Long story short, a couple years ago we had to break away from the Japanese Moemon community. Back in the day we used their sprites when we did not have many spriters. The Japanese community has sense revoked permissions for us to use their work. We have since replaced their sprites with artists on the teams work out of respect for them. The current versions of the game use newer sprites, often slightly larger and more detail put in. However sadly a few of the older designs like that Espeon we no longer use. But in a way, i do not mind. It is good to support the art of active artists and we make sure the standards are still high and reflecting the Pokemon appropriately.