>>57622371I don't like the way they look as 2D tiles. On the DS they looked great, but flattened to 2D I think they're kinda assy.
>>57622477Thank you.
Essentialslop was only a recent decision. What put it over the edge for me is I'm building this game for a purpose-built arcade cabinet, which will run a 1024x768 monitor. Since Essentials runs at 512x384, it will scale up 200% perfectly. And since the stock Essentials assets are already scaled up 200%, I can make a "hi-res" pixel-art version of Pokemon that should look beautiful on my cabinet. I'm drawing a full set of sprites at 160x160, traced from the Sugimori Red and Blue artwork, with true upscales HGSS backsprites, and all the trainers will be done as well
I was very hesitant to go with Essentials for a long time because of performance issues and because Essentials games were typically locked to .exe, and I want to use a Raspberry Pi for the cabinet. The newest version of Essentials has much smoother performance and with mkxp-z can run on Linux.
I'm also going to implement other features, such as a much more informative Pokedex (featuring not just more data on Pokemon, but also a full database of moves and a type chart, basically serving as in-game documentation) that can be pulled up with a hotkey (a physical button on the arcade cabinet) at any point in game, including during battle.
Essentials has a lower barrier to entry in terms of skills I'm lacking in (programming), but also has tools and options to take advantage of skills I do have (art and even music - I might do a complete remix of RBY's soundtrack).
The Essentials game will just be the main focus of the cabinet, I'm also going to include all of the stock Gen 1 games, including Pinball, TCG and maybe even Stadium. I might also load the entire Gen 1 portion of the anime on it as well. The entire cabinet will be a tribute to my experience with Pokemon back in 1999.
