Pokémon Design Ranking, Generation 5

Here we go, a divisive generation that's also being looked upon as being the best one in the wake of whatever Sword and Shield are doing, but people will also probably argue it's the worst. It even took me a bit to warm up to these designs. They took a sort of "re-inventive" angle to have exclusively new monsters initially for the games, so there's a lot of role re-filling as well. This is the last of the "sprite" games though, despite having many 3D features, the characters are generally sprites in these games, so there's some interesting stuff there to consider for how characteristics were shown. There's also a whole lot of monsters so this took a while to get to with everything else I was doing.

Pokémon Design Ranking, Generation 6

On the continued backwards journey through Pokémon designs by generation, next is the first 3D generation, as in the main games on the handhelds were in full 3D and not sprites in a 2D environment, so there was a start of a disconnect between the art and how that translated to 3D, especially given that they really wanted to maintain an "anime" look for the "main" games. Also they made the models way too high-res for the system in an attempt to future-proof it. This covers the games from Pokémon X and Y to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, but the really high-res models continued into the next generation.

Pokémon Design Ranking, Generation 7

I'm going backwards this time, like I have with other things, so this time I'm reviewing Generation 7 Pokémon designs, the generation of the last main Pokémon game I bought as things are now. Since I'm more familiar with the designs from here on back, this may go more smoothly as I've seen these monsters up to a lot of things by now. This may count as spoilers for Sun and Moon and consequently ULTRA Sun and Moon but whether you're wanting to go into this blind or knowing is up to you.

Pokémon Design Ranking, Generation 8 (Initial)

There's a new Pokémon game, and this time that means new Pokémon, and I feel like I should review the designs of Generation 8, just happening to finish this right before I've borrowed a copy of Sword to see if there's any fuss to fuss about. Regardless of how that goes, if I can still like one thing about the series, I'll go with the monsters themselves, even if all the games from the one before this one on leave a bunch out. To try to give the designs a fair chance, I'll have to see them in motion given the whole everything using models thing with the tendency for "default" resting poses, plus if I get to find any official 2D art I'll factor that as well. Of course, since this counts as spoilers for Pokémon Sword and Shield, anyone wanting to avoid those should probably get to a point where they know about all the new monsters on their own accord before continuing to read.