>Quality sprites with pre-battle motion in Gen 2 >Stationary

To give third versions an edge over the first pair of games in the generation

>>26730546
So, you think GF has had the "third game" scheme planned since gen 2. As a <10 year old, would animated sprites convince you to ask your parents for the newest game?

>>26730539

I have no concrete answers, but I'm hedging my bet to be what >>26730546 posted.

The featurette's return in Emerald is laughable, anyways. They abused sprite dimension compression/elongation and motion-tweening of the sprites way too much instead of actual animation. Crystal's even had a bit of extra animation at the end if you were viewing them as owned Pokemon in your box/party.

>>26730539
>Tell me, /vp/, why would GF withhold this feature from us until Emerald?
Time constraints, they were focusing on more content that diverged from the usual battling as well as the total rehaul of the game, good thing the only removals were gimmicks though.

>>26730583
I don't think you can call 4 frames "animation" anon

>>26730583
Let me ask you this: in Gens 2-5, do you prefer the new box legendary or the added features? This includes Crystal, Emerald, Platinum, and BW2.

>>26730583
I didn't know there was an extra movement to owned Pokemon. Pretty cool.

Hated Emeralds. For the most part felt like stretching out the base sprite.

>>26730629
Personally, it added life to the Gen 2 sprites. I wish the feature was in R/S as well; it would have made the Gym leaders' pokemon, E4, and Legendaries seem more intimidating.

>>26730563
Actually, yes.
Kind of.

>>26730612
4 frames are better than 2 frames with just some derpy "effects"

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There's just way too many Pokemon at this point and this hurts the series in several ways.

By Gen V they couldn't be bothered to make new sprites for all Pokemon so they just animated the Gen IV ones for existing Pokemon. Now we have the XY 3D models and going by what some anons have said, these models have ridiculous number of polygons (resulting in the slowdowns we get on 3DS) which may indicate they were designed to be reused for a long term.

Then there's the problem of too many legendaries. If ORAS is any indication they're just going to simply distribute the older legendaries with very little backstory or lore. They can't possibly make up individual ingame events for every single legendary trio now and they have to stuff at least 50% of all legendaries in a game within a generation to ensure you can catch all the legendaries by the end of the generation (first 2 versions, remakes, possible 3rd version)

They're scaling back on the number of Pokemon for each generation now as we've seen in Kalos, but one of XY's biggest flaws was too few new Pokemon which made for a less interesting generation. Megas are a way to introduce new things to existing Pokemon, but actual new Pokemon is what keeps the series interesting.

>>26730669
>>26730681
I just hope the add-ons and new pokemon are what keep you coming back to the franchise rather than the gimmicks

>>26730539
Speedier release.

>>26730713
This, they didn't want the same delays as GS so they focused on the important parts instead of the gimmicks.

>>26730710
I doubt it.

>>26730700
The only valid you said was too many legendary pokemon. Everything else is nitpicky, gay, and autistic.

>>26730612
Animation is still animation. Even Emerald's is animation. The difference is in the style used; 4 frames of fin-flapping v.s. My Squishy Dewgong by Devon Toys' Co. Even if Crystal's style is minimalist in movement, the animation has a sense of choreography that suits the sprite pose of the Pokemon featured. The issue with Emerald's animation is not so much the lack of frames but more of how heavily sprite dimension distortion was abused. It fits some (Eg. Azurill) but more often than not it ends up more like poor Dewgong's case for the majority of the Pokemon in Emerald.

Basically, like what >>26730629 said regarding Emerald.

>>26730617
I don't think I fully understand your question between the box legendary and QoL features. One is central to the game to the point where it interweaves with the plot, while the other is an immersive aspect solely for the player, but if they're going to do it, they should at least keep the same level of standard for it.

The issue isn't whether they brought it back or not, it's that they went through the effort of bringing it back only to make a sub-par effort out of it. I didn't expect moving Pokemon sprites to return in Emerald after Sapphire, but seeing it brought back in this manner does make me feel like it compares unfavorably to Crystal's efforts, relatively speaking for the capabilities each game had at its disposal. If they had never done it for Emerald in the first place people would be quibbling about Crystal's immersion features against Emerald's extras to the series by way of Berry variety, Contests, the Battle Frontier, etc. instead of a feature that both games share, moving Pokemon sprites.

>>26730629
Majority of them are just extra eye-blinking or stuff, but it does add to the occasion, like Girafarig's tail-head bobbing by itself after the other head looks away. Wild/opponent Pokemon cut out that last part in their appearance animation.