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Generation III Sprites: The good and bad

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
Like all games, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and FireRed/LeafGreen had some pretty nifty sprites. However, some other sprites were downright ugly or just plain wrong. Which sprites do you think are the best/worst? Keep in mind that we're talking about the sprite work itself and not the Pokemon designs in general.
 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
Let's go.
Good:
FR/LG Nidoqueen-looks tough and determined, just the way she should look
FR/LG Dragonair-majestic and serene
FR/LG Charizard-looks proud and competitive
FR/LG Pidgeotto-love the pose
R/S/E Gengar-the animation makes it even creepier
FR/LG Articuno-majestic and elegant
R/S/E Aerodactyl-again,the animation.
R/S/E Tauros-just very dynamic.
R/S/E Muk-the animation is amazing.
Bad:
Arcanine (all games)-the pose isn't very dynamic
R/S/E Growlithe-the face.Enough said.
R/S/E Lapras-it looks tired and annoyed.
FR/LG Lapras-it doesn't look very intelligent.
R/S/E Slowpoke-why is its tail so thick?
Raikou(all games)-looks lifeless.
Suicune(all games)-where are the spots on its body now?
R/S/E Squirtle line-the poses are off, and Blastoise looks mean.
R/S/E Charmander and Charizard-both look scared of something.
R/S/E Raichu-looks overweight.
Salamence-the colours are wrong, and it looks flat.
R/S/E Pinsir-the pose is odd.
FR/LG Tauros-the legs are a bit short.
FR/LG Golduck-looks creepy.
Dragonite (all games)-looks overweight, and the pose is off.
 

genwinner

HM 06: Blast
R/S/E Raichu-looks overweight.
Dragonite (all games)-looks overweight, and the pose is off.

What's wrong with the pokemon being fat? If you recall, Pikachu started out as being really heavy (eg Basic Set 1 card art, gen 1 sprite). Is Snorlax the only one that's allowed to be fat because being fat is its "thing"?

Anyway, here's my opinions.

RSE dislikes:
Pikachu lost its belly patch, but somehow Raichu still has one.
Zubat's wings are way too small.
Muk and Grimer still look like the exact same pokemon.
Ghastly looks way too solid to be a gas.
Mr. Mime is no longer fat.
Jynx is purple.
Eevee's ears are all wrong.
Dratini is missing the scaling on its belly.
Mewtwo just doesn't look freakish enough.
Rapidash just doesn't look at all regal like it did in gen 1.
Gyarados isn't using the amazing Yellow sprite.
Nosepass's foot looks like a mouth.
Torkoal is exhaling smoke from its nose... did it just take a huge drag off a cig?
Milotic is absolutely not attractive looking. Why does its dex entry say that it is?
Metang: why would you do this, gamefreak? Who allowed this abomination to live?
Regice doesn't make any sense. How do its arms attach? They end in a point, but the sprite tries to pretend like they actually have some kind of volume conducive to a ball-and-socket joint. No.

RSE likes:
Geodude looks way better than in gen 1-- no more weird "hairdo". The backsprite still looks just as silly, though, with that mop of hair ever present.
Wigglytuff looks actually 3D, which is great.
Moltres doesn't look like it's made of play-doh.
Fearow doesn't look like all its feathers are about to fall out.
Golbat didn't accidentally inject anaesthetic into its tongue.
Surskit is just so adorable!
Camerupt's absent-minded look is everything I wanted and more from the gen 3 version of Piloswine.
Spoink is just so adorable!
Cradily is mesmerising. Just start at it for a few minutes. How does it even work? Why are there circles, and more circles? Are they teeth? Eyes? Polka-dots? This is what I wonder when I lay awake at night.
Shuppet's eyes are half-blue, half-yellow, and form a green pupil where the colours intersect. What a great detail!
 
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octoboy

I Crush Everything
Shuppet's eyes are half-blue, half-yellow, and form a green pupil where the colours intersect. What a great detail!
So true, gen. 3 sprite shuppet is the best shuppet.

One I'd definitely say is a favourite of mine would be numel. I think its design in this game is probably part of why I came to love numel so much. Instead of the comically dopey look numel gets in most portrayals, Hoenn's numel is just plain adorable. Makuhita is also especially cute in the gen. 3 games, it looks plump, cheerful and altogether happy. Kind of in reverse to what genwinner said about jynx, I kind of miss zangoose's purple claws in gen. 3, there was something of a charm to them.

