Video Shows How Much Better 3D Pokemon Look With Their Old 2D Colors

gamerant.com:

It can be argued that changes made to a long-running franchise tend to be for the better, yet one Pokemon fan is making a compelling case that one aspect of the series has gotten worse over time: the colors of the Pokemon themselves. Taking to TikTok, they illustrate how, in this modern era of 3D character models, many classic pocket monsters from previous Pokemon generations aren’t as vibrant as they were back when they were 2D sprites.

Pokemon is a bit of an unusual video game franchise next to others that have lasted decades, since the key facets of its gameplay and aesthetic have virtually stayed unchanged since the 1990s. Of course, the series has grown both with new gameplay features and Pokemon, yet Pokemon’s core gameplay hasn’t changed all that much in 26 years. The same can be said for the designs of classic Pokemon, even as they made the jump from pixel-based 2D to full-on 3D, though that’s not to say there aren’t any differences between how a Pokemon looked back then versus now.

Pokemon Fan Reimagines Kanto Starters and Their Evolutions With Their Colors Swapped

According to TikTok user Serentix, these differences have been detrimental when it comes to coloring. In a brief video, they highlight this issue by taking the modern 3D models for Gengar, Camerupt, and Kecleon and adjusting their coloring to match the colors of the Pokemon's late-2D-era sprites. The change isn’t anything near as big as, say, the difference between Shiny Pokemon and their standard look, but it does a solid job conveying just how muted the color scheme for Pokemon in general has become in the current 3D era.

Serentix has several videos exploring similar topics where they swap around Pokemon' colors like in the above example. A recent video