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.

Been a while since I reviewed a Pokemon game, let's give this a go again! Platinum is of course - the definitive Gen 4 experience. It follows in the footsteps of Crystal & Emerald by elaborating on and perfecting many of the ideas put forth by its predecessors. (In this case, Diamond & Pearl.) We can argue all day about the ethics and integrity of the way Pokemon just releases a "better" version of their main releases like a year after they come out - but the fact remains, Platinum is good, and it's the best way to experience Sinnoh.

I like Gen 4 Pokemon a lot. Diamond & Pearl certainly have their flaws, but they have very likable, acceptable flaws. Okay, the battle animations are slow! There's poor type distribution! These are a far cry from the forced Exp. Share and railroady design we'd have to suffer through for the next 10+ years of the series after this. Gen 4 are the last Pokemon games to be truly open in their design until Gen 9. People love Black & White and all, but it doesn't get talked about enough how they started Pokemon's downward-world-design-spiral into linearity. Boxing you into small locations and forcing you to progress there before you can move on, completely eliminating any potential for simple exploration or interesting sequence breaking.

DPP (Diamond/Pearl/Platinum) are not quite as open as the Gen 2 & 3 games, but they're open enough to still give you that sense of adventure. The games in particular really open up around when you reach Hearthome City, and then have access to Veilstone and Pastoria City. I've always liked this about them. I like that you can have fun with the order in which you challenge Maylene, Crasher Wake & Fantina, I like that you can visit the Trophy Gardens and the Valor Lakefront as soon as you can make it to Hearthome. I like that you get teased with the route to Sunyshore well before you'll even get there! It's a rare case of Pokemon blocking a place off, and it actually feeling quite cool! You've got enough of the rest of the world open to you, so this builds up some anticipation! When this path finally clears up to you en route to your 8th gym badge, it's a great feeling! It can be done right! It's sensible here!

Of course this is a boon of Gen 4's design as a whole, but Platinum - on top of obviously sharing this design, then fixes or at least improves on basically every little problem Diamond & Pearl had. Battle animations are sped up now! Pokemon type distributions are way better! (There are more Fire types in the game than just the Chimchar line & Ponyta/Rapidash, lmao. Seriously, they had a Fire type Elite Four member in Diamond & Pearl who had two Fire type Pokemon, because that's all he could have! There were no more actually in the game! How does something like that slip past design?) And Team Galactic & Cyrus - who were really pretty shallow and generic are given more screentime with an awesome expanded Galactic HQ segment. I still don't care much for Cyrus as a character at all, but he's at least a bit less forgettable here - largely due to his involvement with one of the other coolest parts of the game; The Distortion World. Goddamn, how did they get this shit to work on the DS? It's like, seriously technically impressive. Giratina's appearance and general presentation towards the end of the game is so sick, maybe the most imposing a legendary Pokemon has ever felt. Capturing this thing almost feels wrong. I feel like I just threw a fuckin' Poke Ball at actual Satan.

On the note of things that I'm astounded worked on the DS, how about that soundtrack, huh? I know it's not a new opinion but Gen 4 Pokemon probably has the best soundtrack of the main games. It's got this serene, evocative, dream-like vibe. So much elegant piano and bluesy woodwind. It gets the idea of a rustic, mountainous region across perfectly. Eterna City and the Lake songs are among the most gorgeous pieces of music Pokemon has yet contributed, and it's no surprise so many people remember these games' OST's so fondly all these years later.

Platinum takes an already good Pokemon game and smooths out most of the edges. It doesn't fix every flaw. Even with more time with Cyrus & Team Galactic I still find them pretty generic, even for Pokemon antagonists. And imo these are the games where Pokemon stories delved into melodrama a bit too much! A few too many world-ending threats and abstract nouns getting thrown around here for my taste. You could also probably make the argument that the Pokemon designs what with stuff like Dialga, Palkia & Regigias start to go a bit far here. (Though I will forever love these games for introducing so many evolutions to previously underappreciated Pokemon. Honchkrow, Magnezone, Mamoswine my beloved.)

Sure, I could have stood for the world to be a bit more open a la Gens 2 & 3 as I always could! But Gen 4 and Platinum get way more right than they do wrong. They look and sound gorgeous, they feel like an adventure with some open and inspired world design, and then Platinum goes ahead and beefs up their already great post-game and Battle Frontier even more. It's just more of a good thing! And it's aged just as well as all of the other games from the golden age of Pokemon.

