Join my Discord server if you want to chat with me: discord.com/invite/RajSP3mY8v I also stream on Twitch: www.twitch.tv/gireumnewtown 0:00 BDSP new info rant 0:52 Intro 2:43 Style 1: Semi-Chibi (XY, ORAS) 5:21 Style 2: Full Realistic (GEN 7, SWSH, PLA) 8:10 Style 3: Realistic Chibi (LGPE) 10:20 Style 4: Full Exaggerated Chibi (BDSP) 12:44 Rank them!

Not even a Pokémon fan (I just like game design analysis) but the Let's Go style is absolutely beautiful

Let's go Pikachu/Eevee has the cleanest artstyle for me both graphically and aesthetically.

Let's Go looks charming and works seamlessly between combat, overworld and cutscenes. BDSP looks cheap and it's so limiting they had use Gen 8 combat, further enhancing the contrast

The human models in Let's Go are simplified enough that the Pokemon scales well besides them but could still fit enough details in them unlike BDSP, which has another uncanny valley problem caused by not chibifying the Pokemon as well/scaling them properly because work. I actually like the 2D artworks that came out from the Gen 6 games as a result of their limitations, because they need to put more effort into the designs and poses (contrast that to the wack looking NPCs in Sword and Shield, or the Alola NPCs that look like they're designed from start to finish in 3D without the lifeness of 2D artwork)

Semi Chibi; my personal favorite. It feels like a natural evolution of the pixel art Nintendo was so good at. While a few corners were cut, it was PERFECT for the 3DS, and it allowed them to cut corners without seeming like lazy people. Full Realistic: Double edged sword. When it works, like in cutscenes, it REALLY WORKS. Seeing Ghetsis yell that he was gonna kill Lillie felt more impactful than in Black and White 2 because it looked like it was a real person telling a kid he was going to murder his best friend. But when it doesn’t…it really doesn’t. Like Pokémon being properly proportioned though. Semi Chibi: best choice for the Switch. It still lets you cut a few corners while being good enough for a home console, and just looks nice. (Also I LOVE what they did with Lance-) Chibi: we’re moving backwards. *STOP.*

This graphics discussion has me worried about gen 5 remakes, I don't want my favorite region to look like BD/SP. I agree that the Let's Go games do have some pretty handsome graphics though.

The thing that bugs me most about BD/SP is just how jarring the shift from overly exaggerated map models to the realistically proportioned battle models is. Gen-6 pulled that dichotomy off way better with it's less exaggerated semi-chibi style. The Let's Go games are just gorgeous though. Not only because of the consistency between overworked and battle scenes, but I feel like they also just put a lot more effort and soul into the animations than either the Gen-7 or Gen-8 mainline games did.

I gave (and still give) a lot of shit to the Let's Go games but none of it was for the artstyle. I always thought it looked pretty good and really struck a balance between SM's realism and ORAS's cuteness. It's the most efficient for Gamefreak's annual game dumps without feeling too lazy. I feel like the con isn't big enough to write it off. There's a perfect amount of.....specific appeal that comes with Pokemon characters. Look at Lorelei and Chad Giovanni in this game. We'll be fine.

5:02 The models' blockyness is only due to their original definition. You could make models with the same proportions but more polygons if you were making them for something beyond the 3DS.

9:33 Really, some people think characters don't look hot in Let's Go?, Erika & Sabrina both look hot in their HGSS sprites & artwork & Let's Go models and artwork.

Let’s Go has the peak art style in the 3D era, fight me or join me lol

I was only today’s old when I realised Let’s Go has chibi art style.

I think the realistic chibi Let’s go style would’ve honestly made DP look awesome. Let’s Go was a fun game and the only drawback was the catching mechanic, but I loved seeing Kanto in that style and would’ve loved to see more old regions remastered like that

The best style is easily the 6th gen one... It's 3D but still "cartoony" enough to not cause that much immersion breaking like the absolute nightmare that is SwSd style

Personally I wouldn’t consider SM/USUM and SWSH to have the same artstyle at all. SM is closer to XY and ORAS than it is to SWSH in my opinion. That being said, if I had to rank the artstyles LGPE > SWSH > XY > ORAS = SM/USUM > BDSP in my opinion and I say that as someone who likes BDSP’s artstyle. I think the Let’s Go games are the best 3D Pokemon has ever looked with SWSH as a close second. I’m not really a fan of ORAS’s character models and SM/USUM’s character models look good in battle/cutscenes but not so much in the overworld (Though it also depends on the characters. The player characters don’t look good at all but then you have characters like Lillie, Mallow, etc. who actually look good in battle despite the overworld models). I much prefer XY’s look among all the 3DS games. As for BDSP, while I like the look of the overworld I’m not a fan of the way it looks in battle. I’m still going to buy it because I don’t mind them being faithful remakes but I wish the battles and cutscenes looked better.

