Can you teach an old Pikachu new tricks? If Game Freak’s latest foray into the world of Pokemon is any indication, then yes, you can. Released April 22 nd in the US and due some time this summer for the rest of the world (except for Japan , of course, who had them since September), Pokemon Diamond and Pearl versions are a worthy entry into the much beloved series.
Ah! But I am wasting breath, if such a thing can be done over the internet. More important than my ramblings are the actual scores for this game. Well… about that. Truth be told, I’ve always had somewhat of a soft spot for the Pokemon series. With that, some amount of bias would naturally show through. So rather than compromise my journalistic integrity (on the internet), I’ll just describe the game and leave the actual judgment up to you. But don’t feel ripped off, because I’m sure you would rather read a review you don’t like than buy a game you don’t like. Okay? Okay. Let’s begin.
Presentation (graphics/music): Right off the bat, anyone who has ever played Pokemon will notice one thing- the overworld is 3D. It’s nothing eye-popping, but there’s something oddly hypnotic about watching the perspective change in a series that has been confined to flatness for so long. Other than that, battle animations and whatnot have received some polishing, but nothing to write home about.
Musically speaking, there’s nothing here but the standard Pokemon fare. Not that the standard Pokemon fare isn’t a respectable showing, but again, nothing will knock your socks off. Just the typical nostalgic remixes together with other songs that may very well also be remixes of Pokemon music that you’ve forgotten.
Story: For those pour souls who missed out on the whole Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald generation, you’d be surprised to find that Pokemon now attempts to have a plot. The whole get-badges-become-champion mechanic is still in place, but now a mysterious organization known as Team Galactic is behind a mysterious scheme that invariably leads you to whichever massive Pokemon happens to grace your version’s box (Dialga and Palkia for Diamond and Pearl , respectively). Of course, all the time-honored Pokemon traditions return, such as a Pokemon Centers , your rival, and the tree-named Professor.
However, to be completely subjective, I find that this Diamond and Pearl ’s plot is far more effective, for lack of a better word. It may have taken them over a decade, but the game flows how I think a Pokemon game should. The story unfolds as your neighbor-turned-rival takes you on a boyhood adventure to the local mysterious lake, only to somehow acquire either a grass, water, or fire type Pokemon. Though these games lack the depth and complexity of, say, Final Fantasy, these games are just rife with a sense of adventure that’s harder and harder to come by.
Gameplay: Here’s where the fun begins. If any naysayers still want to believe that Pokemon is “kiddy" or other such nonsense, then let me be the first to welcome you to the new millennium. It isn’t the nineties anymore, and the Pokemon series has been gaining strategic depth whether you want to admit it or not.
On the surface, Diamond and Pearl don’t play much differently than Red and Blue. Snatches of “it’s not very effective" and “Wild Zubat appeared" still find their way on to your DS screen just as they did on your Gameboy, but in the seedy underbelly of statistics and formulae, something more akin to chess has evolved. For starters, attacks are now either physical or special based on how the attack works, not what type the attack is (if that makes no sense to you, then don’t worry about it. It’s actually more logical this way). The number of attacks and Pokemon has increased dramatically, but there’s enough inspiration to go around. On the whole, battling is as fun as it ever has been.
The whole thing has been streamlined as well. Battling and items can be managed with both the touch screen and button, depending on preference. Speaking of items, there is no longer a cap on the number of items in your bag. Also worth note is that Ruby and Sapphire’s 50 TMs are still around, and numbers 51-100 are new. Finally, when not otherwise in use, the bottom screen is used to display the Poketch, a hard-to-pronounce gizmo with all sorts of useful functions. Similar to the Pokegear or Pokenav of days old, the Poketch can do… just about anything. Various apps can be found around the game, ranging from the useful (displays team’s HP, status, and items) to convenient (a calculator) to bizarre (a coin flipper for heads-or-tails decisions).
Final Words: As I’ve said, I’m a relatively nostalgic kind of guy. Nothing brings a tear to my eye quite like popping out the NES and getting to level 8-4 in Super Mario Bros. But that being said, I particularly enjoyed these games. The Pokemon formula is a successful one, and Game Freak has done well to not fix what isn’t broken while tweaking and fidgeting with smaller details to produce a noticeably better game. I can’t regret purchasing these games, despite whatever repercussions my social status may endure.
P.S: Please, don’t say that the new Pokemon are getting less imaginative. I mean, Lickitung? Tauros? Two guesses what those Pokemon are, and they hail from the “untouchable" original 150. The only difference is that now that we’re all, like, ten years older than when we first picked up Red version, and now we actually understand what some of those names mean.
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