Julius

The gaming world would be a very different place if Rick Thompson's PA didn't type everything in all caps

Trailer for the next part of Pokémon Evolutions: Nice to see Mewtwo as happy as every in that thumbnail

Alright, say what you will about how hilariously bad this game's story looks, the steelbook with Amano artwork has to be one of the cleanest steelbooks in gaming:

I've had some time to think about it, so while I've still got a bit of the post-game left, I don't have a review to write like @Glen-i (which I'm very much looking forward to reading - no pressure! ), so I'm fine drawing the line with where I am to talk about the game. My not at all comprehensive thoughts on the game, to try to sum them up as swiftly as I can: Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl are very rushed and unpolished remakes - I think there might be a very strong argument for them being the most unpolished main series Pokémon games to date, especially considering a sizeable patch is required to access one of the main post-game activities and the actual soundtrack - which in more ways than I can care to count fall short of what I believe are fair expectations for Pokémon remakes. These are not the definitive Sinnoh adventure; that honour still goes to Platinum, with it's well-rounded regional Dex, additional story content and characters, stronger all around level scaling for trainers, and rich post-game content, such as it's Battle Frontier. The game in its design is almost completely at odds with itself. We've mentioned it before, but it needs to be said again: the post-game in this game is accessed through completing the regional Sinnoh Dex, which means seeing 150 Pokémon (not counting Manaphy, which is kind of a New situation), compelling you - if you go in with this knowledge - to battle every trainer you come across to help you complete this objective and get access to the post-game. The problem is that the EXP Share in this game is based on its Gen VIII variant, meaning every Pokémon in your party gains EXP in a battle, but there's no way to turn this off. With the team composition of most trainers in the game being pulled directly from the original games, the number of trainers per location being much higher than in modern releases, and not being updated in any meaningful way to offset this, the game begins quickly unbalanced, and beyond the first gym you're very unlikely to face any real challenge for much of the game. My average team level for much of the game was 8 - 12 levels higher than whatever we were facing, meaning that I could steamroll my way through much of the game, even one-hit KO'ing Pokémon with moves that should be weak against them on several occasions. The Friendship Levels coming over too really don't help this either, as your Pokémon will frequently recover from status effects, dodge attacks, and land critical hits through the power of friendship. The only real way to get around all of this? Stock up on bitter herbs in Eterna City and use those, as opposed to Potions and the like, throughout your playthrough so that your Pokémon hate you, and also to overhaul your team as soon as you get overleveled. It's a far from ideal solution, to put it kindly. I also want to briefly touch on HM's, because returning to Sinnoh for the first time in a while, I forgot just how vital HM's were to the overall experience of adventure in Pokémon games, which is helped massively with this being probably the last non-linear main series Pokémon adventure in many ways. Sinnoh had you running back and forth, flying around, missing little caves under cycling paths or off to the side of Victory Road, whereas almost every main series game since has had you following a straight path or going clockwise or anticlockwise around a map. It's honestly been a bit refreshing, though that's quickly taken away by being told exactly where to go in your menu, which is a massive shame. HM's play into this in a way that I don't really think we've come across since the transition to 3D with X & Y, which is teasing parts of caves or paths that you can't access due to not yet having a HM. I'm sure it's happened, but nowhere near as frequently or as obviously as it happens here. Which kind of segues into some of the more unpolished parts of the game. Look, I think ILCA didn't get the time they perhaps needed to really nail these remakes, and I don't want to go crazy talking about unpolished elements, but I actually have some helpful visual aids captured from the game to show what I mean. The biggest one, as I mentioned last week, is the games being pretty much a tile-for-tile, tile-based remake of the originals. This isn't too much of a problem early on in the game, as there aren't too many narrow paths or puzzles, but this becomes a bit of an annoyance later in the game during some gym puzzles and when going up Mt. Coronet or making