Pretty damn fun, grind for Fantina sucks tho
The team:
Infernape (Blaze)
Luxray (Surge)
Staraptor (Falco)
Gardevoir (Tetsuo)
Garchomp (Destoroyah)
Lucario (Gojo)
Featuring: Durty Dan (The Bibarel I used as an HM slave)

(btw all of the nicknames are references, try and guess what they're from ;3)

No shinies on the team, but thats ok. My team was pretty similar to @TheSnuffles so that's cool. We played this together on Discord, so major shoutout to him for helping me through some ungodly and confusing parts (cough cough victory road).

anyways fun game, really happy i loved the game that Lucario came from, since he's one of my fav pokemon ever :D

Here we are at the very first Pokemon game I ever played, so of course I’d have some nostalgia blindness going into the game. My first copy of this game was one I accidentally kept when an old friend of mine let me borrow it, which I then proceeded to lose after a while. I legit had dreams of the game that were very vague, until I got a new copy for my birthday when I turned 14 I believe. I’ve had a wild journey with this game for some reason, and I love the fact that it’s over something as dumb as a DS Pokemon game. Honestly, I still love the layout of the Sinnoh region. I didn’t really have any problems outside of Mount Cornett, as going through those sections of the game did feel a little aimless on where you needed to go. My biggest problem with the game is of course the HMs. There were a lot of HMs in HeartGold when I played that, but at least two of them were optional ones that weren’t needed for the game. This game has 8 HM moves that are needed, meaning you’d need two HM Slaves. While you could just alternate between the two you need, it’s still frustrating that this is a problem in general. I’m glad that after these games they started to cut back on them immensely, as I recall Black and White only having 5 HMs. Like was the HM Flash really necessary, I only used it once through the entire game. I didn’t like being forced to pull along just one HM slave, so adding on even more felt like the game was personally messing with me by doing so.

I once again tried to keep to Pokemon that were introduced in the Sinnoh region, so here’s what I ended up with. I’d love to see what anyone thinks of this team since there was quite a bit of overlap in terms of typing.

Ifrit the Infernape (Final Fantasy)
Livewire the Shiny Luxray (DC/Superman)
Evangelion the Togekiss (Angels in Evangelion)
Garchomp the Sharknado (Sharknado)
Zero the Shiny Gallade (Mega Man)
Lucario the Cerberus (Greek Mythology)
Featuring Dirty Dan 2 the Bibarel HM Slave (Plya you get this one)

Yeah, somehow in just one run I managed to find two shiny Pokemon for my team. I ended up grinding against wild Pokemon more than normal as I had gotten far ahead of Plya (shoutout to them btw, they're on Backloggd too) at one point, so that’s probably why I was able to find two in just one run. It obviously doesn’t impact the game much, I just thought it was really cool, especially since the Luxray was almost max IV after figuring it out with some friends. Cynthia as a champion was a massive step up from Lance and Wallace, as her team was a fun challenge to get through, which is what all people who played this game totally agree with and don’t think she’s one of the most terrifying menaces in Pokemon history. Her team is just so dynamic, and was basically the basis of trying to form my team while also keeping ones I loved. Every single Pokemon on my team ended up playing a key role in putting her team at bay.

Overall, playing through Platinum was a nice trip through memory lane that I got to drag someone through (I do not apologize for said trip, if you’re reading this Plya). I don’t think I’ll play through another run for a long while, which is something I do a lot with the DS Pokemon games, but I’ll probably spend some time doing post-game work as well for no other reason than I just want to. Maybe I’ll even try to finish the Battle Frontier, or even worse, try to finish the in-game Villa. It’s been a long time since I’ve checked out the post-game ever since I was little, and I’m genuinely kind of excited to check out what it’s like as it’s been somewhat of a mystery to my memory.

Sinnoh is a good region, and thankfully Platinum makes sure we know it. This game solves quite a few problems Diamond and Pearl endured, like the horrible Pokémon distribution or the overall slowness. The story is also improved, and in general it just feels so much better to play. There are still some of the general Sinnoh nuisances to deal with, like the fog weather, the honey trees or the slow leveling up, but it's quite more playable than its predecessors. Recommended if you can get your hands on a real cartridge (doubtful) or an emulator (actually viable).