When it comes to Pokemon artstyle in a general sense (both 2D and 3D) nothing beats gen 3 Hoenn for me. It just looks really great and makes surfing through the bland water routes very much barable.

I honestly think let's go has the best artstyle for adapting the older titles while Sword and shield is the best for future titles if they actually put a little effort like Breath of the wild, Kirby, Mario and every other Nintendo franchise

Please gireum I’ve watched the ORAS review four times can I have my kids back

LGPE are super underrated. I really wanted a Let’s Go Johto.

Pokemon Sword/Shield Nintendo Games has the best Art Style because the characters, Pokemon and the background scenery looks a whole lot better than the previous Pokemon games.

For me a mix of Let’s Go’s overworld and SwSh’s character models is the best look. Let’s Go’s world was really vibrant and detailed and the SwSh character models looked great. I’m happy that BDSP is keeping those great detailed models for the actual Pokemon battles.

The Let's go artstyle is the best. It's just the oras style without the rough edges.

Let’s go is the best looking Pokémon game I ever played tbh. Sword and shield looked silly and lifeless. But let’s go felt amazing

Let's Go's art style is one of my favorites. It's so cute, looks so polished and consistent. It serves for cute and serious settings. Also, following pokemon are the best in the series by far

The LGPE style would be improved if they double down on the Sugimori Style, and make the entire game like the original art concepts/the manga. It would be the coolest art style, specially for Gen 1 and Gen 2 remakes. But tbh every game should have a different art style according to the developers intentions. Idk if SM/USUM would’ve worked in chibi style, for example.

I really like the gen 6 art style, esp if you were to dress up your character looking in the over world and not to mention how you were shown before and after battle. It also showed how you can really move esp for introducing the rollerblading/legs actually moving while riding your bike. Gen 7 did feel refreshing tho the most realistic look for handheld. My problem is that for being realistic; my character literally was a like a t-pose character which means doesn’t feel “fleshed out” or felt like they couldn’t fully interact as you had no proper reaction to Pokémon surprising you or playing. Cant say abt Lets Go since I haven’t played cuz I’m tired of replaying kanto like I barely remember even which leader I can call on what days in hgss lmao BUT what I can say is from a “eye candy” perspective is that they do look really clean in HD. And Gen 8 in terms of graphics and design was... fair idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I sped through the game cuz i couldn’t follow the story and was more into which new mons I wanted and if they added new items to try.

Fantastic analysis of each style, it’d be cool to see you do something like this with the 2D styles and talk about improvements made to the sprites for each generation. Also I agree with your sentiment that LGPE handles the 3D style best, but before BDSP was announced I was hoping it would be like ORAS was to XY and improve on the models and over world. In my head I didn’t feel like it work though because they’d have to remodel the region a bit, and you explained it perfectly in the video. Eventually when they were leaked 30 minutes before their reveal I knew what we were getting so I liked what I saw, but it does make me wonder how my initial impression would’ve been had I not seen the leak. I’m assuming more or less the same, regardless I’m excited to play through Sinnoh again as Pokémon Diamond was my first game and I was 6 at the time. I’m also interested in coming back to this video for the 2026 Black and White remakes comment and see how well it ages; Pokémon Black was the first game I ever preordered and I remember feeling so cool coming in to pick it up on release day. I was 11 then so I’m sure I’ll feel some of the same joy for those trailers like I did for BDSP’s.