your way through Victory Road. This game is clearly built around the left stick rather than using the D-pad, at least from what I've experienced, because there isn't an option to walk diagonally using the D-pad, and I've experienced input lag with the D-pads of both my Pro Controller and Joy-Cons while playing. What happens is you end up sticking to the sides of narrow paths a lot of the time using the left stick, and with regards to the input lag/sticky button I experienced with the D-pad, here's my fourth attempt at trying to go right down this narrow path in Mt Coronet, pressing down once on the D-pad for each step: This quickly brings me onto another unpolished element which can be seen in abundance in Mt. Coronet: the lack of a rolling animation for boulders using Strength. In the originals they gave the illusion of rolling with the boulders being round and the "shadow" moving across the top, but here... @V. Amoleo mentioned Cycling Road being a place where following Pokémon can play up. Well here's what happens when you exit the cave underneath: And here's what happens pretty much every time you need to run down a narrow path with your Pokémon in front of you: And here's some alarming frame rate: And here's a clip showing that Pokémon evolution is a lie, they're actually just trading places with their friends by going really, really small while their friend gets much, much bigger! And finally, something that I imagine is tied only to Manaphy but I found funny nonetheless: here's a Manaphy Egg in my PC, and here's Manaphy in my Pokédex before the egg even hatched (I can't remember if this happened in the original - I don't believe it did - but either way, it's very funny). There's also the awful Pokétch integration when not playing in handheld, and as far as I can tell the touchscreen doesn't work in battles? I've experienced and seen others experience a whole other variety of issues, but I'll leave it there for now. Point is: this is a very unpolished set of gems. I don't want to talk too much about the particulars of the soundtrack yet, like individual tracks and my favourites, but I think overall they've done an okay job with them. A very small pinch of the tracks might be better than the originals, but most of the tracks are very muted and understated when compared with the high energy of the originals. The jazzy feel and core is still there, it's just not capitalised on in the same way soundtracks for previous remakes managed to reimagine or revitalise tracks from their original counterparts. On the whole, there are fan compositions much more interesting and engaging than what we ended up with here. And I need to talk more to the feel and look of this game. It's just so...sterile. The overworld and character models look like they've been dragged out of a fan remake in Unity from 2010, which these days would be considered for a low effort mobile port. The depth of field changes from route to route, location to location, and it feels like it's trying to hide an uglier game. Dragging and dropping the look of in-battle models from Sword & Shield, perhaps with a new shader, just creates this jarring lack of cohesion between the overworld and battles. The overworld chibi models look hilariously hideous, helped all the while by their blank-faced appearances, which just contrasts so heavily against some of the better in-battle character animations I remember us seeing in Pokémon games since the move to 3D. Unfortunately, this just happens so infrequently that it's easy to miss, as it is very much concentrated in the home stretch of the main story, from Spear Pillar to the Elite Four and Champion. However, all of this being said, I had a fun time with Brilliant Diamond. The original game means a lot to me, and though the look, feel and sound is all a little off, getting to return to Diamond's version of Sinnoh - which I haven't experienced from beginning to end since I was 8 years old, some 14 years ago - has definitely put a smile on my face. After having a very poor experience with Sword (I've yet to go through the DLC, but it just didn't grab me AT ALL), returning to Sinnoh has reminded me of what I like about Pokémon, and got me in the mood to play more, albeit with certain conditions in place (turning battle animations off except for the big climactic battles, etc.). Being overleveled for so much of the game was a serious turn off, but realising that it actually is somewhat needed if there isn't really going to be any rebalancing going on in the long run, to just be around or below Cynthia's level when you reach the Champion's room, and have that final battle be just as lethal and as challenging as it was when I took her on 14 years ago? ILCA were faithful to a fault in other parts of the game, but giving me a seriously challenging Pokémon battle during the main story of a main series Pokémon game for the first time since the summer of 2007 made me feel like a little kid all over again, even if only for a fleeting moment. I still can't believe how gobsmacked I was by the challenge, and just how excited I was during that battle. For me, that made it well worth the price of admission. My verdict? Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl are the definitive versions of the games they are faithfully remaking: Diamond & Pearl. Those games are just very tough to go back to these days. That being said, Platinum is still by far and away the definitive way to experience Sinnoh if you want a challenge and to feel like you're on an adventure, but if you want a low-stress nostalgic vacation in Sinnoh as someone who played any of those DS games, or for newcomers just a low-stress, entry-level Pokémon game, I think there's a fun time to be had here. It's totally in line with what the current crop of Pokémon games are, and have been since the transition to 3D. Regardless of ILCA's timeline for this (which I don't think was particularly long), it is another big step down in effort and polish compared to almost every other core series Pokémon game released in the franchise's 25 year history, and unfortunately continues the decline of the standards set for remakes in this series from definitive versions of stories we know with plenty of additional content - which in many ways make the originals and their enhanced versions obsolete - to faithful-to-a-fault, easy-to-a-fault, subjectively uglier, but on the whole inoffensive remakes. This game is the definition of manufactured, from it's soulless overworld character eyes to its world feeling like it has a layer of cling film wrapped over just about everything. It's hard not to be let down as someone who got to experience Gen IV on a primary school playground, and through the lens of HeartGold & SoulSilver has dreamed for a long time of what these remakes in the late 2010's or early 2020's could be: walking up to Spear Pillar in true 3D, with control of a left stick, and the pillars towering far above over you, seeing the towns and routes of Sinnoh from above. These games could have been so much more, and it's a shame that they weren't, but that I can take some enjoyment from them at all is much more than I was honestly expecting. What next for ILCA? As I mentioned before, and as @Sckewi mentioned above, I would gladly have this team - with a bit more time, and a bit more manpower - remake HeartGold and SoulSilver as they were, with their additional content and almost exactly like this, just with more attention given to the soundtrack, stronger visual direction (if we've got to see chibi models, at least make them look better than a low effort mobile game!), and a bit more time in the oven. I would much prefer that to Let's Go-style remakes, and I hope TPCi would give them the time to deliver. I'd 1000% be down for a low-stress return to Johto, and I actually think the current EXP Share might help balance the second half of a Glistening HeartGold and Shimmering SoulSilver. In fact, I'd also like to see them remake FireRed and LeafGreen too, again assuming they get more time to execute on it better than they did here. My only concern is if they will get that time for such a project. Legends: Arceus is still - somehow - slated for January, meaning that unless there's some DLC for that on the way, there won't be anything related to a core series Pokémon game releasing in the final quarter of a calendar year for the first time since 2015. That's an outcome that's really hard to imagine, so I hope ILCA aren't in a rush and having to churn something out in time for Q4 2022. If it wasn't for the Platinum outfit coming to Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, right now I would genuinely be thinking that a Platinum remake is going to be dropping next November. As for whatever is going to happen when it comes time to remake the adventures in Unova, I have no idea. Those are by far the most cinematic and plot-heavy of the main series Pokémon games, so I don't think a remake by ILCA based on their output with these games - much less a chibi set of remakes - would be suitable at all, so either they need a lot of help or Game Freak should take it on. Not to mention, whoever would be handling it, do they go about remaking Black & White and then Black & White 2? Because that would seem like an absurd workload. Heck, at this point, any combination of outcomes is possible: ILCA remaking both B&W and B&W2 in chibi form while Game Freak works on a Legends: Kyurem so that we can see the original dragon Pokémon, but I could just as well see Game Freak making a Black & White 3. So that will be an interesting one to think about for the next few years. And if I had to give it a score? 5.0 / 10 An entire point is down to that Cynthia battle and getting to revisit Sinnoh, warts and all.

