The Best Redesigns in Pokémon 

I loved how Archie in Alpha Sapphire just has proud pirate dad energy. Like he doesn’t dismiss you, and talks to you with a fondness whenever your ready to fight. In that same game, the moment when Maxie apologizes to you at how things have turned out, and forcing you, a child, to solve their messes, is such a great moment, I love oras so much

I love how ORAS Archie gives off the energy of someone who isn't very good at being a tactical leader but more of a hype man. Like, he's not crazy smart, but he can rile up his crew into thinking a 50 v 100 is winnable and then actually have the balls to pull it off. He's a little crazy and that's what gives ORAS Archie so much charm. I have the feeling that Archie would go off the rails at any moment and Shelly would have to nudge him back towards the plan.

I'm a sucker for the ORAS redesigns. I really appreciate they actually REMADE Hoenn instead of just making the same region again beat-for-beat.

Small thing with Norman's pose, his ORAS key art is symmetrical regarding stance and he gives the Balance Badge, equally balanced. Idk, something that came to mind.

The Aqua admins have my parents names. Shelly is spelled differently but it still freaked me out when I played Alpha Saphire. Edit: This is an achievement I guess

Small detail about Norman: he's not just wearing sandals, he's wearing geta. They're Japanese sandals made of wood with two teeth that help keep your feet dry in the rain. It's a subtle nod to the fact that his gym is designed like a martial arts dojo.

I really appreciated the HGSS redesigns in particular. The one singular unnamed male Rocket Admin you fight like 6 times got split up into 3 distinct dudes, huge improvement

Also Team Aqua being more tanned makes more sense as with them being based around/off of Pirates, they’d be basically always in the sun, so I feel like that’s also a nice callback.

I absolutely adore these redesigns and even the random trainers (ace trainers, swimmers etc) got really nice redesigns as well which all look great imo.

archie and maxies redesigns are particularly great since in rse, they were pretty much the same character with water and land swapped in and out respectively. the redesigns gave them so much personality and made them distinct characters. it went beyond just the art an into their speaking patterns, their movements and animations, and really made them memorable and loveable. having the bland rse archie and maxie show up in usum was the biggest disappointment of the rainbow rocket story.

4:41 honestly Wallace just got thotier and I couldn't apreciate it more. Slay king

I love the villain teams, but I think I love Wallace's redesign the most. They're both giving flashy and flamboyant, but in completely different ways, and the new one feels more like a gym leader and someone who goes near the water. The old one I always got mixed up with the guy who searches for Suicune in HGSS. It's honestly funny how 2002 fashion in the old games can be summarized by just "BIGGE S H I R T"

While I like the subtle updates HGSS did to the Kanto and Johto casts, ORAS's revamps make the original designs feel uncanny to go back to. Everyone in ORAS has a personality that BDSP seems to forget to update/alter.

When ORAS came out, I just started to get into Pokémon. I think a big reason why I found Maxie and Archie so charming was because of their re-designs. Before USUM came out I had seen their original designs already, but I was pretty disappointed to see those instead of the ORAS designs. Not only look the re-designs more pleasing to the eye imo, I think so much of their personality in ORAS is tied to these designs as well, and Archie is my favourite evil team leader because of his personality.

My favorite has got to be Sidney. He gained just so much attitude in the remake. Compare to the other Dark specialists - namely Karen, Grimsley, and Nanu - we see a less cunning and more brutal side to the Dark type. He also has some continuity with the other Dark specialists, Marnie and Piers, sharing a sort of alternative punk fashion sense. Just a really standout example of how a few subtle changes can drastically improve a character.

Archie's redesign when combined with the ORAS version of his boss theme as you battle is a chef's kiss of a combination (even better with the insane background during the Seafloor Cavern battle). The ORAS soundtrack in general is incredible, and it continues the legacy of the Ruby and Sapphire trumpets proudly. Also, who wouldn't want a Mega key stone design as epic as his anchor necklace? Archie got a Chad upgrade.

I love oras' redesign because it is very regional. We all know that Hoenn is designed based on the southern part of Japan, with islands and oceans, and the climate is more tropical. In the design of RS, almost all characters wear long pants and thick coats, seem to live in the temperate zone, while the costume design of ORAS is more like tropical and living nearby the sea.

This just adds to my disappointment with BDSP. The character designs are reflective of their era, so to see them not be at least somewhat changed to look more in line with the early 2020s makes the game look a bit dated.

