I liked his original design.
>>56654045I want him to fuck me.
>>56654045I used to think his hair + head band was one of those hats desert people wear to protect themselves from the sun. I really thought he was an egyptian themed ghost gym leader. Imagine my surprise when he was a blonde.
>>56654045Both are good.
>>56654045There's a lot of remake redesigns I don't like but HGSS Morty blows GSC Morty out of the water
>>56654045i think it's probably due to the fact that left one looks more like a gijinka/OC while right has a basic appearance since he looks just like a "regular" guy
>>56654138Yeah. The original feels more like a dude who just happened to like ghost types. It's got a more natural feel to it.
>>56654045Maybe they will add it to Masters one dayBiggest wasted opportunity with that game is how they haven't cashed into the nostalgia for alternate designs despite of being baked-in on the gacha model, they keep wasting time with very gaudy-looking outfits that I seriously doubt any of them would wear in a mainline game
>>56654239First 2 gens (even most of gen 3 to an extent) were pretty much like this where the gym leaders etc were just people who got into Pokemon, it's even more evident with Whitney admitting she only started training Pokemon because it became a hot fad.
>>56654138>looks just like a "regular" guyI find this is the case with several Gym Leaders in Gens 1-3, actually
>>56654277>This old ass post from 3 years agolol
>>56654287>>56654312dang I forgot about that. No wonder I like these designs more than modern gym leaders.
>>56654312I think the idea behind Gym Leaders (especially in Gen 1) was to highlight the stereotypical residents of Japan and their culture during the turn of the millenium>Body-builder>Athletic swimmer>Stationed US soldier>Ikebana florist>Shinobi>Dominatrix(?)>Scientist>Yakuza boss
>>56654045He looks like he is trying to hide his balding in the left
>>56654045Left completely mogs right.
>>56654553Brock isn't a body builder lolAlso Sabrina is really just a sci-fi psychic. That kind of character was popular in the 70/80sThe rest is true but they don't really have a theme, really.
>>56654693>Brock isn't a body builder lolExplain this then he's at the gym all day after all + he's tanned
>>56654045>*BURP* M-MORTY! LET'S FIND SUICUNE, MORTY!
>>56654744I forgot his original spriteI stand corrected
>>56654045Right needed a scarf. Left looks so much better with it
>>56654518They gradually get over the top with the "see! this guy is clearly this type/stereotype!!! preas liku!" since DP and gen 6 was the point of no return.
>>56654906also him in the gacha
>>56655001Pokemon has become over the top in general.The regions, for example, don't look like they could really exist (in terms of climate and environments) like the japanese ones did.They look like theme parks
>>56654518Pryce being an Ice type Gym Leader but wearing what's basically a summer outfit is kinda cool in an ironic way, like he's so used to the cold it doesn't even phase him
>>56655001Right, not a fan of that development myself but I do wonder if the plainness of the earlier gym leaders was due to the constraints of 90's tech.For example, these illustrations >>56654553 are clearly more detailed than their ingame sprite counterparts despite both being created around the same timeframe
>>56655025It's funny too because there's whole swathes of Japan unadapted, surprised they didn't even go for the obvious Okinawa rip off region.
>>56655063If I’m not mistaken those are from Pokémon Yellow. Only Brock, Misty and Erika changed their sprites in that game. I guess they had no time to implement the rest.
>>56655077Oh, fair enough
>>56655063They were sprites first then full body art later iirc>>56655025The regions basically look like those kids globe that will have stuff like a lady in a sari waving where India is or a Flamenco dancer where Spain is.
>>56654518>>56654553the younger leaders seem like cool teenagers a 10yo kid wishes to hang out with. It's how I looked upon eighth graders when I was a third grader.Is that why they chose Brock and Misty to be Ash's companion? Probably not but that's how I interpret it.
>>56655153That's probably on top of other stuff like being the first 2 gym leaders = more ingrained into a player's mind plus needing older characters to mentor and balance out Ash.
