Pokémon Brilliant Diamond (2021)

My rating of this game is definitely influenced by nostalgia. I remember playing Pokémon Platinum on the Nintendo DS, which was my favorite game on the system, likely because the Diamond and Pearl era is my favorite Pokémon generation. Shining Pearl, while essentially a remaster of the original, is still very enjoyable. The Pokémon from my favorite generation made it particularly fun for me. However, I found there were too many trainer battles and Pokémon encounters (which led me to use Repels frequently to avoid them).

I stopped playing after beating the E4 (mainly to play others games which need beating, but it was tempting to try to complete the regional and national pokedexs.

I consider myself a casual Pokémon fan. I played Blue as a kid, then grew out of the series until X/Y (though I went back to Yellow and Crystal a bit later). I tend to play the games when they go on sale. I've never played the original Diamond/Pearl.

I was in the mood for a classic Pokémon game with some modern features, and this delivered. I had a good time, mostly a breeze until the Elite Four forced me to strategize a bit more. I've heard people complain about the Pokédex in this one, but I didn't notice any particular difficulty catching the types I wanted or anything.

Relative to other remasters I've played, I liked it less than Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire (which felt more like new mainline entries to me than remasters) but more than Let's Go, Pikachu/Eevee (which tried some interesting new things but felt a little too infantilized to hold my interest).

In 2021, Game Freak announced the hugely anticipated remakes of the 2006 video games Pokémon Diamond and Pearl for the Switch, and considering the big hardware upgrade after 15 years, expectations were serious. How could Sinnoh look without the limitations of a small portable device? How would the new mechanics of the franchise, like mega evolutions and Dynamax, affect the gameplay and story? What would be the equivalent of the Delta Episode from ORAS? And when the games were finally released in November, people's expectations were... Subverted, to say the least.

As anybody who cares about pokémon nowadays already knows, in this remake they were as faithful as possible to the original games. While ORAS removed many elements from Emerald, they were still 6th-generation games, with new mechanics, references, and pokémon from the new games, full compatibility with XY, and so on. Meanwhile, in BDSP you can only catch the same pokémon from the original games, elements from Platinum like Looker and Distortion World don't exist, and it's impossible to trade or battle between these remakes and Sword/Shield... But at least you can transfer pokémon to Pokémon Box and then transfer them from Box to other games!

This is a serious downgrade from remakes like FireRed/LeafGreen HeartGold/SoulSilver, as they aren't updating the original game to modern times, just porting it to a newer console so you can play it without buying an outdated console... With a price tag of $60. So, understandably, the reactions of fans and critics weren't positive.

However, to be honest, they added some quality-of-life updates that are a blessing, and I would even say that they make playing these remakes a smoother experience than the original games (outside of Platinum). As an example, HMs are now a Pokétch app, so you don't need a Bibarel as an HM slave with moves that you will never use in the main story like Defog and Rock Climb, and if you open the map you can select any city to fly right away, which extremely helpful.

The map also adds a flag to the next place you have to go, and some people would argue that makes the game unnecessarily easier, but I think that's one of the best additions because it fixes one of the most common complaints fans have with Sinnoh: The routes are so large and you need to do so much backtracking that it's easy to get lost and confused to where to go, especially if you are playing again after days of being busy and you don't remember what were you doing, which happens to me a lot with games like this.

The underground also had an overhaul, and now there are sections with pokémon that appear in the overworld like in Scarlet/Violet, and some of them are impossible to obtain on the surface until you defeat the Elite 4, so now you can use pokémon like Magnezone, Frosslass and Magmortar during the Main Story, which was impossible in the original games unless you obtain them via trading.

And, most important of all, everything feels fast! Sinnoh is infamously known for being extremely slow, not only in the pacing, as surfing, the HP lowering after an attack, and even saving takes a lot of time to the point is obvious. This, added to the huge routes and backtracking, can make exploration tedious, and parts like going from Veilstone City to Pastoria City feel insufferable and endless. But in Shining Pearl/Brilliant Diamond HP lowers in an instant, surfing is fast, saving is almost instantaneous, and running and using the bicycle feels way quicker, which makes the experience shorter, but a lot more tolerable.