If I had to rank them: 1. 1:3 (Let's Go) Looked the best IMO. It has a good mix of things looking serious when they need to but also not falling into the uncanny valley. Even if GF could make the 1:4 style look perfect, I think I would still prefer this because it fits Pokemon better. The only thing I would like to see more of would be a 1:3 world with 1:4 battle sprites and cinematic cutscenes, but even then I don't know if that could top a completely 1:3 game. I would have to see it in action to decide. 1.5. 1:2 (Gen 6) This is kind of irrelevant now because it looks like 1:3 is the Nintendo Switch version of 1:2, which worked on the 3DS better. It also has a great mix of cartoony and realism, and the 1:4 battle sprites helped a lot. This style also looks great. 2. 1:4 (Gen 7 & 8) I think this style has potential. I agree that it works much better for a game like Legends: Arceus because it involves more action and needing to be more aware of the world at all times. It looked great at some points in SWSH but had a lot of moments of very poor animation. I just don't think GF is capable of making a perfect-looking 1:4 game yet, but probably will in the future. I expect to see this style ironed out and looking much better overall by the next console generation. 3. 1:1 (BDSP) I don't think the style itself is bad, but I do dislike what it represents. (Also, it does not help that the way this style was presented is absolutely awful, just look at Volkner's overworld model) I think this style was born out of a refusal to do anything new with the Sinnoh remakes. It is the absolute definition of the fear of innovation shown with these games specifically. The 1:2 or 1:3 styles were already made to resemble the 2D sprites of the GBA games, and look amazing, so why create a whole new style that looks worse just to try and get closer? I maybe wouldn't have such a problem with the 1:1 style if 1:2 and 1:3 weren't sitting in a box in GF's office right there and look 1000x better in every way. Maybe this falls on ILCA using a brand new style for their first game because they couldn't use 1:2 and 1:3, maybe this has to do with Legends: Arceus releasing so close, I'm not sure. Anyway, I personally believe alternating between 1:3 for their "Classic Style" games and 1:4 for "Legends Style" games (even if they aren't part of the Legends series, I expect Gen 9 to use the engine and mechanics somewhat) would be the best schedule and would allow them to focus more on improving the 1:4 style between games.

Guys, don't kill me but I prefer gen 7, SWSH and Legends art style. Maybe it's because I am a weeb/otaku so more anime the better (I also prefer the characters designs on these games. Examples: Gladion, Nessa, Professor Kukui, etc.)

Let's Go, I actually think is the best. There's something charming about the world, the models, and especially the colors. Everything in that game is just so vibrant. So, vote goes to Let's Go.

Yep, I'm now subscribed. Much like Acoustic Harmonia, you know what's up with Pokémon and aren't afraid to tell it like it is, and I respect that greatly.

They shouldve mixed the ORAS and let's go style. That being make the shading and everything look more mainline and less cartoony but make everything non-chibi and non-tiled. BDSP looks awkward cos it uses the exact same layout as DP but in 3D

0:36 unrelated but I swear I saw this movie. I have no idea what it is called. Someone please help.

Tbf to gen 6, HD emulation for 3DS isn't the same as making models in that style for HD games. I think that's the best style, maybe with Let's Go's shading.

I really love Let's Go's style. To me, it felt like a natural evolution of the gen 6 games (which I also really like), it definitely fits really well with the regions that work with tiles and a less organic map design. Honestly, if they had chosen the realistic gen 8 artstyle for the sinnoh remakes, I GUARANTEE you that most complex areas would've been cut or modified to be more linear. So yeah, chibis for BDSP are far from being the main issue with those games. We need CONTENT ffs

3:19 what’s that soundtrack in the background

I love the gen 6 art style i think it’s great

Let’s Go for remakes and SWSH for new games is what I’d say

I think Style 2 is way better for the Switch Pokemon games. But when they do that they need to scale Pokemons as well, like in Pokemon BR.

I really like the rough handpainted look of the textures used in gen ≤ 7 (also in Pokemon Masters). Antialising is also something that could've made things a little cleaner. Too much smoothing seems really cartoony and rubber-like

I like the semi-chibi art styles like in gen 6 or Lets Go, I like the Lets Go style the best. (Edit) 4:45 The gen 6 art style wouldn't look "blocky" if they where making it for the Switch instead of the 3DS, upscaling a game to look HD doesn't improve the amount of polygons in the models lol.

Thank you for talking about this subject and speaking my thoughts into existence.

love this video, personally i would forever prefer the sprites artstyle in the end, i think they should try for the next pokemon game to have an octopath traveler style.

09:00 i really appreciated the muffled (or maybe midi cover?) Can You Feel My Heart in the background

That ending caught me off guard 😂😂

10:56 it’s still uncanny because chibis are most often used to show exaggerated emotion in most anime/manga so when a chibi just stands their and looks at you with a 10,000 mile stare it’s off putting because chibis are supposed to be expressive

I won't take Pokemon Masters slander, game has much more effort than SwSh, and actually listens to the players (most of the time), and have ways to win against the gacha system.

