This review contains spoilers
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl: Faithfully Flawed, Creatively Stunted
A short documentary by battlehuntz
Edited/proofread by @realtaylorhallam on Instagram
I’d like to preface above all else that as much of a precise critique as I’d like for this to be, there’s going to be more personal reasons for it. These games are remakes of the first game I ever owned, and I think that will certainly play a part in how I view them and the story behind this. Nothing I write comes from a place of hatred for the developers or the series, but rather a place of love and wishing it was handled better. Critiquing Pokemon games on the internet draws a crowd of strawmen who will blindly bash and those who will blindly defend. I don’t write to appeal to either of those, and this will be my personal viewpoint and experience with these titles. I write as a form of healing; as a way to get my thoughts out when I feel strongly. I want my work to accurately reflect how I feel and be of the best quality it can possibly be. And this won’t be some review of pure negativity. I’m writing this first, before I write this work. I write this for the younger me who loved the originals and Pokemon Platinum, and for an older, more jaded me. I wanted that to be stated before I delve into this short documentary.
Background:
One day in August 2007, my parents bought me a Nintendo DS with Pokemon Pearl. As it was my first game I ever owned, I, inherently, became biased toward it. I’d had no point of comparison, so the attachment and nostalgia developed with ease. Time passed, and in 2009, Pokemon Platinum, an upgraded version of the game was released. This changed a lot of the game, introducing much improved and near-needed pacing, leveling, remade locations, 59 more Pokemon in the Sinnoh Pokedex, and much more extra content. As a kid who only had Pearl as a point of comparison, Platinum was mind-blowing. Time passed, and I realized the flaws of Diamond and Pearl (DP) became more apparent, be it their slow story pacing between the second and third gyms, their atrocious level curve, or their lack of 1/3 of the new Sinnoh Pokemon within the main story. My love for Platinum stayed present, but Diamond and Pearl’s reputation certainly waned for me. Around this time, a clamoring for remakes of the Sinnoh games began. The begging for remakes lasted an entire four years, since the release of Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon in 2017. I absolutely wanted them as well, but worry still remained in my thoughts. The Hoenn remakes, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (ORAS), were more contentious in the fanbase for being very different takes than their original versions, so there was a divide between fans on what route a Sinnoh remake should take. There was not, however, any divide between fans on the inclusion of Platinum's added content.
Prerelease Panic:
The day was February 26, 2021. During a Pokémon Direct that day, two games were revealed, being Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (BDSP), and Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Even though fans had begged for a Sinnoh remake for years, the immediate reveal of BDSP saw a backlash juxtaposed to Legends’ praise. With BDSP, we were shown the remakes in a chibi style, with quite frankly, ugly battle models and immense oversaturation. Beyond graphical worries, an immediate worry stemmed from one phrase in the press release: “faithful remakes of Diamond and Pearl”. A wave of fear regarding what this meant echoed through the months between trailers, with fans wondering what this meant regarding the Pokemon distribution and pacing of the game, and any other content Platinum had solved and/or added.. In the Summer of 2021, a trailer for the Switch OLED showed the game’s battle graphics had been touched on, but no further news was shown until the middle of August, during another Direct.
The August Direct brought about a period of engoodening for BDSP. The prior graphical improvements were shown in immense detail, with much better models, saturation, and lighting. Perhaps the biggest things taken note of though, were the presence of Pokemon from the Platinum Pokedex, and the announcement of the Grand Underground feature. The Grand Underground served to be an expansion of the Underground from the original games, but now containing wild Pokemon, including those who weren’t available in the main overworld. All worries of reduced Pokemon variety seemed to be quashed by that moment, especially after the reveal of new artwork for Pokemon who were not on Diamond and Pearl’s Pokedex. There were more features which grabbed the eyes of fans, such as trainer customization and following Pokemon as well, further contributing to a wave of positivity for the game. Future trailers showed the removal of the Hidden Moves (HM) feature which plagued traversal in the original games by forcing you to teach specific moves to your team in order to overcome hazards that were necessary to overcome. BDSP’s mapping of the HMs to the Poketch feature was a massive improvement, slating the games to have the potential to be the best version of Sinnoh, even. However, things such as Platinum’s much improved levels, pacing, and overworld variety still had yet to be confirmed: a trailer showing several locations that used their Diamond and Pearl maps began to make fans worry about what would happen with these remakes. People asked, “what does the word faithful truly mean?”. The pre-release and subsequent leaking of the game began to make that, and more, viscerally clear.
The pre-release of the game began to validate the worries echoing throughout the community. The previews given to reviewers revealed many bizarre choices, such as the Diamond and Pearl maps, Technical Machines (TMs) being single-use consumables, (backtracking on the tradition of them being reusable that had lasted a prior decade) and the Trainer battle theme playing in wild Pokemon battles inside a demo of the Great Marsh area. The most notable issue, however, was that the battle themes were unfinished, being placeholder MIDIs of the tracks, ripped from Diamond and Pearl. Beyond one IGN reviewer who somehow thought this was intentional to sound like the DS games, most people did agree these were placeholders, but worries about the game’s development status began to mount after such an unfinished build was shown to reviewers. Roughly two weeks before release, the game began to leak, further validating these fears. The leaks began to quickly spread across the internet, highlighting issues such as a missing title screen and minimally fixed battle themes. This was version 1.0. This was the state the game had shipped in, and if you didn’t have internet access or the 2.5 GB to update the game, this was the game you were saddled with. Otherwise absent from the game in this build were aspects of the postgame, such as a functioning Heatran encounter, Turnback Cave, and the new Ramanas Park. Most importantly, however, the build confirmed every gameplay fear the public held. The games contained Diamond and Pearl’s level curve. The games contained Diamond and Pearl’s pacing. The games contained Diamond and Pearl’s Pokedex, complete with only a single fire type beyond the starter. The games contained the original Diamond and Pearl’s very own source code, cementing the idea of game-developing laziness. As more updates began to emerge, many Platinum-exclusive Pokemon were accessible in the Grand Underground; however, their evolutionary items either were made far more tedious to obtain, or locked to the postgame, despite having locations that functioned perfectly fine in Platinum, further stifling the variety of BDSP. A new trailer revealed the contents of the new Ramanas Park, being an area to catch legendaries. The content showcased within the trailer was fine, but the main detail of the trailer was the existence of a patch, slated for November 11th. With this patch, leakers finally gained access to the completed game, while countless glitches, such as an ability to enter a void of sorts and skip the game, and multiple instances of getting stuck remained. With eight days between this update and release, the game’s situation was both rather clear and rather grim.
Personal Playthrough:
Early afternoon, November 19, 2021, my game arrived. Having to take 15 minutes merely to update a game in order to have it work correctly already annoyed me as I had to contain my excitement to relive my childhood. But upon startup? I had fun with the game. In many ways, I was a bit charmed by how it looked in handheld mode. Battle backgrounds were very pretty, and the lighting was very nice, especially as I played into the evening. It’s nostalgic to hear the music of your childhood mastered and translated into more complex MIDIs as well. When I hit the Grand Underground, I remained there for hours. I was addicted to gaining access to so many team members and a lot of variety such as early access to evolved Pokemon like Gastrodon and Lickilicky, and rarer Pokemon that would normally require HMs to access like Elekid and Magby. However, a singular thing instantly damaged and hindered my experience: the controls were, and still are, quite bluntly, disgusting. It feels as if your character gets caught on every object possible if you use the joystick to run, and if you use the D-Pad to move on a grid, it doesn’t reset properly like in the Generation 6 titles, so your grid-based movement will always be uncannily off grid and inaccurate. This makes the game extremely taxing to play. Many a time I found myself in the Grand Underground, chased by Pokemon, only to be caught on terrain in the way that the game’s collision simply didn’t route me around, which forced me into battles. I even got a Shiny Meditite from this, highlighting just how much this occurred for me. This was extremely frustrating in areas with tight ledges, such as Mt. Coronet and Victory Road, as resetting to grid movement isn’t possible: It’s inherently unfun. Not to mention, the part where Platinum’s pacing and content feels most noticable, which is right after the second gym, doesn’t have this to benefit from. Rather than being treated to new encounters such as Nosepass or Gligar, you find yourself dealing with swaths of Geodude, Machop, and Onix. It’s not fun. The inability to simply go and fight the Hearthome gym immediately, unlike in Platinum, harms pacing even further, making the slog to the third gym very difficult. As someone who typically doesn’t mind a party-wide EXP Share, the inability to turn it off results in immense overleveling for the majority of the game, as both Maylene and Wake having equal levels offsets the level balance for most of the main story, resulting in your party easily outleveling most bosses. A tweaked friendship mechanic results in several occasions of your Pokemon gaining Pokemon Amie bonuses, such as extra criticals, status healing, or living on 1 hp when they’d be KO’d without you choosing for this to happen. This, combined with the levelling and stunted variety of fights directly harmed a lot of my experience, as everything felt too easy. Less variety made the plethora of Sinnoh’s sidequests much less enjoyable to go through, as there wasn’t a variety in the fights I’d face. When every other trainer packs a Ponyta due to it being the only fire type in the region, a severe problem is present, I feel. All these awkward removals of quality-of-life changes was and remains unfun. Of course, my game did eventually end, and while I’d loved much of the OST and moments where backgrounds were gorgeous, I was generally happy I was finishing. However, nothing prepared me for the level curve that was the Elite Four. Obviously, Champion Cynthia has always been subject to memes about her difficulty, and her reputation precedes her. However, in Diamond and Pearl, and now BDSP, the levels jump a massive 17 levels from the eighth gym’s ace. Now, the very EXP Share I ranted about making the game easy was the only thing preventing my team’s mutilation by the Elite Four’s teams, given competitive stats and items for maximum difficulty. It’s absurdity. As fun as the fights could be, their very situation was befuddling. Was this a game for children, as the 99% of the game preceding this indicated, or one for hardcore players? I’m truly not sure what I played, or how to feel. Diamond and Pearl were games that desperately needed a fix. Platinum served this very function, and effectively replaced them. Why was mediocrity remade instead of choosing to expand upon greatness, or at the very least make greatness even more accessible? What happened? My nostalgia was present, which made me have fun, but it was fun under disappointment, fun that could have been greater, and fun that was had under the knowledge of that fact. Since I’ve ranted much about Platinum being excluded, I’d like to truly explain why that is, and why Platinum’s existence matters as much as I’ve said.
