I know this is a lil different from my usual Pokémon vids but I'm focusing a lot on Street Fighter 6 atm for the next video so I wanted to do more of a silly side thing while I gather my thoughts on that, still had a lot of fun with this regardless so I hope it doesn't feel TOO filler-ish (:

Tentacruel is literally 50% tenta and 50% cruel in their sprite.

Blue Golbat looks like the kinda guy to unironically say "awooga" when seeing someone attractive in public, and whilst i do not endorse his behaviour, I love that he exists

I actually love "gamer back" Mewtwo because it really sells the idea that its a genetic monstrosity that shouldn't exist. It looks very alien and freakish.

"We're talking about Pokemon here, and Pokemon fans are notorious for killing each other in the streets about whether trash or garbage is better" Yellow always dropping the truth bombs on us even in the most subjective art video of all time interpreting 64x64 at most canvases

The problem with blue blastoise isn't so much its face. Its face is pretty good. It's the shell. It doesn't look like a turtle shell. It looks like a cabbage. Or like a giant disembodied gloved hand is holding blastoise like an action figure.

Squirtle in Yellow with its arms outstretched upwards really gives the impression of a small child demanding a hug, and it is adorable.

An extremely important context about the Red + Green sprites that I feel like is not getting talked about much is that the Red and Green sprites WERE the original designs. Sugimori later went and made the art BASED ON the sprites, and from his iterations we got the anime designs that were later officially integrated into Yellow, and that's roughly the Pokemon as we know them today. When it's said that Pikachu was designed by Atusko Nishida, what is meant by that is that she was the *sprite artist* who created Pikachu. The art that she made for Green *is* the original design. That's important for a few reasons. First is that the "weird" or "bad" proportions of those sprites generally only look that way because what you're looking at is the original design without any further iteration - you have to judge them not as representations of the Pokemon as you visualize them now, but as designs. Effectively both the concept art and the final art all in one. Secondly, it means that the sprites of those two games also had to extremely clearly communicate the design WHILE also looking visually interesting. Considering both of those things, it is astonishingly good pixel art - it's not developers not understanding the limitations of the Game Boy, it's them working under those limitations to accomplish several often competing goals. That's something many people don't understand even when recreating and studying the "jank" of Gen 1 sprites because they think it is just "the normal design but bad." A Tumblr user named boxheadpaint does sprite demakes in Gen 1 style and it was really eye opening seeing them talk about it. I'll just quote them here because I think it's better than paraphrasing: "gen 1 sprites arent 'poorly drawn' on purpose or even noticeably low effort, theyre weird varying sprite styles that are still decently 'clean' pixel art, but not only are the art styles theyre drawn in stemmed from working within limitations, to still make a coherent monster design, theyre also technically the original designs and not the sugimori/anime ones we're most familiar with, theyre still recognizable! but theyre very strange early versions like developing newborns, theyre off-model in the sense that the model was refined later, so when you think gen 1 dont think like oh its sillt and drawn in paint in like a minute, but more oh its some kind of familiar thing thats just slightly off and compressed" Another eye opening post was in this reply to that post by the user acyde: "I think an important part of them is that they feel weird because we have the new, more “refined” designs of later gens reworked with Sugimori’s art. To me, that makes 'Gen 1 sprites' actually both easy AND hard to achieve, because you can ONLY do Gen 1-feeling sprites of creatures/characters which already have a defined design. Gen 1 sprites feel wonky despite being (quite objectively) good within their limitations ONLY in comparison to the new art." I think the best example of that here is Charizard. Remove all your context of what Charizard *is* and consider it instead as the original design for one of the starter evolutions and an extension of Charmander. The idea of Charizard as the quintessential 90s idea of badass monster wasn't conceptualized yet, and Charmander and Charmeleon are both much more reptilian in their first designs. Considering that, Charizard looking sillier, friendlier, and overall much less bulky makes sense - the popular perception of the Charmander line came more from Sugimori's art and cover art, which were then even more reinforced in popular culture by the anime. If you keep that in mind when looking at Red and Green sprites, it really changes your view!

Blue Blastoise is just that scene from Kung Fu Panda "You're just a big, fat, turtle!" "I'm not a big fat turtle. I'm *THE* big fat turtle."