6:19 both old designs look like they're high af

7:49 His collar is taller which makes him a baller

I like both of the different art styles because they show us how far the art style in Pokemon has changed over the years, and it's very fun to look back to see where it all began. Great video! 👏🏻

4:53 I always thought Wallace's scarf in his redesign made him look a bit like Hatsune Miku lol

7:04 8 years since these games and I never noticed that their poses were supposed to make an M

Can we talk about how everyone else can hold a single pokeball, but Matt, the hulk that he is, holds two, with one finger each. He is MASSIVE

6:25 I allways had the impression He was suppose to look like a Yakuza gangster, mixed with a pirate theme.

I like how they gave the Magma and Aqua admins designs that really match their style and enviroment. Aqua look like pirates and sea scavengers, hence the diving suits (and looking hella hunky, I mean, dang, Matt is an absolute UNIT!) while the Magma team all look like geologists, and thus, more "nerdy" and serious. Steven also got a nice dash of ELEGANCE! And I think its important to flex gym leaders/champions who are NOT cosplaying their type and overcompensating, like Phoebe, who looks more like a Water-type trainer than a Ghost-type and I love it! (or Crasher Wake being a wrestler, even if heavily dressed in blue.) Also, Norman's sandals are, more specificaly, the wooden getas, that match his "Dojo" gym style much better as well.

They yassified archie and maxie and I love it.

5:27 never knew that there was a ghost child watching the battle in the remakes.

I recently played alpha sapphire and the designs in that game are some of my favourites in the whole franchise

I do prefer OG May and Brendan, but Roxanne and Glacia were definitely boosted. The villain teams also. Granted I think the rest of the changes are just modernized, not necessarily better or worse.

I just wanna say that I wished Wally had a more prominent role in the story. I like his journey of discovery and self improvement, yet we see barely any of it.

I love how Tabitha was the typical cool looking slim guy in the original rse and in ORAS he's just talking Makuhita.

Annabelle got the best redesign seriously she looks like a beautiful spy. Sabrina's redesign in HG and SS is pretty good as well.

5:41 most underrated mommy ever

5:55 I absolutely LOVE all the ORAS redesigns, but I absolutely ADORE AND LOVE Steven's!!! I wish you had spent more time on his because you pointed out some very nice subtle details in other designs, and the subtle changes to his outfit and pose make a HUGE difference. He went from a pretty generic final boss looking character (typical CEO look, maybe confident but otherwise bland and unmemorable) to someone with MUCH more personality and charisma that you can see. He has a very commanding presence that DEMANDS to be felt; his big dick energy is off the charts 😂 You can see how powerful and confident (possibly even arrogant) he is now; he knows he is powerful and can get what he wants done. He is poised, confident, refined, classy, suave, and stylish, and his silhouette is much more refined to reflect that. He is also more youthful looking, which adds to the sense of his being a dueling prodigy. I LOVE the subtle nods to his Metagross in his shirt sleeves, and his shirt being unbuttoned also adds a more youthful and casual, down-to-earth flair that we didn't see before. I love you, Steven!!!! 😍😍😍

I really like Archie’s new(er) design so much better than the original. Same with Maxie but I just like Archie’s a bit more

Its pretty much a given that ORAS redesigns are superior, even if I still have a soft spot for the philosophy of the original designs. Well, all but one that I can't say it's openly better, and that's May's: While I can see the mix of both her previous designs, I feel this time around the "cute" aspect went overboard and completely loses the edge and coolness her previous designs had. I don't know, it comes off as a stereotypical "girl next door", which yeah sure, that's exactly a thing in the game, but she's also a protagonist independent of such a tag, and her previous designs focused on that aspect, rather than a new "Player insertion plan" that in my opinion hurts her character as whole, specially considering that she arguably has the better "Protagonist -like" design of the 2. That being said, I'll admit it's really cool how the 3 designs could potentially work as a visual representation of her growth as a trainer, as if it were a TV series or something. I can easily see her wearing these outfits much like, say, Spider-Man on the MCU, to represent her journey.

The changes to Archie and Maxie lead to the Adventures manga having to deal with it in a very interesting way. The RSE chapter gives more personality to the leaders and admin, but just showing how little was in the games or telegraphed by their designs, Maxie was given the personality of a Bandit King and Archie was a businessman. The adminis also got personalities, which could be pretty different from what the remakes gave them. Courtney was the most developed and was a femme fatale. For the ORAS chapter, the admins of neo Magma and Aqua had to be new people using the code names of the old admins, while Megaverse Archie and Maxie were Archie and Maxie after their personalities had been mixed together through distortion world magic (long story)

8:38 Actually, I mean actually, does this guy really need a Pokemon? He can basically annihilate a team by himself. This is the perfect example of choosing a wrong job.

i absolutely adore wallace’s new design, along with all the oras designs as a whole. they just look so much better…

Would’ve loved for Juan and the Emerald battle frontier Brains to get cool redesigns too

I always adored Archie’s design in ORAS. Especially the anchor, the mega stone in the middle was like the cherry on the cake.

