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

[Hero-of-Time]

Continuing on with my desire to play some JRPGs, I fired this up earlier in the week. It's been on the shelf for a while and I only put an hour or so into it back when it released, which made it easier to start from scratch. 

Just like I did back in the day, I started with Piplup. Easy choice really. It's a penguin and it's cute, unlike the other 2 butt ugly starters.

I couldn't decide on my rivals name and then I thought of that Simpsons episode...

Here's what my team looks like after obtaining each of my first two badges.

Obviously not finalised yet but I'll probably be keeping my starter, Luxio and Staravia in my team for the duration. The others are there at the moment just to fill in the numbers.

I honestly love the art style/graphics in the game. I the chibi style used for the characters to be simply adorable. Just look at them.

I actually prefer this look over the likes of Sword and Shield or Scarlet and Violet. It just looks so clean.

[Glen-i]

3 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I actually prefer this look over the likes of Sword and Shield or Scarlet and Violet. It just looks so clean.

My man!

But no, people whined about it, and now they're skipping Black and White remakes.

Like, yeah, this remake has many problems, but the graphical style is not one of them.

Also, did you even read my starter thread!? Piplup is by far, the worst water starter in the history of ever!

[drahkon]

Just now, Glen-i said:

Piplup is by far, the worst water starter in the history of ever!

[Glen-i]

Hey, it's just facts. For god sake, it gets one shot by the fire starter! And it doesn't even need TM trickery to pull that off, it does it naturally!

Just a dreadful Pokémon. Torterra is far preferable and that's not even that good either (At least before Scarlet/Violet).

[drahkon]

Look, I don't know anything about Piplup.
I just took the chance to post a Pingu picture.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

13 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Piplup is by far, the worst water starter in the history of ever!

 

[Glen-i]

Hey, I don't even need to make my point. The numbers do not lie!

Don't think about trying to take on Cynthia's Garchomp with a cheeky Ice Beam here, you won't even get an opportunity before she destroys it!

[Hero-of-Time]

Those numbers mean nothing to me. 

[Glen-i]

5 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Those numbers mean nothing to me. 

Enjoy getting Close Combatted by Bort then.

EDIT: Oh wait, he would've gone with Turtwig then, lucky you.

Earthquake isn't much better, mind...

Edited May 3 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

Nabbed my third badge today.

Staravia pretty much sweeped the whole gym on its own. 

Pokemon selection so far has been pretty poor. I'm still waiting for another 3 to show up that I like so I can make up my final team. I've got Fly now and so I'm gonna head back to Jubilife City, catch a bunch of rubbish Pokemon and then send them over the GWS to see what I get.

[Glen-i]

38 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Pokemon selection so far has been pretty poor. I'm still waiting for another 3 to show up that I like so I can make up my final team.

Yup, that's Diamond/Pearl! The game where you can only get two Fire Pokémon, and one of them is the bloody starter!

The remake tries to make this better by putting all the Pokémon from the first four gens that were missing in the revamped Underground.

Edited May 5 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

Just now, Glen-i said:

 

The remake tries to make this better by putting all the Pokémon from the first four gens in the revamped Underground.

That's where I'm at now. Decided to have a wander down there to see what was kicking about. Already caught a couple of new Pokemon.

[Glen-i]

49 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

That's where I'm at now. Decided to have a wander down there to see what was kicking about. Already caught a couple of new Pokemon.

Right, I can't abide this anymore. It needs to be said.

Clean your effing badges! They're filthy!

[Hero-of-Time]

9 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Right, I can't abide this anymore. It needs to be said.

Clean your effing badges! They're filthy!

Of course they are. Poor kid is on the road 24/7 with no showering or toilet facilities available. If he did have a cloth it would be used as a wash cloth or toilet roll, rather than to polish his badges. Priorities and all that.

[Glen-i]

12 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Of course they are. Poor kid is on the road 24/7 with no showering or toilet facilities available. If he did have a cloth it would be used as a wash cloth or toilet roll, rather than to polish his badges. Priorities and all that.

That sounds like non-Champion talk to me!

[Dcubed]

Hint:  Try rubbing the badges while playing in handheld mode

Edited May 5 by Dcubed

[Hero-of-Time]

39 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

Hint:  Try rubbing the badges while playing in handheld mode

Yeah, I know how to shine them. I'm just not bothered about it.

Anyway, got another one now.

Luxray was more than enough to take care of things. Oh, and the egg finally hatched.

I swear, the Ultra Balls are nerfed in this game. I'll have a Pokemon on red health and stunned and it still takes several attempts before they are caught.

[bob]

I don't understand why you got rid of the most powerful Pokémon in the game..

