Ratings have started to drop for Pokémon brilliant diamond and Shiny pearl on the Nintendo Switch and it sounds like the remakes are a massive one meh. This is a huge disappointment for gamers hoping for a little more from the 2007 DS games. For hardcore fans who will be playing every new The Pokémon Company release, it probably doesn’t matter.
Brilliant diamond and Shiny pearl are apparently so well known to both VG247 and VGC used almost identical headlines, calling them “faithful remakes for better or for worse”. Corresponding VG247, The remakes are “Expert”, “Easy”, and “The same game with a nice paint job”.
VGC was more positive, which praises the controversial new XP Share feature, a now common mechanic in more modern games, as well as the Grand Underground area, a more detailed version of the tunnels of the original game, in which different Pokémon can be caught early. The point of sale still did not consider the new additions “expansive enough to change your experience in a meaningful way”. Both sides said the chibi art style worked, but criticized the beginning of the game, which is still unfolding at a snail’s pace.
Most of the early reviews are divided on whether the remakes are too conservative and simple or a refreshing return to a classic, leisurely formula for the earlier generations of Pokémon Games. Here’s what some of the others are saying:
With so many Pokémon spinoffs, reinterpretations, and new generations, the classic Pokémon game feels buried in a ton of updated mechanics and impressive new features. but Brilliant diamond and Shiny pearl are no-frills remakes that take players back on that original, simple journey, and they’re the first Pokémon games I’ve enjoyed battling through in nearly a decade.
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At first glance, EXP Share is a great way to avoid unnecessary grinding to make sure your less-used Pokémon are ready to fight. However, the developers have taken no action to counterbalance this feature, and there is no way to turn off EXP Share. As a result, my teams felt overwhelmed as the game progressed, making big matches against Team Galactic or one of the Arena Managers felt simple and insignificant. I rolled through challengers on the surface of Sinnoh and had to find more formidable enemies elsewhere.
My biggest criticism of Brilliant diamond and Shiny pearl is that they are great to skip whether you played the original games or not. They are well-made, very faithful, reproductions of some 15 year old DS games. But with no newer Pokémon or other major gameplay updates, they feel like too many other games I’ve played before.
Your character looks appropriately retro when you’re simply exploring the tall grass or strolling around town, but the style looks especially nice when the camera zooms in during dialogue sequences. This is where the artwork really shines because you can see the depth and liveliness of the characters. They almost look like living vinyl dolls.
When Heart gold and Soul silver came out they were the definitive DS titles and arguably the best games in the series. Pokémon brilliant diamond and Shiny pearl I don’t feel like they’re going to have anywhere near as much impact. Nor can we emphasize enough how much the chibi art style is demoted from the pixel art of the originals. Not only does this make the games feel cheaper, but it also ruins the design of the game’s main antagonist.
As a result, the new remakes are difficult to play when you’ve already played and loved platinum. I know so much more about these characters than Shiny pearl is always ready to admit. Sure, they may be 3D and all of them chibid-up, but paradoxically they’re flat – it’s hard to take the weight of Cyrus’ nihilism seriously when he looks like a character from an off-peak show by Nick Jr . originates.
There are a couple of parts of Brilliant diamond and Shiny pearl that change what was on offer in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, but aren’t meaningful enough to distract from what’s always been there. With no real trouble, “whatever was there” is just another Pokemon game. Not so long ago that might have been enough, but the franchise is making strides in reinventing that formula sword and sign, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus, a traditional piece of nostalgia feels like an uncertain foundation to build on.
Several major review sites have yet to look at the new games as Nintendo didn’t send a code until the end of last Friday. As a result, I amGN, Eurogamer, and others didn’t have ratings until later this week. At this point it seems clear that Brilliant diamond and Shiny pearl Development got to the point, as evidenced in part by the fact that the games were given massive “daytime” patches a full week prior to release to fix placeholder music and missing animation.
Much of the game beforehand was leaked online, with dataminers fill in the blanks and confirms that there wasn’t much secret content lurking in the endgame areas of the remakes. Based on the early reviews, the moment-to-moment adventures seem just as predictable. Kotaku doesn’t have the game yet, but we’ll let you know what we think as soon as we do.
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