I think part of why the RBY sprites get dunked on so hard is that the GSC Sprite that came out shortly afterwards are genuinely some of the best art direction in the series. Yes, being able to actually use colors rather than monochrome shading is a huge part of that, but those Crystal sprites in particular _look_ the way early fans remember their first Pokémon: simple, yet full of life Given the GB Limitations, the small team, and their complete lack of experience with the system, these games genuinely look great, but when you have to deal with a direct comparison to pastel shaded beauty, you’re gonna be looked at as the middle child who got Bs instead of straight As like their older brother who eventually cracked under the stress once he hit college

Yellow Parasect gives me massive "Grandma on her summer vacation" vibes. Like the mushroom is her oversized summer hat and she has that "Oh, dear honey, that's wonderful" face.

Blue version Sandshrew is a towering achievement of cuteness. I don't know how they got it this right, just this once, but it's actually perfect

I like Geodude’s Red and Blue sprite, he’s like “get in the car, we’re raiding Surge’s gym”

My guy really calculated the mushroom to bug %. Absolutely hilarious

golbat is trying its hardest to scare a small child on halloween who is increasingly unfazed to its attempts

16:10 As a kid the Slowbro Sprite always looked to me like it was hugging / eating a big weird multi layered Shellder cake and just being really happy about it

My favourite Golbat appearance is the Stadium one. He looks really devious with his wings wrapped around his body, shifting his body weight from the left to the right like he is skulking through a dimly lit street ready to flash an unsuspecting victim. And his attacking animation is basically just that. He knows he's a creep and takes relish in it with the way he wiggles his tongue around.

I think what makes the R/B/G sprites more fun is that there’s more experimentation/offputting choices to them, putting more emphasis on the monster half. Like Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff have these massive voids for eyes, it makes them kinda creepy for otherwise cutesy designs.

Blue Clefable looks like it just got out of school for the day, saw it’s parents pull up and eagerly wants picked up so it can tell it’s parents about how well it did in arts and crafts that day. It just has this childlike happiness to it.

I love how with RGRBY you never know if you're going to get a golden sprite that the artists chugged the dew of the gods before inscribing the soul essence of the pokemon, or half a cardboard box that got left out in the rain and stepped on.

The way Tentacruel stands in his sprite is literally the most thug-gangster ass-shit like holy hell it's so badass‼‼‼‼‼

I love how Porygon looked amazing in RG and then just absolutely dropped the ball in RB and Yellow. I have no idea what they were thinking. Glad to see some RG sprite defences! I think they're extremely overhated.

As a kid, the moment I saw Slakoth's sprite in Ruby, it immediately became my most favourite Pokemon of all time. Those half closed eyes, that complete lack of an ellbow, his goddamn mini sprite in the menus. It's just perfect.

Shout out to Omastar who is just grooving in all of their Gen 1 sprites.

Tentacruel is such a badass dude. Legit its in my top 5 favorite gen 1 pokemon. Tentacruel is a cool ass dude and they KNOW they are a cool ass dude. That sprite pretty much just screams "ya, I know im good. What about you?" And I love that so much.

4:20 I believe in my heart that this is an expression of "desperate menace." If it's kill or be killed, Blue Exeggutor's middle head has chosen "kill," but isn't 100% happy about it

I think what makes the Yellow sprites both generally the highest quality and also frequently the least interesting to examine is that they're much more in line with the designs of the official art and the anime. Yellow was made with that hindsight, where they would be like "yeah, that's what a Charizard looks like" and so it all matches up better. This also means that they tend to lack that sort of design exploration you got in Red/Green and Blue, where the artists were still deciding on which features of the Pokemon should be the most prominent and how they express their personality. Speaking of Charizard, Red/Green Charizard looks like an Earthbound enemy cuz that game has some goofy-ahh sprites lol

I'm sorry but the Tentacruel sprite just reminds me of a rantsona. I fucking LOVE Golems stupid raised arms and pogging face he looks like a football hooligan going "hough hough hough hough" at his team.

The sprite for Muk in Red and Blue has a shape that reminds me a ton of the The Great Wave off Kanagawa painting. His general body shape I feel is very similar to the large wave, now crashing down on the player's pokemon sprite. The artist did a good job on this sprite, really gives muk a sense of power.

I really appreciate the Gen 1 sprites. What they lack in quality they make up for in charm, and even the "bad" ones will probably brighten your day with how delightfully derpy they can be.

