3. Venusaur

Venusaur has a whole tree on its back! Part of me can’t get over that. It also has possibly the widest head in the Pokémon universe.

But there’s another part of me that’s like, what, only a tree? I know the original 151 pokemon are sacred and untoppable and all, but I mean… three generations later, Venusaur gets kind of one-upped by Torterra, who lugs topography around on its shell:

Then again, all pokemon are predated by the fantasy work of Wayne Douglas Barlowe, whose many creations include something called “Grove-backs,” who sleep in the ground long enough for whole ecosystems to grow, flourish, and die on top of them, before emerging like so:

If you haven't read Barlowe's book Expedition, it's really the foremost word on, um. Imagined alien animals.

Anyway, now that I’ve completely undermined the visual impact of Venusaur sprites, let’s get back on topic!

The Winner:

HeartGold and SoulSilver

Ladies and gentlemen, do not be alarmed. This is not a giant, legendary version of Venusaur. This is the size of every Venusaur on the DS. This sprite is huge! And perhaps it’s not fair to judge it as such versus earlier models, which obviously didn’t have the DS’ resolution to work with. But that’s just how it goes sometimes; the DS was able to utilize its technology to best capture how Venusaur is ready to crush us underfoot.

Not that other sprites haven’t been good; I like the ones showing its mouth wide open, lending some action and letting us stare down Venusaur’s massive gullet. But what I don’t dig is Gold and Silver’s neon green and pink color palette, and Ruby/Sapphire’s utter lack of detail on the mouth’s interior. C’mon dudes, even Red and Blue’s artists could draw a tongue. Then there’s Diamond and Pearl’s, which wears altogether too creepy a grin. As a guardian-of-the-forest type, Venusaur should either be stoic or pissed, not… whatever that face is. Let’s call it “hungry hungry hippo with a mean streak.”

In contrast, that’s probably what I like most about this one: it’s angry, but solemn.

2. Ivysaur

We were all scared of poison ivy as kids, right? Every time we walked through bushes, the fear was we’d trip or something and get a faceful of it. Well, imagine poison ivy could run up and bite you. Or strangle you with magically extendable, opposable vines. That’s Ivysaur in a nutshell. Scary stuff!

But I guess part of the challenge with Ivysaur is making her look like more than just an overgrown Bulbasaur. Some of these kind of fail at that. Like, I’m not sure what the Ruby and Sapphire sprite’s deal is. On the one hand, it’s sitting, as if for circle time in a Pokémon daycare. On the other hand, it looks pissed, like “What, you want me to stand for this?”

I also enjoy the facial expression on the Silver sprite: incredulous, one eye half squinting, it says “What the fuck is this??” Ivysaur’s pretty gangster, in case you didn’t know.

More recent sprites get a bit more boring and can’t seem to decide what color Ivysaur even is. Green? Blue? It alternates.

The Winner:

Yellow

It’s no coincidence my two favorite Ivysaur sprites are also the two tallest: Yellow’s and Diamond and Pearl’s. That’s because they pay so much pixel service to the big blooming flora on the thing’s back—you know, the stuff that sets Ivysaur apart and makes players anticipate its final evolution. D/P Ivysaur has a pretty dynamic shape and good shading, but something makes Yellow Ivysaur stick out. It’s got a sleekness… the pitch-black shadows beneath its leaves… and unlike all the other sprites, it doesn’t look merely angry or annoyed. It looks... mischievous. It’s narrowed eyes are almost uncomfortably sultry.

... I am not a furry, by the way, I just want to throw that out there.

1. Bulbasaur

I’m going through the ringer: all original 151 (and I might not stop there), each lined up as above in an “evolution of man” style procession. The order of the sprites, by game, will be as follows: Red and Green (Japan only); Red and Blue; Yellow (Gameboy Color woo); Gold; Silver (one for each version, quite ambitious); Ruby and Sapphire; FireRed and LeafGreen; Diamond and Pearl; Platinum; HeartGold and SoulSilver. Now you won’t always see ten sprites, since they often get reused between games of the same generation (D/P and Platinum for instance). And I’ll probably just leave out the weird pseudo-animated Crystal and Emerald ones so they don’t throw off the nice sequence. We don’t need no animation! /brickinthewall

Of course, the next-gen games (Black and White) will feature fully animated sprites in battle. With that in mind, I guess I’m doing this in part as one last send-off to a bygone era, where one frame of a few hundred pixels was somehow all the imagination needed to bring these pokemon to life. Some did the trick better than others. Future pixel artists take note! Sometimes it’s not a matter of resolution or palette size, but of characterization. In my opinion the Pokémon games have generally gotten better over time, not worse, but those early games did whip up some mean artwork that we can’t be throwing out with the bathwater.

I’ll try to keep these short, but here I’ve blown two paragraphs on introductory rambling. Sorry about that, Bulbasaur. You’re really pretty cute Bulbasaur, in your gruff and raspy sort of way.

Bulbasaur’s short and squat so they’ve had to do a good job of instilling movement in his sprites to keep him from looking like a toad in repose (that’s what Bulbasaur’s supposed to be, right, a toad? I’ve always thought of him as a dinosaur-type thing, must be the name). And wouldn’t you know it, his classic Red and Blue sprite is jumping! That’s right, Charmander and Squirtle can saunter about looking tall and skinny all they want, but Bulbasaur is a man of action. And he doesn’t stop there. R/S and D/P Bulbasaurs have a cool handstand thing going on (I know, they’re supposed to be bounding, it’s just the angle), and HG/SS Bulbasaur is being all sneaky.

Meanwhile, see the Yellow sprite for how not to draw a Bulbasaur. It looks like someone’s angry grandmother, complete with liver spots.

The Winner:
Gold

Everything came together for this one. The 2-tone palette was just sufficient to capture the fiery passion in the eyes. He appears to be in mid-stride, but not about to topple over forwards. His stance is wide and powerful. And perhaps most importantly, his eponymous bulb is angled slightly toward the viewer. Who knows what kind of reproductive spores he’s ready to unleash from that thing. *shudder*

Second place is shared between Red/Blue and stealth mode Bulbasaurs.