News 20th Anniversary Set in September + Surfing Pikachu and M Slowbro-EX!
- Thread starter Athena
- Start date
I love the art on the packs!
This and the Generations Pack art is really similar. It's like they just took those 4 Pokemon, evolved them, and gave them another pack art 
At least the Pack Arts won't be restricted to PikaBlaChaVen (Pikachu, Blastoise, Charizard, Venusaur) like in Generations. I'll be looking forward to this set.
I think a Raichu EX full art would be amazing! I wonder if we'll see one in this set??
The Raichu pose is similar to the Base 2 pack.
And the fact that they're 3D really does make them fall flat in mirroring the Base set (and Base 2) pack art. I honestly don't know if this would have been a tall order or not, but why not ask Ken Sugimori to revisit his old artstyle to recreate the megas in the same poses and style of the original artwork for these packs? If he doesn't want to do it, there are other talented artists who CAN recreate his old artstyle. (Though, I'm not sure what you do about Raichu, in this case, to make it different like the others. Alolan Raichu? No, this is still an XY set...) When I saw the pack art for Evolutions, my immediate thought wasn't "It's just like the original poses!" It was "Oh, neat! That's what the packs will look like. ...The end."
I can't help buy feel like this was done in order to keep the children's interest with the flashy 3D Pokemons and such. Meanwhile, it probably would have been beneficial to have that old-style artwork in order to capitalize on all the nostalgia going on for Pokemon between the 20th anniversary and Pokemon GO. Didn't that Base set reprint "story" from much earlier this year get A LOT of attention? Imagine someone who is playing Pokemon GO, who hasn't played a game or bought cards since the first gen, and they see these new packs and they instantly remind them of the Base set packs because of the old-style artwork. "Oh, this is neat! You know what? I'll buy a pack or two." And then they see all of the old artwork on the cards. Maybe they get a Charizard, or a Venusaur, or a Blastoise, or Mewtwo holo. "Oh!! I remember this!" Or maybe they get an EX. "Whoa!! What on earth is this craziness?!" Maybe they'll decide to buy more packs, and maybe that will lead to trying PTCGO out or maybe even going to a Pokemon League. (I know that all might be a bit of a stretch, but it could happen.) But with the Pokemon pack art being 3D the way it is, you'd more likely have to explain to someone that they're similar to the Base set packs, only to get an "Oh, yeah. You're right." reaction.
(Edit: I just think these packs were a missed opportunity.)
I don't hate 3D art; it takes a lot of talent to make it look good, which this does look good. ...But it's just so boring to me compared to hand(tablet)-drawn artwork. Let's just use the XY sets as an example. The first four sets. 3D stuffs, I honestly can't recall the artwork on them that well, but Flashfire's colors were nice and bright. The next three ORAS sets--holy crap! Awesome artwork on all of the packs!! I remember every single one--especially that Mega Gardevoir artwork!! That background, the moon and the stars in the sky, the Pokemon itself!! So good! Then the BREAK sets. WE ARE 3D MODELS ON A 3D BACKGROUND. THAT IS ALL. SNOOOOOORE. In terms of artwork, my favorite packs (outside of Japan) are the HGSS era and ORAS packs. We need more like those.
And the fact that they're 3D really does make them fall flat in mirroring the Base set (and Base 2) pack art. I honestly don't know if this would have been a tall order or not, but why not ask Ken Sugimori to revisit his old artstyle to recreate the megas in the same poses and style of the original artwork for these packs? If he doesn't want to do it, there are other talented artists who CAN recreate his old artstyle. (Though, I'm not sure what you do about Raichu, in this case, to make it different like the others. Alolan Raichu? No, this is still an XY set...) When I saw the pack art for Evolutions, my immediate thought wasn't "It's just like the original poses!" It was "Oh, neat! That's what the packs will look like. ...The end."
I can't help buy feel like this was done in order to keep the children's interest with the flashy 3D Pokemons and such. Meanwhile, it probably would have been beneficial to have that old-style artwork in order to capitalize on all the nostalgia going on for Pokemon between the 20th anniversary and Pokemon GO. Didn't that Base set reprint "story" from much earlier this year get A LOT of attention? Imagine someone who is playing Pokemon GO, who hasn't played a game or bought cards since the first gen, and they see these new packs and they instantly remind them of the Base set packs because of the old-style artwork. "Oh, this is neat! You know what? I'll buy a pack or two." And then they see all of the old artwork on the cards. Maybe they get a Charizard, or a Venusaur, or a Blastoise, or Mewtwo holo. "Oh!! I remember this!" Or maybe they get an EX. "Whoa!! What on earth is this craziness?!" Maybe they'll decide to buy more packs, and maybe that will lead to trying PTCGO out or maybe even going to a Pokemon League. (I know that all might be a bit of a stretch, but it could happen.) But with the Pokemon pack art being 3D the way it is, you'd more likely have to explain to someone that they're similar to the Base set packs, only to get an "Oh, yeah. You're right." reaction.
(Edit: I just think these packs were a missed opportunity.)
I don't hate 3D art; it takes a lot of talent to make it look good, which this does look good. ...But it's just so boring to me compared to hand(tablet)-drawn artwork. Let's just use the XY sets as an example. The first four sets. 3D stuffs, I honestly can't recall the artwork on them that well, but Flashfire's colors were nice and bright. The next three ORAS sets--holy crap! Awesome artwork on all of the packs!! I remember every single one--especially that Mega Gardevoir artwork!! That background, the moon and the stars in the sky, the Pokemon itself!! So good! Then the BREAK sets. WE ARE 3D MODELS ON A 3D BACKGROUND. THAT IS ALL. SNOOOOOORE. In terms of artwork, my favorite packs (outside of Japan) are the HGSS era and ORAS packs. We need more like those.
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Not too hyped for the set, to be honest. I was never that fond of gen 1 to begin with and with how hard they're cramming gen 1 down everyone's throat this year, I'll just be glad when we get our first sun/moon set so we can move on from all this.
What I really like about this set is that it's mixing old and new, giving updates to the original cards while still including the new mechanics. I think it does a far better job of that than Generations (which is why I'm keeping every mythical collection sealed!)
I like the artwork for the sets. Venusaur is the hardest to tell that its the mega. When I first saw it, I though it was Venusaur, Mega Blastoise and Mega Charizard. If not for the flower on the head, I would have thought it was just normal Venusaur. Raichu seems like a random addition on the booster pack. I was expecting Mewtwo to be honest.
You mean the Gen 1 starters right?
You mean the Gen 1 starters right?
I hope that gen 2 will someday get all the attention Gen 1 is this year. Probably not, because they think that EVERYONE WHO PLAYSS POKEMON STARTED OUT WITH GEN 1
The weird thing for me? Gen I wins out not because of nostalgia, but because I can forgive what I consider flaws in the game from that time period. I mean design decisions that had to be done because the ol' Game Boy couldn't do more than that (for the video games), and not having over a decade of knowledge about how people really play (for the TCG), etc.
That being said, I too am happy this should cap off the "sort of retro" sets... because XY: Evolutions will be more disappointing for me than Generations, because XY: Evolutions will be a "real" set. A real set with cards inspired by their Base Set counterparts, but apparently not inspired to also be worth playing.
So.... much.... HYPE!!!!!
Nice artworks! I think the Idea was to represent the evolved forms of the Generations set (because the set is called Evolutions)