I think the biggest reason that the Gen 1 sprites are overall so great is because they do an amazing job at expressing the personality of each Pokémon, something more appreciated now with the mostly idle poses we see in modern Pokémon sprites, great video as always

I really like haunter's red and blue sprite because it just looks so devious. Like there is no one more evil than haunter making this specific face, and I really like it, it adds a lot of personality to them.

Bats are my favorite animals precisely BECAUSE of how weird and endearing they are, so I shall forever miss Golbat’s OG sprite. My headcanon is that it just flies with the tongue hanging out as it tries licking up bugs. Or spills of blood. Or both. Parasect looks great here too, that thing TRULY looks dead.

Muk is such a cool sprite especially in placement, I remember going into the Cinnabar lab for the first time, and being genuinely terrified the first time this level 40ish fully evolved monster showed up and threatened to wipe me right before the key room that took an hour for me to reach

Big Yellow with the weird glasses to make fun of sprite haters gives me LIFE

As a trash enthusiast don't you even DARE insinuate that garbage even comes close

The funniest part about Arbok’s Yellow sprite is that in Red and Green, a bunch of Pokemon looked straight at the player, with Blue and Yellow changing that. Seeing how Arbok did the reverse, it makes him even more smug

RG mew has always been an interesting one to me. It's so different from all of its later designs because it was snuck into the game. It also feels very fittingly primal, the hunched back and face bump and looking like a fetus just fit together perfectly. The other sprites of mew are just perfect, but the official is a real monster and I love it. I wonder if there's any official art that references the old design

I miss old sprite work in games. I think this is why I love pixel art as my medium of choice

14:30 Muk looks like he's about to drop the sickest beat in ruby and sapphire.

Reminder that blastoise has 78 speed, thats pretty fast for the franchises standards of the time, and heck even now, I like that his yellow sprite shows that he's a lot more agile than what you would expect from a giant turtle.

Here to show love for the Gengar line. R/B in particular really sell these guys as evil spirits.

The Red and Green Sprite for Dragonite is just so ridiculous and I absolutely love it to death

Listen, I just think the Togekiss watching Doduo taking a shit thing is really funny ok

Tentacruel is straight up DJ Octavio from Splatoon in blue, and that's just so perfect. Easily the best gen 1 sprite imo. Also, Haunter. That goes hard.

On the subject of Parasect sprites, the sprite for Gold and Crystal is basically just a redone version of the Blue sprite that is way better than it has any right to be. Legitimately spooky how good it looks. On other sprites, I think the Blue Meowth just has a lot of character that simply doesn't exist in any of the Meowth sprites after. Like, it has that hint of the maneki-neko inspiration, but it feels like a real animal. Also really like the Red/Green Nidoran F and Nidorino sprites and Blue Nidorina sprite... All just feel very lively.

Big yellow has been one of my comfort creators for over a year now, and I just realized I haven’t subscribed. It’s indescribable just how safe their content makes me feel. I’ve gotten through some really rough times just binging his content, and I really can’t thank her enough for that. Another fantastic video ❤

Blue Slowpoke is the pinnacle of "no thoughts, head empty"

Tentacruel looks like it’s letting you go first and knows it’s still gonna come out completely unscathed.

Can we take a moment to appreciate how the Gen 1 competitive tiers are so thoroughly defined that every single Mon essentially has its own personality traits now? Like instead of being a limited meta where everybody runs the same three teams, it’s more like everybody is playing with their favorite characters in Smash or something. And I think that’s wonderful.

That slowpoke sprite is incredible

My favorite sprites are still the gen 2 sprites (despite me being trash at GSC), but I think I've gained a new appreciation for these gen 1 sprites. I used to just treat the gen 1 sprites like non-finalized versions of the designs, but next time I happen to watch some RBY gameplay I'll try paying more attention to the spriteart.

you know what blue blastoise looks like to me? he looks like a yakuza clan head. like he gets his own name and title splash screen when you fight him in a sewer tunnel with your shirts off

I genuinely have come to kinda love the scuffed fetal mew sprite. I'm a little sad it wasn't mentioned in the video, seeing as it's one of the most infamous. Like yeah, this thing is like, a semi-divine sentient stem-cell, of course it'd look so messed up.

I love the Nidoking sprite in Blue. He just looks like a final boss. Absolutely love the energy he radiates.

The Japanese Blue Grimer sprite (party Grimer, as I call him) and the disco Omastar from Japanese Blue are two of my top favorite gen 1 sprites.