And while this might not be exactly sprites, I do like how gen. 3 made a lot of the attack animations. Gen. 3 attacks looked genuinely suitable in relation to their strength. Weak attacks looked relatively simple and not so deadly, and strong attacks looked epic (overheat and focus punch looked fantastic). Compare scratch, fury swipes and ember in gen. 3 to those moves in gen. 4. In Hoenn, a scratch was one benign little clawmark which didn't do much damage, and didn't look as if it should. Fury swipes looked a bit more effective, but not by much. Ember was a teensy couple of flames which didn't look that threatening. In Sinnoh, the aforementioned weak claw attacks were deadly, raking claws which looked as if they'd leave a mark, and ember was a big ol' flame lit under the target. Hardly tiny-tot moves. Also, compare the two versions of rock tomb. Gen. 4 makes it almost look like a rock slide, but gen. 3 just puts enough rocks to trap the opponent, which makes more sense. And let's not forget gen. 1 astonish, which was pure hilarity. The only move in gen. 3 which I don't think got much justice in the animation department was double slap. The other gens really made them come off like slaps, while gen. 3 just made it look like a bunch of consecutive tackles/pounds for some reason. And while gen. 3 gets kudos for finally making surf look like a wave, water gun still didn't look like a spray of water, despite the opening animation of the game doing an ok job of making it look like one.

For negatives, hmmm, not sure I can name too many off the top of my head, though the Kanto reboots had a couple of weird ones. Lombre sure didn't look attractive, and though that's not exclusive to gen. 3, it is a wonder it wasn't made to look a bit more jolly, considering its category, kind of like what genwinner said about milotic, it isn't too fitting. I was surprised to see how cute lombre could be when I saw it in Colosseum.
 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
I have several more sprites to comment on:
Good:
-FR/LG Growlithe-it looks like it is about to charge at you.
-FR/LG Vileplume-the flower actually looks like a large hat, similiarly to its official artwork.
-Flygon-a much better sprite than the one we got in Generation IV.
Bad:
-Tyranitar-what is it doing with its neck?
-Sceptile-looks overweight.
-FR/LG Nidoking-he doesn't look menacing.
-R/S/E Nidoqueen-looks overweight, and her face is odd(especially the mouth).
-Houndoom-the body is too small compared to the legs.
 

JAKnighton

Cartoonist
I found that most sprites for Gen I/II Pokemon in RSE looked slightly off, almost as if because they knew most won't be obtainable ingame they didn't put as much effort into them.

They stepped up their game in FRLG thankfully. Having said that though, the sprites for Generation III Pokemon in RSE are the best that Pokemon has ever looked in my opinion.
 

Mrs. Oreo

Banned
Like all games, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and FireRed/LeafGreen had some pretty nifty sprites. However, some other sprites were downright ugly or just plain wrong. Which sprites do you think are the best/worst?

I might be alone in thinking that R/S/E's sprites were pretty good in general. I think the only ones I didn't like were Swampert's sprite and Lapras' sprite in those games cuz of their awkward poses. Thankfully Lapras' LG/FR sprite was so much better. My favourite sprite from the Gen 3 games was Mew's animated sprite from Emerald.
 
I think Deoxys had the worst sprite in the 3rd Gen games, but only in Sapphire and Ruby. For such a special Pokemon, its R/S sprite looked basic. Thankfully LG/FR/E had its forme changes, so the sprite was changed.
 

Aquarelle

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I might be alone in thinking that R/S/E's sprites were pretty good in general.
I thought the RSE sprites were pretty good, too. Same with FRLG.

It was honestly hard for me to come up with a "worst" sprite for this thread since nothing really came to mind immediately. However, I think my least favourite Gen 3 sprite might be Hoenn Rattata:
221.gif
I just...don't like its pose in this sprite, I guess? I prefer sprites where it's on all fours, like in Gold.


For favourite sprites, this Muk icon came to mind:
089.gif

It always makes me laugh. :p
 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
I like Rapidash's R/S/E sprite, but in FR/LG, it looks too angular. Ponyta's body, on the other hand, is too long in R/S/E. Linoone's sprite looks wrong, considering the fact it is supposed to run in straight lines. It wasn't until Generation V that they finally fixed it.
 

CrimsonAce777

Active Member
What's wrong with the pokemon being fat? If you recall, Pikachu started out as being really heavy (eg Basic Set 1 card art, gen 1 sprite). Is Snorlax the only one that's allowed to be fat because being fat is its "thing"?

Anyway, here's my opinions.

RSE dislikes:
Pikachu lost its belly patch, but somehow Raichu still has one.
Zubat's wings are way too small.
Muk and Grimer still look like the exact same pokemon.
Ghastly looks way too solid to be a gas.
Mr. Mime is no longer fat.
Jynx is purple.
Eevee's ears are all wrong.
Dratini is missing the scaling on its belly.
Mewtwo just doesn't look freakish enough.
Rapidash just doesn't look at all regal like it did in gen 1.
Gyarados isn't using the amazing Yellow sprite.
Nosepass's foot looks like a mouth.
Torkoal is exhaling smoke from its nose... did it just take a huge drag off a cig?
Milotic is absolutely not attractive looking. Why does its dex entry say that it is?
Metang: why would you do this, gamefreak? Who allowed this abomination to live?
Regice doesn't make any sense. How do its arms attach? They end in a point, but the sprite tries to pretend like they actually have some kind of volume conducive to a ball-and-socket joint. No.