A game is very special when it’s something that’s near and dear to my heart, yet lets me find new ways to approach and enjoy it or new details that I’d notice. Pokemon Platinum is that. Diamond and Pearl had a very interesting region with excellent lore, but it was tied to poor pacing and a ridiculously slow engine, along with a small Pokedex with limited variety. Platinum saw all of these flaws, and fixed them. Yes, it still runs somewhat slow as a product of being on the generation 4 engine, but it’s infinitely faster than what DP was. And adding 59 more Pokemon to the regional dex while tweaking others’ learnsets? It’s fantastic for replayability and variety, and improving the game’s pacing in terms of story and badge progression, on top of adding more dialogue really helps to build the world and make the characters feel tangible. Small things like visual tweaks, be they shading changes or additions of snow in some areas, or making the Lost Tower more haunted looking, to outright redoing some maps helps the game stand out, both in an individuality sense and also visually. It’s a treat to look at, and it’s fun seeing the same, good lore get expanded upon in a game that structures itself in a way that can hold my attention. It’s filled to brim with sidequests, and ensures that you will encounter the entire Pokedex’s worth of Pokemon in a regular run if you simply engage with its content, and that’s extremely rewarding to me. I took it at my own pace this run, engaging with daily content, fighting morning/night specific trainers and catching Pokemon that spawn only at specific times, and felt a stronger connection to the game for it. It’s a game I can always escape to, as Sinnoh fundamentally reminds me of growing up in the middle of nowhere in North Georgia, and staying with my grandparents on native land in North Carolina. It’s a mountainous, chilly region with a lot of myth to it, but that’s what makes it feel so much like a home to me. Coupled with the brilliant soundtrack, which changes depending on the time of day, it’s really easy for me to find myself immersed with the game, engrossed wholly. As characters are expanded upon dramatically, and the game’s pacing no longer feels like a slog which lacks in Pokemon variety, a game which is built upon a rather weak foundation emerges as frankly, one of the best in the series. There is a strong commitment to variety in enemy teams and movesets, and ensuring that the game’s areas all stand out in fresh and memorable ways, and the game oozes with charm for it. Playing for the first time as a child, and seeing the expanded Pokedex was mindblowing. Hell, seeing some trainer sprites move blew me away. As an adult, the game remains a “comfort” media of sorts, which I’ve replayed annually for the past four years. In 2021 and 2022 it was an escape from my father’s cancer diagnosis, and my own chronic illness, respectively. This year, playing it on a break of sorts from school, I’m unfettered and able to experience it purely as it is, and that is so precious and blissful. I cannot stress how much this game means to me.

you may clown on bidoof in middle school but ive never seen a platinum playthrough without at least a bibarel.

sinnoh has a lot for me to hate and a lot for me to love. too many goddamn HMs! genuinely some of the most beautiful music in the series! Team galactic has 0 swag, stacks no paper! but one of my favourite things about this game has so many comfy locations that are so, hangout-able. Floarama town is such a cute little place, I could see myself wanting to settle down there. Eterna forest's music made me feel like I was 8 playing this game for the first time again. anyways I like froslass, she's a cutie.

Imagine someone handling you a broken glass, shiny and to some pretty but completely shattered into pieces, and they ask you to fix it while handling you only some spit and a bit tiny duct tape.

It can be hard to imagine how plausible it can be to fix this glass.... and yet mr. Giratina himself did it.
Pokemon Platinum takes the janky skeleton of Diamond and Pearl and fixes almost all of its issue, creating one of the best experiences in the Pokemon franchise.

The roster of mons is now more varied than ever, bringing a pokedex that is full of customization alongside some really cool new evolution fr some of the older monsters. The flew of the story, while not perfect, is much better and less confusing than the ones presented by Diamond and Pearl (Fantina is actually reachable without 10000 walks and loops now). The battles feels faster and more balanced, and the now evolved pokemon formula is fun as always, but also feels more balsnced because of the different changes included by the fourth gen (special and physical split alone is enough to ramp up the formula).

To this we had an incredible extra compared to what Dialga and Palkia showed us: the Distortion World is to this day one of the most stunning and impressive pokemon locations, and traverse it feels alienating, but thrilling and engaging. Even the villains got a more respectable showcase of their plan and motivations. The rest of the cast, including gym leaders, NPC and especially Cynthia have a lot more time to shine.

While not what I feel is the objectively best pokemon game, Pokemon platinum will forever be my favorite, and a must play if you are a fan of the franchise.

