Pokemon is back! This time with Wifi!
The Bad: Doesn’t use DS’s features to full effect, No true online random matches
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Hi once again, I’m going to be reviewing Pokemon Diamond and Pearl for the Nintendo DS. Pokemon DP are great games, but they could have been better in some aspects. The games are still great and it just goes to show you that Pokemon will be able to stand the test of time, the games anyway. :P
Pokemon DP don’t stray far away from the old Pokemon style, but then again that isn’t really a bad thing. This time you will find yourself as a beginning trainer in the Sinnoh region. As with every Pokemon game (minus Yellow) you get to choose between three starter Pokemon. You get to choose between the grass Pokemon Turtwig, the fire Pokemon Chinchar, or the water Pokemon Piplup. After that you start your adventure to beat the Elite Four, fill up your Pokedex, and become the greatest trainer out there.
Now then, Pokemon DP don’t change the Pokemon battle formula much. You still have turn based battles; there are still 8 gym leaders and the Elite Four, items, etc. The biggest change in the battle scene is the new command buttons. To control your Pokemon you can use the d-pad or the touch screen. All the action will take place on the top screen. There are four command buttons: Fight (which takes up 70 % of the screen), Bag, Run, and Pokemon. They are all self explanatory really. The new system makes everything more assessable and I liked it.
Okay so we now how the battling is, how is the overworld? The overworld is in 3d now; but it keeps the look of the 2d Pokemon games so you don’t really notice the difference that much. The overworld is all on the top screen. The bottom screen shows you Poketech. The Poketech is a device that you get early in the game that has helpful tools to use on your quest to become the Pokemon Master. The Poketech can act as a clock, calculator, notepad, map, and more. And as you progress through the game you can keep adding to it to make it more useful. But there are some annoying things about the Poketech. First off some of the applications are useless. For example you app you get is a counter; all it does is count how many times you press a button on the Poketech. What is the point in this; do you think I can’t count or something Game Freak? Another annoying thing is that you can only switch apps by pressing one big button on the Poketech. It’s annoying having to flip between over 10 apps later in the game.
Pokemon DP are trying to retain a lot of what the GBA Pokemon games had, this is good and bad. On one hand it keeps the addictiveness of the past games. And it takes past features, such as Pokemon Contests, and expands them. But on the other hand it seems Game Freak forgot it is working on a DS game. Minus the 3d overworld the game could be made on a GBA. The animations are nearly the same as the GBA games. And the touch screen is hardly used, or used poorly. For example, using the touch screen on the overworld menu is sloppy. The menu is on the top screen so you control it using a scroll wheel on the touch screen, which is a bit finicky. And then there is the music and sounds. They aren’t bad really, but they could have been so much more.
Besides some annoyances the game is great. The game will last you a solid 50 hours to beat the Elite Four alone, and that’s not even touching any of the optionally features in the game. 50 hours is not only great for any game, but being a handheld makes it even more impressive. It also adds new features such as the underground area. Here you can dig for treasures (such as evolution stones ;) ), hang out with people, set traps, and more. And now you can collect over 400 Pokemon, over a hundred of them are new. And you can transfer Pokemon from your GBA games to help, which is awesome. The games have tremendous replay value; you will be addicted to Pokemon DP for quite some time. One of the best new features of Pokemon DP are the new online components. You can go online in a multitude of ways. First you can go to the Global Trading Station (GTS) and you can trade with anyone from around the world. What you do is send the Pokemon you want to trade to the Nintendo servers and you choose a Pokemon you want (can only be a Pokemon you’ve already seen). Then you can leave and come back later to see if you got any offers. It’s a great way to trade and get new Pokemon. The second way to go online is to trade friend codes with someone. Once you both add each other you can battle, trade, or just talk to each other using the DS’s mic. And after you beat the game you can go to the battle tower. Here you upload your Pokemon team to the servers so other people can battle your team. It is sort of disappointing that you can’t actually battle random people instead of simulated AI of the person, but you won’t really notice the difference. Overall the online is good for a DS game, but some times the voice chat is a little hard to understand.
Overall Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are great games are should be in your DS collection ASAP! Its one of the longest DS games out there and you will be hooked to it. They don’t change the Pokemon formula much, but the new additions are worth the $35. And being the first online Pokemon game makes it all the better. This is a great game that you should not miss if you own a DS.