Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl (19th November 2021)

[Glen-i]

You can keep your smelly Diamonds, I'm losing my mind at the Switch icon for Shining Pearl!

I'm very mature.

Between Chun Soft and ILCA, I'm starting to think that this is an outside developer in-joke.

This is why Palkia is a million times better then Dialga.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Glen-i

[Emerald Emblem]

Unfortunately kids these days don't tend to have patience for a little level grinding in RPG's. In order to prevent over levelling in Sword, I tended to cycle through 4 teams of Pokémon, when one started getting too high in level, I'd swap them all out for the next team. Only real downside with that is that I never really got to bond with my teams, that and keeping my Pokémon at the same level was almost impossible unless I trained one Pokémon in my team at a time.

I can't understand why turning it off isn't an option. I've seen fan games offer the choice at the start of the game for old school levelling and modern levelling before the game starts. It all goes to show that the Pokémon Company don't give a damn about the older players. Shit sucks but that's life, I guess. We still have the original games if it bothers us too much.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Emerald Emblem

[Glen-i]

10 minutes ago, Emerald Emblem said:

I can't understand why turning it off isn't an option.

That's what's so annoying about it! Because EXP Share was perfectly fine in the 3DS games (On by default, but can be turned off through the item menu.)

But then Let's GO made it mandatory, and now it's stuck. It would be one thing if it was never an option in the first place, but that game actively took away the option.

I don't like Let's GO. It's rubbish and the features that it introduced were almost all detriments to Sword/Shield.

EDIT: It might have been lost on the previous page, but @Julius, if you manage to get an Elekid egg somehow this weekend, I'd appreciate it if you could send it my way. Wanna use an Electivire, but it's Diamond exclusive.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Glen-i

[Julius]

24 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

It might have been lost on the previous page, but @Julius, if you manage to get an Elekid egg somehow this weekend, I'd appreciate it if you could send it my way. Wanna use an Electivire, but it's Diamond exclusive.

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? 

43 minutes ago, Emerald Emblem said:

Unfortunately kids these days don't tend to have patience for a little level grinding in RPG's. In order to prevent over levelling in Sword, I tended to cycle through 4 teams of Pokémon, when one started getting too high in level, I'd swap them all out for the next team. Only real downside with that is that I never really got to bond with my teams, that and keeping my Pokémon at the same level was almost impossible unless I trained one Pokémon in my team at a time.

I can't understand why turning it off isn't an option. I've seen fan games offer the choice at the start of the game for old school levelling and modern levelling before the game starts. It all goes to show that the Pokémon Company don't give a damn about the older players. Shit sucks but that's life, I guess. We still have the original games if it bothers us too much.

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! 

[Julius]

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...

Spoiler

...they've brought the Safari game back?! Wasn't expecting that at all - heck yeah! 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Julius

[Glen-i]

Just booted it up, and I already have a question.

Why is Barry not one of the options for the name for the rival? That's his official name, weird that it's not any of the pre-determined choices here.

[Julius]

14 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Just booted it up, and I already have a question.

Why is Barry not one of the options for the name for the rival? That's his official name, weird that it's not any of the pre-determined choices here.

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 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Julius

[Glen-i]

5 minutes ago, Julius said:

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 

Then it's a Diamond exclusive thing. As I suspected.

Considering that's his name in the anime and in Masters, I'm surprised that TPC didn't insist that be one of the options in both versions.

I called him Barry anyway.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Glen-i

[Glen-i]

I'm going to get a Kadabra very soon, so would appreciate if someone here could do a quick trade-tradeback to help me out.

Also, I wanna try mixing records. I made an N-Europe group and think it'd be neat if everyone here could join it.

[Julius]

7 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Then it's a Diamond exclusive thing. As I suspected.

Considering that's his name in the anime and in Masters, I'm surprised that TPC didn't insist that be one of the options in both versions.

I called him Barry anyway.

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? 

3 hours ago, Glen-i said:

I'm going to get a Kadabra very soon, so would appreciate if someone here could do a quick trade-tradeback to help me out.

Also, I wanna try mixing records. I made an N-Europe group and think it'd be neat if everyone here could join it.

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...

Spoiler

Have they changed the time that "day" starts at some point that I didn't notice? I just caught the Drifloon at Valley Windworks at 09:30, but I swear back on the original games it wasn't supposed to be there until 10:00? 

My Switch clock time is correct, so maybe they've changed it 

 

[Glen-i]

16 minutes ago, Julius said:

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.

I'm free now, will head downstairs to global Union Room and wait for you. We can mix records while we're at it.

