>>46088461I think a lot of people miss out on the ways technology impacted the design principles of each gen. In gen 1, the fidelity of the Gameboy screen wasn't really taken into account when designing the monsters, so you have pokemon ranging from simple to higher detail. Voltorb is a world apart from, say, nidoking.
Come gen 2 they realize that they can take advantage of the ability to give pokemon colors, so each pokemon in gen 2 has very simple color pallets that correspond to existing pallets in the gbc. There are some exceptions where the system'a hardware couldn't reach the full color scheme of a design, but for the most part they knew their limits. And, like I said, they also understood that you could use distinct shapes to compensate for an inability to give pokemon too complex of patterns in their designs. I feel like Ho-oh is up there as one of the pokemon who defies these principles the most. This could be because ho-oh was designed earlier on, like a few other gen 2 mons.
Gen 3 is when designers got the chance to use multiple colors on single design. That's why gen 3 is when you start to get more decorative patterns on pokemon, like the pottery patterns on numel or the splotched tail of chimecho.