To be fair, the one's I bolded were "fixed" as early as Yellow version, but meh, who's counting :p

I always enjoyed most of the gen 3 sprite work, for the older pokemon, I think they did really well bringing them over.

For the Hoenn sprites, I always thought the positioning of zigzagoon's fron right paw was off, and that poocheyna's snout design gave it a "fat" face, and made it look rather unappealing. Combusken looks derpy, but that really boils down to combusken rather than the sprite? Shrug.

Wallace's emerald sprite as the champion, I know his cape is supposed to be billowing in the wind behind him, but it looks just awful. Why did he even get a cape? Stephen didn't have one when he was champion...

Those are all I really remember, i'll post again next time I start up emerald if I find any others. Lol
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
R/S/E had quality sprites overall - or at least better than the G/S/C ones - so it's hard for me to be harsh on them. I will admit to disliking the Latias sprite somewhat though, because it makes Latias look goofy.
 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
R/S/E had quality sprites overall - or at least better than the G/S/C ones - so it's hard for me to be harsh on them. I will admit to disliking the Latias sprite somewhat though, because it makes Latias look goofy.
I think Latias' sprite in Generation III games is kind of meh, too. Maybe it has to do with the odd angle she is at. Thankfully they fixed it in Generation IV. On the other hand, I like Latios' sprite from Generation III much better than those we got in Generations IV and V because they just don't look very dynamic anymore.
 

Alloutℯ

Banned
RSE's Swampert sprite looked crappy. Sorry, but the pose of it was awkward and seemed even more strange when compared to Sceptile and Blaziken. o_O
 

Zero1999

Well-Known Member
I found some of the Kanto pokemon in the R/S/E games sprites so...weird, like Rattata, Raticate, Growlithe, etc, most of them just had some changes like Onix boulder body looking a bit different in Hoenn and Kanto, overall for me the sprites were good on 3rd gen but some Kanto's pokemon sprites on Hoenn i can't get used to them.
 

Bananarama

The light is coming
Like previously stated, I liked the sprites in Gen III, but some of the Kanto ones in RSE just didn't look right to me. Pidgey and Zapdos are two that come to mind for me.
 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
And while this might not be exactly sprites, I do like how gen. 3 made a lot of the attack animations. Gen. 3 attacks looked genuinely suitable in relation to their strength. Weak attacks looked relatively simple and not so deadly, and strong attacks looked epic (overheat and focus punch looked fantastic). Compare scratch, fury swipes and ember in gen. 3 to those moves in gen. 4. In Hoenn, a scratch was one benign little clawmark which didn't do much damage, and didn't look as if it should. Fury swipes looked a bit more effective, but not by much. Ember was a teensy couple of flames which didn't look that threatening. In Sinnoh, the aforementioned weak claw attacks were deadly, raking claws which looked as if they'd leave a mark, and ember was a big ol' flame lit under the target. Hardly tiny-tot moves. Also, compare the two versions of rock tomb. Gen. 4 makes it almost look like a rock slide, but gen. 3 just puts enough rocks to trap the opponent, which makes more sense. And let's not forget gen. 1 astonish, which was pure hilarity. The only move in gen. 3 which I don't think got much justice in the animation department was double slap. The other gens really made them come off like slaps, while gen. 3 just made it look like a bunch of consecutive tackles/pounds for some reason. And while gen. 3 gets kudos for finally making surf look like a wave, water gun still didn't look like a spray of water, despite the opening animation of the game doing an ok job of making it look like one.
I didn't really like Surf's animation in Generation III, but this has to do with the wave being too bright blue and not transparent enough, unlike in Generation IV. On the other hand, Ice Beam's portrayal in this generation is the best one we got so far. I just love how a thick yet transparent beam hits the target, since in other generations, it always seemed too thin to me.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
I found some of the Kanto pokemon in the R/S/E games sprites so...weird, like Rattata, Raticate, Growlithe, etc, most of them just had some changes like Onix boulder body looking a bit different in Hoenn and Kanto, overall for me the sprites were good on 3rd gen but some Kanto's pokemon sprites on Hoenn i can't get used to them.

I also noticed many unappealing Kanto Pokemon sprites in R/S/E, and I suspect that it was due to Game Freak's graphic designers not putting much emphasis on the Pokemon outside of the Houen Dex.
 
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