The Platinum Problem:
As I’ve mentioned, a dichotomy exists between the perception of DP and BDSP when placed next to Platinum. On its own, this wouldn’t make much sense, as Platinum is built from DP’s bones. However, Platinum’s changes morph it into a much different and better game, and the definitive version which BDSP should have built from. Diamond and Pearl is missing 1/3 of it’s new Pokemon from its dex. Things like Electivire, Magmortar, Dusknoir, or Yanmega? Postgame or GBA insert only. Their items? Postgame only or carried by them. In Platinum, they naturally spawn along the Sinnoh region, with natural locations for their items. This extends to items for Pokemon who already existed in the Sinnoh dex, such as Weavile’s Razor Claw being moved earlier so that players can use one for more of the game than right before the league. The new Pokemon are also seeded into trainers’ teams, making fights more fun and diverse. For example, Diamond and Pearl only had two fire types to work with, while Platinum had five. Areas like the Old Chateau seem nigh worthless Diamond and Pearl unless you want a Gastly, as Rotom is locked until postgame. Platinum allows you to catch Rotom on that first visit. The most notable area, however, remains the Fuego Ironworks. This optional area along a river on Route 205 feels juxtaposed as the most underwhelming reward for exploration in Diamond and Pearl, while serving as such a rewarding area in Platinum. In DP, your reward is a patch of grass full of Pokemon you’ve already seen, namely the Gastrodon and Floatzel evolution lines who spawn in a rather large capacity throughout the region, as well as a Fire Stone which is unusable on anything that spawns in the main game. Platinum’s Fuego Ironworks spawns Magmar and Magnemite, meanwhile, granting access to two excellent evolutionary lines which do not spawn elsewhere, whilst also giving the player this same Fire Stone, for it to have use due to the Eevee line’s presence in Platinum, granting access to Flareon. This diversity greatly enhances Platinum, and to see this be locked to the player alone in BDSP’s Grand Underground truly holds back a lot of enjoyment and engagement for me.
Much less major, but variety related all the same, Platinum added move tutors to multiple areas, along with reworking movesets for the Pokemon it had there. Shinx was allowed to learn a physical electric move, Spark, prior to its evolution in Platinum, whereas Diamond and Pearl didn’t allow this until level 18. In the case of move tutors, the ability to exchange shards, a common item in the game’s underground, for new moves in order to diversify movesets created a much more exciting and rewarding gameplay loop, creating optional rewards whilst incentivizing a side feature. To lack these in a future release feels as if it misses the very point of them and their utility. As BDSP imports movesets from Sword and Shield for many Pokemon, greatly stifling many of them, this, along with several of Platinum’s movesets, felt much more essential in the equation. Though minor comparatively, these remain conveniences which are all but ignored and cast aside. When a modern game forgoes the conveniences and variety of a work that precedes it by twelve years, it begs to question why none would not simply elect to play Platinum.
Beyond the Pokedex, pacing remains Platinum’s most prominent improvement over its original versions. Diamond and Pearl notoriously feature a stretch between Eterna City and Veilstone City, spanning roughly four or five hours of gameplay between badges. When this results in stopping by Hearthome City, located between the two, while also not visiting its gym, the pacing feels notoriously dragged. Platinum allows the Hearthome gym to be challenged upon its first visit, creating a stronger gameplay loop for it, with no brutal stretch of nothingness. Platinum’s pacing further changes through reinforcing a linear pacing as opposed to DP’s more open third and fourth badges. As DP forces Hearthome City to be skipped upon first visit, the third and fourth badges are seeded as Veilstone City or Pastoria City, in any order the player chooses. Oddly, however, the path to Pastoria City doesn’t open until the player has reached Solaceon Town, which lies halfway between Hearthome City and Veilstone City, leading most to choose Veilstone first. This nonlinear choice, tilts leveling drastically for the remainder of DP’s runtime, as both Veilstone and Pastoria’s gyms have the same level curve, forcing the routes around them to be drastically underleveled. As the game progresses, the effects of this linger, as trainers are perpetually as underleveled as those gyms, a sentiment which extends to the Gym Leaders, and through every fight until the aforementioned abysmally scaled Elite Four. In the case of Platinum, a defined order, and thus defined level scaling is imposed, making the order Hearthome third, Veilstone fourth, and Pastoria fifth. Due to the linearity of this, gym leader levels naturally scale along with the wild pokemon and trainer battles surrounding them, resulting in a much more naturally leveled and paced game. This extends into the Elite Four as well, with their levels being lower, while fitting within the confines of a higher-leveled game overall. It’s fantastic. Naturally, BDSP’s adherence to DP’s pacing, in a game with a forced Exp Share will result in a gross overleveling of teams, especially in this midgame section. As the matter was so commonly ranted about by fans, it felt like it was something crucial to address, but alas, that is not what happened.
Perhaps it’s remiss to even attempt discussing the story of a Pokemon game, but I truly believe Platinum made me have an attachment of sorts for the Sinnoh cast, which I cannot say in the case of Diamond and Pearl. DP and BDSP’s casts are rather bland, with there being quite little to each character. Whether this is Barry remaining an impatient buffoon the entire game, Cyrus, the “charismatic” leader of Team Galactic showing nothing to validate this quality, or Champion Cynthia’s interest in mythology or the region being nigh absent, there’s quite little to make these characters enthralling to players. So how then, was Sinnoh’s cast able to be seen as something iconic, with a memorable batch of characters? Platinum’s reworking of Sinnoh’s story gave these characters improved agency and motivations, while also adding little details to other characters as well, greatly making the world feel lived in, and creating the attachment that so many have to it. Starting with Barry, a more simplistic case, as not much is truly added to him, but what is is enough to show a maturity in the character despite his impulsiveness. The game’s opening shows him sticking up for the player, after pressuring them to go into tall grass with no Pokemon of their own. Sticking up for them and admitting this ultimately results in the player getting their own Pokemon, while giving Barry more nuance. Towards the end of the game, before heading to the Pokemon League, Barry has a similar moment of maturity in telling the player that he can’t beat them in his current state, but will train and catch up to them. It isn’t a massive overhaul for the character, but it’s moments that feel much more real, and allow players to get something of an attachment to him. Overhauled completely, however, is Team Galactic’s leader Cyrus. What Diamond and Pearl presents Cyrus as is inconsistent: is this a man who feels nothing, or one who desires to rid the world of strife? We’re given little insight on the matter, or his plans or charisma. Platinum chooses to interpret Cyrus differently, giving extra scenes and dialogue to him both to entail his plans and motivations, and ultimately flesh him out. Platinum introduces Cyrus at Lake Verity, miring on his plans to capture the Lake Guardians, while also showing him at Eterna City, researching and defacing the statue of the Legendary mascots and deities of the Sinnoh region, Dialga/Palkia. Further developing Cyrus is his encounter at Celestic Town, providing the player with their first battle against him, and his a show of his disregard of human emotion. Most importantly, though, is a speech scene which Cyrus gives to his grunts in Veilstone City. Rather than simply state his charisma, this speech shows it to the player, showing the way his words enthrall and captivate his indoctrinated grunts. Of course, Cyrus himself mentions this to be nothing more than a lie, helping to clarify his motivations while also showing his manipulative, charismatic nature. A scene which changes Cyrus also changes the way in which Champion Cynthia is portrayed as well, being the climax of the Team Galactic story in the new Distortion World. Through this, a value of life and desire to protect others is shown through Cynthia and her actions, with her viewpoint starkly contrasting that of Cyrus’s disregard for life and emotions. Cyrus’s story in Platinum ends not with the inconsequential disappearance of DP and BDSP, but rather with his choice to remain in the Distortion World, away from others whilst swearing to create his own world from within. Ultimately, this creates a cast of characters who the audience is able to attach to, making their journey through the world feel more real and enticing. Platinum doesn’t choose to stop at the main story or existing characters either, be it through details like Cynthia seeing the player off to the postgame area, or meeting Gym Leaders outside of their gyms. Most notable, though, are the characters Looker and Charon, additions to Platinum who were left absent from BDSP. Looker, an eccentric agent of the International Police, became something of a series staple, regularly appearing in plotlines or postgames investigating criminal matters, and serves as an ally in Platinum’s plot. While not particularly major, Looker provides more humor and engagement, almost as a mockery of many of the plot’s aspects, which makes him very entertaining to watch. Charon on the other hand, serves as an extra villain, being a scientist for Team Galactic. Charon’s contributions to the story are not as large, but he serves as an antagonist for the postgame, and also contextualizes the new Rotom forms of Platinum, being implied to have discovered them. Once again, I do understand if characters in a Pokemon game do not hold any meaning for you. I can understand that, but for the core experience of the world, having more depth or content to them feels essential for conveying as such. To remove this, as BDSP did, is taking away something which fixed a legitimate problem.
Alongside a reworked story, Platinum reworked the overworld designs and visuals of Sinnoh, opting for more landscape diversity as opposed to DP’s reliance on bright greens and rocky terrain. Examples could be as simple as a few coloring tweaks, like dimmer caves, or as significant as entirely reworked gym designs in some areas. Fantina’s asinine and basic math puzzle from DP and BDSP is utterly overhauled in Platinum, opting for a dimly lit maze, guided by a flashlight, for example. The Lost Tower on Route 209 serves as another example of Platinum’s world design improving the atmosphere of areas, with Platinum’s candlelit, dark blue haunted tower being starkly juxtaposed to the bright greens of the overgrown state of the tower in DP and BDSP. In more minor cases, cities are given graphical tweaks to differentiate them, be it Platinum giving Hearthome City brown streets to differentiate it from the streets of other cities, or Veilstone City’s stone chiseling being a gray color, as opposed to DP and BDSP’s reusing of the same rock platform textures of every other area. A dimmer, space themed Galactic HQ in Platinum provides more menace to the evil team, juxtaposed to the bright, factory-like area shown in DP and BDSP. Perhaps the largest change in Platinum’s landscapes, though, is the postgame area, or the Battle Zone. While there’s an expanded Battle Frontier in the place of the Battle Tower of DP and BDSP, the entire landscape and climate of the island has shifted to reflect it being a separate landmass from mainland Sinnoh. Platinum sees the island overhauled entirely, with the grass a much more verdant green, the trees replaced with palms, the rocks a darker color to reflect volcanic, tropical origins, and the sand colored a darker brown to reflect being stained by nearby volcanic ash. I mention these changes first, as they all center themselves nicely around Platinum’s biggest landscape change for the postgame: Stark Mountain, the den of the legendary Heatran, is an active volcano, complete with flowing lava. Contrasted with the mountain being merely another mountainous cave in DP and BDSP, the unique landscape provided in Platinum creates a stark difference (pardon me I had to laugh at that) in engagement and the worldbuilding of its area. I mention this because I truly do believe it’s vital to make these areas less homogenized, especially in games centered around a mythologized region with diverse terrain. Why should players desire to catch the lord of a volcano in a regular mountain, when precedent has shown it dwelling in an active volcano in the same region? Ultimately, the matter makes BDSP feel as homogenized as its namesake through choosing to ignore the improvements of another predecessor.