I prefer Winona’s OR/AS design by a mile. The wings and goggles like you said, as well as the removal of yellow and more flowing clothes show her type specialty better.

Norman's ORAS art embodies "I'm not mad, just disappointed"

5:47 if whitebeard was a Pokémon trainer

Old human's head: ⬜ New human's head: ⚪

Crazy to think that Oras is almost 8 years old now. They're still my favorite remakes in the entire series. That might be a little bit controversial since HGSS exists but the designs of Oras just do it for me. And Shelly

2:08 I love that Wally doesn’t necessarily look confident. He’s been on this journey but he’s still not that sure of himself. He looks like he’s still kinda afraid but more willing to face his fear

I really like Brawly's original outfit, feels very much like something a skater would wear in the 90s.

OG Archie: Yeah, sure, you're a thug with a bandana. That's nice. Please step aside while I'm catching the oversized whale/dinosaur/snake. Redesigned Archie: Step on me, pirate daddy. We'll deal with the end of the world later. (Also, am I the only one to get Bayonetta vibes from redesigned Shelly? She has that confident strut of "Imma be sexy because I LOVE IT!")

I feel like Norman was a much better improvement for who he actually is: a Hoenn gym leader who originates from the Johto region. His clothing (especially the sandals) accentuate the combination of Hoenn and Johto.

Yeah, they're objectively warmer, more inviting redesigns overall, but I'll always have a hard-to-dissolve soft spot for Ken Sugimori's older, but bolder and sharper-looking human characters and Pokemon. There's a rawness and timelessness to his art that most character designers simply don't have, especially since Sugimori's stepping-down as chief art director since he last worked on ORAS.

The best things about remakes are redesigns of character. An updated look of them really makes the game even more likeable. Redesigns of pokedexes and gadgets are also what I look forward too. Too bad BDSP was too faithful to the original games.

"Dripmaster Archie" along with that face sent me a lot harder than it should have

An important detail of Norman's redesign in ORAS is the fact that he wears geta sandals. He and his family are originally from Johto so having some kind of regional representation in his design is a nice touch.

I really like Drake's redesign because of what he specialises in and how he acts as a person. The redesign puts his face at a higher angle compared to the viewer's, which conveys that he's in a position of power (or at least that he sees himself in one) over the player, which could especially be the case because of his specialisation with dragon types, which are viewed as extremely powerful and commanding of respect.

My favorite things about the re-design for Wallace (and really every trainer re-design throughout) is how it was explained beautifully through the story in the Pokemon Adventure manga

Ruby and sapphire were my first pokemon games, and for quite a while my only ones! So I was really happy when I recently played the remake on 3ds, those redesigns make the characters really stand out!! Amazing video as always! Ps: I didn't know brawly was voiced by Jason Griffith on the anime!! XD

Its actually interesting seeing how the designs of trainers and gym leaders has become as important as the designs of the pokemon

The geta shoes in norman os actually a huge boost to his design. It shows the familiar to him, hes in a home enviroment, his gym is basically just a giant home ngl, and it makes sense, why are you using shoes indoors, use some flip flops

Steven’s redesign was my favourite he’s become so much hotter, honestly loved the ORAS redesign and the games are my favourites they recaptured the nostalgia of the old games these games are near and dear to me

"I think he's the biggest dude we've seen as far as main characters go" - 8:29 *Bruno*

I ... never realised that Team Magma were posing like that to form a "M" 🙃

What I found interesting was when they did the whole "Team Rainbow Rocket" thing in Ultra Sun & Moon, they brought back the original designs for Archie and Maxie. Made for a strange sort of "blast from the past" retro feel, though it did also kind of highlight just how drastic the change for their ORAS redesign was.

A side by side comparison of archie in the thumbnail is just freaking hilarious to me idk why

This might be controversial but Im really greatful that they changed how the characters looked as in style, I think the og style with the thin long eyes were just really creepy. If only we could have the water color pokemon key art with the modern proportions

Archie went from a knock-off Puerto Rican gangster to an actual pirate mob boss.

Archie and Maxie got the biggest glow up in pokemon history and you can't change my mind

The HGSS and ORAS games are what set my expectations for the Sinnoh remakes. A lot of design growth, new mechanics, expansions to the story of the third game. With every passing generation my expectations grew bigger and bigger. I dreamt of a fully realized 3D distortion world and later an even grander HD distortion world. But when the trailers to the demakes dropped I cried. I felt betrayed and it hurt like someone stabbed my heart. Sinnoh was my home. How could they betray it so?

