5th Gen Reason why the 5th gen pokemon look different

[MistahDude]

The following is from Pokebeach:

The following post from Azure Dragon on BMGf sheds some light on who creates Pokemon:

There's a team of people that is in charge of monster design. They're listed under "Pokemon Design." They come up with the ideas. They decide which ones are the best and refine them. Then, Ken Sugimori draws those designs. In the first generation, it was a group of four people (Sugimori being one of them), and Satoshi Tajiri's role (the creator of Pokemon) in creating the monsters was basically to approve them and suggest changes after the basic ideas were being designed. He's the only one under "Director" and "Game Design" for the first generation which means that he was in charge of pulling everything together and the overall experience of playing the game.

Nowadays... well, the truth is that in Ruby and Sapphire, Junichi Masuda took over. Ever since R/S/E, Satoshi Tajiri has not been working on the games at all. He's listed as "Executive Director" in most games. What does this mean? "Executive Director" is a fancy way of saying "this is the original creator, he approved this game but was not an active part of development." Occasionally he's listed as an "Executive Producer," which, from what I can gather, means he funded it but was still not an active member in developing it. Finally, in Pokemon Rumble (surprisingly enough), only Sugimori and Masuda are listed in the credits as "advisers" for the spin-off game. Tajiri is not listed at all.

So, Satoshi Tajiri is not really putting his mind into the monsters anymore. However, there is another part of why the monsters look different. The "Pokemon Design" of D/P/Pt was held by thirteen people. Ten of these people did not work on the first generation's Pokemon; Shigeki Morimoto (he's the guy who put Mew into the game) also stopped doing monster design during D/P/Pt. What does this mean? The people coming up with the Pokemon ideas are, mostly, different people each generation. R/S hired a ton of people, and that's why the third generation's style was so different. Black and White has also hired more people.

Thus, the main reason why the Black and White Pokemon look weird is because the design team has new people on it. Also, Satoshi Tajiri hasn't worked on the games for a looooong time (since the Gold and Silver days), thus the reason why Gen III and Gen IV looked so different from Gen I and Gen II. And now Gen V could look very different as well.

The 1rst Gen had 4 Pokemon designers.
The 2nd Gen had 8 Pokemon designers.
The 3rd Gen had 11 Pokemon designers.
The 4th Gen had 13 Pokemon designers.

Who knows how many Pokemon designers the 5th gen will have.

At least we know that Sugimori has been on every team so far.

Do you think the designs of the pokemon are getting better or worse? Do you think having 10+ people compared to 4-6 is good or bad?

 

[Angelroid]

Gen V has some ugly Pokemon, But people will get use to them in time.

 

[zealot]

It's a mixed bag for me. Some of them seem cool, but I really hate a couple of them, which is really the difference between now and the older games for me. I didn't find fault with any of the early pokemon, but now I find ones that I dislike. Especially that one... the right one from the shot of the three unnamed ones... it's the ugliest thing I've ever seen...

 

[Silver25]

I remember thinking the Hoenn pokemon were terrible when they first showed them to the public. Nowadays some of them are my favorites. People don't like change, it's just human nature and it takes time to adapt.

Like mentioned, I think people will come to like the new generation but it will definitely take some time. Although it does sound like these changes in pokemon designers do have a significant effect on the big changes in designs from generation to generation, to me it sounds like with Black and White they are attempting to create an entire new feel for the game. At this point the Isshu region seems drastically different from previous regions and it also shows in the description of it being far way from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh. Naturally there will be major differences in pokemon life, culture, and people as there are in real life and as was shown with Hoenn and Sinnoh.

 

[orange discontent]

While I prefer the older generations for nostalgic reasons, a lot of the newer ones actually have some interesting designs going on, especially after I scrolled past Silver25's signature with the Kanto starters vs. Sinnoh starters.

 

[Ravecat]

What he fails to mention is that we're actually unsure how much work all of these people do.

It is still entirely possible Sugimori does the original design aspect himself, or has done so in the past to the point Pokémon we are seeing now existed during the RBY period.

That said, every generation has horrible designs, and every generation excellent ones.
It is all down to your subjective taste, and apologies but people who think it's objective and that this generation is "ruined" because of designs are absolute morons.

 

[SinisterEternity]

Meh, as for me, I think I still prefer the old pokemon, maybe because they're not too complicated looking ?
I first loved Pokemon for its simplicity and yet originality on creating monsters.
But yeah, we'll get used to it, as usual.
As for the number of people designing, no real idea x3

 

[MistahDude]

What he fails to mention is that we're actually unsure how much work all of these people do.

It is still entirely possible Sugimori does the original design aspect himself, or has done so in the past to the point Pokémon we are seeing now existed during the RBY period.

That said, every generation has horrible designs, and every generation excellent ones.
It is all down to your subjective taste, and apologies but people who think it's objective and that this generation is "ruined" because of designs are absolute morons.

They are "Pokemon designers" which means they all contribute their ideas in making a pokemon. Sugimori could draw up a rough image of a pokemon and the rest of the team could add ideas to it.

 

[Ravecat]

Yes, exactly. That's entirely possible.

But design doesn't necessarily mean the visual side.

For example, one of the "designers" could bring up the idea, "I think we need a Shuckle evo, and it should specialize in Defence and Sp.Atk", and so Sugimori draws one.