Artstyle Aggravation:
The chibi artstyle of BDSP is perhaps its most contentious aspect. Its fans would cite its faithfulness to the DS games, while detractors desired a more blatant reimagining of Sinnoh. I lie somewhere in the middle. While I think the chibi is able to look quite good in proper lighting, such as the misty mornings, cloud cover, the unique berry tree designs returning, or gorgeous sunsets of BDSP, I do think it’s not without major shortcomings. On occasion, a trainer model will just zoom in before battle, and moments like this are when I began to see the faults of the artstyle. Being as blunt as possible, malformed chibis aren’t meant to be viewed up close as these cinematic models. This game genuinely can look amazing in the proper lighting, but that’s when the camera is zoomed out. Watching cutscenes take place on a grid, complete with the models moving so robotically on it, stopping with each turn, is exceptionally jarring and difficult to watch. What worked on the DS due to a suspended disbelief and a well-done grid is made quite jarring through the slower model movement. When the Cyrus cutscene occurs in full chibi, it makes a lot of the shortcomings apparent. I cannot, in good faith, believe Gamefreak only saw this game as a chibi work, especially with Platinum’s Spear Pillar cutscene’s use of perspective and models allowing for the player to perceive the cutscene outside of its chibi confines. A zoom-in on a hyper chibi Cyrus in front of Dialga/Palkia leaves little for imagination, while also being exceptionally disappointing next to the grand scale cutscenes of the past decade. While I’ve mostly praised the lighting, with it absolutely being BDSP’s strongest point, it does falter in routes with rain. Overworld rain effects smear this game’s aesthetic greatly, with it being a miracle they only occur in two routes. In the originals, rain was merely marked by darker screens and a rain effect. In BDSP, rain blots out any and all cloud cover, but also removes any shadow effect, be it from characters, landmasses, or trees. It looks, frankly, dreadful. This graphical effect makes the areas look like they are in early development, and the shadow removal can make depth perception of characters appear as if they are floating, while also making the grid of grass patches visible. The southern half of Route 212, a rainy, swampy area, was always a favorite of mine visually in the originals, and now appears unfinished due to this, which is upsetting. Perhaps more minor, but this being the only remake with no character redesigns will always be jarring. I do believe the Sinnoh designs still hold up, but it’s a bit sad to not see a unique spin put on them. Though I’ve lamented the artstyle some, I do want to say I primarily adore the battle backgrounds. Though I detest the orange void background given to many cities, or the void on the cycling road, the vast majority of these backgrounds look phenomenal. Whether it’s the reflective caves added in the Underground, the reflective water, the sunset effects in the sky, or Mt. Coronet looming in the distance of many a background, these mostly are an absolute treat to see. The absolute best one must go to Dialga, though. The purple and orange sky, glitching as time collapses over the Spear Pillar is such a phenomenal aesthetic for the situation at hand, embodying the tension of the moment. While I cannot say the same regarding Palkia’s small spatial hole in in the background of a blue sky, it isn’t a bad background in the slightest. While I see grievances for Team Galactic’s backgrounds being a generic space themed location, which I do understand, I do enjoy the expansion of a solar system in the background as they ascend in rank, fitting their namesake. The last graphical matter is the Trainer models, which I’m mostly positive towards, barring a select few. While I think most of the Gym Leaders look great, for example, there’s a few times I feel a notable model is rather weak. The model for Mars of Team Galactic, for example, treads an uncanny valley, not resembling her much at all facially. Cyrus’s model feels almost oversaturated, being so brightly lit that it’s jarring. Others have absolutely fantastic animations, though, like seeing a confidence we’ve sparked in Volkner, or the confidence Champion Cynthia exudes in her battles. I think the artstyle of this game is not without merits in the slightest, but it is one with flaws that I can see as enough to make someone wholly dislike it.
New Features:
The first, and perhaps most obvious new feature is the Grand Underground, which turns the Sinnoh Underground into an area with more spawns, helping improve variety and allow for more Pokemon to be used. This idea was fantastic, but was executed rather questionably in its pre postgame Pokemon distribution. Pokemon that aren’t on the Sinnoh dex are seeded as “rare” spawns, which means that only one can spawn in a cavern at a time, if that, so it makes capturing them and leaving the shackling of DP’s dex significantly tougher. It’s a great thing to have these Pokemon there, and also to have several others, like honey tree, safari zone, or otherwise inexplicably lategame Pokemon spawning sooner as well, since again, this leaves more in the player’s control without unwarranted waiting. However, it’s rather imperfect, as while there are many items left in this area, all too few are evolutionary items, so Pokemon such as Rhydon and Dusclops cannot evolve until postgame, rare spawns like Elekid and Magby have to be found holding their evolutionary items, which have a 5% chance of spawning, and many other issues. Most egregiously, is the exclusion of several Pokemon which were on the Platinum pokedex from this feature, ultimately leaving them until postgame. Listing them off, these are: Tropius, the Tangela line, the Eevee line, the Porygon line, the Yanma line, and the Nosepass line. It’s absurd. While Tangela and Tropius do become available in the postgame underground, the others are found elsewhere, making them more frustrating to obtain. The postgame does nicely tweak the Grand Underground, though, making much more spawn, and easing on the rare spawn rule. It’s incredibly fun to catch Pokemon such as starter Pokemon in the wild, and I’ve got no qualms with that. I will be frank though, leveling in the Grand Underground seems skewed similarly to aboveground. As it scales with badges or acquired HMs, it feels like the area can allow the player to catch overleveled Pokemon, ultimately resulting in a lot of team shelving as opposed to the variety the area touted itself on bringing. Finally, the handling of the area itself has radically altered, being that you can no longer grow the spheres dug from walls, with them being a flat large or small size now, traps can no longer be planted to deter your base from being found, and the cosmetics of Secret Bases are limited to Pokemon statues which serve to tweak appearance rates for Pokemon. It’s an odd feeling to have this home away from home feel so depersonalized, as while I like customizing my encounter rates, I sometimes wish I could furnish my base and make something worth showing off, as I could on the DS. Lastly, the trading spheres feature has returned, and has been used for acquiring TMs, as they’re breakable once again. The prices for these can be extremely high for something which can only be used once, and it feels as though it’s not worth the investment for them. If there’s something wholly positive in this feature, it’s the environment. The caverns are pleasantly decorated and varied, between deserts, volcanoes, swamps, and crystal caverns. It’s very nice to see a unique diversity in these biomes, especially as the aboveground opted for something so reduced. While I have arguably had the bulk of my fun with this feature, its flaws still hang very apparent.
Tying into the underground is the new Ramanas Park, in the place of the Pal Park from the originals. This feature allows the capture of all Legendary Pokemon that aren’t normally in the Sinnoh games, with the Legendary dogs and Ho-Oh, and the legendary birds and Lugia being the only exclusives to Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl respectively. The acquisition of these legendaries makes itself rather addictive, as it’s rooted in digging up mysterious shards underground, and then trading them for slates designed after the cartridges these Pokemon originated on, which spawn the legendary, allowing you to battle and catch it. Catching the legendaries spawns a statue of them in their room, and gives you a statue for the Grand Underground. It’s a grind, but it’s fun and rewarding to get legendaries like this, especially when some spawn extra items, such as their signature items or berries which would otherwise be inaccessible in these games. It’s a genuinely fun grind for these, much akin to the wormholes of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. The rooms the Legendary Pokemon spawn in resemble their legends, or areas they previously spawned in, and are visually stunning. One of the coolest is easily the Distortion Room, in which you battle an umbral level 100 Origin Form Giratina for the Griseous Orb as its Platinum battle theme plays, with the room designed like the Distortion World. It’s beautiful, even if I wish there was more Platinum content in the game. This is a feature I feel ties itself rather seamlessly to the game itself as well, with the Regi trio from it allowing access to Regigigas without transfer, a massive pro to BDSP compared to the originals. I have no complaints with this feature, and I think it’s a genuinely fantastic postgame incentive.
More minor are the last three new features, being the new Contests, walking Pokemon, and customization. Beginning with the former, contests have been reworked from a mode in which players dress their Pokemon up, make them dance, and then compete through showing off their moves, into one in which their Poke Ball is now decorated with stickers to impress an audience, and then they and the rest of the contestants collaborate in a rhythm based dancing game. I’m not sure why this mode was changed, but I have no strong feelings towards it in either direction. It’s a very simple change, but it’s also quite bizarre that it was changed to begin with. The walking Pokemon, however, is a bit of a doozy. If you’ve followed this series, you’d know the feature, which debuted in HeartGold and SoulSilver, is rather clamored for and coveted by the fans. It’s absolutely something minor, but the concept of having your Pokemon follow you inherently breeds an attachment and love for them. The first BDSP trailer showed this returning, and the fanbase collectively freaked out, though a few were justifiably a bit jarred by the Pokemon just using shrunken down models that could clash with the style. The ingame execution of the feature is also rather flawed, with it most notably having these following Pokemon suffer from slow following speeds generally, and a lack of a pathfinding system. What this means is that the player will tend to outpace their Pokemon, or have them get caught on other characters or terrain in the overworld, forcing the game to teleport them by way of a Poke Ball animation. This happens frequently, and while it’s not too immersion-breaking thanks to the animation providing context, it’s still damaging all the same. The feature also finds itself limited further through Pokemon not being allowed to follow in caves, buildings, or snow, which ultimately makes it inactive for a great portion of the player’s time with the game. Oddly enough, it doesn’t unlock until the first visit to Hearthome City, roughly six hours in. Further discrepancies occur when walking Pokemon simply teleport into their Poke Balls before a trainer battle starts, or can be ragdolled away by characters who move in cutscenes. It’s a very shoddily implemented feature, and it’s very sad to see after years of players requesting its return. Lastly, the trainer customization, while only tied to a single outfit like in Let’s Go, is a more minor, but still interesting addition. It isn’t much, and it unlocks relatively late in Veilstone City, but it’s nice to have that customization added retroactively. There isn’t much to say, as I think it’d be much harder to add a detailed customization feature in a game where your character looks like Lego Duplo, so for what it’s worth, I think this feature is quite good.
Fuzzy Faithfulness:
The very idea of faithfulness is what drove this remake to be what it is. Every prior Pokemon remake has been known for rather noteworthy changes, while also including the new Pokemon and forms of its current generation, and its mechanics, while even referencing later regions sometimes, just to breed a bit of continuity. None of this, barring Generation 8 mechanics, is in BDSP, due to them calling themselves faithful remakes. But sometimes, the faithfulness of the matter is called into question. Why are post-Generation 4 items, like Eviolites or Air Balloons, not present, but an untoggleable party-wide EXP Share is? Technical Machines are single use, making teaching your Pokemon moves much more tedious for the sake of faith to DP, but some moves, such as Return, are absent to comply with Generation 8 mechanics? What does the matter of faithfulness mean in the overworld, even, when my movement speed in the infamously slow snow is now slower than it was in the long grass or mud areas, which already run slower than the originals? We have a fully expanded underground, with roaming Pokemon, but no flag capturing, sphere growing, or trap setting like in DP. We have an overhauled contest feature, in which contests feel more like a rhythm minigame than anything else. This wasn’t in DP, so what prompted the change? We have a new park area for capturing legendaries, once again, a change which wasn’t in the originals. If these changes, which are rather substantial side content, are present, why are we not given more changes? What does being faithful mean other than a direct desire for a worse game? Moments like the Rotom room acknowledging Charon’s existence, only to cut off his name because of him being absent from the game, serve to hurt this further. What’s the point of this? For the sake of faithfulness, the world building of Sinnoh has been set back to 2007, and for what?