>>56654045I don’t mind either design. I think the HGSS version looks like he’d be older than he is in the original, like late teens-early 20s in GSC vs. late 20s-early 30s in HGSS (has there been anything on Morty/his age in the leaks?)While those two pictures look like two different people, I think the way he is depicted in manga does an alright job of showing “yeah this is the same person, he just changed his clothes and got a haircut”. I realize this pic isn’t from the manga, but the artist clearly pulled inspo from it and shows a decent enough side by side comparison.
>>56655223>(has there been anything on Morty/his age in the leaks?)Oldest stuff is RS characters but there's absolutely nothing on HGSS and Emerald characters.
>>56655025damn you're right
>>56655223
>>56655223>>56655304
>>56655268There's Johto stuff, just not that much (no Morty stuff from what I've seen)There're plenty of Emerald characters though, at least most of the Frontier Brains anyway
>>56654045GS loves to contrast modernity and ancientry. The strongest trainer in a town full of monks, mediums, and geishas being a young cooltrainer type is neat.
>>56654277>>56654325>3 years agoAnd my fear that they'll slap everyone with school uniforms next month has been averted.
>>56655341I mean character bios and ages, not anime settei. The only thing on that front was the OS sheet for Jasmine implying she's older than Brock.
>>56655345Or the fact that he uses tech like the PokeGear and Pokedex to remain on top.
>>56655025I feel this is more a symptom of downscaling whole countries to be roughly the same size of a single Japanese region, Iberia is like 18 times larger than Kanto.
>>56654045He looks like he could be the squidward of Gold's spongbob and Silver's patrick
>>56655223>>56655223Yeah you can see it well with Bruno keeping his Brock‐eyes.One particular thing I was wondering about was Will being blind in one eye. At least, Gen 2 game artwork looked a bit like that, but no other media depict him with this condition.In some instances the redesign was so radical they became different characters in Adventures, like what the fuck was that Polack designing Team Flare even thinking with pic rel, those Admins look nothing alike.
>>56655107Theme parks is a more accurate comparison but I see what you mean. Johto/Hoenn/Sinnoh are all very moody places with their own unique atmosphere. The land itself is its own character. Unova and Alola come close but I feel like this is only because of the actual human characters rather than the place itself especially for Alola.
>>56655431Anon, that's Kris.>>56655448more over the top and distinct = good. I don't mind it for the admins since they were literally nothing characters but what they did to the Leaders was disgusting.
>>56655077Brock and Misty's sprites were changed to better match the designs of the animeBlue's sprites (all 3 of them) were also changed to look consistent with the official art and between each otherNow Erika is a very special case since as you might remember her Red/Blue sprite has her floating a ball with her eyes closed, which makes no sense. Closer inspection to her sprite reveals that her yukata is folded the same way as corpses are during funerary ceremonies. According to early design documents her gym was meant to be placed in Lavender Town, suggesting she was meant to be a ghost-type trainerThe Yellow sprite only ever altered the yukata but kept everything else the same (even the floating ball) and they retconned her closed eyes as her just being narcoleptic lol
>>56655478Kris is Sandy
>>56655541Another fascinating case of stuff being changed last-minute would be Blaine, who in the anime is known for having a strange look compared to the games (even the artwork in the manual is wrong), this is because he was originally planned to be another military-type guy (more precisely a bomber) but at one point his sprite was swapped by that of another unused trainer: the Silph Co. ChiefHis overworld sprite in RB does not match his battle sprite (it's a balding NPC with no glasses) but they did eventually fix it in Yellow
>>56654045Hipster and Hippie
>>56655559I always imagined Kris to be no-nonsense, not as much as the manga one though.
>>56655268>>56655341Just found this in another thread
>>56655596That design for Blaine gets briefly used in the manga for a bit during a chapter in the yellow arc.
>>56655814Yep, they explained it as a disguise here. In the show this is sort of the opposite, the soldier one is his main design.I also liked how they used Imposter Prof. Oak as a disguise, another scrapped character.
>>56655397some Frontier Brain settei have their ages
>>56655873Greta is 13 but I don't remember if the others said anything.
>>56655853There’s a plot point in the early arcs about Red wanting to become a gym leader for Viridian like he was in the Spaceworld demo. Makes me wonder how much scrapped info the manga creators got to know about sometimes.
>>56654045>leftStupid-ass nukémon design.>rightActual person.