Hey Gireum did you enjoy the let’s go game? Would you recommend them?

I feel like Sword and Shield, with more polish, would be the ideal 3D Pokemon look. Let’s Go is a close second though. But we all know New Pokemon Snap is the true king.

I'll cried in happiness if unova remake was in let's go graphic with let's go' following Pokémon

It’s literally so weird to me that they didn’t just use the lets go art style for the diamond and pearl remakes. Lets go looks so much better

Another thing about the Let's Go games, is that the slightly stylized look makes the games age well (aesthetically). If they just kept going that route with the visuals of the games, no person would complain about the visuals in the Pokemon franchise long term. I'd still complain about the lackluster combat system, the failed new features that are worse than in the previous titles and the terrible animations, but at least the games will LOOK good at first glance.

9:56 bro knows wassup 🤝 Lorelei especially fits this too imo and ig u could include Erika as well.

15:19 sauce ?

1:1 < 2D Sprites < 1:2 < 1:4 (assuming a competent company was handling the game to make sure the PKMN models and animations didn't suck and characters didn't move around like they were still on a grid) < 1:3

Your content is always what I need lol 👍

how is chibi actually have less work? I am no expert in animation, but i do think making 2 chibi 3d model still have more work compare to make only one right?

can we have a paper mario artstyle for a main series game?

I will always rue the day Game Freak decided to drop the Let’s Go art style it was perfect, just perfect. I wouldn’t mind if all Pokémon games had that art style, and we kept the SCVI artsyle for like spin offs and such. Game Freak just doesn’t have enough time to model all those detailed sprites and characters and it shows with how they came out in SCVI.

I will say while ideally I want at least Battle Revolution style graphics (with Pt/HGSS/B2W2 content) I do agree Let's Go style is the best compromise - just one model and it fits well for both overworld and battles/cutscenes. But I'm not sure, do I want Pokemon to have new characters with official art be the 1:3 characters? I do agree doing the 1:3 designs for remakes would be great but maybe not for new regions (although Masters makes them realistic style like with regular Misty whose clothes are from the Let's Go games so that's where you can get them hehe). Maybe just have official art different from the game and maybe some FMV ala Pokemon shorts lately to show their full size in-game.

I"m personally a fan of Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby's art style. it's a good mix between 3D and 2D, add a more free camera, and the tech that allows pokemon to wander in the tall grass and restore the sneak mechanic from those games to find pokemon with rare moves, and there you go! also about the models, models aren't limited in detail by size. it's all about how you use the vectors and how refined a model you want. they could easily touch those models up to work in HD if they wanted to spend the time to do so.

Its really sad how one of the franchises that has the advantage of having one of the most distinct art styles in the world of Gaming, even translating with little flaws on to other media, can't even reach it's own standards for whatever reason

The fact that the 3D Pokémon games never tried a cartoon/anime style to look like the anime still boggles my mind

Unpopular opinion: Pokémon Battle Revolution had the best graphics style. I really liked how the Trainers looked and also I liked the animations of the Pokémon, especially glowing animations of Pokémon like Kyogre, Groudon, Dialga, and Palkia. I think they used that same style in New Pokémon Snap too, all the humans look like the PBR style.

15:19 anime name?

6:04 That's not exacly true, the overworld version is a low quality version of the in-battle one.

I’m glad people have turned around on let’s go in recent years it’s so pretty

1-3 all look good to me (while gen 6 is kinda low poly, but could definitely work on the Switch if upgraded a little.) I do prefer the realistic chibi and realistic though, as they work best with the pokemon models themselves, but semi-chibi would also work wonderfully.

*The fact I still like monster capture genre thnx to Pokemon, I'm glad I'm not a poke fan or Nintendo consumer, I may not have many options for this genre officially speaking, but at least I can have a real deal 'n a bit of consumer respect*

The art style that would work best for the series would be the HD-2D style from Octopath Traver and Triangle Strategy.

Would you consider doing a video on Pokémon Masters? I know you hate it but you never really fully elaborated on why beyond it being a gacha, which is a fair point but is it just that alone that warrants hating it so much?

Why did clone wars Obi Wan tell me to put on 3D glasses?

