Porygon

Design Changes

I suspect that Porygon has had more design changes (or inconsistencies) than just about any other Pokemon. If that sounds excessive, follow me as we explore Porygon’s depiction throughout the games.

Generation 1

R/G: This has a longer beak and a longer shaded tip. Body looks more rounded.

R/B: Also has a longer break and a longer shaded tip. Also has googly-looking eyes. Body looks wider than other depictions.

Y: Attempt at more elaborate depiction of the facets of Porygon’s head, which barely exists on R/G and is only implied in R/B. Tip is shorter and head looks quite small in comparison to body. The tail base is very thick and low.

All three gen I use the same backsprite:

The back of the head looks very smooth and curved as opposed to angular, and the beak looks curved.

Pokemon Stadium: Uniquely, Porygon in Pokemon Stadium has these very soft washed out colors for Porygon. We also see a pretty modern looking Porygon head to nose top ratio.

Generation 2

G: The tip looks almost conical here. Could be the angle? Very long shaded tip. The eyes are also more oblong. The chest develops a clear angular front protrusion.

S: This looks a lot closer to later iterations of Porygon! The eyes still look a little odd, but the placement is about right, and the beak looks like a wedge. There is approximately one eyeball distance between the eye and the tip, which is standard later on.

All three games have the same back sprite. We can see that the back of the head now looks more like a short wedge. Additionally, the tail and body have come into view.

This gen also introduced shiny sprites. This is a unique coloration of Porygon where the main body becomes a dark purple and the beak, chest, tails, and wings remain blue. ‘

Pokemon Stadium 2 used internal hue shifting to create shinies instead of referencing the sprites and thus used this purple and green coloration for Porygon. This image was made using Blue Moon Falls' Stadium Hue Previewer.

Generation 3

We’re getting into standard Porygon territory here.

RS: This Porygon is not too different from the one shown in silver! The colors have been brightened to not be so dusky.

FRLG: Porygon’s blue was changed to be more of an aqua color. The angle of the top wing angle is also narrower.

The back sprites are the same for RSE and FRLG except FRLG has the aqua colors. Porygon’s head looks properly edge-shaped in the back.

By the way, am I crazy or are the back sprites from gen 2 and gen 3 the same, just updated?

The shiny has been updated. The base is cobalt blue and the highlights are periwinkle.

Generation 4

D/P: Not very different from gen 3, also the tip appears to have been shortened. The aqua color from FRLG has carried on here.

P: Pretty sure this is the same as the D/P sprite, just with the animation pointing down.

HGSS: The head has been squished! The short tip and squished head look comical.

Gen 4 introduces a radical change to Porygon - the back of its head is now a flat plane. What is this?!

Generation 5

B/W: Basically the same as the Platinum one, just in motion.

However, the back of the head remains flat!

Generations 6-8

X/Y/OR/AS: The head looks squished again. Also, the beak now tapers into an edge rather than being clipped and leaving a flat plane.

I’m angry to report that this Porygon has also had the back of its head cut off.

The shiny has changed yet again, with the barely-there periwinkle darkening into lavender.

As you can see, Porygon’s depiction has changed a lot throughout the series! It seems that each time Porygon is due for a revision, they decide to tweak the ratios and angles a little.

Illustrations

The illustrated art doesn’t provide much clarity either.

Porygon RB: This shows Porygon with a blunt, conical tip and blue highlights.

Porygon RG: This porygon has a wedge tip and is downright green in the highlights.

This art returns to an aqua color.

This seems near identical to the one above, right? Except… the beak has a snipped edge. The angle is also closer to the one of the main head.

Porygon OS Anime 2: Porygon Squished Head disease is terminal here. Also has a gray-blue highlight color…

And how could we forget hot pink Porygon with neon mint highlights?

The TCG provide even more variations on Porygon that we don’t have time to cover today (though if you’re interested, shoot me an email to let me know there’s demand for this). I will cover this bad boy, though - Cool Porygon.

Known in Japanese as kakkoi porigon (lit. Cool Porygon), this was a promo card that came with the Pokemon Stadium Bundle.

This Porygon has a bold burgundy base not seen in any other depiction of Porygon, combined with a pallid sky blue highlight.

It looks closest to the gen 2 sprites, but those had a dark blue highlight.

Additionally, Cool Porygon has an angled snip beak! Very unique! There are other TCG depictions of Porygon that show a bolder base and light blue highlights, with the closest being Porygon (Team Rocket 48) and Base Set Porygon, but that one is more magenta that red. No Porygon card past those is this dark or this red.

Conclusion

In my opinion, the Diamond and Pearl Porygon front sprite is the best Porygon sprite. I like the snipped wedge beak, the length of the head, the length of the shaded tip, and the green tint in the highlights. The best back sprite belongs to gen 3 - I cannot get behind Porygon having a flat back of the head. For illustration, I’ll hand it to the one titled “Anime”.

Why has Porygon changed so much? Porygon isn’t made of organic shapes. You think this would make it easier to depict, but it seems to make it harder. This is especially true in the low resolution sprites of the early games, where it was hard to show the facets without getting creative with the shading. At the same time, some things really shouldn’t change so much, such as the height and length of Porygon’s head. The tip has changed in shape and length. The colors have also really fluctuated, as they seem to have struggled to settle on a highlight color. Even the shiny has changed three times.

Porygon Oddities

In Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Snap, Porygon has a mouth. Yes, a mouth, with a jaw. I discovered this through this Twitter post showing that Porygon's mouth is rigged to move.

This can be seen when Porygon is hit. GIF below comes from this footage at 0:51, slowed down to 0.25x speed.

I have never played Pokemon Snap, but apparently you can also see the mouth open there. Image source here.