There's benefits to both, and downsides to both. 2D is great for small projects but is more difficult to scale the more unique drawings you have to do. You also get diminishing returns if you make your team larger and larger. Pokemon was always going to have to make the jump to 3D because of the increasing number of Pokemon, but it could've been done more smoothly.
>>42174874The Cyndaquil line's flames come out when they're in battle. It'd be a trivial change to make it like that in the 3D games, and have them be off for camp/amie/refresh/whatever petting game.
In general battles could be improved by more dynamic idle animations.
>>42186591Old gen Pokemon are an interesting case when it comes to designs. Since the sprites were made before clear reference sheets, and the anime heavily influenced Sugimori's revised art, what do you use as the basis for a new game? The anime's designs for first gen Pokemon basically became their designs, and it also influenced fans on how a Pokemon should move and sound.
There have also been many cases throughout the years were proportions and colors have shifted. Even in the 3D games there's great inconsistencies. Look at Dugtrio's art, the sprites, the textures in the game, how it's colored in the anime, and then the same thing for Alolan Dugtrio. Alolan Dugtrio is very saturated in its art--compared to original Dugtrio. And if you look at the anime, Shuffle sprites, and party sprites, it has similar colors. But it's very washed out in the game textures.
tl;dr the games have never been consistent and using Sugimori/Ohmori's art as the sole reference for Pokemon isn't enough