Inconsistent Touch Screen:
This is a short and minor segment, but with a game that allows touch control in handheld mode, I find it worth documenting. While a touch screen feature is implemented for the Poketch feature, a watch which originally was relegated to the bottom screen of the originals, the way in which it carries over to the modern day is generally shoddy. Things such as needing to cycle through the apps so slowly, with no back button (that Platinum had) make this grating, but needing to open and use a specific app to dowse for hidden items no longer works as well or seamlessly as it did when integrated into the bottom screen. The Poketch being overlaid and toggleable in the right hand corner of the screen is nice, but when apps like the dowsing machine aren’t touchable in this minimized mode, a lot feels very tedious. This is similar in that whilst trying to make this translate to docked mode, the Poketch gets a hand cursor so it’s not inherently unusable, but this makes the process even slower than before. The Poketch isn’t the only touch screen issue, though. Perhaps the main reason I’m making this is the Poffin minigame, in which treats are cooked for Pokemon to perform better in contests. This minigame was a touch screen function on the DS, using the stylus to stir batter and cook these treats. The Switch did, of course, have to make something for those with docked mode, so this is simulated by rotating the sticks on it, but this is also rather slow and unresponsive compared to the DS’s mechanics. However, this is not why I write this. Handheld mode, the mode with touch screen functionality, chooses not to use it for the Poffin game. I have to stop to ask why this is, because it removes what would be such an unquestioned implementation from discussion. Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is asking the player to rotate their JoyCon sticks in the handheld mode, especially with a system so infamous for its controller drift. This rapid rotation is known to cause this sort of drift to accelerate, so removing a workaround just feels sloppy.
The Music:
Perhaps because it recreates a stellar OST, but the soundtrack of BDSP in its finished state is great. I’ll be one to admit I teared up upon hearing the Eterna Forest theme in a trailer, hearing the feel of it recreated so perfectly. Other tracks even make me realize I was misinterpreting some instruments from the original OST, such as Valor Lakefront (Night) having a backing accordion, or a saxophone playing in locations such as Solaceon Town. So many themes are perfectly recreated, and while I do wish there was an occasional reimagining, akin to Ecruteak City in HeartGold and SoulSilver, I will take a pleasant listen after consuming the placeholder MIDI cesspool of leaks. There is one track, though, that I feel went above and beyond to change itself, and that’s the Elite Four theme. Originally, this theme was a Gym Leader theme in a different key, but now, it’s a remix with backing guitars, helping to intensify these final fights, strengthened by their competitive sets further intensifying them. There’s some themes I can’t help but say feel lacking, though, which I do hate saying in a region with a (no pun intended) brilliant OST. The Galactic Grunt theme starts incredibly strong and powerful, but the organ part that plays no longer feels ethereal or spatial like before, but rather just detaches itself from the intensity of the rest of the song, leaving it rather out of place. While not a bad song on its own, Cyrus’s theme suffers as well, being decidedly less intense and focused than the original theme, lacking much of the buildup and percussion that made the drop as the song began to loop all the more fun to hear in battle. Of the few new compositions we have, I’ll pleasantly say they’re rather great as well, such as both Ramanas Park legendary themes being exceptionally catchy whilst fighting these Pokemon. Sometimes, music from Platinum, like the Frontier Brain theme, is missing, and that’s where I draw a line and will admit I’m outright sad. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire lacked a Battle Frontier of their own, but made sure the theme itself was present in the game, accounting for the absolute banger that it was. Why am I forced to hear Cynthia’s theme for Palmer, when precedent of BDSP put Platinum’s contest themes, and Giratina’s theme in the very same game? Obviously, this is a minor frustration, but it’s still odd. As a whole though, the soundtrack accomplishes what it set out to do, being a faithful recreation of a good thing, which can’t be said for the games themselves.
Reduced Rollout:
So you’re probably wondering why I chose to wait until April to start this project. If you’ve followed this game, though, you’d be aware of how dreadfully slow its update rollout has been, along with a lack of any word regarding things. To start, the games were released in November, but several features were absent, such as the Global Ranking Room and the GTS, now renamed the Grand Wonder System (GWS), and turned into a wonder trade mechanic. These features were not added until February and March, respectively. I waited to begin this essay until then so I could meticulously compile evidence on the game in a finished state, and not on a game with literal features missing. The GWS is a bit odd even in its released state, as it doesn’t accurately depict the location of where Pokemon come from, but rather tells players to put down any spot on the map as where they’re from, and on subsequent trades, encouraging them to put the same spot as the person they previously matched with. It doesn’t provide an accurate geographic representation despite being a feature about connectivity, but it is Wonder Trade, and therefore it is fun by virtue of the nature of surprise. At the time of writing, this game still lacks Pokemon Home support as well. While this isn’t a part of the core gameplay, the game is almost half a year old, and lacks any way to transfer its Pokemon elsewhere, which is annoying in the cases of having Shiny Pokemon, or being attached to teams and wanting to preserve them. This has happened as a result of BDSP being built off of the Unity engine, much unlike any Gamefreak headed projects, which has made connecting to Home and being programmed correctly much more difficult. I am not angry regarding the matter, but it is frustrating. I wish the team the best with adding this support, as they have a lot of work cut out for them.
The Lack of Interviews:
Perhaps the most concerning thing regarding the state of these games is the lack of interviews. Most prior Pokemon projects, even the divisive Let’s Go and Sword and Shield saw interviews with the developers, serving as a way of communication between the creators and their audience, while also contextualizing a state of the development. There wasn’t any of this for BDSP, and this is especially problematic given the muddied faithfulness I’ve mentioned, and the clear development cycle issues indicated through the various builds and patches. Perhaps the worst aspect of this, though, is it’s left the Pokemon fanbase to turn to speculation. This fanbase is the same one which spun a development cycle marred by crunch into a myth of Gamefreak being “lazy” for the sake of their Youtube content. This is the same fanbase that either cannot believe the games’ development periods have split teams and span years, or think any instance of red and purple is a hint to the upcoming Scarlet and Violet games. Allowing a fanbase with a penchant for misinformation and pollution of the online discourse to speculate is a massive mistake. We open Pandora’s box for Youtubers who merely research the series to smear it with partial evidence, or for some to defend it blindly. While it’s quite clear BDSP did have development issues, until we get any interviews, we will never be privy to a full truth on the matter or its design process. We were never given clear meanings of much of its promotional blurbs, like the previously mentioned faithfulness, resulting in a jarring product for all parties, especially during the period in which the games leaked. I sympathize with these developers. I know I’ve spent an essay explaining that I didn’t have the best time with their product, but I sympathize and would like to know more, and that is a casualty of this. It’s a sad story, but it feels sadder not knowing.
Hopes for the Future and a Closer:
To close this, there’s a lot of emotions I’ve felt rolling in me from this game, but primarily they’re just sadness and frustration. I adore the Sinnoh region and its world, but that world didn’t really take its full shape until Platinum. In some ways, BDSP does feel like returning home, but in many others, it’s like returning home to finding out that your parents converted your room into an office without telling you. The disappointment I felt worried me, as this was the third Pokemon release in a row, since Let’s Go, where I’d felt disappointed by the game. I don’t believe the “Pokemon went downhill when it went 3D” mindset, as I liked Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire quite a bit, and absolutely adore the Alola games. However, the direction the franchise was taking on the Switch was deeply worrying me that my childhood series was going to be something I outgrew, with its direction degrading. Thankfully, only two months after BDSP, we got Legends Arceus. To say that game made me happy would be an understatement. It was like joy was returning to me after a long hiatus, the first Pokemon game I wholly enjoyed since Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Best of all, Legends: Arceus was an incredibly engaging new take on Sinnoh, showing the region in a Meiji Japan style, while still feeding crumbs of nostalgia to me. For me, that game made me feel like a child again, the very feeling that BDSP left me longing for. Legends: Arceus aimed to respect the version of Sinnoh I grew to love in Platinum, and felt so vindicating as a Sinnoh fan. While BDSP disappointed me, this game made me feel like I was falling in love with Sinnoh for the first time again. And although I don’t love BDSP, I know I can return to Platinum and replay it to my heart’s content, which will always be a comfort. However, these days of my childhood are also confirmed to be over through BDSP. The days of being able to simply put a game in on the way back from the store, as I did as a child, are over. The children of today would be greeted with a placeholder title screen, and unfinished music, and that hurts to think of for me. Not everyone out there has the internet to update the games, and it’s sad to think of how many people will experience these games in that state. If anything gives me hope, though, it is Legends: Arceus once again. A game that shipped finished, without the need of a massive patch, hopefully bodes well for the future. I just hope we do not have to repeat any of BDSP’s rollout.
I find myself frustrated, writing as a critic, because as disappointed as I am, and as able to admit my first games were, and still are flawed, I can see what they meant to me. Diamond and Pearl register as games I’d never pick up again, and perhaps BDSP faithfully do the same. However, against the odds, those games stabbed themselves into my heart. They started my most longstanding hyperfixation. And though I criticize them now, the joy they gave a younger me, incapable of holding much criticism, was very, very real. They gave birth to something I consider rather beautiful, as well. I have a soundtrack I regularly revisit, sometimes choosing to lie down and wistfully remember the simpler times. Platinum blossomed from DP, and formed a definitive, better version of a game I hold nostalgia for. It formed something I’ll always enjoy and always take comfort in. And though the comfort is lessened, I find myself remembering my first day getting my first game. My Piplup in BDSP had a Serious nature, the very same as my first Piplup in Pearl, fifteen years ago. I find myself frustrated as a creative, and I find myself, a critic, shackled by these emotions and memories that resurface. We can tear down works constantly, with little consequence, as negativity is favored by human nature. It’s more enjoyable to watch someone rip something apart than to watch someone gush. Algorithms favor negativity, as do others. I hope I’ve not merely written a piece about that, but rather one comprehensive to what I feel. The negativity I feel is real, but it’s remiss to disguise the fact that I had fun with these, and their originals in a way. I don’t desire a culture where we write something off as meaningless, and as mediocre as Diamond and Pearl may be, the memories they gave me and so many others carry more meaning than most art I’ve consumed. I don’t see mediocre art as the valueless junk that some would. As much as I can say Diamond and Pearl are mediocre art, they gave birth to great art. And now in BDSP’s case, a mediocre package still holds a beautiful soundtrack, and had Legends: Arceus created alongside it, a game which captured the joy of my childhood while making me feel a new joy. With Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, I see a package I did not wholly enjoy, but one which I still felt some connection with. Negativity inspired me to write my essay, but that negativity grew from a love that I find surfacing as I write. I want better, as I know a younger me got better with Platinum, and began to acknowledge that. I see a bittersweet farewell to a childhood in these games, and yet, the moments of enjoyment remind me I am still the same person who grew a hyperfixation all those years ago. I hope I’ve ultimately made an essay that shows my feelings accurately, but also the love from which they’ve grown.
As a footnote, I’d like to give a massive shoutout to my editor/proofreader, Taylor, who saw a lot of the spelling and grammar mistakes I made, or areas lacking in concision. This was something I’d worked on as soon as I woke up or right before bed on many days, so my spelling wasn’t the best at 4 in the morning or after a stressful day waiting for my final grades. He truly has helped make this as good of a product as I envisioned. I wanted to write this since release, but school and BDSP’s rollout got in the way of that. I had so many ideas, and so many bouts with Mania and low points throughout the semester that I was afraid my ideas would just get lost in the undertow. They didn’t, and stayed as strong as they could so I could put out something I needed to get out. If you don’t feel creative madness, I envy you. I envy the idea of not having thoughts of your passions raging in your head, or being so engaged in work that you'd put it above others or your own well being. However, this madness is a gift in its own way. I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t use a gift I have. There were days where looking at this behemoth made me want to vomit, or made me feel a sort of imposter syndrome regarding my work. I’m just glad it’s over and I feel proud of it. If you’ve made it this far, thank you. It means a lot.
