Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl’s Art Style Is A Mistake
Pokemon chibi could probably work, but not like this
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Category : Pokemon
My mind had suppressed Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl’s chibi-style aesthetic. Gen 4 is one of my least favourite generations, at least in terms of mainline games, but I’ve been trying my best to be excited for giving it another chance. Pokemon Pearl was the one Pokemon game I played in that awkward middle phase of your teenage years where you hate everything you loved as a kid, and you’re not quite mature enough to admit that actually, it’s proper good, that kid stuff.
The issue is that Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl isn’t leaning into that proper good kid stuff. The aesthetic isn’t consistent throughout the game, and constantly switches between the chibi-style we’ve seen in trailers and something closer to Sword & Shield in battles. That, plus the allure of revisiting an old Pokemon game that will feel relatively fresh has been enough to maintain my hype. Then I saw the latest trailer. Nope, I don’t dig this chibi thing at all.
I don’t mind chibi as an artstyle. It has its place, and a lot of chibi aesthetics can feel inventive, bouncy, and creative. Pokemon just looks like it was never made for chibi in the first place. I mean, look at Volkner. That’s the big issue here: most of the trainers translate well to chibi. Cynthia, Cheryl, and Riley all look decent enough – in fact, Riley looks made for chibi with his overexaggerated hair, long coat, and floppy hat. But when things look bad in chibi, they look awful. I bet Volkner won’t be the only one done dirty.
It just doesn’t feel deliberate. Not only was the game originally not designed with chibi in mind, the remake doesn’t feel all that committed to being chibi either. It looks, from the fact it switches between chibi and not chibi, the pedestrian interpretation of most characters, and the bland colour scheme, like an afterthought. Chibi is the closest halfway house between the original pixel sprites and the modern day 3D graphics we expect from Pokemon, and I guess it’ll do – that feels like the attitude.
A full commitment to chibi, leaning into all of its foibles and giving us more characters either well chibified like Riley, or so ugly it’s funny like Volkner, might have worked. Instead, it’s all just kind of nothing. And the worst part is, it isn’t even happening to the Pokemon.
Pokemon is successful for a variety of reasons. It basically invented its own take on the JRPG genre, and has fought off multiple copycats – most notably Digimon – in its 25 years. The games are enjoyable and reliable, if a little repetitive, and mainly, Pokemon has succeeded because it is Pokemon. The creatures themselves rake in millions in merchandise – while the card games are popular, the spin-offs add a slice of personality, and the base games are always going to be there for you, what Pokemon has over every other game is that it’s Pokemon. It’s the only series with Pikachu and Charizard in it, and that’s a huge selling point.
So why oh why are the Pokemon just… normal Pokemon. I mean, some are Ghost or Water or Grass, but they’re all just normal. They look like the Pokemon in Snap or Sword & Shield. Just 3D Pokemon. No attempt has been made to reinvent them, to imagine them as chibi-style caricatures. Chibi Pokemon do exist, in plushies, t-shirts, and fan art. It’s not a new concept. So why isn’t the chibi Pokemon game embracing chibi Pokemon? It’s the one reason to do chibi in the first place.
A Pokemon chibi game initially drew nothing more than a ‘meh’ from me – now that I’ve seen it, that ‘meh’ has become an ‘uh-oh’. Chibi Pika would have turned that into a ‘wow’, but as the game’s launch draws near, I’m firmly back on team ‘meh’.
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