Absolutely loved this video. Gen 1 sprites are so fun because (I believe) so many were made before the official art. They have so much personality - generally Gen 2 on everything looks the same because we know what the pokemon are "supposed" to look like. Really appreciate you highlighting a lot of the red/green sprites that we might not be used to.

Golbat looks like an earthbound enemy and I’m here for it

I'm a huge sucker for RB Haunter. This is what a ghost that rips your soul from your body should look like. Amazing nightmare fuel right there.

It's honestly refreshing to see someone pointing out how charming gen 1's sprites really were instead of "lol ugly lol so bad" there are 100% some stinkers in there but some of them are actually far better than the more modern sprites imo. Though i still think gen 2's sprites are my absolute favorite. Haunter is probably the best gen 1 sprite for how menacing it looks, but i also really like Nidoking, Mewtwo, and that oddly scary Exeggutor to name a few (talking specifically about the r/b sprites, not as familiar with the yellow and green ones personally)

I always love to see appreciation for gen 1 things like this, they get such a bad rap because of the small team and comparatively limited resources but I just find them impressive still. Like the rest of the games in a way, some people may find these sprites ugly but I love them nonetheless

The gen 1 sprite art had so much personality. This was a fun throwback.

blue version blastoise looks like he’s chuffing back a fat dart and i love that for him

red and blue golbat just feels more like a silly dragon quest monster, which actually kind of makes sense

Golbat has the greatest blue sprite. Mew has the greatest green sprite.

Not even a gen 1 exclusive deal, but Venusaur, as my absolute all-time favorite Pokemon, is just an infinite source of serotonin for me so they're good in all iterations imo. This isn't to discredit their previous evolutions either because they bring their own flavor of cute and slightly dopey. You labelling Yellow's Bulbasaur as a "Nasty Angry Child" got me howling good.

I'm a bit sad you didn't mention R/B Grimer, it's one of the cutest sprites in all of Gen 1 in my opinion! It just looks so happy c:

Red and green muk looks like a sixth grader trying to ask their math teacher a question that they know was already answered

I really love Red/Blue Mewtwo. I always saw it as like, it just stepped out of a giant test tube and is getting ready to wreck the Pokemon Mansion. Or how when you encounter it, it's at the bottom of this giant postgame cave and this imposing huge catlike creature is just hunched over, staring at you, about to give you the battle of your life. I also have a soft spot for his giant noggin because I think around gen 3 they slightly redesigned Mewtwo to have less of a big head, and now in the 3D games its head just feels tiny. Compare Stadium/Melee Mewtwo with XY/Smash 4 Mewtwo and you see what I mean. Also they weren't in this video but Red/Green Jolteon and Red/Blue Nidoking might be the best those mons have ever looked.

Gosh can I just say I really appreciate how the sprite always is on-screen while you talk about it btw? Such a great QoL feature, thank you

this video made me laugh a lot. Thank you. And thanks for showing love for Blue's tank-ass Blastoise. That sprite singlehandedly saved Blastoise's entire concept for me. Blue's Porygon is kinda messy but it's crazy ambitious. They're trying to convey polygonal edges at a slightly off angle-which is already tricky at this resolution-but THEN they try to fit in glass-like reflections? With 4 colors? Yeah it came out a bit cludgey but they really went for it.

The thing with Blue Golbat for me is the eyes; there was a particular way Golbat looked in official art around the time; you even showed some of that art, and I think if Blue Golbat had eyes like that it'd be a perfect sprite, because the body is wonderful.

Yellow Blastoise needs a skateboard

rb golbat is such a legend that he was specifically added back into pokemon snakewood (the hack of all time) what higher praise could you ask for

Blue Blastoise has all the confidence of a mafia boss and as someone who grew up repeatedly clicking Hydro Cannon in the FR elite 4 with my first starter blastoise lil 6 year old me identifies with the sheer amount of swagger that sprite has. Also Pokémon needs more "cute adjacent" but fucked up designs like Golbat. Less marketable, sure, but imo menaces like the bat are pretty fucking memorable lol