A short documentary by battlehuntz
Edited/proofread by @realtaylorhallam on Instagram
I’d like to preface above all else that as much of a precise critique as I’d like for this to be, there’s going to be more personal reasons for it. These games are remakes of the first game I ever owned, and I think that will certainly play a part in how I view them and the story behind this. Nothing I write comes from a place of hatred for the developers or the series, but rather a place of love and wishing it was handled better. Critiquing Pokemon games on the internet draws a crowd of strawmen who will blindly bash and those who will blindly defend. I don’t write to appeal to either of those, and this will be my personal viewpoint and experience with these titles. I write as a form of healing; as a way to get my thoughts out when I feel strongly. I want my work to accurately reflect how I feel and be of the best quality it can possibly be. And this won’t be some review of pure negativity. I’m writing this first, before I write this work. I write this for the younger me who loved the originals and Pokemon Platinum, and for an older, more jaded me. I wanted that to be stated before I delve into this short documentary.
Background:
One day in August 2007, my parents bought me a Nintendo DS with Pokemon Pearl. As it was my first game I ever owned, I, inherently, became biased toward it. I’d had no point of comparison, so the attachment and nostalgia developed with ease. Time passed, and in 2009, Pokemon Platinum, an upgraded version of the game was released. This changed a lot of the game, introducing much improved and near-needed pacing, leveling, remade locations, 59 more Pokemon in the Sinnoh Pokedex, and much more extra content. As a kid who only had Pearl as a point of comparison, Platinum was mind-blowing. Time passed, and I realized the flaws of Diamond and Pearl (DP) became more apparent, be it their slow story pacing between the second and third gyms, their atrocious level curve, or their lack of 1/3 of the new Sinnoh Pokemon within the main story. My love for Platinum stayed present, but Diamond and Pearl’s reputation certainly waned for me. Around this time, a clamoring for remakes of the Sinnoh games began. The begging for remakes lasted an entire four years, since the release of Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon in 2017. I absolutely wanted them as well, but worry still remained in my thoughts. The Hoenn remakes, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (ORAS), were more contentious in the fanbase for being very different takes than their original versions, so there was a divide between fans on what route a Sinnoh remake should take. There was not, however, any divide between fans on the inclusion of Platinum's added content.
Prerelease Panic:
The day was February 26, 2021. During a Pokémon Direct that day, two games were revealed, being Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (BDSP), and Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Even though fans had begged for a Sinnoh remake for years, the immediate reveal of BDSP saw a backlash juxtaposed to Legends’ praise. With BDSP, we were shown the remakes in a chibi style, with quite frankly, ugly battle models and immense oversaturation. Beyond graphical worries, an immediate worry stemmed from one phrase in the press release: “faithful remakes of Diamond and Pearl”. A wave of fear regarding what this meant echoed through the months between trailers, with fans wondering what this meant regarding the Pokemon distribution and pacing of the game, and any other content Platinum had solved and/or added.. In the Summer of 2021, a trailer for the Switch OLED showed the game’s battle graphics had been touched on, but no further news was shown until the middle of August, during another Direct.
The August Direct brought about a period of engoodening for BDSP. The prior graphical improvements were shown in immense detail, with much better models, saturation, and lighting. Perhaps the biggest things taken note of though, were the presence of Pokemon from the Platinum Pokedex, and the announcement of the Grand Underground feature. The Grand Underground served to be an expansion of the Underground from the original games, but now containing wild Pokemon, including those who weren’t available in the main overworld. All worries of reduced Pokemon variety seemed to be quashed by that moment, especially after the reveal of new artwork for Pokemon who were not on Diamond and Pearl’s Pokedex. There were more features which grabbed the eyes of fans, such as trainer customization and following Pokemon as well, further contributing to a wave of positivity for the game. Future trailers showed the removal of the Hidden Moves (HM) feature which plagued traversal in the original games by forcing you to teach specific moves to your team in order to overcome hazards that were necessary to overcome. BDSP’s mapping of the HMs to the Poketch feature was a massive improvement, slating the games to have the potential to be the best version of Sinnoh, even. However, things such as Platinum’s much improved levels, pacing, and overworld variety still had yet to be confirmed: a trailer showing several locations that used their Diamond and Pearl maps began to make fans worry about what would happen with these remakes. People asked, “what does the word faithful truly mean?”. The pre-release and subsequent leaking of the game began to make that, and more, viscerally clear.
The pre-release of the game began to validate the worries echoing throughout the community. The previews given to reviewers revealed many bizarre choices, such as the Diamond and Pearl maps, Technical Machines (TMs) being single-use consumables, (backtracking on the tradition of them being reusable that had lasted a prior decade) and the Trainer battle theme playing in wild Pokemon battles inside a demo of the Great Marsh area. The most notable issue, however, was that the battle themes were unfinished, being placeholder MIDIs of the tracks, ripped from Diamond and Pearl. Beyond one IGN reviewer who somehow thought this was intentional to sound like the DS games, most people did agree these were placeholders, but worries about the game’s development status began to mount after such an unfinished build was shown to reviewers. Roughly two weeks before release, the game began to leak, further validating these fears. The leaks began to quickly spread across the internet, highlighting issues such as a missing title screen and minimally fixed battle themes. This was version 1.0. This was the state the game had shipped in, and if you didn’t have internet access or the 2.5 GB to update the game, this was the game you were saddled with. Otherwise absent from the game in this build were aspects of the postgame, such as a functioning Heatran encounter, Turnback Cave, and the new Ramanas Park. Most importantly, however, the build confirmed every gameplay fear the public held. The games contained Diamond and Pearl’s level curve. The games contained Diamond and Pearl’s pacing. The games contained Diamond and Pearl’s Pokedex, complete with only a single fire type beyond the starter. The games contained the original Diamond and Pearl’s very own source code, cementing the idea of game-developing laziness. As more updates began to emerge, many Platinum-exclusive Pokemon were accessible in the Grand Underground; however, their evolutionary items either were made far more tedious to obtain, or locked to the postgame, despite having locations that functioned perfectly fine in Platinum, further stifling the variety of BDSP. A new trailer revealed the contents of the new Ramanas Park, being an area to catch legendaries. The content showcased within the trailer was fine, but the main detail of the trailer was the existence of a patch, slated for November 11th. With this patch, leakers finally gained access to the completed game, while countless glitches, such as an ability to enter a void of sorts and skip the game, and multiple instances of getting stuck remained. With eight days between this update and release, the game’s situation was both rather clear and rather grim.
Personal Playthrough:
Early afternoon, November 19, 2021, my game arrived. Having to take 15 minutes merely to update a game in order to have it work correctly already annoyed me as I had to contain my excitement to relive my childhood. But upon startup? I had fun with the game. In many ways, I was a bit charmed by how it looked in handheld mode. Battle backgrounds were very pretty, and the lighting was very nice, especially as I played into the evening. It’s nostalgic to hear the music of your childhood mastered and translated into more complex MIDIs as well. When I hit the Grand Underground, I remained there for hours. I was addicted to gaining access to so many team members and a lot of variety such as early access to evolved Pokemon like Gastrodon and Lickilicky, and rarer Pokemon that would normally require HMs to access like Elekid and Magby. However, a singular thing instantly damaged and hindered my experience: the controls were, and still are, quite bluntly, disgusting. It feels as if your character gets caught on every object possible if you use the joystick to run, and if you use the D-Pad to move on a grid, it doesn’t reset properly like in the Generation 6 titles, so your grid-based movement will always be uncannily off grid and inaccurate. This makes the game extremely taxing to play. Many a time I found myself in the Grand Underground, chased by Pokemon, only to be caught on terrain in the way that the game’s collision simply didn’t route me around, which forced me into battles. I even got a Shiny Meditite from this, highlighting just how much this occurred for me. This was extremely frustrating in areas with tight ledges, such as Mt. Coronet and Victory Road, as resetting to grid movement isn’t possible: It’s inherently unfun. Not to mention, the part where Platinum’s pacing and content feels most noticable, which is right after the second gym, doesn’t have this to benefit from. Rather than being treated to new encounters such as Nosepass or Gligar, you find yourself dealing with swaths of Geodude, Machop, and Onix. It’s not fun. The inability to simply go and fight the Hearthome gym immediately, unlike in Platinum, harms pacing even further, making the slog to the third gym very difficult. As someone who typically doesn’t mind a party-wide EXP Share, the inability to turn it off results in immense overleveling for the majority of the game, as both Maylene and Wake having equal levels offsets the level balance for most of the main story, resulting in your party easily outleveling most bosses. A tweaked friendship mechanic results in several occasions of your Pokemon gaining Pokemon Amie bonuses, such as extra criticals, status healing, or living on 1 hp when they’d be KO’d without you choosing for this to happen. This, combined with the levelling and stunted variety of fights directly harmed a lot of my experience, as everything felt too easy. Less variety made the plethora of Sinnoh’s sidequests much less enjoyable to go through, as there wasn’t a variety in the fights I’d face. When every other trainer packs a Ponyta due to it being the only fire type in the region, a severe problem is present, I feel. All these awkward removals of quality-of-life changes was and remains unfun. Of course, my game did eventually end, and while I’d loved much of the OST and moments where backgrounds were gorgeous, I was generally happy I was finishing. However, nothing prepared me for the level curve that was the Elite Four. Obviously, Champion Cynthia has always been subject to memes about her difficulty, and her reputation precedes her. However, in Diamond and Pearl, and now BDSP, the levels jump a massive 17 levels from the eighth gym’s ace. Now, the very EXP Share I ranted about making the game easy was the only thing preventing my team’s mutilation by the Elite Four’s teams, given competitive stats and items for maximum difficulty. It’s absurdity. As fun as the fights could be, their very situation was befuddling. Was this a game for children, as the 99% of the game preceding this indicated, or one for hardcore players? I’m truly not sure what I played, or how to feel. Diamond and Pearl were games that desperately needed a fix. Platinum served this very function, and effectively replaced them. Why was mediocrity remade instead of choosing to expand upon greatness, or at the very least make greatness even more accessible? What happened? My nostalgia was present, which made me have fun, but it was fun under disappointment, fun that could have been greater, and fun that was had under the knowledge of that fact. Since I’ve ranted much about Platinum being excluded, I’d like to truly explain why that is, and why Platinum’s existence matters as much as I’ve said.