I still remember making my Torterra reach level 100 without the use of candies.... good times, man....

Completed Platinum after Yellow, Crystal and Emerald in my brothers’ playthrough series. It’s quite clearly a fan favourite and argued constantly that it’s the best Pokemon game however after replaying, it seems that opinion is filled with a lot of nostalgia and ignoring the issues that were present.

I’m going to breakdown my biggest issue with the game: the Pokedex. (Huge nitpick of a review)

The Pokédex is by far the worst dex we’ve ever had, both at the point of release and today. With around 210, 93 are Sinnoh region Pokemon (including their beginning stages and middle stage too) and 56 are fully evolved. You’d imagine this is a good pool of Pokemon to pick from but the issue stems from the lack of viable new Pokemon and creativity. 24/93 are some sort of adaptation of gen 1 to 3 Pokemon as in introducing an evolution or pre evolutionary stage, 17 of which NEED Platinum to even access them.

As a separate generation from the other 3, it’s off putting to rely on fixing those Pokemon to fluff the Dex instead of creating new Pokemon for your region itself. I’m not saying this as if those Pokemon aren’t good because believe me, they are. I ran a Porygon-Z which is an excellent sweeper and with previous playthroughs and my brothers using some, a good chunk are so viable. However I find the approach quite polarising. They take an old Pokemon that has middling stats and nothing going for it and evolve it to be a beast. It’s a good thing that they want to essentially fix shit Pokemon but with them existing amongst original Sinnoh Pokemon, it’s hard to see why someone wouldn’t just run the updated evolutions.

This leaves us with Sinnoh’s Pokemon count of 69 including first and second stages. I mention this because no one really is going to run a Luxio over Luxray or Gabite over Garchomp. This would leave 37 Pokemon to pick from but you can only have 1 starter, not all 3, one Fossil choice out of two, Dialga/Palkia/Spiritomb are post game, and Manaphy is an event. So we got 30 Pokemon now. This is the reason why so many people have similar Sinnoh teams. The remaining 30 have some stinker Pokemon with very little reason to use them. If this was Diamond and Pearl, you could say since there’s no updated evos from old games, they could have been used. But in Platinum? No way. Why use Carnivine when Tangrowth and Leafeon are miles better and are also available?

It may seem arbitrary to complain about something so minor like Pokemon variety but I think it sets the game back quite a bit. Original D/P are far worse though. Also Mt Coronet is mid, the region design is lacking and too many HMs still needed.

Cyrus is an interesting villain. That’s it. He’s got nothing else worth talking about other than being somewhat interesting.

Sem dúvidas esse jogo é um marco na história da franquia, platinum pegou os erros do D/P e consertou com perfeição, sem contar que em questão de narrativa esse é o melhor até agora que já encostei.

O jeito que ele te conduz na história e na descoberta de novas áreas, nem tão rápido e nem tão lento, é muito gostosinho.

Sem contar que os pokemons dessa Gen IV são muito estilosos, enfim, vai ficar marcado pra sempre na minha memória.

Unico problema que achei desse ai é que o design do mapa dele não é la tão bem trabalhado quando falamos de guiar o jogador, tem áreas que por conta do gráfico e textura ficam um pouco escondidas e te deixa preso ali de um jeito bem paia :/

Então pra evitar ficar preso, sempre observe cada canto do mapa e principalmente aquilo que a camera do jogo pode não conseguir mostrar completamente

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

Pokémon Platinum is a title that resounds loudly when Pokémon discussion comes around, it is a game that has gotten through every stage of fanaticism, with it being the improved version of seemingly one of the worse received and sluggish titles from everyone having played this specific one in the their childhood years thus marking what a Pokémon game would be forever for them. It's truly a generational game that has inflicted in the life of many people to get into the franchise to stay or video games in general... Or so I've heard. People all around me always have considered Platinum to be between one of the best Pokémon, if not just Nintendo DS games of all time and of course that going into this I was a bit excited, maybe they were right all along and I've always adverted myself to the thought of it being that good ever since I first tried out at the ripe age of eight years old... And I simply couldn't feel more disappointed by the end result.

Pokémon Platinum Version is the next big step in the Pokémon series of games, we're talking generational leap from the Game Boy family of handheld consoles to the new and shining, 3D-capable double-screened for double action Nintendo DS, a marvelous invention when it came to the ergonomics of handheld gaming as a whole and a series of handhelds that Pokémon would pretty much see as a home for the next decade or so. With it came completely new graphics mixing 3D objects with the tile-based sprites we've seen before, dynamic day/night cycle due to the clock functionality built into the system and a whole new screen to menu your menus easier I guess, they really haven't found an actual good utility for this one yet so it plays more like just your average GBA game with better graphics and sound.

