Before Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee‘s announcement, many fans of the Pokemon series were hoping for a Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remake, following the “new game, remake, new game” trend the series has loosely followed since Ruby and Sapphire. In the absence of an official re-imagining of the Sinnoh region, one fan has created their own remake (or, more accurately, their own demake) of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl sprites in the style of classic Game Boy sprites.
Reddit user u/SharkGuy01 posted an image of their Pokemon Diamond and Pearl demake sprites to the Pokemon subreddit yesterday. SharkGuy01 recreated every monster in Sinnoh’s Regional Pokedex in the style of the original games, complete with the odd proportions that gave us the beloved thick Pikachu. Many of the sprites are messy and misshapen, but that’s exactly what they should be. Standout designs include Rampardos, whose arched body takes up most of its allotted pixel space, Infernape, whose Game Boy rendition has a strangely oblong snout, and Bidoof, who has beady little black eyes, making it look like the worthless, starting-area Bug Pokemon it is at heart.
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When asked how they were able to make the designs suitably “busted AF” in order to make them look like first-generation Pokemon designs, SharkGuy01 told Reddit user u/mwriteword they simply “just wing it.” SharkGuy01 also said they might follow up these beautifully ugly designs with back sprites for each.
While the upcoming Pokemon Sword and Shield games have seen more hesitation than most Pokemon releases on account of their lack of a National Pokedex and their lackluster graphics, the announcement of new monsters like Pokemon Sword’s Sirfetch’d has still created positive buzz around the titles. This hype was enough to get 27,000 fans to tune in to a 24-hour Pokemon Twitch stream, which showed short glimpses of a Galarian Ponyta.
