I have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I loved the old style. It was very... quirky. Neopetsesque, as someone else said. Different from everything else on the web. For all they say about this being "updated," I feel like the old layout was kind of sleeker-looking - more stream-lined and coherent. I think some of the elements they kept from the old (like the bar at the top of the shops screen, with the bank, guilds, safety deposit, etc., links on it) just look strange next to the new blocky main navigation bars. Of course, I have to wonder how much of my affection for the old style was just because it's what I was used to seeing for, oh, six or seven years.
The new style has less style to it, I think, but it does work better. I'm liking being able to go straight to the bank or to my favorite games without having to go through several different pages. I think it does need some work - I'd like to see the user lookups a little more streamlined than they are right now, for one thing. But this does have a lot of potential. I'd be really pleased if they allowed me to customize the things on my Neopets start page, like take off things I don't care about (random poll, for example) and add things I do care about (stockmarket link, maybe some favorite games), and I think that'd be a lot easier for them to do with this layout than with the old one.
As far as changing the pets, I don't have much of an opinion, because they didn't do a lot to mine (an ixi and an ogrin). They're a little flatter-looking than before, I think, but that's about it. Overall, I like the old looks better, but I'm sure I'll get used to them this way.
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