[Glen-i]

51 minutes ago, bob said:

I don't understand why you got rid of the most powerful Pokémon in the game..

His one probably hasn't got the hidden ability. So it's not got the tools that do make it one of the few Pokémon to be completely banned from Smogon.

No, seriously. You're not allowed to use a Bidoof with Moody in the tier that allows the other Pokémon in that image.

That's why that image is a thing, in case you were wondering.

@Hero-of-Time. Nope, It's always been twice as likely as a Poké Ball. In fact, since Sun and Moon, the Frozen and Sleep status have been made a bit more effective for capturing, so it's a little easier compared to the DS versions.

Edited May 5 by Glen-i

[bob]

32 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

His one probably hasn't got the hidden ability. So it's not got the tools that do make it one of the few Pokémon to be completely banned from Smogon.

No, seriously. You're not allowed to use a Bidoof with Moody in the tier that allows the other Pokémon in that image.

That's why that image is a thing, in case you were wondering.

@Hero-of-Time. Nope, It's always been twice as likely as a Poké Ball. In fact, since Sun and Moon, the Frozen and Sleep status have been made a bit more effective for capturing, so it's a little easier compared to the DS versions.

To be honest, I had no idea about any of that, I just thought Bidoof was a silly Pokémon. Do you have to do anything to access a moody ability, or does it just happen during a fight? 

[Hero-of-Time]

Two more badges obtained and two to go.

It's ridiculous have few new Pokemon are kicking around the place. Not that it really matters because my main 3 are steamrolling everything. 

I spent some more time in the Underground and I quite like the mining mini game. The Underground is something I never really bothered with in the original game.

[Glen-i]

23 hours ago, bob said:

To be honest, I had no idea about any of that, I just thought Bidoof was a silly Pokémon. Do you have to do anything to access a moody ability, or does it just happen during a fight? 

Bidoof is a silly Pokémon, and in the original DS games, it was pretty useless in a fight.

Every Pokémon has an "ability", some kind of passive effect, basically, like blocking the Sleep status, or making all Ground type moves miss, there's loads of them. Bidoof's ability was unnoteworthy in the original games.

But the next games after those (Black/White), introduced "hidden abilities". Wild Pokémon don't have these naturally, you have to go out of your way to give them those. How you do that depends on the game, but most of the time, it's by using a pretty rare item called an "Ability Patch"

Use that item on Bidoof, and it changes the normal ability to Bidoof's hidden ability, Moody. The general strategy with that is to stall using moves like Protect while you hope for Moody to raise the evasiveness stat. (At the end of every turn, Moody raises a random stat on Bidoof 2 stages, while dropping another stat 1 stage).

It's requires a lot of luck, but if the gamble pays off, you get a Pokémon that becomes almost impossible to hit.

Naturally, this works better if you evolve the Bidoof first.

[Hero-of-Time]

All badges obtained and I've also settled on my final team.

I remember very little about this generation of Pokemon other than I didn't care for it, so it was a shock when Minato from Naruto showed up as the final gym leader.

Dude even uses lightning Pokemon. Obviously I'm LTTP with this but the design and type choice can't have been a coincidence. 

Dunno if I can stomach going through another cave area and so will probably leave the Victory Road/Elite 4 until tomorrow. I may do a bit of exp farming in preparation for it though.

[Beast]

I bought this very recently in my quest to get all the Pokémon in Pokémon Home (thanks to those who helped) and honestly, I really prefer this look. If they remade the earlier games like this, I'd be all over this like a rash. Also, am I the only one who doesn't have any issues with these games?! 😂 

I started with Chimchar (I think that's his name?) because I like a fire starter (twisted fire starter) and my rival's name is Slag.

[Hero-of-Time]

11 hours ago, Beast said:

I bought this very recently in my quest to get all the Pokémon in Pokémon Home (thanks to those who helped) and honestly, I really prefer this look. If they remade the earlier games like this, I'd be all over this like a rash. Also, am I the only one who doesn't have any issues with these games?! 😂 

Not at all. I have a couple of niggles with it (lack of Pokemon variety and long cave areas) but for the most part I'm enjoying my time on it. It's a classic Pokemon game through and through. As for the visuals, I love them and would be happy if they stuck to such a look for the mainline games. At least then the games wouldn't be too taxing and should hopefully run better.

I'm looking forward to getting back on it this evening. I'm gonna try and get my team to level 70 before I tackle the end game. I've just been doing some grinding in the Underground area as that seems like the best place for exp at the moment. Tentacruel gives a stupid amount for how easy it is to take down.

I'm a bit disappointed that I won't be able to play through the Darkrai event. Sucks that I can no longer download it. It's one thing I really dislike about the Pokemon franchise as a whole. To this day they still play on people's FOMO.