We simply don't know.

 

[Sammuthegreat]

We all know that the new Pokemon look different to the old ones - note "different", not "worse" - but it's good to finally have a reason why confirmed.

Personally I don't think it's a good idea to have upwards of 10 designers working on each monster's design. I think it's rare for two people to have even similar ideas about any sort of creative idea, let alone the exact same idea, and let alone 10 different people.

Of course not all of them have to be thinking the same thing about a new Pokemon, indeed that's the whole point of taking input from other people - to look at the design in a different new way. But I do think things get muddled and overcomplicated when too many people try to have a hand in the design. Take this as an example:

Designer A draws a Pokemon, he'll then hand it to Designer B, who has a completely different conception of the direction in which to take the design. He'll then add his ideas to the design, and then hand it back to Designer A. Designer A sees the new design, which is completely different to his original idea, but he was really keen on the Pokemon being like he'd imagined it at first, so he keeps several intrinsic features of his original design, while adding a few of the flourishes and accents added by Designer B. The Pokemon now looks a bit confused, because it has two different though processes clashing in its design. Then Designer A hands the new design to Designer C, and the process repeats.

Of course this is a slightly simplified version of events, but you get my point. I think in reality we could look at the blue/red spiky Pokemon from the Oha Suta triple battle reveal. I personally feel that it would look a whole lot better with about half as many spikes, because as it is (in sprite form, admittedly) it's difficult to make out where its head begins and its body ends, among other things. What probably happened there was:

Designer A designs a spikey, cool-looking Pokemon, completely in line with his conception of what the Pokemon should look like. He hands it to Designer B, who looks at it and immediately falls in love with its awesome spikiness. He thinks the spikes are the best aspect of its design, so decides it should have more spikes, because after all you can't have too much of a good thing, right? He then over-spikes the poor Pokemon, and voila. Pokemon is overcomplicated, but Designer A can't really just scrap all of Designer B's changes without annoying the rest of the design team, which is meant to be a collaborative undertaking.

Obviously Designer B was a bit of a tool in both of my examples, but you get my point - this is bound to happen when over 10 designers are involved in the process of designing every Pokemon's looks. I think it's better when just one or two people do it - they can individually spent more time thinking about what really works for that design, and they can make it feel much more like the whole design fits together since it can stay truer to its original concept when fewer people work on it.

One final point though - I don't mind overcomplicated Pokemon, and I don't mind simple ones either. Some of my favourite designs include Dialga - often quoted as an "overcomplicated design" - and Charmander, which is as simple as they come. Contrastingly, my less preferred designs include Jigglypuff - as simply as they come - and Infernape, which I feel is overly fiddly, with all the swirls and elbow guards and such. I don't think Pokemon HAVE to be simple or complex - they're just Pokemon!

 

[GrifSpark]

People seem to be worrying way too much about these new GenerationV Pokemon. But I have been too. But most likely it will end up in a simaliar scenario as it did with GenerationIII/IV. At first, near all of the Pokemon seem terrible and you feel like buying the game will be a waste of money. But eventually you do buy it just to humour yourself, but it turns out that the new Pokemon are fantastic. 'Hopefully' that is what will happen with these new Pokemon.

But just like the other Pokemon games I see a few gems in the mix. The legendries for example look epic, it's about time Nintendo created a Fire/Dragon-Type Pokemon.

 

[Iceshadow3317]

Like in all Gens some suck and some are awsome. For one I like all the pokemon except Gear and Muru or what ever. (The Pink pokemon.)

 

[560cool.]

The ones revealed in Oha Suta are quite ugly ! :O
But Tsutajaa is just awesome.
New people are always good. Think about Zelda : how many people put their effort in the franchise, being old or new ?
Anything changes in time. Mostly long-lasting video games. Because Executive Directors don't live forever. They get changed by other people, who see Pokemon differently. Who knows, someone from Digimon landed to Pokemon, or vice-versa ! :O
Wall'o'text for this topic.

 

[Ninja Caterpie]

These new designers get my seal of approval.

The Pokémon they're coming up with... they're cool.

They remind me of the Gen III ones, which is probably why I like them so much. (b'-')b

 

[Kieran]

I don't mind, but I think the usage of colours is a bit, out of extraordinary.

 

[Iceshadow3317]

Honestly I really only compair Evos of every pokemon. I didn't like Piplup till I seen Empoleon. Same with Treecko.Torchic,ect.

 

[RYOUKI]

I feel bad for Tajiri. It's like, they're exploiting his idea or something.

I don't really care, but the new Pokemon does look like Digimons.

 

[Ravecat]

In your opinion, they does look like Digimons.

In mine, they don't.

 

[Pandemonioum]

I bring the question up again, that had been left unnoticed. What does Digimon or Pokemon look a like?

Is there a certain digimon that shows how all digimon's look? Or is there 1 pokemon that decides that all other pokemons look like it?

Let's say Magikarp is this Pokemon, Pikachu don't look like Magikarp! Pikachu doesn't look like a Pokemon!

What looks Pokemon and what does not? Tell me :)

 

[Zackraa]

There is not a "team" of people that come up with Pokemon designs

Ken Sugimori designs the pokemon and has always designed them much the same as he has designed every in game trainer