>>31088509Generation 1 Pokemon didn't NOT have complex designs. It's more than gen 1 Pokemon had straightforward designs. You were supposed to be able to look at it, immediately tell what it's supposed to be and not confuse it with any other Pokemon you might have encountered. The restrictions of the GameBoy's limited graphics forced it to be this way; with 151 monsters, you needed to be able to tell them apart quickly and easily.
Now we're at 802 Pokemon, and it's far easier to have more vivid color palettes, complex designs and the like. Unfortunately, that has not translated into better designs. Hell, if anything, the designs from gen 3 up til recently have been LESS complex, really just round, shiny blobs with many colors squeezed together. And the only Pokemon that seem to endure to become well-established by fans are the ones that are the easiest to tell what the fuck they're supposed to be.
Gen 7 feels like a serious improvement when it comes to having straightforward designs, though that doesn't mean all of the designs have been great.