So there are good things about the remake, but all these additions don't change anything about the plot, characters, map design, or anything from the original game, which means that if you already played them you won't get anything new from playing the remakes, and if you dislike Sinnoh I doubt this version will change your opinion, which is a shame, as previous remakes added so much that nowadays most fans will prefer playing FireRed/HeartGold than Yellow/Crystal, but in the case of Hoenn and Sinnoh there isn't a definitive edition, and playing Emerald/Platinum means that you will lose many quality-of-life elements, but playing the remakes means you will lose the better version of the story along exclusive elements like move tutors... And, to be honest, I really missed Looker and the Distortion World.

In conclusion, this is easily the laziest pokémon remake yet, even lazier than Pokémon Let's Go Eevee/Pikachu, but if you want to play Sinnoh and have to choose between the remake and Diamond/Pearl, I'd say the remake is the better choice thanks to all the quality-of-life elements that make the experience smoother. Platinum is still my favorite version though.

3/5

Close to a 2/5. Put about 15 hours into this. The EXP Share being automatically on and unable to deactivate is insulting. The rest of the gameplay is pretty "eh", I recall really enjoying the original Platinum so that's a bit of a disappointment. At the end of the day the core formula is still great, but there were a few too many competing games pushing this one out of my rotation.

Came back in mid-2024 to try a Nuzlocke run while I was travelling in Japan. Actually pretty fun (my first Nuzlocke attempt) but the entire team got wiped by Maylene's Lucario. I'd still prefer to play Platinum.

My first game in the franchise ever since the release of Pokémon Crystal. Surprisingly, I had fun with the game. Though I'm not sure, if it's purely because of the game or just for sentimental reasons. However, it also reminded me, of why I stopped playing Pokémon games after the second Gen. If I ever should get around to play the original games, I will update this review. As of right now, I don't know whether Brilliant Diamond is a good remake or not.

Graphic/Design ★★★☆☆
I don't really mind the chibi-look, as it does look quite cute. Pokémon hideaways and battle backgrounds were really beautiful, especially the water surface in cave and sea/lake battles. The blur effect, as well as the reflective ground in buildings, were nice, but looked a bit missplaced in some areas. It would have been better, if there were more details inside of buildings, instead of these copy & paste rooms. The same applies to the trainers. Some variety in color and pose would have improved the overall look. And the lack of animation for some Pokémon, when they follow you, is just lazy.

Story ★★✭☆☆
One of the two reasons why I stopped playing the games of the main series. After all these years, the story still remains the same. It probably wouldn't be so bad, if I could have formed some sort of connection with a character... any character really. Most of them are unfortunately totally unnecessary or painfully annoying. No character development whatsoever. This might not bother you as much, if you've never played a Pokémon game before or if you don't care, about the story aspect of a game, as much as I. I do wonder, and I know, many people don't think it's really necessary, but maybe having some form of voice acting, especially in longer cutscenes, would give the characters and the game more depth.

Gameplay ★★✭☆☆
I did enjoy exploring the world and fighting the trainers for the first third of the game. Then the battles began to annoy me. There is too much repetition and no variation. What's the point of fighting against the same Pokémon over and over again? Another aspect is the difficulty level and balance. It is too easy, even for someone, who doesn't know all the Pokémon and their types. For the most part of the game I was overleveled, despite skipping some battles. The only challenge I faced was against the champ. I really wish we had the option to turn off the Exp. Share and effectiveness information. Another improvement could have been made by reducing the number of trainers and increasing the amount of Pokémon they have. It's also a bit dissapointing, that they decided to go with the random encounters in the overworld.

Sound & Music ★★★☆☆
It's good. Nothing truly memoriable for me, but fitting in each situation. After listening to the soundtrack again, without having the distraction of the game, I even found a couple of tracks that I really liked.

Overall Fun ★★★☆☆
The game must have done something right, for me to spend so much time, trying to complete the National Dex and various post-game tasks. All I'm really missing are a couple of master ranks in the Super Contest and the Battle Park. Overall, despite the fun I had while playing, it's highly unlikely, that I'm ever going to touch it again. I'm not even sure if I want to try another Pokémon game, seeing as things haven't really changed that much.

