Thread: The UGLIEST Pokemon sprites?

Not being a huge fan of seeing things being crushed by gigantic plants, Venusaur's Green sprite doesn't appeal to me. Likewise, not being someone who gets turned on excited by seeing broken necks, Mew's Green sprite isn't for me either.

EDIT: Okay, I do actually like the Mew sprite, but it's still hideous.

Re: Butterfree

I think in the original they were still going for the Pocket Monster theme. Look at Butterfree today. Does it look like a monster? But the extra detail on the wings and the more realistic shape gave it a more monster feel. They probably made Green and then decided that kids like the cute Pokemon more and edited Butterfree accordingly.

The Jolteon HG SS Sprite.....*Shivers* I dunno, It looks bad to me. And in the Japanese Pokemon Green, the Mew....it looks like a demented rat O_o

Originally Posted by 7487857

I can't believe what they did to Magmar! Magmar looked pretty good in Blue!
Magmar kinda looks like one of that weird ugly Miraclon Capsule Monster, that Ultraman has in Ultraman Zearth 2 movie!..Arr lol

I like all of the Magmars up until Generation 4:
















WTF happened?

Magmar learned to use the Force, isn't it obvious?

Originally Posted by Pomegranate

I think in the original they were still going for the Pocket Monster theme. Look at Butterfree today. Does it look like a monster? But the extra detail on the wings and the more realistic shape gave it a more monster feel. They probably made Green and then decided that kids like the cute Pokemon more and edited Butterfree accordingly.

The old Butterfree sprite doesn't look monster-like to me; the body isn't too bad, but it's a little unusual with the angular-looking wings. The newer wing design sort of reminds me more of the Cabbage White butterfly, which is what Butterfree was based off of:


Though I'm not to keen on the current Ken Sugimori Butterfree pose:

These older ones were WAY better, IMO:

I typically like the Generation I sprites. In general, I don't like the Yellow Version ones as much... I still like them but the style is nothing like any of the other games at all.
And as for Mew... she's one of my favourite Pokémon (if not my number one favourite)... but her Green Version sprite is just awful. Quite a few Green Version sprites were bad... but others were pretty good. Some were even better than their Red / Blue Version counterparts (e.g. Koffing... why is the symbol on the wrong side of his head?! And Mewtwo... why is he hunched over all deformed and freaky?!)

Originally Posted by dannyjenn

I typically like the Generation I sprites. In general, I don't like the Yellow Version ones as much... I still like them but the style is nothing like any of the other games at all.

Huh, I always liked the Yellow sprites best. They seemed almost like single-color prototypes of the Generation II sprites, and many of them looked like they were based off these old Ken Sugimori pictures:
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Though to be fair, some of the sprites in Yellow ARE in rather odd poses; such as Meowth, Golbat, Drowzee and a few others looking like they're dancing, Machop yawning, Gyarados curled up, Mewtwo showing off its muscles, etc.

Some Sprites are just plain weird or just look horrible.
GOLBAT:
Chansey?:
Kangkaskan: (What?)
Tangela:

Originally Posted by dandeco

Huh, I always liked the Yellow sprites best. They seemed almost like single-color prototypes of the Generation II sprites, and many of them looked like they were based off these old Ken Sugimori pictures

True. What I was specifically referring to was their colour... they were overly saturated (white was only used in areas that literally were white, whereas the RGB sprites used white for highlights and lighter areas). That gave them a very flat look (granted, I think some were supposed to resemble the anime).
Generation II sprites were the same, but the pallate wasn't as limited (you might have an orange and a red as opposed to 2 shades or red), which ddn't make them look as flat.
That, and, like you said, the poses. Some (not all) of them had odd poses, more like they were creative drawings or something than representations of the Pokémon themselves. Some of them (like Mewtwo) I have no idea where they were even going with, since they don't even resemble the anime (which is what most were based on)

Those colors from Yellow are actually the same colors that you would get if Green, Red or Blue was played on a Super Gameboy, which is something you hooked up to your SNES. That was the only way those early games could have color. Sure they're flat and saturated, but that's really all they could provide for a game that was meant to be played with black and white graphics on a regular Gameboy. Colors akin to GSC were just not possible back then.