Personally I actually really liked the Gen 8 models, except for some. Especially Rose. I don't know why. I did not like his model. Again though, Let's Go looks REALLLY clean. Can be a bit too cartoonish for me at times, but overall really great

Imagine if they'd made Let's Go actually look like Ken sugimori's watercolour illustrations come to life (which they easily could have achieved). It would have looked so good. Same as yoshitaka amano's artwork for final fantasy; as soon as they had the ability to make games that looked that beautiful, they abandon it entirely and go full tilt realistic. No creativity, artistry, or balls!

the LGPE games have rideable pokemon, overworld shinies, mega evolutions and PROPER scaling!!! Like, come on almost if not all of these are missing from any other game and most likely BDSP too man! :( Also, not to ruin your day Gireum, but BDSP will have NO cutscene in full scale, its all chibi :)

I’m learning Korean, I know what you said when referring to Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon 🤭😏

they should have just used the let's go style for bdsp

There is a correct answer. Gen 5 graphics, or something like Octopath Traveler. It just looks appealing

Well just finished the video and I agree with most of what you said, although I still think the realistic art style is the best looking IMO. It gives the characters some life, makes them more relatable as they actually look like human beings rather than what BDSP is going for. I know it’s just a game and it doesn’t matter whether they look realistic or not, but I still appreciated the “effort” Game Freak put into Sw/Sh

A nitpick regarding ORAS: The blocky models are NOT an artstyle thing; it’s an optimization thing. They were made blocky for the sake of working on the 3D’s hardware - and lemme tell you, the games needed it. I just finished playing through moon today (I got stuck 4 years ago as a dumb kid and dropped the game lol) and the game’s additional effects absolutely obliterate the processor on that thing. Even trying to use sinister arrow raid against anything with a flying animation (eg golbat) lags the game to absolute shit because the console cannot handle it. I was playing on the launch version of the game though, so that may have been an optimization thing. But yeah. TL;DR the lack of polygons on the oras models was to save resources, since the DS pixelates features well enough that you don’t see it. It’s not an artstyle thing. Anyways I’m going to eat something painful for wasting so much time over a comment about polygons in a game from 7 years ago.

In my opinion, Pokemon Gen 7 looked "fine" in 3ds screen

Your legit proably the best poketuber rn

Yes I would love a pokemon game in a style similar to octopath. Pixal art is so cool

The Battle Frontier R.I.P. 2005 - 2010

I wish a cartoony realistic style with like detail etc

Hey I just wanted to point this out cause nobody seems to have actually noticed but pokemon legends actually have turning animations nd that made me so happy for whatever reason

My favorite so far is gen 7 but gen 8 characters can look really good too. Let's go has better character animation for cutscenes.

1) let's go style 2) oras style 3) realistic style 4) full chibi

I agree the Lets go line is the best looking game currently

Let's Go is the best 3d style for future remakes

the DP remake artstyle is what pokémon needs to be imo

Idk, how to play Pokemon without character customization... like once I experienced it, I can't get attached to a game without it

I think 3d pokemon should do the octopath traveler style but more colorfull ofcourse.

For me I expect game freak/Pokemon company To make full realistic 3D with full open world game and national dex with fully animated chars and move Why? The Pokemon name itself alone is one of the highest selling name out there!! They have the money If they spent the money like crazy Im pretty sure they will win it back with crazy sales Thats just my opinion.

Pokémon Let’s go is the best looking Pokémon game in my opinion. I feel like the swsh look could be done AMAZINGLY but it just comes off as lazy cause they don’t go all out like and honestly I don’t think GM can go all out on that art style ESPECIALLY if they wanna release a game or New DLC each year. With Pokémon let’s go art style, it feels like they really can polish and make the game look like a real AAA game like I hope that if they remake Gen 5 in ANY Chibi style, I hope they do the let’s go chibi

I feel like if they wanted to make a faithful remake of DP, they should have made the battles 2D animated. Using proper artwork than the 3DS models

1. Realistic Chibi (LGPE) 2. Semi-Chibi (XY/ORAS) 3. Full Realistic (SM/USUM/SwSh/PLA) 4. Full Chibi (BDSP)

I agree with Let's Go Pokemon can't venture too much into "realistic" graphics. I like Legends Arceus gameplay-wise, but the simplistic Pokemon designs can sometimes look weird next to the more detailed humans and backgrounds And modernising Pokemon designs is not an option, they'd lose their original essence

My favorite art style is the original art style or the chibi art style