Digital Foundry's look at Vice City and San Andreas is up: The parts on performance from their write-up on Eurogamer - details regarding the Switch version in bold:

Alright, credits have just rolled. Bested Cynthia and the Elite Four on my first attempt at the League, but it's clear from the start with their Pokémon's type coverage that this is going to go very differently to how the rest of the game will go for most players, which is being overleveled and OHKO'ing 70% of what you come across. To echo @Glen-i's experience with Cynthia using my own words: HOLY S***. That's easily the toughest main story battle I've faced in a main series Pokémon game in a very, very long time; easily the toughest in over a decade, and to be honest, probably the toughest since I took her on back on the original Diamond back in September 2007. Way to put me in my place, shut me up about being ridiculously overleveled (I mean, it was still an issue), and feel like a little kid again. It's been a very long time since I've had to scramble for my Max Revives and Full Restores like that, and there were two occasions where half of my team was knocked out. There's a seriously questionable amount of things that this game does poorly for me, but they absolutely nailed the challenge of the Elite Four and Cynthia. Being overleveled the entirety of the game, only to be around or below the Champion's level when the final battle comes (all while not missing a single battle) was insane to see, and made it a fun challenge. And it now means Cynthia gets to haunt another generation of young Pokémon fans, which is great I'll give more fleshed out thoughts on the main game a bit later once I've calmed down from that final battle a bit, so for now I'm going to finish up the Dex to unlock the National Dex post-game. Just got the 5 Pokémon left to see (hatching Riley's egg, being shown a picture in a book, and the Lake Guardians), so shouldn't take too long. @Glen-i I know you're in the post-game now, but let me know if you still want that Elekid egg, as I think I'm planning to raid every corner of the Grand Underground soon, so should be able to pick some up to breed! I'll have a lot I want to catch and trade I think (I might even go for at least completing all of the entries in the Sinnoh Dex + Sinnoh evolutions), so might need your help with that and getting some of the exclusives too

An update from Rockstar: Very much a boilerplate statement, wouldn't be surprised if they threw this together beforehand. One of the unfortunate downsides to games like No Man's Sky successfully turning the ship around after years of hard work, and the increasing number of early access titles, is that massive companies like Rockstar that - let's be honest - can get away with releasing collections like this, when they should be getting something like a remaster right the first time around, and frankly have no reason for a game feeling like an incomplete and unpolished product at launch.

Yep, that seems to be the kicker. I actually find it hilarious that with just how broken the EXP Share and Friendship Levels are, seemingly as a way to make the game easier for newcomers / returning fans, they would still decide to include something as archaic as seeing every Pokémon in the Sinnoh Dex to get access to the National Dex and post-game. Those two design philosophies almost completely contradict each other sigh

Today it's been a year since the PS5 landed in the UK and Europe, as well as many parts of the world not called Australia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand or North America. Because those lucky sods got the thing a week earlier The last year has flown by! How's everyone feeling a year about the PS5 a year in? What do you think of the DualSense a year removed from Astro's Playroom? And what's been your favourite next-gen / console exclusive game or DLC so far?

To be honest, I don't think I've looked at it since catching it Anyways, thanks Glen!

Surprise me it's just getting thrown in a Box after anyways!

Sorry, got pulled aside for something, just coming in now EDIT: I totally didn't accidentally head upstairs first...

Well that's just bizarre. I can try to get around changing some of the names lower down the list, but his canonical name? What an odd choice. Now I'm questioning if that was the case back with the originals? Can do, I can make my way over to the Union Room whenever you're ready think I've got a Metal Coat somewhere, so I'll do the same with my Scyther for my Dex. Also, just noticed something a bit odd...

