AuthorTopic: Commercial Critique - Pokemon Red/Blue  (Read 65526 times)

Offline Ryumaru

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Commercial Critique - Pokemon Red/Blue

on: May 24, 2013, 08:37:14 am
Attention all pokemon masters! This time around we'll be taking a look at the games that started a cultural sensation that remains popular and is even releasing a 6th generation later this year!

Game: Pokemon (red and blue version)
Platform: Gameboy
Developer: Gamefreak
Publisher: Nintendo

Pokemon is an rpg that is the hallmark of many a childhood; exhibiting charming but less than optimized graphics on the gameboy handheld system. With a resolution as tiny as 160x144 and only 4 shades to use ( note: the gameboy color hardware allowed for injecting some palettes into the original greyscale pieces) concerns of readability and priority are of chief concern. What it lacks in masterful pixel work it makes up for by excelling in these categories. But is there a reason we can't have our pokecake and eat it too?




You can use the visual boy advance for emulation of this game ( on mac I prefer kiGB) and there's plenty of videos and such spread across the internets, it IS pokemon afterall! Better yet, whip out your old gameboy, find some AA's and annoy your parents by turning up the evolution music at the dinner table.


« Last Edit: May 27, 2013, 03:12:05 pm by Crow »

Offline Crow

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Re: Commercial Critique: Pokemon Red and Blue

Reply #1 on: May 24, 2013, 12:12:31 pm
Ahem.
Idea: if you want to do activities, throw me a PM. If they're good/acceptable, you can do them. Not too many at once, so I'll regulate them. I'm assuming that's okay with the other members of the staff. If there's anything wrong with that, tell me please. I'd really like to see some activity in the activity forum though ;D

Still, I approve, and will move this to the right forum. It'd be great if you could create a banner I can put up at the top right, as usual. Banner size is 150x65.

Edit: Just saw this is supposed to be a draft instead? Moved back, changed title. Tell me once you're ready to pull this through, alright?
« Last Edit: May 24, 2013, 12:20:33 pm by Crow »
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Offline Helm

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Re: [DRAFT] Commercial Critique: Pokemon Red and Blue

Reply #2 on: May 24, 2013, 12:27:54 pm
This also needs all the pokemens in a sprite sheet. I know... boring work, but important. So anyone can pick one and remake it as they wish.

Also, do you want people to follow the actual original specs?

Offline Crow

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Re: [DRAFT] Commercial Critique: Pokemon Red and Blue

Reply #3 on: May 24, 2013, 12:53:40 pm
Spriters Resource offers a sheet with all of them here. Behinds here.
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Offline Seiseki

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Re: [DRAFT] Commercial Critique: Pokemon Red and Blue

Reply #4 on: May 24, 2013, 12:57:31 pm

The pixels are off in this one.
(I hate it when photoshop does this)

Is the PKMN shortening due to the original being in japanese, and the whole translated word not fitting in?
Also, I hadn't noticed before that the foremost sprites are at a lower resolution. It's a cheap way to make them feel closer though.

The 4 color limitation, is that only per sprite?

Offline Crow

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Re: [DRAFT] Commercial Critique: Pokemon Red and Blue

Reply #5 on: May 24, 2013, 01:16:23 pm
Is the PKMN shortening due to the original being in japanese, and the whole translated word not fitting in?

The original just said ポケモン (PO-KE-MO-N), but it was on the left side, on the bottom. In the translated one, it doesn't fit on the right side with just three characters, so they made it small, too.
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Offline Seiseki

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Re: [DRAFT] Commercial Critique: Pokemon Red and Blue

Reply #6 on: May 24, 2013, 01:42:59 pm
Ah, yeah, it doesn't take up as much space with japanese characters, might be even less if they'd use kanji, but I guess they don't since it's for kids.

If the english font wasn't so wide they could have had Fight - Item - Pokemon - Run too.

Offline Crow

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Re: [DRAFT] Commercial Critique: Pokemon Red and Blue

Reply #7 on: May 24, 2013, 01:48:01 pm
Ah, yeah, it doesn't take up as much space with japanese characters, might be even less if they'd use kanji, but I guess they don't since it's for kids.

They mostly didn't use Kanji because the resolution is way too low to make them readable and not too big at the same time.
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Offline tim

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Re: [DRAFT] Commercial Critique: Pokemon Red and Blue

Reply #8 on: May 24, 2013, 02:27:11 pm
The thread needs some serious clarification. What do you ask us to do ?
Redraw a frame of pokemon ? Animate a pokemon ? Should we respect the gameboy specs ?
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Offline Carnivac

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Re: [DRAFT] Commercial Critique: Pokemon Red and Blue

Reply #9 on: May 24, 2013, 03:26:40 pm
Not a Pokemon fan at all (I had Blue when it first came out but more because a girl I liked had Red rather than anything to do with the game itself).  I was always curious though why the non-battle sections looked so vastly inferior to something like Link's Awakening (in my opinion the greatest Gameboy ever made... and the best Zelda, with Link to the Past close behind) which was released many years earlier.  The Pokemon battle sprites, at least in these early versions, just look too scrappy to me as well.  The broken black outlines, particularly noticable on the Squirtle(?) just do not work for me.
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