Can't believe I'm posting on this site after 3 years lol
In all seriousness, this was the best decision art direction-wise. I'll get used to it in time. I think the main issue with Sw/Sh's art style is how inconsistent it is for specific areas. Smaller towns look pretty nice in that game, but the wild area is where problems started because of the overall lack of consistent direction.
But anyways, I'm not here to rant about those games, I'm looking forward to seeing how these remakes fare. Mainly because I think scaling the visuals back plays more to GF's strengths as developers. I always note that GF works best on a smaller scale and I think this remake attempting to keep that in tact (despite being done by another company) is a good thing. Don't get me wrong, some of the textures are awkward and I'm not a huge fan of these models in particular for the trainers BUT at the very least, the art style is more consistent than it was in Let's Go/Sw/Sh. From the trailers, we can already see certain parts of the region design are being accommodated for these changes rather than Let's Go in which it just completely ignored this.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out, but also equally cautious as this is a different developer. All I hope is that they're able to capture the spirit of the original games in general.