Are you sure? It was the first predetermined option for me, just under choosing the name yourself. I know because I went down, accidentally pressed A, and then Rowan was checking to make sure this random child's name really was Barry

Considering how much change Jim Ryan has forced internally at PlayStation over the last few years, and how he seemed to always be on the side of doing what's best for business above all else (staying relatively quiet on bigger issues in the industry until now, waiting until the fire was under their feet to jump into cross-play, etc.), I really wasn't expecting him to speak up on this of all things, so fair play to him. It's not on, and we need people in key positions making sure things like this aren't allowed to continue in every industry, but especially gaming, where unfortunately these sorts of thing seem to have been thriving for the last decade or so. As for the marketing partnership, I reckon Activision needs PlayStation just as badly as PlayStation need them these days, if not a while lot more. They follow the money: PlayStation sells more consoles (currently) than Xbox does, and with that and Game Pass competing for the time they want people to be playing their games, they really haven't got a choice but to go with PlayStation from a financial perspective. You love to see it. Yeah, Phil Spencer stepping up I almost expected, much more so than Jim Ryan at least. I think Xbox still has quite a ways to go to get where they want to be, but from everything I've read and heard about Phil - the interviews I've watched of him, the initiatives like the adaptive controller that he really loves to put in the spotlight - I think he just seems like a pretty genuine guy who is almost tired of some of the stuff we see in the industry today. I mean, who isn't tired of it? I only follow the industry and I'm genuinely exhausted by it. Honestly, it's a shame more of the big Activision Blizzard games aren't on the Switch, would've loved to see all three console manufacturers just issuing statements on this.

Alright, this evening I swapped over to playing it in handheld mode and removed battle animations (will probably bring them back for big battles like the Pokémon League and the climax of the story), and I feel like I'm enjoying it quite a bit more than I was on my TV. Got some more minor complaints from today's session, this time around the overworld/movement: Like I mentioned before, I didn't play Let's Go or even the Sword & Shield DLC, so I haven't had a Pokémon follow me as much as mine are now for a good while. Running into your Pokémon the first time is funny, but after that it's just a bit awkward pushing them forwards. The original games were tile-based, as core series Pokémon games were until the jump to 3D. However, because the characters and world is much smaller this time around because of how little that's been done to make it look like anything other than the original games, there are times where you'll be doing something relatively simple and getting caught on things nonstop. My best and most frequent examples of this so far are the gym puzzles, because they are still entirely tile-based, such as in Veilstone's Gym where you need to walk into what are essentially wall dividers at exactly the right angle to push them along, meaning that unless you want to mess around with getting stuck on everything in the gym except the thing you are trying to push, you need to switch over the D-Pad / arrows rather than use the stick. It's also an absolute pain for some of the bike slopes. Speaking of which, you can only go up, down, left, and right with the D-Pad / arrows - you can't move diagonally. It's very bizarre! There's some very noticeable clipping at times, usually on staircases. I don't know if I didn't pay attention in Sword or completely miss it being talked about with Let's Go, but it seems amplified here when the characters look like they're two inches tall. It just makes the game look like it lacks polish (which, well, it did anyways, but even more so!). Depth of field is all over the shop from location to location, making it more noticeable and far less appealing to look at when it does turn up. I don't know if I'm going crazy, but there seems to be some kind of delay when swapping direction (running up and then trying to run down without stopping, for example), which is especially bad from what I've experienced when running. I've played on both Joy-Cons and a Pro Controller at this point and it seems to be consistent across both controller setups. Obviously without trying to I'm constantly thinking back to the original games, which is what made me notice the delay, because I remember just how snappy swapping directions while running was back on those games. As you can imagine, for the more complex bike slopes where you need to swap directions while riding a bike pretty quickly, such as the one on Route 209, I ended up having to just ride in circles with the left stick and then approach it at a very peculiar angle instead. Again, could be crazy, but I'm pretty sure there's a fairly noticeable and reproducible frame rate drop in the lower third of Pastoria. Got to imagine it's down to there not being a western gate to help with the transition to the rainy Route 212. Half tiles that you can't step on are still a thing, such as in Pastoria Gym. Okay, that might have been longer than I expected swear I'm enjoying it so far for what it is, though. Finally got the Manaphy Egg and Platinum outfit as Mystery Gift opened up this evening, but think I'll be saving the Platinum outfit for after the sixth gym for some weird kind of role-playing satisfaction. Also, think I've finally found a track in this that I think is stronger than the original: the Great Marsh theme! Unfortunately no-one's uploaded it, so you'll just have to believe me And speaking of which...