So, with the new capabilities of the hardware you would expect that they make good use of them and actually bring the experience to a new standard, maybe this new Sinnoh region is vast with never-seen before Pokémon coupled with classics from Generations I-III coming back, right??? The answer would be, kinda? Only one of those is really correct and none of it is really in a good way.

Platinum marks the first Pokémon game to be abnormally long compared to its predecessors, and very little of it is actually used in any sort of meaningful way that would excuse it being this long. The whole game took me 41 hours and with having done a lot of optional stuff, I didn't skip out on any battles nor did I spend time grinding, so I reckon it probably wasn't just me being slow but the amount of padding there is throughout the whole journey, with routes being extra long with trainers that have some killer (hard) teams with little to nearly no time to actually spend in the cities and towns you visit, in Emerald it felt like the location of certain places you needed to go to were in very remote areas but in Platinum it feels like everything is a remote area. It's long, drawn out and so boring because out of those hours spent going everywhere only like 10 of it are actual things of substance relating to the story with Team Galactic and Cyrus, and the story isn't that good to begin with, it has the bare minimum of actual nuance to it and by the end of it I just simply couldn't care no matter what they did, I much prefer how the story was lied down in Emerald with it being spread out through the entire game and the resolve of it tying into the ending and stuff like that.

It being so long could've been somewhat excused if the usage of Pokémon wasn't so badly spread throughout, there's barely any familiar Pokémon from past Generations that aren't just Geodude, Magikarp and Zubat and every single trainer uses the same pool of like 20 mons while Team Galactic goons use the same pool of like 4 (four) 'mons, by the end of the game I had to check my Pokédex to see if I was actually lacking gray matter in my brain to make me forget about it but in reality is that there isn't nearly as much interesting wild Pokémon, and most of the Pokémon that were interesting enough came from the Ace Trainers that you fight in said long routes. (One particularly interesting one was Tropius being used in one of the teams, Tropius is such an underrated and unknown Pokémon that I was legitimately surprised, but it was an NPC's team so it's not like I could do anything about it) And then when you look at the Pokémon that Generation IV added you notice how bad is the variety of types is and how some like fire type Pokémon are simply neglected if it isn't Chimchar, it's probably my least favorite Regional Dex so far as there's simply nothing to it.

By the end of it, with the help of hacked Rare Candies and abusing the hell out of a measly 1.5x fast forward button the geniuses over at MelonDS headquarters crafted for me, I challenged the Pokémon League with a team at around level 50-ish, I struggled, hard. I know I'm not the best at Pokémon battling in general and I think my methods are a bit meat-headed when it comes to strategy but I didn't think it was that bad, and as an amazing surprise, by the end of it... Turns out I was underleveled. So I had to spend the entire Elite Four battles playing like a little bitch reviving and healing and waiting for the numbers to give me their blessing and coincide perfectly so that my damn Whiscash would actually use Surf once and for all. The game not only is 35 hours long minimum but to add insult to injury is also grindy as hell if you actually wanna have a slight margin of error when it comes to beating it, it's no surprise that leveling up anything past level 35 via natural means in Pokémon sucks and it's a long process but damn, you need to be around 65 to actually comfortably get past all the Elite Four challenges and that's just so much adding onto the pile of miseries this game has held for me.

In general I don't think I've ever felt more bored playing a Pokémon game, or a RPG in my life. Nothing really shines through, the story and characters are nothing otherworldly as people like to think it is, it's slow and has no variety when it comes to its monsters in this monster catching video game, and it's sluggish and slow as all hell. But hey, bonus points for the music department because damn did they pop off for some tracks here and there.

Diamond/Pearl/Platinum are some of the most beloved games in the series by fans, and for good reason. To this day, they're debatably some of the most ambitious and challenging games in Pokemon history. The physical/special split was a much needed mechanical change, there's plenty of fun side content to sink your teeth into, and the introduction of Wi-Fi was huge for the series. All us troglodytes could finally play with others in the comfort of our own abodes! I have plenty of respect for Platinum for everything influential it did. ...That doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

Pokemon Platinum is a game that had already gotten worse for me with each revisit. That in mind, I assumed with my hiatus from the franchise that I would be able to enjoy the game with a fresh mindset. After all, I enjoyed my time with older instalments such as Emerald and Crystal. I even had a lot of fun with Blue version, which I never played before! There were definitely moments when I was having fun with Platinum, but the overall experience left me far more frustrated and burnt out than anything.

