Is there a specific reason why this is patterned after G/S rather than R/B?
It's not bad, obviously. I love G/S as much as anyone. Before the DS remakes, G/S was my favorite Pokemon game. But this isn't G/S, it's just an update of R/B. So why not use R/B graphics for a "8-bit edition"? I especially like the awkward looking battle sprites that sometimes look almost nothing like what the Pokemon turned out to look like as the series went on, so it's a little off from what I think of when I imagine playing a MMO of R/B with 8 bit graphics.