>>56654518Yep. They used to look like people.
A regular guy doing regular things. Also just so happens to own some ghost Pokémon
>>56656248>how much scrapped info the manga creators got to know about sometimes.Like the trainer with the typhlosion being a pervert
>>56655897Brandon is 46, and Spenser is 88.>>56656248I suspect that May using glasses to read is the reason Ruby uses glasses for sewing.
>>56654045GET IN THE FACKIN CAR MORTY!
>>56654045GSC Morty and RSE Brawly are literal background crowd NPCs tier designs you can find in some American cartoon from the 80s or 90s, so bland it hurts.
>>56658984Definitely agree about Brawly. Yeah, I’m supposed to believe this pale af wimp is a fighting surfer. Plus his redesign fits his personality without being too over the top “this guy has one interest and it’s his specialty type” (surfers being fit and all). Can’t say the same about his gym’s redesign, but I did chuckle when I saw his ORAS gym became an actual gym.
>>56655064Dude Masuda turned Okinawa into Shangri-la, shit's retarded
>>56654045>>56655621>HippieI think it's this one. Hippie=into mysticism and stuff=Ghost type.
>>56654058based. I feel the same. I actually want both Morties to fuck me at the same time.
>>56654312>>56655345Morty practices Shugendō, so in a way he's old fashioned except for his looks.>>56655055I kinda wish Pryce was like an old ninja or something, Mahogany used to be a ninja village and Lake of Rage's origins hints that some kind of big battle or war occurred near there.
has his age been revelaed according to the anime docs? just curious
>>56656248We know they were given the anime settei due to stuff like hatless Noland and Winona without her gear appearing.>saw Winona settei>16 yro>Paired her with Wallace implying they want to marry in the Emerald arc
>>56660252Nah, only Hoenn characters have
>>56660413Unova and the Sinnoh characters that got posted characters have ages too
HGSS Morty is not how shins work
>>56660464Well, the Unova ones don't necessarily reflect their final appearances like the setteis do
>>56659280Also GSC Pryce, literally my mom's dad from some retirement home.Apologists will tell he is another case of Ice specialists who suffer heat and have no problems in the cold enviroment but he was still a superlame design.The cold part should have been his personality and interaction with the youth if they wanted that bitter man contrast work. Glad HGSS fixed him to a degree.
>>56655055Sugimori ruined him with HGSS, gave him the ORAS treatment where his design just totally overcompensates. His expression and eyes were made much warmer too. His sprite almost makes his eyes look sunken in, like they're intense, and his total lack of protective clothing from the cold while being rail-thin with little body fat is really striking. It gives him this aura of discipline and mastery which fits with making him old. It's a design that says a lot in its simplicity compared to the later "we have to overemphasize this character".Everyone talks about how great ORAS Maxie and Archie are, but they look like cartoon characters. You could already tell a lot about their characters by their speaking styles (more obvious in Japanese) and how they dress in comparison to each other. Maxie doesn't fully button up his suit and he's not even wearing a shirt beneath it, yet he's still wearing a suit of all things. He's got a beard which is generally not a thing if you're a Japanese businessman, and he's clearly well-built. But now he's walking around in a vibrant wetsuit and flippers with big toy anchor accessories.
>>56660579What even is HGSS Pryce? A friendly old man who wears a bunch of layers and scarf because so he doesn't get cold. And it's because he's an Ice-type Gym Leader. It's so low effort, it could apply to anyone. I always liked Pokémon's old characters. Professor Oak, Agatha, Gen II Pryce, Wattson, they all have strong personalities and stand out. But HGSS Pryce doesn't stand out at all. He's just "warm old man".
>>56656248>Makes me wonder how much scrapped info the manga creators got to know about sometimes.It's dependent on how much they asked Gamefreak after being given the games a few months in advance. >Red wanting to become a gym leader for Viridian like he was in the Spaceworld demo.Hidenori Kusaka, the writer, actually attended Spaceworld 1997 to gather more ideas for Gold/Silver, and to supplement the serialization of the Yellow chapter which was on-going at the time.
>>56660890That's the same problem I have with Bertha. desu the Sinnoh Elite 4 are conceptually weak apart from Flint.
