Before the days of 3D models, Pokémon were displayed in game through two-dimensional images known as sprites! These pixel-art graphics are still what many fans think of when they think of Pokémon. We're all familiar with their front sprites, but their back sprites are where things got really interesting. In this video we'll journey through the first few generations and marvel at the good, bad, and absurd Pokémon back sprites.
Check out all the early Pokémon sprites here!
www.pokencyclopedia.info/en/i...
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I never even considered the fact that the back sprites were meant to match the front in terms of pose. it genuinely never crossed my mind and I used an unevolved Pikachu in Platinum and thought it looking back to wave at me was adorable
How did you miss how bad venusaurs gen 1 backsprite is, to this day i cant even make out what im looking at o_O
It's on screen at 1:49! You might have missed it because you can't tell what the hell it is 0_o
it's a salad
Same yo
What would've changed about Gen 1 if Sugimori made official artworks first before sprites?
The original Venusaur design had its flower pointed forward like a cannon, and its body was much flatter
Can't believe you missed the part where if you took apart your gameboy and looked the screen from the inside, you'd see the Pokemon's front sprite
Underrated comedy Gold right here
@@abrarkadabrar7829Comedy Gold version and Comedy Silver version
yeah i'm genuinely surprised they added that much attention to detail.
@@abrarkadabrar7829 predictable cringe tbh
@@bearzdlc2172your reply? yeah
You missed the entire part where the backsprites were made for the japanese versions of Red and Green, which also had different frontsprites. Many cases, like Cloyster, are explained when you see the Red/Green original sprites
That's true, but only partially. Some of the back sprites match their front sprites from the japanese versions, but Pokemon like Alakazam, Machoke, and Hitmonlee are still inconsistent. I also wanted to save the japanese games because they're an entire rabbit hole to go down. EDIT: Now my question is why they would go through the effort of changing the front sprites between Red/Green, Red/Blue, and Yellow, but not change any of the back sprites outside of minor color updates. Just another situation where I would love to be in the room where these conversations took place.
@@shepskydad the gold/silver 1997 demo revealed that some front sprites from the blue version had matching back sprites, but they were in a different size format, 48x48 pixels, so they couldn't backport these back sprites to the 28x28 pixel 2x upscaled format that red/green use. (it is possible, modders have done it, game freak could have done it too but my theory is that they kept the red/green back sprite format to prevent desyncs in the battle engine when blue or yellow is linked with red/green due to having to load larger sprites)
@@CyanSixFour Don't forget that Japanese Red, Green, and Blue were half the ROM size of later versions and could barely fit in the data they had, so larger sprites may have turned out to not be an option yet.
It's kind of nuts how good Crystal's sprites are across the board when you consider they only had 2 colors per sprite (4 total, but 2 are always black and white). Glad they got to fix some of the funny GS mistakes like with Raikou and Entei's designs and the funny brain Forretress thing.
I think that’s part of the reason people love having the newer mons put into older roms. It’s such an appealing art style.
Hey Shayy, fancy seeing you here. And yeah, I agree.
Surprised seeing you here shayy
@@shepskydad You’re a mook😒
4:40 I actually know what happened with Sneasel’s color palette! Sneasel underwent a very drastic last minute design change from being… well, a pretty generic weasel with a blue and brown coloring, to the Sneasel we know and love within the last few weeks of development. It’s likely in their rush, they either didn’t have time to or neglected to change sneasel’s color palette from the original brown and blue to the new black and red.
I'm gonna be a hot take. I prefer the brown with blue feathers. I wish that they updated the shiny to look like that as an homage
@@ArthurTRead Shiny hisuian sneasel and sneasler have very similar colors to the og colors of sneasel
I'd like to point out that Sneasel's color if you look at the officially art it actually kept the blue technically. Sneasel's fur is closer to blue-black or navy blue than to full on black.
the blue fur looked like ice so I like that color pallette as well
Swampert's back sprite will never not be funny to me. My boy really needs to get its arm checked, stat.
No lie, it took YEARS for me to see Swampert the way they intended. I always saw him as a chonk.
Gen 3? Yeah, I guess I also thought he was chonky too. But I guess I chalked it up to him being the more defensive of the Gen 3 starters.
The one fang on your dog mascot being transparent is throwing me off LOL
then it has done its job
I REMEMBER JETIX! I thought it was a fever dream. Here in Brazil it was after Fox Kids and before Disney XD (as you said). I'm the only person that I know that remembers that channel.
