I've been wanting to try writing for a while now and being stuck in a place with nothing to do left me to think about stuff. One of these things was Pokemon Red/Blue/Green and to a lesser extent Yellows sprites and how, it's a style I rarely, if ever see truly replicated.
I remember first evolving my Pidgeotto whilst on the bus to Spain and getting jumpscared by the sprite. The sprite itself pretty much exemplifies why I love RB's sprite style. It looks off from the official design in a very uncanny, fascinating way. The face looks bunched up and the eyes take on a strange crescent shape of joy. It's also really chunky like an actual pigeon. The eyes especially fascinate me for some reason, like it's happy to a point where it's face is deformed.
I think another amazing example of this would probably be Moltres and Articuno in both their RG and RB sprites. Articuno feels otherworldy, in it's RB sprite the eyes feel unnatural, I can's really tell if it's like a big eye or a small beady one. as a kid I could barely tell what it's eye were at all. and the pose is also strangely ethereal.
Surprisingly Green's Articuno sprite is not as strange, still off model, I've heard it compared to Togetik but I don't think I would've been creeped out by this nearly as much. Still a bit probably though.
Onto Moltres, This sprite is also kind of unnerving. Ignoring how hard it is to tell where the head flame and wings separate. One thing I notice here is that the eye doesn't really look like it has a pupil, it looks like a black sphere kind of like a bug with eyelids. I think the part I focus on here and with most of these sprites is the faces, again strangely uncanny. The wings seem really stretched and the fire aspect seems only slightly there. I also like the somewhat glaring light highlighting across it's wing to it's face, even the tip of the beak seems to glow bright. I especially like the long streaks of white on it's outward wing.
Moltres's green sprite is lanky, with weirdly human looking, half closed eyes (Not even sure if that's the right way to describe them.) that look oddly big. The wings appear like they're mid flap as though it's about to take off but it's face doesn't seem to match that interpretation.
Weirdly calm with the harsh highlights across it's body, including it's eyelid giving me vibes similar to when the camera zooms in on Rap Rat The shading on this sprite especially makes it look like a cooked chicken, the flames on it's wings look scraggily, more flame like too.
I spent most of my time with gen 1 of Pokémon replaying through up to beating Celadon gym, would always get stuck there not knowing how to get through Rocket Game Corner or if I was supposed to even go through there. Not to mention I'd always find a way to lose my save data whilst doing this, so the second half of the game felt tantalizing to me. tne day after countless playthroughs I managed to clear the game corner, then got through Pokemon Tower, facing first Rocket Grunt.
after the build up of 2 Zubats I come face to face with this sprite, the feeling was very similar to Pidgeot, caught me extremely off guard. I think everyone knows why this sprite feels so strange, the tongue flailing out of It's mouth making it look like it's running straight at you (And the giant teeth to a lesser extent).
again with the eyes, though this time narrowed out with less large pupils. I guess the wings are also small but that's barely noticable compared to the rest of it.
Arbok's sprite was always interesting to me, the reasons why are very similar to Articuno though. The effect mostly comes from the eyes again, so big there is no room left for the mouth. Don't know if the uncanny valley is the right word, don't want to boil all these explanations down to the word uncanny but weird plasticky lighting adds to the creepiness, especially the shine around the eyes, makes them seem like they're surrounded with shiny bags of skin. It also seems really thin around the hood, more inline with actual cobras I guess, all comes together to make it look sickly and frail, but deceptively so. Like a zombie
Green Charmander stands out to me, at least among the starters.it's nose is much more bulbous than usual, giving it a peanut shaped head. again the lighting makes it seem as if the skull is stretching out over it's eyes, beyond the base of the head. As a kid I always interpreted it's eyes as solid black with the whites being light shining on them. That interpretation is strengthened by the biggest part of the whites being where the fire is.