"[Analysis] Why Gens 6-7 "feel" different from Gens 1-5"

I've been hearing this a lot around the internet lately, people talking about how Gen 6 and 7 just felt different from the older pokemon games, how ORAS was done dirty and didn't feel like a proper remake like HGSS or FRLG, and why some people are saying that Gen 4 remakes won't be able to live up to the originals + HGSSAfter hearing these I began to wonder why people felt that way, including myself. Could it be the small number of new pokemon with a lot of "remixes" on older mons(Megas and Alolan forms)? Could it be the strangely high amount of single evo pokemon with weird snowflakey typingsyou look at this and tell me "grass / ghost type". Could it be the more handholdy nature of the game with the exp share autoleveling everyone and trainers usually having 1 pokemon, making the game feel like it plays itself? Could it be the lack of evolutions to past pokemon like in Gens 2 and 4? Is it the more manic circus house meta with weird looking pokemon with unbalanced stats? Could it be the lack of spinoffs and side games that were prevelant in Gens 3-5?I'm not here to discount any of those, but I believe I found something bigger as to why the last few gens feel different: the artstyle has gradually shifted with the series, starting in Gen 4 and becoming most noticeable in Gen 6.Here me out here.The older pokemon have a more mundane, grotesque, and "realistic" style to them, while newer pokemon are more cartoony and stylized. Take a look at Growlithe vs Lillipup(no hate to either they were my fav pokemons in each gen). They both have similar designs, but take a closer look at the styles they are drawn in. Growlithe has more realistic proportions to an irl dog, it's got more spiky fur and rough lines in it's art. Meanwhile, Lillipup is much more rounded, having almost entirely round bobs of fur, along with a disproportionately giant head and ears.After doing some digging around, I've found that the pokemon designs for Gens 1-3 all looked like this, with being around Gen 4 that the style started to shift, with pokemon like Floatzel, Pachirisu, Shinx, the starters especially sharing this style. But people always group gen 4-5 in with 1-3, because with the spritework, they still tried to capture the pokemon in more realistic depictions.Take a look at Gen 3 Eevee, Gen 4 Eevee, Gen 6 Eevee, and Eevee's official artwork. With the jump to 3d, pokemon had to change their style to fit the new models instead of the sprites, giving everyone the more cartoony style. For older pokemon like Eevee, this didn't really fit well, it's head and fur suddenly are disproportionately large, and it just has this blank stare on it's face throughout the game. The change in art form made the previous change in art style noticeable, and made the next 2 gens of pokemon feel off compared to the past. This is also probably why people say Mystery Dungeon Gates to Infinty doesn't look like the old Mystery Dungeon games, the 3d ness.How can they fix this? They could return to spritework a la Sonic Mania in gen 8, albeit unlikely, they would be able to sprite all the pokemon in the older style. More likely is they could find some middle ground art style, making the new pokemon look like the older ones for the Switch games, which is more likely. Although honestly I doubt any attempt to change the art style will happen, especially after Lets Go intensified the chibi and cartoony art style and the SM anime embraced it.Tldr: Pokemon had a subtle shift in design and art styles in gen 4, and once the art style changed in Gen 6 with 3d models to reflect this, it made the latest 2 generations feel different from the first 5. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/2xMS4tL