The Platinum Problem:
As I’ve mentioned, a dichotomy exists between the perception of DP and BDSP when placed next to Platinum. On its own, this wouldn’t make much sense, as Platinum is built from DP’s bones. However, Platinum’s changes morph it into a much different and better game, and the definitive version which BDSP should have built from. Diamond and Pearl is missing 1/3 of it’s new Pokemon from its dex. Things like Electivire, Magmortar, Dusknoir, or Yanmega? Postgame or GBA insert only. Their items? Postgame only or carried by them. In Platinum, they naturally spawn along the Sinnoh region, with natural locations for their items. This extends to items for Pokemon who already existed in the Sinnoh dex, such as Weavile’s Razor Claw being moved earlier so that players can use one for more of the game than right before the league. The new Pokemon are also seeded into trainers’ teams, making fights more fun and diverse. For example, Diamond and Pearl only had two fire types to work with, while Platinum had five. Areas like the Old Chateau seem nigh worthless Diamond and Pearl unless you want a Gastly, as Rotom is locked until postgame. Platinum allows you to catch Rotom on that first visit. The most notable area, however, remains the Fuego Ironworks. This optional area along a river on Route 205 feels juxtaposed as the most underwhelming reward for exploration in Diamond and Pearl, while serving as such a rewarding area in Platinum. In DP, your reward is a patch of grass full of Pokemon you’ve already seen, namely the Gastrodon and Floatzel evolution lines who spawn in a rather large capacity throughout the region, as well as a Fire Stone which is unusable on anything that spawns in the main game. Platinum’s Fuego Ironworks spawns Magmar and Magnemite, meanwhile, granting access to two excellent evolutionary lines which do not spawn elsewhere, whilst also giving the player this same Fire Stone, for it to have use due to the Eevee line’s presence in Platinum, granting access to Flareon. This diversity greatly enhances Platinum, and to see this be locked to the player alone in BDSP’s Grand Underground truly holds back a lot of enjoyment and engagement for me.
Much less major, but variety related all the same, Platinum added move tutors to multiple areas, along with reworking movesets for the Pokemon it had there. Shinx was allowed to learn a physical electric move, Spark, prior to its evolution in Platinum, whereas Diamond and Pearl didn’t allow this until level 18. In the case of move tutors, the ability to exchange shards, a common item in the game’s underground, for new moves in order to diversify movesets created a much more exciting and rewarding gameplay loop, creating optional rewards whilst incentivizing a side feature. To lack these in a future release feels as if it misses the very point of them and their utility. As BDSP imports movesets from Sword and Shield for many Pokemon, greatly stifling many of them, this, along with several of Platinum’s movesets, felt much more essential in the equation. Though minor comparatively, these remain conveniences which are all but ignored and cast aside. When a modern game forgoes the conveniences and variety of a work that precedes it by twelve years, it begs to question why none would not simply elect to play Platinum.
Beyond the Pokedex, pacing remains Platinum’s most prominent improvement over its original versions. Diamond and Pearl notoriously feature a stretch between Eterna City and Veilstone City, spanning roughly four or five hours of gameplay between badges. When this results in stopping by Hearthome City, located between the two, while also not visiting its gym, the pacing feels notoriously dragged. Platinum allows the Hearthome gym to be challenged upon its first visit, creating a stronger gameplay loop for it, with no brutal stretch of nothingness. Platinum’s pacing further changes through reinforcing a linear pacing as opposed to DP’s more open third and fourth badges. As DP forces Hearthome City to be skipped upon first visit, the third and fourth badges are seeded as Veilstone City or Pastoria City, in any order the player chooses. Oddly, however, the path to Pastoria City doesn’t open until the player has reached Solaceon Town, which lies halfway between Hearthome City and Veilstone City, leading most to choose Veilstone first. This nonlinear choice, tilts leveling drastically for the remainder of DP’s runtime, as both Veilstone and Pastoria’s gyms have the same level curve, forcing the routes around them to be drastically underleveled. As the game progresses, the effects of this linger, as trainers are perpetually as underleveled as those gyms, a sentiment which extends to the Gym Leaders, and through every fight until the aforementioned abysmally scaled Elite Four. In the case of Platinum, a defined order, and thus defined level scaling is imposed, making the order Hearthome third, Veilstone fourth, and Pastoria fifth. Due to the linearity of this, gym leader levels naturally scale along with the wild pokemon and trainer battles surrounding them, resulting in a much more naturally leveled and paced game. This extends into the Elite Four as well, with their levels being lower, while fitting within the confines of a higher-leveled game overall. It’s fantastic. Naturally, BDSP’s adherence to DP’s pacing, in a game with a forced Exp Share will result in a gross overleveling of teams, especially in this midgame section. As the matter was so commonly ranted about by fans, it felt like it was something crucial to address, but alas, that is not what happened.
Perhaps it’s remiss to even attempt discussing the story of a Pokemon game, but I truly believe Platinum made me have an attachment of sorts for the Sinnoh cast, which I cannot say in the case of Diamond and Pearl. DP and BDSP’s casts are rather bland, with there being quite little to each character. Whether this is Barry remaining an impatient buffoon the entire game, Cyrus, the “charismatic” leader of Team Galactic showing nothing to validate this quality, or Champion Cynthia’s interest in mythology or the region being nigh absent, there’s quite little to make these characters enthralling to players. So how then, was Sinnoh’s cast able to be seen as something iconic, with a memorable batch of characters? Platinum’s reworking of Sinnoh’s story gave these characters improved agency and motivations, while also adding little details to other characters as well, greatly making the world feel lived in, and creating the attachment that so many have to it. Starting with Barry, a more simplistic case, as not much is truly added to him, but what is is enough to show a maturity in the character despite his impulsiveness. The game’s opening shows him sticking up for the player, after pressuring them to go into tall grass with no Pokemon of their own. Sticking up for them and admitting this ultimately results in the player getting their own Pokemon, while giving Barry more nuance. Towards the end of the game, before heading to the Pokemon League, Barry has a similar moment of maturity in telling the player that he can’t beat them in his current state, but will train and catch up to them. It isn’t a massive overhaul for the character, but it’s moments that feel much more real, and allow players to get something of an attachment to him. Overhauled completely, however, is Team Galactic’s leader Cyrus. What Diamond and Pearl presents Cyrus as is inconsistent: is this a man who feels nothing, or one who desires to rid the world of strife? We’re given little insight on the matter, or his plans or charisma. Platinum chooses to interpret Cyrus differently, giving extra scenes and dialogue to him both to entail his plans and motivations, and ultimately flesh him out. Platinum introduces Cyrus at Lake Verity, miring on his plans to capture the Lake Guardians, while also showing him at Eterna City, researching and defacing the statue of the Legendary mascots and deities of the Sinnoh region, Dialga/Palkia. Further developing Cyrus is his encounter at Celestic Town, providing the player with their first battle against him, and his a show of his disregard of human emotion. Most importantly, though, is a speech scene which Cyrus gives to his grunts in Veilstone City. Rather than simply state his charisma, this speech shows it to the player, showing the way his words enthrall and captivate his indoctrinated grunts. Of course, Cyrus himself mentions this to be nothing more than a lie, helping to clarify his motivations while also showing his manipulative, charismatic nature. A scene which changes Cyrus also changes the way in which Champion Cynthia is portrayed as well, being the climax of the Team Galactic story in the new Distortion World. Through this, a value of life and desire to protect others is shown through Cynthia and her actions, with her viewpoint starkly contrasting that of Cyrus’s disregard for life and emotions. Cyrus’s story in Platinum ends not with the inconsequential disappearance of DP and BDSP, but rather with his choice to remain in the Distortion World, away from others whilst swearing to create his own world from within. Ultimately, this creates a cast of characters who the audience is able to attach to, making their journey through the world feel more real and enticing. Platinum doesn’t choose to stop at the main story or existing characters either, be it through details like Cynthia seeing the player off to the postgame area, or meeting Gym Leaders outside of their gyms. Most notable, though, are the characters Looker and Charon, additions to Platinum who were left absent from BDSP. Looker, an eccentric agent of the International Police, became something of a series staple, regularly appearing in plotlines or postgames investigating criminal matters, and serves as an ally in Platinum’s plot. While not particularly major, Looker provides more humor and engagement, almost as a mockery of many of the plot’s aspects, which makes him very entertaining to watch. Charon on the other hand, serves as an extra villain, being a scientist for Team Galactic. Charon’s contributions to the story are not as large, but he serves as an antagonist for the postgame, and also contextualizes the new Rotom forms of Platinum, being implied to have discovered them. Once again, I do understand if characters in a Pokemon game do not hold any meaning for you. I can understand that, but for the core experience of the world, having more depth or content to them feels essential for conveying as such. To remove this, as BDSP did, is taking away something which fixed a legitimate problem.
Alongside a reworked story, Platinum reworked the overworld designs and visuals of Sinnoh, opting for more landscape diversity as opposed to DP’s reliance on bright greens and rocky terrain. Examples could be as simple as a few coloring tweaks, like dimmer caves, or as significant as entirely reworked gym designs in some areas. Fantina’s asinine and basic math puzzle from DP and BDSP is utterly overhauled in Platinum, opting for a dimly lit maze, guided by a flashlight, for example. The Lost Tower on Route 209 serves as another example of Platinum’s world design improving the atmosphere of areas, with Platinum’s candlelit, dark blue haunted tower being starkly juxtaposed to the bright greens of the overgrown state of the tower in DP and BDSP. In more minor cases, cities are given graphical tweaks to differentiate them, be it Platinum giving Hearthome City brown streets to differentiate it from the streets of other cities, or Veilstone City’s stone chiseling being a gray color, as opposed to DP and BDSP’s reusing of the same rock platform textures of every other area. A dimmer, space themed Galactic HQ in Platinum provides more menace to the evil team, juxtaposed to the bright, factory-like area shown in DP and BDSP. Perhaps the largest change in Platinum’s landscapes, though, is the postgame area, or the Battle Zone. While there’s an expanded Battle Frontier in the place of the Battle Tower of DP and BDSP, the entire landscape and climate of the island has shifted to reflect it being a separate landmass from mainland Sinnoh. Platinum sees the island overhauled entirely, with the grass a much more verdant green, the trees replaced with palms, the rocks a darker color to reflect volcanic, tropical origins, and the sand colored a darker brown to reflect being stained by nearby volcanic ash. I mention these changes first, as they all center themselves nicely around Platinum’s biggest landscape change for the postgame: Stark Mountain, the den of the legendary Heatran, is an active volcano, complete with flowing lava. Contrasted with the mountain being merely another mountainous cave in DP and BDSP, the unique landscape provided in Platinum creates a stark difference (pardon me I had to laugh at that) in engagement and the worldbuilding of its area. I mention this because I truly do believe it’s vital to make these areas less homogenized, especially in games centered around a mythologized region with diverse terrain. Why should players desire to catch the lord of a volcano in a regular mountain, when precedent has shown it dwelling in an active volcano in the same region? Ultimately, the matter makes BDSP feel as homogenized as its namesake through choosing to ignore the improvements of another predecessor.