Porra eu lembro quando trocou de fox kids pra jetix e eu crianço todo confuso "não vai passar mais Digimon então?"
BR à vontade curtindo o comentário, todo mundo aqui que é 30 ou 35+ lembra kkkk
jetix was goated af
I remember watching power rangers constantly on it in latin america
Big Yin Yang Yo fan here
Friendly reminder the oddities for gen 1 back sprites has to do with the Japanese Red and Green front sprites being what they used for the back sprites!
I always appreciated that Gamefreak gave a promising design in Mawile, with the Pokemon theoretically looking normal and more visible from the back, and just following through on that promise. Gen 3's back-sprite for Mawile still satisfies me to this day.
I remembered Jetix! That's where I would watch Digimon growing up.
I thought that I was weird for thinking that Exeggutor had 6 heads, but now I'm learning that it actually did used to!
I don't see why it would be an issue if the Pokemon's front and back sprites don't 'match'. It's just the Pokemon adopting a different pose and imo it makes it less monotonous than if it was the exact same pose, but from the back.
exactly. they aren’t like an artist turnaround, they don’t have to match. they’re supposed to be living animals with static sprites and ive never been bothered by them not “matching”
I don't think it's an issue when a pokemon has a different position from it's front to back sprites. Different proportion? Yeah that's an issue, but pokemon are meant to be living things that move. Not statues. It makes sense they'd take multiple poses.
i agree. i never made the assumption that they’re holding the same pose consistently, just that it’s supposed to resemble well.. the back of the pokemon, obviously. it’d feel pretty weird too if i were fighting a pikachu with my own pikachu and both were standing identically
i liked the compilation of bird pokemon screaming at the top of their lungs. typical bird behavior
I remember, when I was a kid, catching a new pokemon and going to the pokedex to look at the back sprite was always a highlight. I liked imagining using them in battle, even if I was actually just going to leave them in the PC box. I actually like when it's different from the front sprite, it's like it goes from menacing to waiting for your command, it's always fun noticing the differences. Anyways, thank you for reminding me of that!
I always have PTSD when I see the 3rd gen Feraligatr sprite... I started with Gold and that was my favorite pokemon, I didn't have Colosseum so much effort went in getting it on Emerald with help from people with the other games for exclusives... My heart sank after it evolved and I peeped dat ass. Anyone who saw it would laugh. How could they let that get by?!
I refuse to accept this slander towards Pikachu looking back at me in the Gen 4 animation. It’s cute, like it’s waving back to me like “yo, we got this, buddy!” The rest of the takes were accurate, though.
Surprised you didn't mention the fact that all (or at least most) of the Gen 1 and 2 mons reused the same backsprites from GSC in RSE
1:40 gen 1 specifically had all of its back sprites made for their first vision(s) in Red/Green. There's a whole sheet of front view sprites unique to the games that you may find better match their respective backsides. This idea is apparently maintained in the spaceworld demo - patterns like these lead me to believe there were several different graphic artists between games but I wouldn't know
Gen 5’s animations is always the best ever for me, according to it was my first time when I saw Pokemon can move for entire battle that was so impressive ☺️
I always liked Dustox more than Beautifly solely because Dustox was purple
That's the one time out of ten where you should use it :)
I like Dustox more than Beautifly because moths are better than butterflies
Is liking Dustox more an unpopular opinion? I’ve always preferred Dustox over Beautifly.
When talking about the Generation 1 sprites, they were clearly designed to be parallel with the Red and Green sprites and then unchanged thereafter. A lot of the problem sprites actually make more sense when viewed through that lens.
8:27 "Huntail, which... ... is high out of it's mind" Hey cmon now that's just what he always looks like 😂
To make it even worse I specifically DIDN'T blame Cherubi for how it looked. Sorry Huntail!
Damn. I haven't thought about Jetix in about a decade and a half. It was amazing. Watched a lot of Digimon, American Dragon: Jake long, Jackie Chan Adventures, Oban Star Racers, and more. Lots of great memories there.
What I like about this sort of videos is how it opens your eyes to stuff you'd never notice on your own. Those gen 2 Donphan, Kingler and Piloswine sprites never felt weird before, but I'll never look at them the same. It's funny how when you're a kid your imagination fills in so many gaps in design.
Jetix is something I do vaguely remember, like it was Toon Disney as it's own block if I remember right. It was hard to beat Toonami though, lol.