Final Score: 2.8/5

I had fun with this game. I had forgotten some of the differences between diamond/pearl and platinum as the latter is what I always played again. The graphics grew on me to where I really enjoyed the chibi characters, battle scenes, and water. The water was beautiful. But the chibi characters sometimes had extremely pixelated facial features. That did not mesh with the rest of the visual style and is, frankly, unacceptable. The movement was also pretty crappy because the map was the exact same as it was in 2006 when designed for 4 directional movement. It was far too easy to get caught on the edge of an object when using the joystick's 8 directional movement. This wouldn't be as big of a deal, but using the arrow keys for movement had a massive input delay. The music was good, but I wish they had updated the songs with more realistic instruments, as it seems they just took better sounding keyboard voices for the original 2006 compositions. The game was fine, but I don't think I will play much more. Why would I when I can go to the full battle frontier in platinum for any postgame content? If pokemon home ends up allowing all other pokemon in the game, maybe I will change my tune.

Since pokemon games never go on sale and usually hold value, I would say to pass on this game unless you can find someone selling it used already.

I'm going to be honest, I feared the worst as soon as Game Freak understandably outsourced Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl while they focused on Legends: Arceus. In reality, it seems like I was right. BDSP are almost carbon-copies of the original games, save for a few details.

Firstly, there's the vastly revamped Grand Underground. Here, you can collect items to use in-game, such as revives, evolutionary stones, and fossils to restore into Pokémon. And that's without mentioning the array of rare Pokémon you can find down there, with some, such as Ralts, not being found anywhere else until the post-game.

Secondly, the post-game is even better than before. In my opinion, Diamond and Pearl have one of the better post-games in the Pokémon franchise, with a good few legendaries to catch and new routes to explore, in addition to the National Dex and Battle Tower becoming available. Now you have even more legendaries to catch. Have fun.

Well, it would be, if you had a reason to do any of this stuff beyond doing it for the sake of it, as BDSP were anything but fun for me, with the main game doing its best to remind me how often we have settled for mediocrity as Pokémon fans.

Firstly, there's the issue of EXP share. I don't have a problem with it in premise, but its implementation is truly terrible here. For a start, the games are not based around having EXP share, therefore your party becomes horrifically over-levelled. Like X and Y, the game has either not been play-tested sufficiently to make the EXP share NOT over-level your party, but unlike in X and Y, you can't turn the damn thing off, so you have little alternative to watching as your over-levelled party one-shot most Pokémon you encounter if you do so much as put effort into the battles. This isn't helped by the inconsistent difficulty. We all know that Pokémon games are too easy (would difficulty levels be so hard to implement? I think not!), but going from battling gym leaders that you at least match in level to ordinary trainers is frustrating as, like I said, you just one-shot most Pokémon you encounter as your party becomes more and more over-levelled, Even back in 2006, there was no excuse for inconsistent difficulty. This problem is amplified by the aforementioned EXP share issues. There's really no excuse for these fundamental problems.

Putting those complaints aside, perhaps what most disappoints (but doesn't surprise) me as a fan of competitive Pokémon is the lack of content that the games introduce and incompatibility with Sword and Shield (and even Pokémon Home) at present. BDSP really don't bring anything to the franchise, whereas previous remakes have added new features and Pokémon to the generation (and therefore the competitive scene, if you care about that). What is also frustrating is the fact that BDSP implement none of the changes made in Platinum, namely the better availability of Pokémon and items (especially early-game.

Overall, we deserved better. The gaming industry's trope of having you pay over £50/$50 for mediocrity is here to stay, and it's especially frustrating given that all of this was available in 2006/2007 (depending on where you're from). Sure, BDSP contain a lot of content and offer a great dose of nostalgia, but that's about it. If you fancy the nostalgia trip, or just a new Pokémon game to play, that's up to you, but unless you're really determined, I'd save your money, and honestly, I'd rather have played Platinum instead, and that game came out in 2008. Legends: Arceus had better be worth it, because it feels like BDSP have been rendered mediocre while the apparent innovation is going elsewhere.

There is something inexplicably charming about this formula, even after 20 years of it. The refusal to innovate with this series in any way is almost a joke at this point, and yet I still enjoy it. I must be mad.

That said, **** this game. This is the most bare bones remaster imaginable. it's a 1 to 1 recreation of a game from a decade ago and the only change is that it's just polished enough as to not be blurry on a modern tv (and the pokemon move now, sort of). At least let's go upgraded the designs of many things and put in mechanics and elements from yellow. This is just a giant middle finger to us that says "they'll buy it anyway"

and I did. I hate myself. I bought it anyway and i enjoyed it. despite the complete lack of effort needed to play it. I know these games are for children but they were for children two decades ago and now those children are all adults with capabilities beyond occasionally pressing a button and keeping a body temperature in the 90s. It says something that you have to create new rules to make the game fun. without nuzlocke runs, would this even be enjoyable? probably, yes. but i'm not proud of that.

truly what is wrong with me. why don't i have standards? why do I let this series do this to me? I should have the strength to leave.