Anyhow, I'm personally not fond of Pidgeot's frontal sprite from RB. Porygon's back sprite is also not easy to look at.

That makes a lot of sense. I remember if you played Red or Blue or Green on a regular Game Boy Color, it wouldn't have that Super Game Boy/Pokemon Stadium look to it; it would be that monochrome setup where the default setting is all backgrounds are one color, and all character sprites are the same color too (i.e.: Red would have green characters and red backgrounds.) But during the Game Boy logo you could change the color scheme to different tints or whatever (such as sepiatone, giving everything a Christmasy-kind of color, light pink or yellow, even the original black and white!) The Japanese version of Yellow was like that, but the American version was optimized for Game Boy Color so it would resemble the Super Game Boy color schemes. That's probably another reason why I liked Yellow better.

A few of the Yellow sprites do seem based off the anime, Pikachu especially, but several others do seem based off the older Ken Sugimori stock art (the old watercolor type seen in the old manuals, strategy guides, and some Pokemon cards), and some of those had the Pokemon in unusual poses too.

As for the R/B Golbat, that's just plain creepy. Then again, I also found the Golbat in FireRed/LeafGreen to be a tad creepy, but not as much as the R/B Golbat (that didn't stop me from evolving my Zubat into Golbat and then Crobat!) The Yellow version of Golbat on the other hand looks pretty funny, as if he's dancing!
Kangaskhan is also pretty ugly there in Red/Blue. I was usually more used to its sprites from Yellow and FireRed/LeafGreen (Kangaskhan is always pretty difficult to catch, but I had more luck catching him in Yellow than in FireRed!)

Originally Posted by Isamu Akai

Those colors from Yellow are actually the same colors that you would get if Green, Red or Blue was played on a Super Gameboy, which is something you hooked up to your SNES. That was the only way those early games could have color. Sure they're flat and saturated, but that's really all they could provide for a game that was meant to be played with black and white graphics on a regular Gameboy. Colors akin to GSC were just not possible back then.

Anyhow, I'm personally not fond of Pidgeot's frontal sprite from RB. Porygon's back sprite is also not easy to look at.

I don't mean the colours themselves... I mean the way that they are coloured... here's some examples:
Absolutely no white except for a very small highlight, whereas the RGB sprite has huge areas of white on the wings (and since the palette is limited to 2 colours besides black and white, the white on the wings is able to show that the wings are a separate colour, whereas the Yellow sprite makes it look like the same colour and basically less dynamic)
No white at all, and look at the difference. RGB rocks look 3D, Yellow rocks look much flatter
No white... the image looks very flat, like a cardboard cutout
There are several examples of the opposite aswell (Pikachu is almost entirely white, for example) but my point is, if you only have 4 colours to work with (including black and white) then the lightest colours should be replaced with white, even if they aren't literally white or even a highlight. Which RGB did a good job on for the most part... Yellow did a good job on several sprites but overall it wasn't as good as RGB.
But again, it's a style thing. Yellow sprites were supposed to look like illustrations / cartoony, so it isn't that they're bad. And since the pallete was even more limited than Generation II, they had to work with what they had. I just personally don't like that style as much.

Okay, so they're not the same, my memory was off... But as far as I'm aware, the Japanese Yellow was a Game Boy title, and would only get those colors if played on a Super Gameboy. It was the overseas releases that changed it where it could be played on a GBC with the SGB colors. And keep in mind, the saturation of Yellow's monochrome sprites would have also been different than that of GRB's.

Golbat R/B What's with the ugly tounge
Growlithe R/B Weird.
Mew R/G Ahhhhh!Aliens are taking over Bulbagarden forums!
Palpitoed B/W Gross.
Venusaur R/G That's what happens when you get run over by a truck.
Charizard R/G As earlier said, "It's Puff The Magic Charizard!"
Charmeleon's back sprite R/B Close your mouth, you idiot.
Koffing R/B Oh my god, they made their own made-up character upside down?

Not the ugliest, but why are they lying down?
Gimme more cocaine!!!
Mutant albino rat
Head's a little too big
Still looks like a rat :p
The rare duck-billed snake
We're here to... eat... your... dreams!!!
The infamous long-tongued Golbat, nothing special :p


(BTW, how will I remove this image I accidentally attached?)