>>56660941That's why Gold rides a skateboard. He also knew the 3rd version of DP was going to be called Platinum from the very start, hence why the magazine versions also had a overlapping textbox or a noise/Chatot interrupting over part of her name whenever her name was said out loud.
>>56654045I prefer when the gym leader/e4 designs were simpler and seemed like real people.They started making them look too outlandish like cosplayers.
>>56659280ORAS maybe shit but the redesigns are top tier.
>>56654287>>56654518Yeah it really went full retard lately...
>>56660950Bertha's only interesting elements are her seemingly unexplained connection to Agatha and her Ground team seeming kind of strange to use thematically. Like it has me wondering what they're trying to go for, but she doesn't stand out like any of the other old characters.I don't mind Lucian. He doesn't get much, but I think his vibe and what he's about carries through with his design, and his appearances in the Canalave Library where he talks about books is also interesting enough. Aaron is a bit of a dud, he just makes me think of an older Bugsy without the Bug Catcher attire.I think ORAS kind of hurt Sidney. His thing is that he's a well-off delinquent, he's dressed up nice but the colors and his hair give off this kind of skeevy trouble vibe. With ORAS, they downgrade the formality of his clothes and give him a big sneer and golden watch, it's more overkill. There aren't a lot of ORAS redesigns I like. Drake and Phoebe are pretty much identical, Wallace might as well be in a pride parade now, and Wattson is wearing a costume instead of actual clothes. Beyond that, everyone is more cutesy with Sugimori's evolving style and in more exaggerated poses.
>>56661119I did appreciate what they did for Flannery and tying it to her occupation as a innkeeper.
>>56654045The HG/SS design is better, you can't tell he's a ghost type leader in his original design
>>56661003not the May one
>>56661003definitely not the Wallace one
>>56661003Shelly was a huge improvement, they made her so fuckable
>>56661062tbf, swsh gyms having uniforms kinda helped making them all somewhat consistentalso, millo could make me his bitch any day of the week
>>56661062I'll never forget seeing an image of Lt. Surge (either Gen I TCG, Yellow, FRLG, or HGSS, I can't remember) placed next to Valerie. I like most HGSS designs, even Sabrina's since it's not like her design had changed much in 13 years, so it was refreshing to see such a drastically different take. It felt more like character development, and apart from the big psychic bracelets, it was a pretty solid design.But I think the biggest whiplash is going from Hilbert in 2010 to Nate in 2012. Yeah, one is Sugimori and one is Ohmura, and my fondness for B2W2 means I associate Nate with more positive feelings, but objectively speaking, it's a flashy nonsense design.
>>56661165I can't tell Erika is a Grass-type Gym Leader.I can't tell Blaine is a Fire-type Gym Leader.They can just be people who have a certain vibe. Gen II Morty has this sort of New Age spiritual look to him, that's enough. Agatha being old isn't enough to make her a Ghost user. Her original design has sunken in cheeks and sharp features, it makes her look intimidating and on the verge of death.
>>56661281Nate looks like a complete retard with his autism hair and visor
>>56661377>I can't tell Erika is a Grass-type Gym Leader.>I can't tell Blaine is a Fire-type Gym Leader.Exactly, these are also problems. A good gym leader design tells you at a glance what their type specialty is. They did end up fixing Blaine a little bit by giving him a flame tie.
>>56661119>>56661196Wallace's redesign is a travesty, his original one still makes him look really cool while also being just flamboyant enough to hint that he's gay.ORAS meanwhile just beats you over the head with it,>HEY HE'S GAY LOOK AT THIS SKINTIGHT SHIRT AND ALL THIS SKIN HE'S SHOWING OFF
>>56661377Erika is kind of obvious when you see she's dressed a floral arranger and in the context of her gym.
>>56655001gym leaders from early gens became so forgettable literally because of how generic they are
>>56661409No it isn't, Erika is traditionally Japanese with her kimono, serene, and her use of Grass-types is fitting. She is the kind of person who would practice ikebana and drink teas from drying and crushing herbs. She doesn't need to have a grass skirt and flowers all over her, subtlety is a virtue. Blaine is an excitable high-energy character, and that's enough to make him fit a Fire-type. He lives on an island with a burned down mansion and a supposed volcano somewhere.