When I was a kid, my friend let me borrow their old Red version. I was too dumb to know how to check the party screen. I went into battle and threw out an orange blob with a white spike on its head. I had no idea what pokemon "Bear" was.
now I'm curious as to which one that is lmao
@@alecrutz6979 Sounds like Charmeleon's gen I back sprite to me.
The Gen 1 Scyther backsprite is not grinning, the line is his nose/snout edge detail he also has in the frontsprite. The backsprite actually has its mouth open if you look closely
I mean, a lot of the back sprites, MOST of them, are because they're reflective of Red and Green.....
Crystal changed Xatu, Delibird, and W Unown's sprites to match their modern designs, but forgot to change the back sprites to match.
2:26 First, wow Oddish's Gen 1 back sprite is creepy. Second, this bit about the eyes got me way harder than it should have. I always knew back sprites in Pokémon could be,,, weird. But I'd actually forgotten how unsettling some of them could be. Thanks(?) for the reminder lmao. But glad to see Cubone being a cutie regardless of generation.
Cubone’s sprite makes all the time spent looking at Jynx worth it.
You unlocked long lost memories with that Pucca mention.
8:06 Pchal would like a word with you from the nuzlocke community.
I also have to wonder about sneasel's colour change. It actually looks more like an ice type with the original colouration, so why it would be updated to have its feathers changed to a warm colour is beyond me.
Pokemon Blue/Red/Yellow back spirtes are related to the front sprites of japanese Green/Red versions. That's why Geodude got its arms this way seen from back, or Ekans.
Broo…… you put into words my whole childhood focus on using those whose back sprites looked the best! Agree 100% on all what you said… jeez subscribed. I had seldom heard anyone acknowledge the changes in back sprites from gold to crystal
Man chill really nice video congrats
Gen 1 Rattata’s back sprite still haunts me to this day
I remember Lugia's gen 4 back sprite spooked me a bit when I was younger. He's so angry. Also find it odd his gen 5 back sprite has no eye.
I don't know why but when I was younger I always thought than in Salamence's first back sprite that his jaw was the lower blue part near his head
8:36 I can vividly remember the announcement of the jetix and disney merger many many years ago as a kid. Thanks for the throwback!
something you didn't mention is how RS has a lot of back sprites directly grabbed from gen 2, recolored and slightly expanded
I'm willing to be the backsprites having a different pose from the front sprites is so it doesn't look odd battling the same Pokemon. Two Alakazam looking at each other with their spoons up would just look weird
I'm surprised you didn't mention Sizor. WHY DID THEY COMPLETELY OMIT HIS WINGS!? It legitimately irks and frustrates me from wanting to use him because he's missing his heckin' wings! 😢
You unlocked a core memory for me with that Jetix reference
I love pokemon back shots!
Tauros in gen 2 was pretty sub parr. Worthy of at least an honorable mention of being a literal acorn looking thing.
I like certain examples of the 'big guy with a cropped out backsprite' like Donphan, I think it makes them feel much bigger. Its not a perfect illusion, but having a prim little donphan that fit primly into the corner of the screen wouldn't sell it for me.
Im pretty sure the Gen 2 sprite changes are because G/S could be played on GB so they changed the palletes to be visible on GB but since crystal was only on GBC they could use the intended colors
First and this looks like an interesting video definitely will watch it when i have the time. Also can you pls start making more analysis vids on the poll pokemon competitions. Much love to you and Shepsky and also big time legends Z-A Hypeee !!!! ❤❤🎉
Most of the gen1 back sprites make more sense when further keeping in mind that they were designed to match the front sprites in the original Japanese green/red, whereas the international red/blue releases used the front sprites from the later Japanese blue revision.
I always chose my pokemon based on their back sprite, and i genuinely never heard anyone else say this
Seviper really does have one of the best backsprites ever. It always stuck with me.
One back sprite change that sticks out in my mind the moment I think about them is Floatzel’s. It’s like the artists couldn’t decide whether or not they wanted its mouth open in DP so they were like “both”. Especially confusing since the front didn’t have an open mouth. Super glad they decided in Platinum, especially because a Floatzel ended up being on my team in that game! Really awesome and fun video!
Floatzel's back sprite has always been super cool :) Easy pickup at Valley Windworks almost every playthrough
Even though you didn't like it, thank you for including Gold/Silver Sneasel. Its such a cool, underrated, colour scheme and I'll never understand why they decided to drop that instead of the "neon" shiny.
