn. And NOT BECAUSE I STARTED PLAYING POKEMON IN THAT GENERATION, but because the designs of the Pokemon are all so unique. :3
There are also some interesting new dual types that were introduced in that generation (Fighting/Psychic, ofc), and lots of Pokemon that I just love. <3
I just shattered my nostalgia glasses and yet I still think the first generation has the best Pokemon design wise. :( I know the most common argument against the first generation is the simplicity of the designs, but that's what I embrace most. In life I enjoy everything around me to be as simple as possible, too much going on is annoying and/or distracting to me. Therefore the simple and in some cases almost life like look of the first generation Pokemon (example Pidgey) are very appealing in my eyes.

Yet even with that said I still love the third generation's Pokemon too. Although they aren't as simple as the first generation Pokemon I still find them simple enough for my liking. The only generation that I've ever disliked more Pokemon then I liked was the IV generation. It was too over the top for me and at times looked a little sloppy or even stupid. In my opinion the V generation shows that they have learned from their IV generation mistakes and incorporated some first, second, and third generation Pokemon looks into the new ones.
Age 23
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Seen July 15th, 2016
Posted July 13th, 2016
808 posts
12.9 Years
Isshu cause they went really crazy with the designs
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Age 29
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Seen December 12th, 2015
Posted August 15th, 2012
1,931 posts
13.7 Years
For me it was mostly Hoenn. I really enjoyed seeing all the new pokemon designs when I played Sapphire. Plus the dragon pokemon designs ROCKED!
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Serene Grace

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Age 28
Male
England
Seen September 25th, 2016
Posted December 31st, 2014
3,424 posts
14.1 Years
My favourite generation of Pokémon has always been the fourth one - Sinnoh. In my opinion, it's brought about the best changes, especially to the video games. Things such as the physical and special split in battling, .vs sprites for gym leaders (Platinum) and general updated and modern graphics made Pokémon feel up to date.

In addition, the new members of the Pokémon family the Generation IV introduced were mostly excellent and, in my opinion, Diamond, Pearl and Platinum were the most fun games to play.
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Kirbychu

Still looking for Mirage Island
Seen August 20th, 2021
Posted July 28th, 2020
2,347 posts
13.9 Years
You pretty much summed it up for me. Kanto was simply to simple. Sinnoh started to add way too many humanoid (And just plain stupid) designs, and the Pokemon had way too many round features. Isshu, despite losing some of the roundness, is garbage. Something about the Isshu designs just screams laziness. They look like Pokemon I made when I was a little kid; no joke. They took good concepts but their execution was awful. The Pokemon don't look natural at all, their are too many humanoids. I prefer more animal-like designs.

What bugs me the most is that as the series has gone on the designers have been gradually paying less and less attention to anatomy. This problem started in Hoenn, but I can't even look at most of the Sinnoh and Isshu Pokemon seriously. Pokemon like Reshiram and Zoraork are some of the biggest culprits. Reshiram doesn't look anything like a creature built for flight, and Zoraork's proportion are just out of whack.

You might be saying "Pokemons aren't real, they don't have to be realistic". While that may be true, I prefer more realistic designs. It's an artstyle choice, nothing more.

My favorites are Johto and Hoenn. Hoenn gets my vote because it had a much more diverse variety of Pokemon.
Haha, I would like to retract what I said about Isshu, to an extent. After seeing the Sugimori art, the Pokemon don't look as ridiculous when they're all in a similar style. The sprites are just awful this time around, and make the Isshu Pokemon look awful. It's a shame too, since we finally have consistently moving sprites. Overall though, they still feel lazy and the anatomy is really screwed up, the Sugimori art just makes them look a bit better. Props to Ken for making those Pokemon not looks so bad.

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Seen March 21st, 2013
Posted March 9th, 2013
399 posts
13.2 Years
I just shattered my nostalgia glasses and yet I still think the first generation has the best Pokemon design wise. :( I know the most common argument against the first generation is the simplicity of the designs, but that's what I embrace most. In life I enjoy everything around me to be as simple as possible, too much going on is annoying and/or distracting to me. Therefore the simple and in some cases almost life like look of the first generation Pokemon (example Pidgey) are very appealing in my eyes.
I feel the same exact way.

All nostalgia aside, first gen wins hands down. The simplicity of the Pokemon and their not straying too far from their animal counterparts was what won me over. Pidgey, Rattata, Sandshrew, etc; gotta love em all.

Second place for me goes to Johto. They made a little more changes from the first generation but most were still simple in design.

I can't rate Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Isshu because I hated 95% of the pokemon in Hoenn and Sinnoh and I haven't given a good look at Isshus.
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