Nostalgically Modern: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl
Name one iconic game franchise and I bet Pokémon crossed your mind. With a very successful brand that spans several decades and features multiple platforms, genres, and products, the Pokémon franchise is one of the biggest video game franchises ever. Everyone knows who Pikachu is and the world saw a brief moment of unity when Pokémon GO first hit the AR gaming space back in 2016.
With that said, it has always been Nintendo’s trend to release one Pokémon main series game every year. For 2021, they released one of the most requested remakes in recent years, the remakes of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.
I’ve always been a huge fan of the Pokémon franchise (I still play Pokémon GO religiously even up to this day). When Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (BDSP) was announced, I was ecstatic and told myself “I really have to buy a Nintendo Switch now” — and buy a Nintendo Switch I did. I bought the console and the games together last December, planned on writing this feature before the year ended. But alas, school finals and Typhoon Odette prevented me from doing so. However, now that I finally finished the game (just like the first entry of my new year’s resolution article), here are my thoughts on the Gen 4 Pokémon remakes.
Familiar But Different
Considering I bought the pack, I had two choices: go for Dialga (Brilliant Diamond) or Palkia (Shining Pearl). I opted for the latter as most people preferred the Temporal Pokémon and I wanted to not follow the crowd; to have a slightly different experience as per se. However, I still did play Brilliant Diamond for a bit so there’s no need to call me out for only playing one-half of the remakes.
Obviously, Shining Pearl is simply a remake of Pearl (with Brilliant Diamond a remake of Diamond). As such, if you’ve played the original games before, the remakes feel familiar as they do retain most of their elements. However, with numerous new mechanic introductions from succeeding generations (e.g. Fairy types, new items, new moves, etc.), Shining Pearl definitely adds a whole new dimension to the Gen 4 experience.
Yes, I have Altaria on my Championship team. I don’t like Garchomp.
For example, Altaria has more type coverage in BDSP as compared to the original games. Altaria, being a dual-type Pokémon featuring a Dragon-Flying typing, already has an impressive type coverage with its arsenal of moves. However, with the Fairy-type move Moonblast, Altaria now has an edge against Dark-types too.
Switching to another topic, if you like spending your time in The Underground before then The Grand Underground is sure a delight. Not only did they bring back classic features (e.g. the mining minigame and secret bases), the developers also added new features such as Pokémon Hideaways: new places where wild Pokémon can be encountered, even rare ones.
The volume of additional content in BDSP may seem daunting at first but it does a great job at making players feel accustomed to the general gameplay.
A Really Helpful Game
The Sinnoh region is notorious for being one of the slower-paced regions in the Pokémon main series. It’s even a miracle how someone beat the game in just 3 hours, 19 minutes, and 34 seconds. However, in order to cater to new, generally younger players, the game provided a lot of tools to make things easier. All throughout my gameplay, I’ve regularly made use of said tools, and it definitely helped me save a lot of time (unless when I’m down in the Grand Underground, you’ll really find yourself down there for quite some time).
One of the things I immediately noticed when I first played the games was the Autosave function. You literally just have to do anything and the game saves your file automatically. Unfortunately, I had to turn it off considering I’m a player who sometimes mess things up (I caught Palkia with a Master Ball because I almost killed it).
I really didn’t want to. He’s annoying.
Another thing I found helpful was the guide whenever you open the menu. Right below the menu bar, the second bar below states whatever it was needed to do to progress the story. A nifty feature for a player who is a bit forgetful or someone who can’t play the game in one go (or both, like me).
Moving on to a much more controversial topic, the Exp. Share function in BDSP is automatic and gives out experience points to EVERYONE in your party. Whether you like this or not, you can’t turn it off. Personally, I loved it as it made team grinding for levels much faster.
Meanwhile, anti-HM slaves will have a thing to celebrate as the Pokétch, BDSP’s smartwatch, removes the need for one. Replacing them is the Pokétch move function. You simply need to access your Pokétch to perform an HM move. Don’t have anyone in your party with a specific HM move? Fret not as a wild Pokémon comes to your rescue every time. No more Slave Bidoofs.
Shiny hunting now is also made easier with one of The Grand Underground’s features. All you needed to do was find 40 Digletts or Dugtrios and a bonus with a timer will grant you an increased chance of spotting a shiny. However, I still don’t have a shiny Pokémon in BDSP [insert sad Pikachu noises].
The Town Map is also quite handy in BDSP. It now shows the locations of Honey Trees (distinguishing between those with no Honey, with Honey but no wild Pokémon, and with Honey + wild Pokémon) and Berries ripe for picking.
A lot more functions aren’t stated here but trust me it does make things easier. Just find it out yourself and you’ll see.
No Amount of Repels Can Deter Game Bugs
Riley, why are you a ghost?
As with the problems in recently released games, Shining Pearl isn’t flawless (just like most IRL pearls). In fact, it still featured bugs. I’m not referring to the Bug Typing (duh) but actual game bugs in the game. Not quite many but still noticeable. Here are some of the bugs I encountered:
- My game froze as I finished fighting Elite 4’s Flint (it gave me a mini heart attack really)
- Screen glitches (or is it just a homage to MissingNo.?)
- Missing character sprites during cut scenes (Riley became a ghost)
A Lot of Things Are Missing & That’s Okay
There are things missing from the game just like in my Pokédex.
With so much Pokémon in their catalog (898 to be exact and counting), it’s rational for not all to be present. It’s a game remake too, remember? If you want a proper remake, you’d have to stay close to the source material. So, it’s logical for the game devs to skip the newer additions past Gen 4 and just keep it faithful.
Besides that, there are other features from the Pokémon series that aren’t present in the game. Do you like Mega Evolutions? Not in the games. How about Gigantamaxed Pokémon? Not in the games. Frankly, not featuring those makes sense as the Sinnoh region didn’t have them originally. I stand by that statement regardless of how cool a Mega Evolved Lucario looks.
They also took out some previous functions that are deemed redundant, such as the Pokétch’s Berry Searcher app.
With that said, it’s okay for BDSP to have some things missing. After all, the games are fine without them.
So Should You Buy Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl?
The remakes are well executed as they stuck to the original source while barely changing it — just like what game remakes are supposed to be. So to answer the question should you buy Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, yes. You should definitely buy it. Buy one now.
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