Yeah, will do. I imagine I'll probably have the League out of the way on Saturday unless something comes up, and my next stop was going to be hitting up the Underground anyways; I'm 80% sure that's where Elekid would be, as I seem to remember needing FireRed or LeafGreen packed into the GBA slot back in the original games, and that's obviously not an option here. Heck, might be down there already, but after testing the Grand Underground out the other day and enjoying looking around, I think I just want to get it all done in one fell swoop in the post-game Will let you know, but it shouldn't be a problem I was thinking about grabbing an Electivire to replace my Luxray for post-game stuff too, so might use the opportunity to trade an Electabuzz back and forth if it's ready in time? What I'll say from what I've played of the game so far is that the EXP Share might be the most broken of any Pokémon game I've played so far, though it's probably worth mentioning that I didn't play Let's Go, so I can't make a comparison there. Diamond & Pearl of all Pokémon games challenge you the most to battle all of the trainers you can find, because a lot of the post-game in the Battle Zone is locked behind seeing everything in the Sinnoh Dex. Naturally, then, I've made sure to battle every trainer on every route/in every location so far, and while I expected to be a few levels above the average trainer level, I didn't expect to be so crazy overleveled that I'm actually pretty bored by the battling; my Monferno was Lv. 30 by the time we hit Hearthome for the first time (that's after 2 badges + an additional route and a cave). I could be off, but it feels like I'm facing more trainers in this per route than I did in Sword, which would make sense considering how Sword - to some extent - was probably balanced around the new EXP Share, meaning fewer trainers are lying in wait, whereas the original Diamond & Pearl wouldn't have been. I don't like the lazy dev rhetoric when it comes to remakes, but it's pretty absurd that I'll probably have an Infernape before I get to the third gym. Throw in the updated Friendship/Happiness mechanic from Sword & Shield and it gets even worse, not to mention just how annoying the extra lines of text can be. It's funny, because I actually think something like this could help if, say, they were to remake HeartGold & SoulSilver specifically (which, at this point, if they're phoning it in, I'd happily take just to have Johto on my Switch). I love those games, but they were also really poor in terms of level scaling, and I remember getting a team close to the levels of Red's took me a long time!

I could be wrong, but I don't see a thread for Sifu? So here we are Anyways, after being delayed into next year from 2021 to 22nd February 2022, the game has actually been bumped up to a release on 8th February 2022. You don't see that too often, and luckily it steers it a few weeks clear of Horizon Forbidden West and Elden Ring, whereas before it was sandwiched between the two. Combat Overview: Death and Aging Overview: Previous reveal trailer from the February 2021 State of Play: And the gameplay teaser from July's State of Play:

Loop Hero is coming to the Switch on December 9th! Weird they wouldn't just shadow drop the game with this news at The Game Awards, but I guess they might just show this trailer there again instead anyways. Heard a lot of good things!

Been very heavily rumoured the last few months since the launch of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, so no surprises here. Bizarre this is passing over the Switch, I wonder if they have plans for it down the road? But crossplay and rollback netcode can only bode well. Could be fun!

... putting us in the shoes of someone experiencing a stroke?

Delayed to 2023. Hard to be disappointed when we know very little about the game in the first place, so New artwork does look pretty sharp, though.

First trailer for Turning Red: The film is set in 2002/2003, for anyone wondering about the choice of music

Cool I finish work at 15:30 if you want to jump on then, if not I'll be free later in the evening too, just got to head out for a bit at 17:00. Let me know what works for you

I mean, apparently it's still pretty broken, which is why I'm still waiting to play it I get what you mean though, and I think that's a fair point that if the RPG aspects are up to snuff, it could deserve a nomination, in spite of the myriad of other problems it could potentially have. If anything though, I think it might just speak to how light the last year has been for RPG's, because I've just looked up a list of them for 2021, and it isn't particularly long!