My first experience of the Sinnoh region and for large parts thoroughly enjoyable. For some reason these mainline Pokémon games rarely grow tiring, I had a lot of fun experimenting with my main team, meeting many new Pokémon I weren't aware of and getting them as battle ready as I could. The overall challenge was lacking but at least the Elite Four gave me a good test, the lack of grinding with the help of EXP share was welcome also. With the addition of the National Dex, Grand underground and Battle tower, I'm pleased to see plenty still to get on with once the initial main story came to an end. Some of the character models looked rough however, zoomed in I felt like I was back in 2007 with my Wii.

Beat the E4 yesterday afternoon, so I'm not DONE, but I'm far enough to review. I'll add more about post-game if I think of it.

I know I've said it before, but I hated the original D/P. It's the only set of mainline games that I really didn't like (I can't say all of Gen 4 because that would include HG/SS, which are fantastic). I still went ahead and bought the dual pack of BD/SP because I'm a sucker for Pokémon and had hopes of improvement.

These games are definitely an improvement. There is no longer forced HM-usage (namely Defog and Rock Climb), as you just call on wild Pokémon to use the moves for you. You can still teach them to your team via TM, however. This was one of my biggest complaints about the original games--because Defog is useless and Rock Climb was never something my team could use, so I'd have to go get a Geodude from my box or something to use it.

The Ball Capsule stickers have returned, and that was something that I DID really love about Gen 4. Also, the contests. I've only done a couple, but I have always liked contests as something to do every so often (I'm not hardcore about them). I didn't do much of The Underground in the original games from what I remember, but I drop down every so often to dig and catch Pokémon this time around. The new caverns are really cool.

Full-team EXP share left me grossly over-levelled for most of the game, but the Champion was still a little tough because she's just so cheap and uses the same moves over and over. Some Champ. I also didn't have much that was great against her Garchomp because my Chimecho (with a Fairy attack) is admittedly not a superstrong Pokémon and I forgot to buy Ice Beam to teach to my Floatzel. Our levels ended up being about even at that point, but I still got through it.

I feel like anyone who complains about limited access to a wide variety of Pokemon in games like Sw/Sh needs to play this because this remains one of the most ridiculously limited games in the entire series until post-game. There are still only like three fire types to choose from up to the E4--Chimchar, Ponyta, and Houndour, which was NOT available in the original D/P. I guess maybe Flareon, but I haven't gotten an Eevee. They absolutely could have added more Pokémon to this. Every single area had the same three or four Pokémon in it, with maybe one or two unique ones. Seeing Ponyta in literally every environment except snow got really old.

I feel like these games have more looping routes, or like a kind of flexibility in where you go next. Sometimes you're directed to go to whichever town next, and you should go East, but you're able to loop around from the South, hitting a few locations and towns on the way. I feel that the series has generally been more restrictive about which route you take, so that's kind of a nice bit of choice you're given here. Also, every route is packed with trainers and hidden items, so there's always a lot to do and explore between towns.

There are also outfits available about midway through the game, though they're preset full outfits and not mix-and-match like the more recent gens. I'm hoping more are going to unlock now that I'm the Champion because there's a second building next to the main one that seems like maybe it'll open. I like aesthetic stuff like that, and I really love the spring outfit.

In short, I've enjoyed playing this for the past week. I had a great time doing a full run with some Pokémon I probably wouldn't have used before, even though I love them (Kricketune and Chimecho), which I guess is one plus to the limited number of available Pokémon. I had wanted to use Drifloon, but it's only available on Fridays, and I finished the Windworks place like 30 minutes after midnight last Friday night and had to wait a week. I got it yesterday, so I guess I'll use it when I run through Pearl.

My final team: Torterra, Chimecho, Luxray, Houndoom, Kricketune, and Floatzel.

For Pearl, I know I want to use Drifloon, and finally Shellos/Gastrodon, since I've wanted to for forever. Guess that means I have to use Chimchar, bleh.