Artstyle Aggravation:
The chibi artstyle of BDSP is perhaps its most contentious aspect. Its fans would cite its faithfulness to the DS games, while detractors desired a more blatant reimagining of Sinnoh. I lie somewhere in the middle. While I think the chibi is able to look quite good in proper lighting, such as the misty mornings, cloud cover, the unique berry tree designs returning, or gorgeous sunsets of BDSP, I do think it’s not without major shortcomings. On occasion, a trainer model will just zoom in before battle, and moments like this are when I began to see the faults of the artstyle. Being as blunt as possible, malformed chibis aren’t meant to be viewed up close as these cinematic models. This game genuinely can look amazing in the proper lighting, but that’s when the camera is zoomed out. Watching cutscenes take place on a grid, complete with the models moving so robotically on it, stopping with each turn, is exceptionally jarring and difficult to watch. What worked on the DS due to a suspended disbelief and a well-done grid is made quite jarring through the slower model movement. When the Cyrus cutscene occurs in full chibi, it makes a lot of the shortcomings apparent. I cannot, in good faith, believe Gamefreak only saw this game as a chibi work, especially with Platinum’s Spear Pillar cutscene’s use of perspective and models allowing for the player to perceive the cutscene outside of its chibi confines. A zoom-in on a hyper chibi Cyrus in front of Dialga/Palkia leaves little for imagination, while also being exceptionally disappointing next to the grand scale cutscenes of the past decade. While I’ve mostly praised the lighting, with it absolutely being BDSP’s strongest point, it does falter in routes with rain. Overworld rain effects smear this game’s aesthetic greatly, with it being a miracle they only occur in two routes. In the originals, rain was merely marked by darker screens and a rain effect. In BDSP, rain blots out any and all cloud cover, but also removes any shadow effect, be it from characters, landmasses, or trees. It looks, frankly, dreadful. This graphical effect makes the areas look like they are in early development, and the shadow removal can make depth perception of characters appear as if they are floating, while also making the grid of grass patches visible. The southern half of Route 212, a rainy, swampy area, was always a favorite of mine visually in the originals, and now appears unfinished due to this, which is upsetting. Perhaps more minor, but this being the only remake with no character redesigns will always be jarring. I do believe the Sinnoh designs still hold up, but it’s a bit sad to not see a unique spin put on them. Though I’ve lamented the artstyle some, I do want to say I primarily adore the battle backgrounds. Though I detest the orange void background given to many cities, or the void on the cycling road, the vast majority of these backgrounds look phenomenal. Whether it’s the reflective caves added in the Underground, the reflective water, the sunset effects in the sky, or Mt. Coronet looming in the distance of many a background, these mostly are an absolute treat to see. The absolute best one must go to Dialga, though. The purple and orange sky, glitching as time collapses over the Spear Pillar is such a phenomenal aesthetic for the situation at hand, embodying the tension of the moment. While I cannot say the same regarding Palkia’s small spatial hole in in the background of a blue sky, it isn’t a bad background in the slightest. While I see grievances for Team Galactic’s backgrounds being a generic space themed location, which I do understand, I do enjoy the expansion of a solar system in the background as they ascend in rank, fitting their namesake. The last graphical matter is the Trainer models, which I’m mostly positive towards, barring a select few. While I think most of the Gym Leaders look great, for example, there’s a few times I feel a notable model is rather weak. The model for Mars of Team Galactic, for example, treads an uncanny valley, not resembling her much at all facially. Cyrus’s model feels almost oversaturated, being so brightly lit that it’s jarring. Others have absolutely fantastic animations, though, like seeing a confidence we’ve sparked in Volkner, or the confidence Champion Cynthia exudes in her battles. I think the artstyle of this game is not without merits in the slightest, but it is one with flaws that I can see as enough to make someone wholly dislike it.
New Features:
The first, and perhaps most obvious new feature is the Grand Underground, which turns the Sinnoh Underground into an area with more spawns, helping improve variety and allow for more Pokemon to be used. This idea was fantastic, but was executed rather questionably in its pre postgame Pokemon distribution. Pokemon that aren’t on the Sinnoh dex are seeded as “rare” spawns, which means that only one can spawn in a cavern at a time, if that, so it makes capturing them and leaving the shackling of DP’s dex significantly tougher. It’s a great thing to have these Pokemon there, and also to have several others, like honey tree, safari zone, or otherwise inexplicably lategame Pokemon spawning sooner as well, since again, this leaves more in the player’s control without unwarranted waiting. However, it’s rather imperfect, as while there are many items left in this area, all too few are evolutionary items, so Pokemon such as Rhydon and Dusclops cannot evolve until postgame, rare spawns like Elekid and Magby have to be found holding their evolutionary items, which have a 5% chance of spawning, and many other issues. Most egregiously, is the exclusion of several Pokemon which were on the Platinum pokedex from this feature, ultimately leaving them until postgame. Listing them off, these are: Tropius, the Tangela line, the Eevee line, the Porygon line, the Yanma line, and the Nosepass line. It’s absurd. While Tangela and Tropius do become available in the postgame underground, the others are found elsewhere, making them more frustrating to obtain. The postgame does nicely tweak the Grand Underground, though, making much more spawn, and easing on the rare spawn rule. It’s incredibly fun to catch Pokemon such as starter Pokemon in the wild, and I’ve got no qualms with that. I will be frank though, leveling in the Grand Underground seems skewed similarly to aboveground. As it scales with badges or acquired HMs, it feels like the area can allow the player to catch overleveled Pokemon, ultimately resulting in a lot of team shelving as opposed to the variety the area touted itself on bringing. Finally, the handling of the area itself has radically altered, being that you can no longer grow the spheres dug from walls, with them being a flat large or small size now, traps can no longer be planted to deter your base from being found, and the cosmetics of Secret Bases are limited to Pokemon statues which serve to tweak appearance rates for Pokemon. It’s an odd feeling to have this home away from home feel so depersonalized, as while I like customizing my encounter rates, I sometimes wish I could furnish my base and make something worth showing off, as I could on the DS. Lastly, the trading spheres feature has returned, and has been used for acquiring TMs, as they’re breakable once again. The prices for these can be extremely high for something which can only be used once, and it feels as though it’s not worth the investment for them. If there’s something wholly positive in this feature, it’s the environment. The caverns are pleasantly decorated and varied, between deserts, volcanoes, swamps, and crystal caverns. It’s very nice to see a unique diversity in these biomes, especially as the aboveground opted for something so reduced. While I have arguably had the bulk of my fun with this feature, its flaws still hang very apparent.
Tying into the underground is the new Ramanas Park, in the place of the Pal Park from the originals. This feature allows the capture of all Legendary Pokemon that aren’t normally in the Sinnoh games, with the Legendary dogs and Ho-Oh, and the legendary birds and Lugia being the only exclusives to Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl respectively. The acquisition of these legendaries makes itself rather addictive, as it’s rooted in digging up mysterious shards underground, and then trading them for slates designed after the cartridges these Pokemon originated on, which spawn the legendary, allowing you to battle and catch it. Catching the legendaries spawns a statue of them in their room, and gives you a statue for the Grand Underground. It’s a grind, but it’s fun and rewarding to get legendaries like this, especially when some spawn extra items, such as their signature items or berries which would otherwise be inaccessible in these games. It’s a genuinely fun grind for these, much akin to the wormholes of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. The rooms the Legendary Pokemon spawn in resemble their legends, or areas they previously spawned in, and are visually stunning. One of the coolest is easily the Distortion Room, in which you battle an umbral level 100 Origin Form Giratina for the Griseous Orb as its Platinum battle theme plays, with the room designed like the Distortion World. It’s beautiful, even if I wish there was more Platinum content in the game. This is a feature I feel ties itself rather seamlessly to the game itself as well, with the Regi trio from it allowing access to Regigigas without transfer, a massive pro to BDSP compared to the originals. I have no complaints with this feature, and I think it’s a genuinely fantastic postgame incentive.
More minor are the last three new features, being the new Contests, walking Pokemon, and customization. Beginning with the former, contests have been reworked from a mode in which players dress their Pokemon up, make them dance, and then compete through showing off their moves, into one in which their Poke Ball is now decorated with stickers to impress an audience, and then they and the rest of the contestants collaborate in a rhythm based dancing game. I’m not sure why this mode was changed, but I have no strong feelings towards it in either direction. It’s a very simple change, but it’s also quite bizarre that it was changed to begin with. The walking Pokemon, however, is a bit of a doozy. If you’ve followed this series, you’d know the feature, which debuted in HeartGold and SoulSilver, is rather clamored for and coveted by the fans. It’s absolutely something minor, but the concept of having your Pokemon follow you inherently breeds an attachment and love for them. The first BDSP trailer showed this returning, and the fanbase collectively freaked out, though a few were justifiably a bit jarred by the Pokemon just using shrunken down models that could clash with the style. The ingame execution of the feature is also rather flawed, with it most notably having these following Pokemon suffer from slow following speeds generally, and a lack of a pathfinding system. What this means is that the player will tend to outpace their Pokemon, or have them get caught on other characters or terrain in the overworld, forcing the game to teleport them by way of a Poke Ball animation. This happens frequently, and while it’s not too immersion-breaking thanks to the animation providing context, it’s still damaging all the same. The feature also finds itself limited further through Pokemon not being allowed to follow in caves, buildings, or snow, which ultimately makes it inactive for a great portion of the player’s time with the game. Oddly enough, it doesn’t unlock until the first visit to Hearthome City, roughly six hours in. Further discrepancies occur when walking Pokemon simply teleport into their Poke Balls before a trainer battle starts, or can be ragdolled away by characters who move in cutscenes. It’s a very shoddily implemented feature, and it’s very sad to see after years of players requesting its return. Lastly, the trainer customization, while only tied to a single outfit like in Let’s Go, is a more minor, but still interesting addition. It isn’t much, and it unlocks relatively late in Veilstone City, but it’s nice to have that customization added retroactively. There isn’t much to say, as I think it’d be much harder to add a detailed customization feature in a game where your character looks like Lego Duplo, so for what it’s worth, I think this feature is quite good.
Fuzzy Faithfulness:
The very idea of faithfulness is what drove this remake to be what it is. Every prior Pokemon remake has been known for rather noteworthy changes, while also including the new Pokemon and forms of its current generation, and its mechanics, while even referencing later regions sometimes, just to breed a bit of continuity. None of this, barring Generation 8 mechanics, is in BDSP, due to them calling themselves faithful remakes. But sometimes, the faithfulness of the matter is called into question. Why are post-Generation 4 items, like Eviolites or Air Balloons, not present, but an untoggleable party-wide EXP Share is? Technical Machines are single use, making teaching your Pokemon moves much more tedious for the sake of faith to DP, but some moves, such as Return, are absent to comply with Generation 8 mechanics? What does the matter of faithfulness mean in the overworld, even, when my movement speed in the infamously slow snow is now slower than it was in the long grass or mud areas, which already run slower than the originals? We have a fully expanded underground, with roaming Pokemon, but no flag capturing, sphere growing, or trap setting like in DP. We have an overhauled contest feature, in which contests feel more like a rhythm minigame than anything else. This wasn’t in DP, so what prompted the change? We have a new park area for capturing legendaries, once again, a change which wasn’t in the originals. If these changes, which are rather substantial side content, are present, why are we not given more changes? What does being faithful mean other than a direct desire for a worse game? Moments like the Rotom room acknowledging Charon’s existence, only to cut off his name because of him being absent from the game, serve to hurt this further. What’s the point of this? For the sake of faithfulness, the world building of Sinnoh has been set back to 2007, and for what?