You don't know how fast I clicked this. I've always thought redesigns to characters was very (and I hste using this word but I feel it's apt here) underrated when it comes to Pokemon's remakes. It's personally one of the things I look forward to most so you can probably already tell how disappointed I was when BDSP's named trainers didn't get redesigns (as if there wasn't already things to be disappointed about with those games). I can (and have) gone over my thoughts on most of these designs before so I'll (reluctantly) save the lecture but I would like to point out that Flannery, Archie, Brawly and Wallace have the best ones don't @ me and it sucks that ORAS didn't get Battle Frontier cause I would've loved me some Tucker and Lucy redesigns.

"Did you also know that brawly was voiced by sonic in the anime?" *now this, brings a smile to my face*

8:43 Boa Hancock pose, I like that!!!

I really love the redisings of those remakes, the only designs I miss in RSE are Brendan and May but aside of that OR/AS made a big improvement of litteral every character, even the basic npc trainers

Archie really pulled a Michael Jackson

Archie's redesign was my gay awakening

Archie’s designs went from creepy uncle to daddy come wreck me

When I saw Archie in Alpha Sapphire wearing that anchor chain, I instantly knew that the madman behind the criminal activity appeared, even though Alpha Sapphire was my second Pokémon game overall, and my first (and currently only) Hoenn Pokémon game

3:42 yo what’s up Dad

Archie is one of the best redesigns in gaming history. His old one is rough

Me when I see new Wallace: I- oh- I- oh- I jus- *loses ability to speak*

"Who are you?" "You but wearing a different hat." "I couldn't tell."

8:05 can we talk obout the fact that archie Is like 100 times more intomidating when black like lmao gamefrak was like ok he Is goofy and now no more

wallace is the ru-pauls drag race protagonist

2:06 badass guitar riff not mentioned

they yassified wallace lmao

YES! I am so glad I'm not alone in ADORING Archie's redesign. I firmly believe that a character's design should be recognizable from their silhouette AND show the viewer something important about their personality. He's such a loud and flamboyant character and his new outfit displays that with the flipped-up collar, open chest and large anchor medallion. This outfit doubles as choreographing his preferred Pokémon typing which helps the player prepare for fights with him when able.

Another interesting thing about Archie is that his veard resembles ice breaker ships, which have pointed prows to break through ice. This design motif can also be seen in Empoleon, where its beak has the same icebreaker shape.

Every Pokémon game I’ve played I always have a soft spot for no matter what. It’s probably because I like to look at the positives instead of the negatives. It’s like how one of my favorite shiny Pokémon is Azumarill because it was my very first shiny. Which was in ORAS

You know come to think of it I always did think Brendan's hair was white back when I was playing Ruby and Sapphire LOL

Hoenn is definitely presented as a region with a relatively warmer climate, I’m very glad all these redesigns embrace that.

3:01 Thank you sooo much for making that clear because when I heard his voice while watching that episode I thought that it sounded like sonic but didn’t know if it was

I love Norman's new design. Suits him really well

THANK you for making this video. Ive said for years that while the redesigns might change interpretations or intentions of some characters like Maxie, and May, they have SO much personality in them. I can look at their art, and immediately understand them as a character. Its fantastic designs and use of them. I love both versions of characters and there are pros to each, but the use of exaggeration and expression in the new ones are just such a wonderful direction.

I think the reason why Team Aqua have darker skin is because they stay mostly outside at the sea, while Team Magma stay mostly indoor, at the mainland.

And Norman looks more like a dad in the remakes. Definitely radiates that “I’m not mad, just dissapointed.”

I remember my friend going on a tirade about how the Gen 3 remakes are racist because team Aqua has dark skin now Three different people explained to him what tanning is and he still refused to believe it was anything other than ethnicity

I never realized how much more rolled-up sleeves and exposed skin there were in ORAS designs compared to the originals. It helps convey a more laid-back attitude in the games, while also making sense with the climate of the region.

Ken Sugimori's art and style is superior. I'm glad I'm the original target audience for Pokémon and got to enjoy it.

I'm amazed the multiple Evil Teams motif hasn't been used in more mainline games. With most modern Box Art legends representing contrasting things, having two conflicting teams coinciding with the particular game's legendary would work quite well.

I think that ORAS is a beautiful way to do a remake. It added and redesigned a few things. The story didn't necessarily feel the same, and the character redesigns felt modern, and I LOVED seeing more tan people like me in the games. It was a nice change and I think thats why the games feel so fresh today, in my personal opinion.