There is a story behind Sneasel, and it's utterly fascinating. Gold and Silver had two distinct development periods - one starting in 1996 and ending around 1997, and a rebooted development in late 1998. Sneasel was one of the earliest designs made, but it looked very different, being a cute little brown cartoon weasel with a feather tail. All signs would point to Sneasel already being scrapped early on, but it would seem there was a call from the anime department for Gen 2 designs that looked cute, resulting in an early Sneasel, Togepi, Snubbull, an early Aipom and Leafeon making it in the 1997 roster (this explaining why their Pokédex positions were so weird, being after Ho-Oh, who was meant to be the game's Mewtwo equivalent). Cut to 1999, we see the weasel Sneasel design slightly touched up, looking more mischievous and now being blue with brown highlights, but it's not that much different. It's clear that the design they had was just too generic, and they tried doing a lot of things to change it up. They gave it an even more fierce look, they removed its feather tail. One design even changed the thing to have Sonic the Hedgehog quills, I kid ye not. Presumably from here, a new designer stepped in, giving Sneasel it's current design, but it was a bit sketchy. However, by the time this happened, the game was supposed to come out a month later. They added Sneasel's final design, but they didn't have time to decide a new palette for it, resulting in Sneasel adopting its brown and blue palette from its older design. You can generally tell what Pokémon went through design Hell by whether or not they lack a unique Silver sprite. The Legendary Beasts all had a Silver sprite at one point, but Entei and Suicune's looked horrible, whilst Raikou's was great - but it was using an older design. Raikou is fascinating because the guy tasked with redesigning the beasts openly admitted, whilst Suicune and Entei's designs came pretty much immediately, Raikou was harder to design. Whilst Entei and Suicune only had two distinct designs (with their final designs only needing touch ups in Crystal), Raikou went through something like 6 (this is counting Crystal, which was quite a redesign), 5 of which we get to see (the designer describes a design in which it'd have the God of Thunder drums on its back). If you're ever bored, give the Cryptodex a read, it goes into great detail about the scrapped and redesigned Gen 2 Pokémon, and is such a fascinating read.
So many of these are completely indecipherable Lmfao. A quiz for identifying them would be brutal!
Now THIS is the niche pokemon topic i NEED
I feel like many of the gen1 inconsistencies are because of the difference between Red and Green and Blue (and Red). They did change the front sprites for the Japanese Blue version, which was then turned into the international releases of gen1. But they didn't change the backsprites. So maybe (!) the Pokemon's poses used in the backsprites matches the poses for their Green version front sprites.
So I gave the Green sprites a quick check, and it definitely works out. For many it doesn't make much of a difference, but pretty much all of the most egregious examples are explained. For example: Golem's arms are in line with the original front sprite, Cloyster is upright in the original front sprite, Exeggcute's eggs are all the same size, Scyther works out with a bit of perspective shifting, among others. So yeah, I feel vindicated.
glad you did a video about this
So why It take too long like 10 years for a mainline Pokémon game to get a 3D game? And why did people get mad when the xy models came out? And why since legends Arceus and Scarlet and Violet the models were completly changed?
The Pokémon company is the poster child for having their priorities out of line
Because the XY models are animated horribly. And the colors are super desaturated. It completely lacks all of the life and energy that the gen 5 sprites had.
I’m not trashing on the modern models as most of them are fine but you also have to remember that 3D Pokémon were already a thing in games like Stadium 1&2, Colosseum and Battle Revolution. The models in those games had more personality and animations to them.
Something funny about the Gen 2 frontsprites is that some changed between the Japanese release and the international release. For example, Sneasel's white dot on its chest that changes to red with the Crystal sprite wasn't even there in the Japanese version. From what I've noticed, most Japanese sprites that were changed have similar changes to add a little more to the design like belly patches. It was really strange to notice because it's not that obvious side by side but you can tell by the international and Crystal changes that they really were pushing in development to fit everything in.
gen 2 pichu's backsprite is a fun one, it's cool to see the whole body in a sprite for once :p
Keep in mind all the back sprites in gen1 where made for the red and green front sprites not the red and blue or yellow sprites Also any colour at all was an after thought
Yeah. I mean they admittedly were still inconsistent, but they definitely match the look, form, and... quality... of the front sprites from the original.
You’re insane for liking shaded Cherrim more than Cherubi. The little face is so cute, bro is just vibing
Not a Pokemon back sprite specifically, but on Gen 1 the perspective and shading always made me think Red was sitting cross-legged as a kid and even now I have to actively remind my brain that he’s not when I’m looking at it.