I’ve loved these sprites for like the last decade. The RBY sprite style actually inspired a whole series of drawings I did at one point, where I drew characters from another game aiming for this style. Doing that series of drawings taught me a lot, so honestly, I kinda associate those memories with the sprites. They have such a special place in my heart, even beyond the gen 1 nostalgia. The shading and dynamic poses on them are insanely fun, and it’s a really fun combo with the exaggerated features and more cartoony feel to these sprites. They kinda speak for themselves, and it’s glorious. You can drop stuff like Golbat and Grimer anywhere and it just works. The personality is insane. I can remember so many of them perfectly. I also love the look into early, unpolished Pokémon where they hadn’t settled on the look or pose of a lot of mons and did some weird experiments. And I straight-up prefer the earlier look of some Pokémon like Charizard having a more aggressive face and of course Pikachu. Even though they’re less interesting and usually not quite as good, I think even some of the trainer sprites are really fun. The dramatic shading on Brock’s sprite always stuck with me and I remember a couple of classes having more dynamic poses than usual too.

Tbh, I think the gen one sprites make the game better. It makes me feel like I'm fighting and catching real monsters

One thing I love is how the backsprites are lower res. I'm guessing that wasn't intentional, but it helps visually indicate that it's the same size as the opponent, just closer

The Exeggutor sprite's middle head feels like demented condescension

Graveler over here looking like a mf’ing Bohrok

I loved Golbat's sprite even as a kid because it reminded me of a line of toys I loved that were called "Thingz" (the hot water bottle one in particular). Basically they took like household stuff and put a monstrous spin on them.

The fumbled bags are really funny to talk about with gen 1 sprites, but when they hit, they *hit*. I wasn't expecting this, but I love it all the same. Edit: R/G Clefable is my spirit animal, I love them

The way you talk about many of these sprites being in the middle of an animation makes me want to see at least some of them animated like Gen 5's were. I could see RB Golbat's tongue waggling back and forth; RB Tentacruel bobbing up and down slightly, perhaps pausing to leer a bit; Yellow Slowbro doing a slow head tilt; etc. Man, Gen 5 was peak Pokemon in so many ways.

Cant wait for rating gsc sprites

Tentacruel sprite will always be the best sprite in all of pokemon. I also love the yellow clefable sprite. The idea of clefable getting distracted mid sprite and looking off to the side is so in character and hilarious.

What's equally as impressive to me as the small canvas size is how well they used the color palettes. GBC Pokémon sprites only use 4 colors, with black and white being two of those, so they only had 2 colors to work with for shading, and it's actually genius how well they do it, in my opinion.

The Red & Green Mr. Mime sprite actually looks very similar to the official artwork of Mr. Mime, which was also featured on its first ever appearance in the TCG! The same goes for the Red & Green Mewtwo Sprite.

I love your gender

No one calls machamps yellow sprite bad and gets away with it it is pure peak

You look FABULOUS in this video. Whoever (assuming it was you) did your makeup, they did a stellar job!

Muk in Ruby/Sapphire lookin like he boutta drop the sickest bar

THICC PIKACHU IS BEST PIKACHU AND SLIMMING HIM DOWN IS THE GREATEST TRAGEDY IN THE POKEMON FRACHISE AFTER SNORLAX STILL NOT GETTING SLACK OFF AFTER 20+ YEARS

The eggy sprite is the same in gen 2 as in gen 1, thats because the sprite is perfection

executor is absolutely amazing! I feels so dramatic and very Japanese theater feel. It is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!

noting more to say but ur so gender ilysm

Top 10 ugliest gen 1 sprites number 1 freddy fazbear

What I like about yellow arbok is that it looks a lot like giovanni. It has that same (kinda?) stance and smug expression.

I really really enjoy watching or just listening to your videos. Makes me feel really cozy, entertained and I also feel like I am sharing many similar perspectives on things! Keep doing what you are doing, I love your passion! And on an unrelated note- I think You look great in your videos as well!

Tentacruel's sprite in Blue is so badass, probably my personal favorite out of all the sprites in the Gen 1 games. EDIT: shoutouts to Green Pidgeot for actually looking like a badass bird as well

Surprised and happy to see my comment on Tentacruel being a bouncer was put in the video. Didn't expect my comment from Shaymay's stream to make it in, but I'm grateful to see it resonated well. :) Also, if I had to pick a few favorites from gen 1, it'd probably Vileploom's from Yellow for how manic and psychopathic it looks, Seadra from Blue for looking like a perfect middle form even before Kingdra was officially released, and Electrode in any gen 1 game for having the best shit-eating grins its ever gotten.