>>50698183One of my greatest disappointments is the fact that modern pokemon games look like absolute dogshit with generic lifeless doll character designs and not like pic related. Art design is so essential to a video game, and it's clear that Sugimori's designs are what made the game the success that it is. His absence and Game Freak's complete inability/refusal to even capture in part his art style is glaring. It's bad to the point where chinese rip off gacha games look better
To be clear this isn't a question of graphics, pokemon does not need high end graphics. What it needs is an intentional and strong art design, that captures the charm and mood of the original artwork. The exception appears to be the actual pokemon designs for this upcoming gen, which are actually some of favorite designs in a long while. Here it seems that either Sugimori either continues to personally design some of them, or has cultivated a team that can create cool pokemon in their own right. It's so baffling that everything else, the people designs, the environments, etc all suck so hard.
If some nerds on twitter can make a mock up that have people unironically clamoring NINTENDO HIRE THIS MAN, you got a problem
https://twitter.com/i/status/1527576053014618112 