Code will be 1537-1537

Against all common sense, I put a Rhyhorn on my team, knowing full well that the Protector is very late game.

EDIT: You can't mix records online? That sucks... My N-E group plan is well and truly scuppered then...

Edited November 19, 2021 by Glen-i
Lol, like I'd actually have a Rhydon after only the second gym!

[Julius]

19 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

I'm free now, will head downstairs to global Union Room and wait for you. We can mix records while we're at it.

Code will be 1537-1537

Against all common sense, I put a Rhyhorn on my team, knowing full well that the Protector is very late game.

EDIT: You can't mix records online? That sucks... My N-E group plan is well and truly scuppered then...

Sorry, got pulled aside for something, just coming in now  

EDIT: I totally didn't accidentally head upstairs first...

Edited November 19, 2021 by Julius

[Glen-i]

Oh crap, it wants to learn Bullet Punch!

What do you want to get rid of?

[Julius]

1 minute ago, Glen-i said:

Oh crap, it wants to learn Bullet Punch!

What do you want to get rid of?

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

[Glen-i]

Just now, Julius said:

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

Fair. I just saw Technician and the decent attack stat and assumed it was a more competitive one.

[Julius]

Just now, Glen-i said:

Fair. I just saw Technician and the decent attack stat and assumed it was a more competitive one.

To be honest, I don't think I've looked at it since catching it 

Anyways, thanks Glen! 

[Glen-i]

On 27/05/2021 at 7:24 PM, Glen-i said:

Some unfortunate logo placing will really make Shining Pearl look hilarious!

That was me in May.

I love it when my hopes come to fruition!

[Scratch]

Man the exp share is making this easy so far... I really feel like these games would benefit from a challenge mode where there are level caps throughout the game so you're forced to strategize.

Edit: Although I guess I could try skipping more trainers/wild Pokemon battles.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Sckewi

[Glen-i]

9 minutes ago, Sckewi said:

Edit: Although I guess I could try skipping more trainers/wild Pokemon battles.

The problem with that is that you miss out on a lot of Pokédex entries that way.

And considering that the original games required you to see every Pokémon to get the National Dex...

[Julius]

27 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

The problem with that is that you miss out on a lot of Pokédex entries that way.

And considering that the original games required you to see every Pokémon to get the National Dex...

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

[Glen-i]

OK, so I'm convinced of this now.

Spoiler

They've definitely tweaked some of the more important opponents in terms of their movesets.

Because I know for a fact that Barry's Prinplup never has Grass Knot and Stealth Rock in the DS versions! He's actually using the TM's that the Gym Leaders give him.

If it wasn't for EXP Share making me an overpowered monster, they might actually have put up a fight...

Not to mention that random kid with a Nasty Plot Pikachu at level 15!

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Glen-i

[Scratch]

Do we have any info on things like Nature mints, bottle caps, Ability Capsules and resetting EVs yet? 

Regardless I'm really playing pretty casual and not caring about these things at all for my story playthrough. But it would be nice to know I can set my Pokemon up how I like after I beat the E4, should I feel like it one day.

And sure I know I can breed new ones, but one thing I liked about SwSh was that I could take my in-game team which I'd grown attached to and set them up for the Battle Tower and some online battles. xD

Edit: Also I lol'd at how casually that guy gave me a Jirachi, like a super rare mythical Pokemon, "here take this". xD

Edited November 19, 2021 by Sckewi

[Glen-i]

2 hours ago, Sckewi said:

Also I lol'd at how casually that guy gave me a Jirachi, like a super rare mythical Pokemon, "here take this". xD

I'm reminded of a scene from Super Mystery Dungeon.

Spoiler

There's a moment where the main character befriends a Mew and brings it to their work colleagues. They naturally start crowding the Mew, proclaiming how rare it is to actually meet a mythical Pokémon.

The thing is, they literally work with a Jirachi, who is less then pleased with the blatant disrespect going on. Who then delivers this line...

"You all realise that you already know a mythical Pokémon, right? Here I am, right here, floating."

BTW, before the first gym, there was this random lass that claimed she got the first gym badge, and her team was a level 5 Bidoof and Starly.

I laughed at that blatant lie.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Glen-i

[Ike]

Kinda sucks how they make it so you can't check your starter's nature or anything without forcing you through a bunch of stuff. I got a neutral first go so just excepted that.

[Scratch]

What the heck is with the Egg you get from that Hiker guy? I've been cycling around like a wally for ages and no change. D: Are the egg hatching mechanics different in these games?