Pokkén, Pokémon Quest, Mystery Dungeon (2D ones), Ranger etc.: those are games where the featured Pokémon had their graphics made from scratch. So they fit in the world they were currently in. They mesh well with the backgrounds, with human models and so on.
Since Pokémon went 3D, though, they have been reusing the same models for everything, only adding small touches on the models. This makes Pokémon GO, Let's Go, the cellphone games, Mystery Dungeon DX and many others (3D games) feel too similar.
Worse: while humans and the overall aesthetics vary greatly with art direction, Pokémon keep their proportions, so they feel copy pasted now and it causes an art style clash. The latest Pokopia is very guilty of this, IMO.
Let's have a look at it: Ditto looks very stylized. While it is supposed to be a non perfect copy of an human, he is still more akin to an animal crossing character than someone from the anime or official renders. The backgrounds are also cubic and have a strong presence, but the Pokémon models are still very round, with the same eye style, proportions, and animations of the main games (just being rendered with a different shading and resolution).
This makes them feel like they don't belong in the Pokopia world. 3D models akin to 3D versions of Pokémon Cafe's models would fit this art better, IMO.
Another example of this is how Let's Go features official art with a stylized Pikachu, that meshes better with the chibi humans, but the actual game has the regular proportions Pikachu, clashing with the trainers, IMO.
As an exercise: just imagine if Pokémon Rumble featured regular models instead of the simplified toy ones. It surely would lose a bit of its charm, don't you think? Miis work better with the toy Pokémon, since they all are low poly. If Miis were to be featured aside regular 3D pokémon models, things would look off.
Pokémon games that aren't the main series don't need to reuse models, as they feature a much smaller roster, so they defintely could make them from scratch. I wish they would make squirtle or bulbassaur more akin to the artstyle used in Pokopia, for once. The way it is, makes me very bothered about how such a cute and cozy game seems to be cutting corners, at a first analysis.
by Benhurso