Lucario/Riolu in Gen 1

Here's a dive into attempting to make a Sinnoh Pokémon look... worse?

If there are 2 words I can use to describe the original gen 1 monster sprites, it's awkwardly charismatic.

• Gen 1 pixel art were designed before the artworks were cemented, at least during Red and Green's development. So that probably means I have to pixel it without any existing refs and on the spot...

• Next up was getting the flats in, limited to the Game Boy's palette. These shades of blues were used on Lapras, Tentacruel and Squirtle, to name a few examples. The hurdle for this bit was figuring out why some of the highlights looked really random... every dot has a purpose, right?

• The funny thing about attempting this is that you have to purposefully be bad at spriting the critters, meaning it can't be too on model (fuuuuu). I've also included an earlier version of a Riolu here. The cutesy demeanour was toned down, and the angle slightly tilted. This one looked too gen 2, if that made sense.

• Designing back sprites also rang true to the above: gotta look bad on purpose, but also resemble the Pokémon! Only crunchier!

• Being more comfortable with the pixel style of the gen 1 game's, I went for a second round. They... ended up looking like the leaked Space World demo 'mons so I rolled with it! Not much to say about these since it was pretty smooth sailing. The Space World demo's sprites have the qualities of both the Kanto and Johto titles - jank but it's refined in a great way.

• Here's some early back sprite outlines. Hi doggy!

• The major roadblock this time around was getting the scale of Riolu's evolution to look right. The sprite may look awesome (for 1997?), but it looks smaller when compared to the base form!

• This back sprite went through so many iterations and it wasn't until the 5th one that I got the perspective down - something that the Space World demo does amazingly at.

And there you have it, the genwunnification of a Sinnoh Pokémon!

If you are an avid rom patching enthusiast, you can use these sprites!

Be sure to shrink the above set down by 25% (it's zoomed in at 4x the original resolution), with nearest neighbour enabled. I've also included the other unused sprites, just in case!

Phew, I apologise if this rambled on for too long, this is as concise as I can put it 🙇‍♂️

I hope this can substitute for this month's reflective piece, hah!

Take care.