Inconsistent Touch Screen:
This is a short and minor segment, but with a game that allows touch control in handheld mode, I find it worth documenting. While a touch screen feature is implemented for the Poketch feature, a watch which originally was relegated to the bottom screen of the originals, the way in which it carries over to the modern day is generally shoddy. Things such as needing to cycle through the apps so slowly, with no back button (that Platinum had) make this grating, but needing to open and use a specific app to dowse for hidden items no longer works as well or seamlessly as it did when integrated into the bottom screen. The Poketch being overlaid and toggleable in the right hand corner of the screen is nice, but when apps like the dowsing machine aren’t touchable in this minimized mode, a lot feels very tedious. This is similar in that whilst trying to make this translate to docked mode, the Poketch gets a hand cursor so it’s not inherently unusable, but this makes the process even slower than before. The Poketch isn’t the only touch screen issue, though. Perhaps the main reason I’m making this is the Poffin minigame, in which treats are cooked for Pokemon to perform better in contests. This minigame was a touch screen function on the DS, using the stylus to stir batter and cook these treats. The Switch did, of course, have to make something for those with docked mode, so this is simulated by rotating the sticks on it, but this is also rather slow and unresponsive compared to the DS’s mechanics. However, this is not why I write this. Handheld mode, the mode with touch screen functionality, chooses not to use it for the Poffin game. I have to stop to ask why this is, because it removes what would be such an unquestioned implementation from discussion. Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is asking the player to rotate their JoyCon sticks in the handheld mode, especially with a system so infamous for its controller drift. This rapid rotation is known to cause this sort of drift to accelerate, so removing a workaround just feels sloppy.
The Music:
Perhaps because it recreates a stellar OST, but the soundtrack of BDSP in its finished state is great. I’ll be one to admit I teared up upon hearing the Eterna Forest theme in a trailer, hearing the feel of it recreated so perfectly. Other tracks even make me realize I was misinterpreting some instruments from the original OST, such as Valor Lakefront (Night) having a backing accordion, or a saxophone playing in locations such as Solaceon Town. So many themes are perfectly recreated, and while I do wish there was an occasional reimagining, akin to Ecruteak City in HeartGold and SoulSilver, I will take a pleasant listen after consuming the placeholder MIDI cesspool of leaks. There is one track, though, that I feel went above and beyond to change itself, and that’s the Elite Four theme. Originally, this theme was a Gym Leader theme in a different key, but now, it’s a remix with backing guitars, helping to intensify these final fights, strengthened by their competitive sets further intensifying them. There’s some themes I can’t help but say feel lacking, though, which I do hate saying in a region with a (no pun intended) brilliant OST. The Galactic Grunt theme starts incredibly strong and powerful, but the organ part that plays no longer feels ethereal or spatial like before, but rather just detaches itself from the intensity of the rest of the song, leaving it rather out of place. While not a bad song on its own, Cyrus’s theme suffers as well, being decidedly less intense and focused than the original theme, lacking much of the buildup and percussion that made the drop as the song began to loop all the more fun to hear in battle. Of the few new compositions we have, I’ll pleasantly say they’re rather great as well, such as both Ramanas Park legendary themes being exceptionally catchy whilst fighting these Pokemon. Sometimes, music from Platinum, like the Frontier Brain theme, is missing, and that’s where I draw a line and will admit I’m outright sad. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire lacked a Battle Frontier of their own, but made sure the theme itself was present in the game, accounting for the absolute banger that it was. Why am I forced to hear Cynthia’s theme for Palmer, when precedent of BDSP put Platinum’s contest themes, and Giratina’s theme in the very same game? Obviously, this is a minor frustration, but it’s still odd. As a whole though, the soundtrack accomplishes what it set out to do, being a faithful recreation of a good thing, which can’t be said for the games themselves.
Reduced Rollout:
So you’re probably wondering why I chose to wait until April to start this project. If you’ve followed this game, though, you’d be aware of how dreadfully slow its update rollout has been, along with a lack of any word regarding things. To start, the games were released in November, but several features were absent, such as the Global Ranking Room and the GTS, now renamed the Grand Wonder System (GWS), and turned into a wonder trade mechanic. These features were not added until February and March, respectively. I waited to begin this essay until then so I could meticulously compile evidence on the game in a finished state, and not on a game with literal features missing. The GWS is a bit odd even in its released state, as it doesn’t accurately depict the location of where Pokemon come from, but rather tells players to put down any spot on the map as where they’re from, and on subsequent trades, encouraging them to put the same spot as the person they previously matched with. It doesn’t provide an accurate geographic representation despite being a feature about connectivity, but it is Wonder Trade, and therefore it is fun by virtue of the nature of surprise. At the time of writing, this game still lacks Pokemon Home support as well. While this isn’t a part of the core gameplay, the game is almost half a year old, and lacks any way to transfer its Pokemon elsewhere, which is annoying in the cases of having Shiny Pokemon, or being attached to teams and wanting to preserve them. This has happened as a result of BDSP being built off of the Unity engine, much unlike any Gamefreak headed projects, which has made connecting to Home and being programmed correctly much more difficult. I am not angry regarding the matter, but it is frustrating. I wish the team the best with adding this support, as they have a lot of work cut out for them.
The Lack of Interviews:
Perhaps the most concerning thing regarding the state of these games is the lack of interviews. Most prior Pokemon projects, even the divisive Let’s Go and Sword and Shield saw interviews with the developers, serving as a way of communication between the creators and their audience, while also contextualizing a state of the development. There wasn’t any of this for BDSP, and this is especially problematic given the muddied faithfulness I’ve mentioned, and the clear development cycle issues indicated through the various builds and patches. Perhaps the worst aspect of this, though, is it’s left the Pokemon fanbase to turn to speculation. This fanbase is the same one which spun a development cycle marred by crunch into a myth of Gamefreak being “lazy” for the sake of their Youtube content. This is the same fanbase that either cannot believe the games’ development periods have split teams and span years, or think any instance of red and purple is a hint to the upcoming Scarlet and Violet games. Allowing a fanbase with a penchant for misinformation and pollution of the online discourse to speculate is a massive mistake. We open Pandora’s box for Youtubers who merely research the series to smear it with partial evidence, or for some to defend it blindly. While it’s quite clear BDSP did have development issues, until we get any interviews, we will never be privy to a full truth on the matter or its design process. We were never given clear meanings of much of its promotional blurbs, like the previously mentioned faithfulness, resulting in a jarring product for all parties, especially during the period in which the games leaked. I sympathize with these developers. I know I’ve spent an essay explaining that I didn’t have the best time with their product, but I sympathize and would like to know more, and that is a casualty of this. It’s a sad story, but it feels sadder not knowing.
Hopes for the Future and a Closer:
To close this, there’s a lot of emotions I’ve felt rolling in me from this game, but primarily they’re just sadness and frustration. I adore the Sinnoh region and its world, but that world didn’t really take its full shape until Platinum. In some ways, BDSP does feel like returning home, but in many others, it’s like returning home to finding out that your parents converted your room into an office without telling you. The disappointment I felt worried me, as this was the third Pokemon release in a row, since Let’s Go, where I’d felt disappointed by the game. I don’t believe the “Pokemon went downhill when it went 3D” mindset, as I liked Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire quite a bit, and absolutely adore the Alola games. However, the direction the franchise was taking on the Switch was deeply worrying me that my childhood series was going to be something I outgrew, with its direction degrading. Thankfully, only two months after BDSP, we got Legends Arceus. To say that game made me happy would be an understatement. It was like joy was returning to me after a long hiatus, the first Pokemon game I wholly enjoyed since Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Best of all, Legends: Arceus was an incredibly engaging new take on Sinnoh, showing the region in a Meiji Japan style, while still feeding crumbs of nostalgia to me. For me, that game made me feel like a child again, the very feeling that BDSP left me longing for. Legends: Arceus aimed to respect the version of Sinnoh I grew to love in Platinum, and felt so vindicating as a Sinnoh fan. While BDSP disappointed me, this game made me feel like I was falling in love with Sinnoh for the first time again. And although I don’t love BDSP, I know I can return to Platinum and replay it to my heart’s content, which will always be a comfort. However, these days of my childhood are also confirmed to be over through BDSP. The days of being able to simply put a game in on the way back from the store, as I did as a child, are over. The children of today would be greeted with a placeholder title screen, and unfinished music, and that hurts to think of for me. Not everyone out there has the internet to update the games, and it’s sad to think of how many people will experience these games in that state. If anything gives me hope, though, it is Legends: Arceus once again. A game that shipped finished, without the need of a massive patch, hopefully bodes well for the future. I just hope we do not have to repeat any of BDSP’s rollout.
I find myself frustrated, writing as a critic, because as disappointed as I am, and as able to admit my first games were, and still are flawed, I can see what they meant to me. Diamond and Pearl register as games I’d never pick up again, and perhaps BDSP faithfully do the same. However, against the odds, those games stabbed themselves into my heart. They started my most longstanding hyperfixation. And though I criticize them now, the joy they gave a younger me, incapable of holding much criticism, was very, very real. They gave birth to something I consider rather beautiful, as well. I have a soundtrack I regularly revisit, sometimes choosing to lie down and wistfully remember the simpler times. Platinum blossomed from DP, and formed a definitive, better version of a game I hold nostalgia for. It formed something I’ll always enjoy and always take comfort in. And though the comfort is lessened, I find myself remembering my first day getting my first game. My Piplup in BDSP had a Serious nature, the very same as my first Piplup in Pearl, fifteen years ago. I find myself frustrated as a creative, and I find myself, a critic, shackled by these emotions and memories that resurface. We can tear down works constantly, with little consequence, as negativity is favored by human nature. It’s more enjoyable to watch someone rip something apart than to watch someone gush. Algorithms favor negativity, as do others. I hope I’ve not merely written a piece about that, but rather one comprehensive to what I feel. The negativity I feel is real, but it’s remiss to disguise the fact that I had fun with these, and their originals in a way. I don’t desire a culture where we write something off as meaningless, and as mediocre as Diamond and Pearl may be, the memories they gave me and so many others carry more meaning than most art I’ve consumed. I don’t see mediocre art as the valueless junk that some would. As much as I can say Diamond and Pearl are mediocre art, they gave birth to great art. And now in BDSP’s case, a mediocre package still holds a beautiful soundtrack, and had Legends: Arceus created alongside it, a game which captured the joy of my childhood while making me feel a new joy. With Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, I see a package I did not wholly enjoy, but one which I still felt some connection with. Negativity inspired me to write my essay, but that negativity grew from a love that I find surfacing as I write. I want better, as I know a younger me got better with Platinum, and began to acknowledge that. I see a bittersweet farewell to a childhood in these games, and yet, the moments of enjoyment remind me I am still the same person who grew a hyperfixation all those years ago. I hope I’ve ultimately made an essay that shows my feelings accurately, but also the love from which they’ve grown.
As a footnote, I’d like to give a massive shoutout to my editor/proofreader, Taylor, who saw a lot of the spelling and grammar mistakes I made, or areas lacking in concision. This was something I’d worked on as soon as I woke up or right before bed on many days, so my spelling wasn’t the best at 4 in the morning or after a stressful day waiting for my final grades. He truly has helped make this as good of a product as I envisioned. I wanted to write this since release, but school and BDSP’s rollout got in the way of that. I had so many ideas, and so many bouts with Mania and low points throughout the semester that I was afraid my ideas would just get lost in the undertow. They didn’t, and stayed as strong as they could so I could put out something I needed to get out. If you don’t feel creative madness, I envy you. I envy the idea of not having thoughts of your passions raging in your head, or being so engaged in work that you'd put it above others or your own well being. However, this madness is a gift in its own way. I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t use a gift I have. There were days where looking at this behemoth made me want to vomit, or made me feel a sort of imposter syndrome regarding my work. I’m just glad it’s over and I feel proud of it. If you’ve made it this far, thank you. It means a lot.