As much of a low hanging fruit as it is, Platinum really is a slog. And that's not only because it runs on the slowest engine in the series. It often feels like the game is actively designed to slow the player down as much as possible.

To avoid spoilers, I won't be diving extensively into the story, but as a whole I find it incredibly irritating and a waste of time. Most of the characters; particularly the grunts of Team Galactic, speak in such a robotic manner and always state the obvious. I don't know if it was an attempt at being funny, but lines like "You have forced our hand into making a show of force!" or "Tougher than I can put into words, and I know a lot of words!" sound so unnatural and fall flat.

It doesn't help that the grunts don't seem to understand what they're doing; most of their schemes come out of left field and tend to not connect to their end goals in any way. Even the schemes that do relate to their motives like bombing the lakes come out of nowhere because the story does such a poor job building up to these events. The best they do is vaguely hint at what they're doing, but it fails to create any real urgency.

Apparently, the intention of the story was to create a perfect world for everyone. This does tie into Team Galactic's ringleader motive, as he constantly expresses his desire for such. The problem is that he acts like the world they live in is flawed and imperfect, yet Team Galactic are the only ones causing problems.

Nothing is ever expanded upon besides the bullet points, so what could have been an interesting story amounts to saturday morning cartoon villains trying to take over the world. Everything is super showy and over the top to compensate for how shallow the plot truly is. And the real kicker of all? I'm FORCED to sit through this! I can't exactly overlook this game's story when it's constantly forced upon me while I'm playing.

But you know what? Maybe Team Galactic was right about the world being imperfect. After all, Sinnoh might just be the most tedious region to explore if you ask me. It's designed with plenty of branching paths and cities to explore. Yet it's more railroaded than ever. They constantly throw up roadblocks to prevent the player from progressing where they shouldn't, and they feel so out of place. HMs in particular are required more than ever. I often got lost because of how confusing the progression is.

Sinnoh feels like it was designed to be open ended, but rarely takes advantage of all the alternating paths it has. More often than not, when the player has to return to an area, they're required to backpedal through the same path they already explored with hardly anything new to see. It doesn't help that as the story progresses, the next required location is often so far away that flying is practically a necessity. Sure, there may be a few extra items to grab with any newly obtained HMs, but they feel a lot less rewarding with the backtrack being necessary.

This ties more into my biggest grievance with Platinum, but the design of the routes tend to feel unnatural. It's like they threw a bunch of set pieces and items in without much care, and it makes it really hard to believe these are routes the characters in this world would actually walk through. Hell, there are a few routes that rely on obnoxious gimmicks! Swamp that sinks the player in place, snow to trudge through at an incredibly slow pace, etc. It makes already haphazard level design even more agonising.

This all brings me into what bothers the most about Platinum, though. I fail to feel any sense of immersion or connect to the world. As if the artificial characters and haphazard world design weren't enough. I find it difficult to distinguish most of the areas because they tend to blend together. There are some unique areas that I do greatly appreciate, however. Canalave and Sunyshore city in particular stand out to me. I could not tell the difference between a city like Hearthome or Veilstone, though.

This is mostly a personal issue, but I also find a lot of the hues used in the overworld incredibly garish. The neon grass in particular was so overstimulating for me that I had to turn my DS's brightness down to the lowest setting. I still don't understand why they used such bright colours like the GBA games did when the DS had backlit screens.

This onion might be spicy enough to get me slaughtered, but... I'll be blunt. I do not vibe with a majority of the brand new Pokemon introduced. Not only do they also tend to use really jarring and overstimulating hues, but there are often so many unnecessary flourishes with their designs that makes them feel way more artificial. A majority of the Pokemon look more like over the top action figures to me than creatures, and it makes it harder for me to feel connected to them. There are a handful that I adore, but a majority are add-ons to older Pokemon I already liked. All in all, it leaves me way less interested in using these new Pokemon they designed for this generation.

I should note that Platinum does make some significant improvements over Diamond/Pearl. The Pokedex in particular goes from one of the worst to one of the best, with plenty of variety and options. On top of that, the engine runs a bit faster and the story adds a few new characters and details that make it a bit more redeemable. I don't think Platinum really fixes any of the core issues, however. I still don't like Team Galactic, I still don't enjoy exploring Sinnoh, and I still don't feel very immersed in the experience.