Gen 1 back sprites are from the Japanese red and green American Red and Blue were based on Japanese Blue which had new front sprites similar to Yellow But that’s why the front sprites don’t match up very well
I chose "Pokemon art development" as my topic for speech class. This video reminded me of another angle I can approach the topic from (literally). (And I remember Jetix was a thing that existed, but I don't remember actually watching stuff from it.)
Tbh 8:26 it was probably a revamp of gen 2 sprites in gen 3 (ruby and sapphire)
I never considered "inconsistent" back sprites to be a thing, at all. Why would they need to have the same pose as the front sprite? For clarity, sure, but it isn't outright a mistake or oversight.
You’re right! It’s just a man on the internet being nitpicky 😅
@@shepskydadoh hey, now that you're here and I saw the whole video, I do wanna commend you on the interesting topic choice, smooth editing and easygoing script 👍 I definitely do miss how engaging it was sending out a Pokemon for the first time and being introduced to a whole new depiction of it.
in the case of frlg's wartortle and similar cases: my headcanon is subtle regional variants!!
I'm not sure how I found your channel but I am glade that I did😂😂😂
This is absolutely my kind of Video
Dude I thought I was in the Twilight Zone for years. Palkia is CLEARLY phallic. And I can't believe I never saw anyone mention it before this LOL
I like when pokemon look back at me at the start og the battle. Lopunny and croagunk are 2 of my favorites!
I think with sneasles case, the one in gold/silver technically wasn’t finished yet, so when they got to crystal, the finalized it
Someone once told me that scyther's gen 1 back sprite looks like a dinosaur holding a banana and I've never been able to unsee it since.
My favorite new back sprite is Seaking's firered sprite. It's so hilarious how he looks on in sheer horror at the pokemon in front of him no matter what pokemon it is. It's also fitting for such a terrible pokemon to be scared of everything.
8:40 holy shit you somehow just revived a buried memory of mine
To me personally Gen 5 has the best overall in battle sprites, I really liked the repetitive movement and with Gen 6 they kind of killed a number of in battle sprites like Typhlosion
I still remember when Jetix turned into Disney XD. That was actually around the same time as when the gen 5 anime started airing in France iirc
How do you make a video about about Pokémon back sprites and don't acknowledge that front sprites were redone in gen 1 when releasing outside Japan but the back sprites WERE NOT? That's the reason why some back sprites don't respect the pose in the front sprite, they used the original Japanese back sprites from the moment they released Red and Green in Japan all the way till Yellow.
This will life rent free on the back of my head
The reason for Sneasel's color change was that it was finished just barely before release and still using the colors from a previous design that was a more "realistic" cat/weasel thing
UNIRONICALLY, BETA SNEASEL STUCK FOR LIKE 3 YEARS AND SUDDENLY CHANGED.
Exeggutor's back sprite in FRLG makes me wish it stayed that way until Gen 4. It's just so fitting and simply perfect.
I appreciate a video like this. Back sprites don't get much love. They can arguably be much harder to pull off. One additional reason why Gen 1 backsprites look horrible is that they used 2x2 blocks of pixels which cut down the amount of possible detail in half. It's supposed to make the sprites look like they're closer but I never liked the way it looked. It just results in a blocky mess. The problem with a Pokémon like Wailord is that the sprites are only ever cut from bottom. They can't crop from other directions since they're not connected to the UI like the bottom is. This in turn means that they didn't have a good way of utilizing the top half of the available space due to the width of the Pokémon. Trying to fit it more vertically would make it look even worse.
Gen 2 has my favourite sprites of the whole franchise. I especially love the small pokemon like oddish and togepi who basically has their whole body on the field.
the back sprites of gen 1 are inconsistent since game freak didnt update the back sprites for red and blue, unlike the front sprites
I wish the back sprites got updated in yellow not just the front sprites.
I hate to admit but as a kid if a Pokémon had an ugly back sprite or one that didn’t show them off well I would not want to use them on my team as much lol
Seeing the clip at 6:35 used out of context is strangely funny to me.
Love how more unhinged (but not overbearing) you're becoming
The red and blur front sprites the western world got were already reworked from red and green. The back sprites line up with those and were reused
Don't fret, they also showed Digimon on Jetex.
Where the Jetix fan base at?
9:43 whoa that's some thick-ass outlines on that hand
Now THIS…. this is what I call content
Great video
Venomoth looking like he just caught a glimpse of Fernaligator