>>56661511They didn't. RSE and GSC got forgotten right before getting a remake because recency bias meant DP/BW+XY got the attention. Kanto gym leaders appeared across 4 different gens. 5 if we include PWT.
>>56661062gen 8 was the last time they had good gym leader designsnotice how nessa, allister, bea etc got tons of porn and fanart compared to the abominations that are gen 9
>>56661526Yes it is. Doesn't matter, they fixed the problem and now leader designs are themed around their types. Boomers can seethe about it.
>>56654045The right pic is making me miss the shading tones from cel anime, it’s weird how 99% of digital anime goes the opposite direction and has lighter, less saturated shadows
>>56660252Positively sure he's well in his 20s
>>56661583It's just one more thing that pushes Pokémon's world away from feeling real to me. Masuda says in his Pokémon AGB pitch that Hoenn was going to be made more fantastical compared to Johto and Kanto which were closer to real life. And we have a city of treehouses, a town floating on logs in the middle of the ocean, and a city in the middle of a giant crater that can only be accessed from underwater. We had the anime steadily have more neon green forest backgrounds. Real world references slowly got scraped away. Steadily, the world became this plastic saccharine guided tour with exaggerated characters and designs. Like I said before, it's going from RSE Archie to ORAS Archie. It's going from a character design to a goofy toy design.
>>56661719Pokemon feeling "real" is dumb, the series has always been about magic animals with special powers.
I think some people forget that Pokemon has always been derivative of what’s currently trendy, so the more that Pokémon siphons away from whatever is trending along the years, the more visibly Japanese/“anime” it looks, particularly compared to when the current trend was Dragon Ball
>>56661719see >>56661769The character designs looking more exaggerated (so Emerald) match with when anime also got more exaggerated in character design.>>56661616You should watch the AG movies to see how the gen 3/4 pokemon and May look like in traditional cel animation.
>>56661758Pokémon alone aren't even meaningful. You have a Milotic and it's just an image. It doesn't mean anything. You can say "I like the design", but getting joy out of it is like getting joy out of jingly keys. You recognize the thing, better clap.What makes Pokémon special is the context in which they are implemented. Milotic stops being a picture, and it becomes a symbol of your persistence in finding a Feebas in one of 6 randomly generated water tiles in a big body of water and carefully making Pokéblocks to max out its Beauty stat so you can evolve it. Getting Ho-Oh in Silver meant that you played past the Champion and made it all the way to Pewter City, which is the last city you can reach in Kanto and actually talked to optional NPCs and received the Rainbow Wing. You returned to Ecruteak City where you navigated the Tin Tower and reached the top, battling and catching a level 70 Pokémon. YOU did this, it was your choice, your reward for noticing and following breadcrumbs. Compare that to getting Solgaleo in Sun where it's just a mandatory part of the story. My memory associated with it is "I watched the story long enough to get the designated mandatory reward that everyone else playing this game will get just for playing". I want to headbutt trees to find a Heracross. I want to be one of the few people to get a 1% encounter rate Dunsparce in an optional area that requires backtracking to fully explore. I want to actually be invested in playing around in this game. I don't even totally care about using the Pokémon unless they have some special utility that isn't simply "win battle" like any of them can do.
>>56661914i ain't reading all that. im happy for you tho, or sorry that happened.
>>56654553>>Dominatrix(?)Im guessing it was more like occult fan/ESP larper. Both of those were pretty popular in the 90s
>>56660740The new leaks actually reveal that Maxie's ORAS design was heavily inspird by the beta design (which in actuality matches his overworld sprite, like they didn't update it after the change). It is a bit much more cluttered in ORAS than it ever was in the beta, but I guess it was going to be clown-looking regardless
gen 4 is when the gym leader designs became dumb >im ghost gym leader >my clothes must be purple now lol
>>56661538gen 1 and 2 had the worst designs of all literally no one remembers them the only gym leaders people remember from gen 1 are brock and misty mainly because of the anime
>>56655541It was a change for the better. Agatha was going to be an Eeveevolution trainer, but she was changed to a nocturnal theme (ghost, bat, snake) and Erika to a pollen addict. They both won.