I'm sure quite a few of these problems could be traced back to some of the older games. Hell, I've seen plenty of people compare its problems to Ruby and Sapphire in particular. I don't think that excuses Platinum, though. If anything, it's even worse, because not only is it repeating those mistakes but it's also doubling down on them. Platinum reveals how desperately the formula needed tweaking. But you know what? If that's what Game Freak needed to polish and improve the formula, then maybe it was for the best. And for those who adore the old formula for Pokemon; warts and all, then maybe Platinum is all they could ask for.

I really ought to focus on Pokemon games I still enjoy rather than the ones I don't, yet I probably have more to say about Diamond/Pearl/Platinum than I do with any other Pokemon game. Sure, it's mostly criticism, but I've never felt so passionate ranting about a Pokemon game. I'll reiterate what I stated in the beginning. I may not enjoy Platinum much any more, but I still have a ton of respect for it. We truly do have a complicated relationship, Platinum and I.

I'm not too hot on Plat (and I'm probably never gonna play D&P quite honestly) but I'll admit its one of the more cozier feeling pokemon games I've played.

Tbh I feel a lot of nothing for Sinnoh as a region, the stand-out places really being the snowy areas leading up to snowpoint city (its very annoying to go through though) and the rainy swamp area between pastoria and hearthome. I don't really care much about the cities either. The main exception would be the whole area where the battle frontier and resort area e.t.c. are located, they had a nice look to them and felt cool to explore. Shoutout to the Distortion World, its just cool and actually hyped me up for the climax of the main story lol.

Speaking of which, while it seems like they were generally trying to put more writing in from gens 1-3 it feels a lot more apparent with gen 4. You get a pretty good amount of lore regarding Sinnoh's history and its myths and legends, which includes information on the legendaries, the lake guardians, e.t.c. Similarly certain characters have consistently notable story roles which also often neatly ties in with the lore surrounding sinnoh (does lowkey kind of become an exposition dump by rowan and Cynthia in particular but its whatever), definitely more than what previous gens tried at least. Same goes for more minor like gym leaders, who typically have a little more to their roles to at least leave a memorable impact on the player.

Barry got pretty annoying though admittedly. He was pretty charming at first and immediately made himself distinct as a rival but I got very exhausted from his typical gimmick by the end of the game.

Up to this point in the series, Team Galactic is definitely the most interesting villain team. Cyrus is genuinely a very interesting character, who while doesn't waste no time to make the player hate him you get a pretty good idea of his mindset and later on bits of his backstory that led him to be like this. What he does ultimately sucks, but I can't say I don't feel pity for him, or even feel like I've had similar thoughts to him when I was in a worse situation before. The galactic commanders are less interesting, moreso because they lack enough screentime but I expected as much going off previous villain team commanders. Still, Jupiter and Mars in particular were kinda cool.

A big issue I have with the story is how surprisingly early it ends. Usually I'd expect it to end before the elite 4 but here it ends before the eight gym lol. It kinda just messed the pacing for me, and I mostly lost motivation to continue after it wrapped up. It just feels not right, like I get that they felt this was the right pacing for them but still its like, too soon? its weird, bleh, i don't like it

The new pokemon are cool, probably some the best starters in this series and I had a bit of trouble making a finalized team because I enjoyed a lot of the pokemon I used.

Additional note I guess is that I liked the contests and beat them all (yayyy) and I'm still in the process of beating the battle frontier but its a lot less frustrating than emerald's. I've also been a lot more invested in the post game than I typically am for these games, no real specific reason besides that the new areas that unlock are pretty fun to take a look through.
Fuck whoever thought making glameow, the skunk and misdreavus or whatever D&P exclusive lmao hate that hate that

• Cynthia.

• This game is TOUGH, but it makes it more nail biting and satisfying when you see those OP mons go down in one hit. Much better to not be a nerd like me and obsess over coverage and just be smart and get hard hitting moves with STAB and stuff to keep your team alive

• Bibarel's face will stay with me forever (too many HMs to worry about 😑)

• Cynthia.

• Barry knows his stuff, fully evolved team and all. Scary rival yet so likeable.

• Distortion World, time and space, antimatter and origin of the world? Coolest lore ever easy. And that bit of Cyrus rejecting the human spirit and Cynthia embracing it? Dude...

• Giratina and all the new evolutions 😍

• THE MUUUUSICCC

• Cynthia. (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