>>56655021ANIKINIKI
>>56661272Personally I feel the opposite; they tried too hard to shoehorn the soccer uniform-motif into whatever other type-related concept they were going for>Soccer gardener>Soccer swimmer>Soccer karate fighter>Soccer old lady>Soccer punk star>Soccer king (he wears a stupid hat were the brim looks like a crown ok, and he also wears a shitty cape filled with corporate logos of all his sponsors. and yet this isn't a critique of the overcommercialization of sports)>Soccer etcOf them only Kabu and Raihan work because Kabu is *just* a veteran soccer player and Raihan is *just* a soccer player with a huge presence in social media. Aster also works because they actually put more emphasis on his typing motif than on the soccer aspect>>56661281There's a larger issue at hand is that Sugimori has semi-retired from the role of art director and instead a lot of character designs are handled by freelancers with their own idiosyncrasies (take being the worst of them) but very little consistency with the stablished world or even each other
>>56661566no they are the same garbage design by the same artist take
>>56663942sugimori art has changed too it looks so different now leon was drawn by him
>>56654045i always liked that mega gengar referenced his scarf
>>56654091You never read the manual that came with the game?
>>56661769>so the more that Pokémon siphons away from whatever is trending along the years, the more visibly Japanese/“anime” it looksEh, dunno I would argue SV was a clear attempt to look more "western", why the models and enviroments look semi-realistic and why characters put more emphasis on being """diverse""" than being easy on the eyesOnly example of a Japanese design based on a contemporary trend would have to be Iono clearly looking like a Vtuber and yet being one of the few that feel "at home" with the rest of the franchise>>56664016Yup, that sucks as well, dude really peaked back in 2004 dunno what happened
>>56654045i have to side with the fujos on this one, his HGSS design was a massive fucking upgrade
>>56655025I came to this conclusion sometime after BWThey always go out of their way to cram as many environments as they could into each region, and they never feel organic There's always a lava zone, a desert (after gen 3), an ice cavern, caves, and some form of specifically haunted areaThey would never do it, but imagine if they made a region that was almost completely devoid of a specific type of Pokémon, just because the environment doesnt allow for itImagine how FUCKED the meta would be for one gen, then in the next one it got completely turned on its head
>>56664059the most japanese too larry is literally a japanese businesman, the water leader is a sushi chef, grusha is the tipical bishonen looks like a girl
>>56661062Let's be real here, Erika's and Elesa's designs are pretty much equivalent in how 'subtle' and 'ordinary' they are. Erika is the traditional Japanese beauty, with full-on kimono at all times, Elesa is the modern beauty, a runway model wearing weird high fashion outfits.
>>56661783>You should watch the AG movies to see how the gen 3/4 pokemon and May look like in traditional cel animation.it's too bad they stopped in Hoenn, I would've loved to see the colors they'd use for a cel-animated Sinnoh movie
I never realized... Morty = mortician
>>56660994>>56661062Because they WERE normal people. Go watch the old anime movies and seasons or look at old trainer concept art; 90% of trainers just wore jeans, a t shirt, and dorky 90s sneakers. The most "extreme" careerists were the ace trainer types and it showed in their sporty getups, until the dragon trainers showed that they had a "type theme" by wearing capes. Nowadays it's not enough for the trainer to be a martial artist, a respected lady, or a swimming prodigy; they need to be the water clown, zany fire personified, the ice-flamer who's decorated in environmentally thematic chridtmas tree clothing you can see from a mile away. They're like one-trick ponies. You ever meet someone who hyper-fixates on one thing, and never shuts up about it? Those are modern type specialists. Gym leaders etc are no longer local community pillars who happened to garner higher-than-average respect in their locale, they're just regionally-funded clowns.
>>56663942I do at least like Leon's Battle Tower outfit, I find it a lot more fitting for a UK-based region for him to be dressed like a jockey, the gaudy snapback hat is better integreated into the design as a skull cap but without losing the "modern" flair (too bad he doesn't actually wear it when it totally should)The beard looks like absolute shit and his haircut could be better however
