Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl

[Maf]

Oh no I’m only at the beginning and it’s sucking me in already. 3 and half hours gone in a blink. Oi.

 

In terms of what the game is there’s not much to talk about. If you know DPP then this is extremely that. If you never played those versions but know classic Pokemon it is also extremely that. If you don’t know classic Pokemon. Man, where you been?

 

There’s really not much to talk about so far in terms of gameplay. There are new gameplay additions in this version which I haven’t got to yet but the only things I’ve seen so far that stand out is TM’s & HM’s. 
 

TM’s break (!). Which is a very surprising decision since TM’s in Pokemon have been ‘free’ for nearly 10 years. But then they concede a little because when someone gives you a TM they give you 5 of them. So it’s like…Why not just don’t let them break? It’s a very peculiar decision 🤔

 

HM’s are ‘back’ but so far you only need to be given a HM, you don’t need to teach it, for it to be used. The one I got was Rock Smash and didn’t teach it to any of my team, but when I used it a Bidoof comes out of nowhere and broke the rock for me. Which has to be some kind of joke because famously Bidoof was a HM slave in this game. 
 

The game is also surprisingly hard. I decided not to grind at all in this game and might be regretting it lol. I almost lost to the first boss.
 

The real thing to talk about is the way it looks. This game is surrounded by comparisons. The original DS versions it’s based of. Sword and Shield which is it’s most relevant contemporary. Pokemon Let’s Go which was different but also a Switch game. And A Link to the Past which is another chibi style, top down remake on the same system. Zelda still creams it, but this easily takes second place.

 

I think maybe Let’s Go looks ‘better’ technically. But the style to this game is so perfect it’s a wonder they haven’t always made Pokemon look like this. It’s works on both fronts. When in the over world everything looks really cute and squidgy complimented by some really lovely lighting, reflections* and effects. Then in battle where you get more details it also looks fantastic. With a special shout out to when you fight water Pokemon and get a water background** It looks amazing. 
 

*reflections are surprising 

**

I couldn’t find a great image but take my word for it fighting Pokemon with a water background at night also looks excellent

 

And, probably doesn’t need to be said but handheld OLED Switch? Yes.

 

I’m really liking this and am seeing where my weekend is going already. 
 

The only thing I don’t like so far is in this game there are trees you have to put honey on to attract Pokemon. An NPC said you have to “give it a while” before a Pokemon shows up. I looked up online how long that is and it’s 6 hours! This is the only thing I don’t have patience for in Pokemon and video games in general and that’s real time, or specific time of day stuff. Just let me do stuff when I want to do it it’s a video game.

 

But apart from that, really loving it so far. Exactly what the doctor ordered to wash away the bad taste of Sword and Shield 

[Maf]

I’m somehow up to 9 hours and the battery ran low so need to stop. The battery life might be the thing that saves me by forcing to take breaks.

 

I’ve only done the 2nd gym and got access to the Underground. Where I lost 2 hours wandering around it. Pro tip. Don’t do this. As soon as you get Underground access, leave straight away so the NPC will give you tools to actually make the most of the Underground. Instead of doing what I did which was wander around without the items wondering why I can’t do shit

 

I never really played the Underground stuff in the original. I tried it to know I didn’t like it, but I thought this time I would give it a go and see if I can figure it out.

 

Hmm…

 

So the way it works is it’s just an Underground series of corridors that connect to rooms. In the corridors you can find Pokemon that drop energy, which when collect 40 energy your odds at finding better stuff goes up. You can also mine glowing walls for gems (Underground currency), some battle items and statues. 
 

Statues seem to be the best thing because when you build a secret base you set up a statue in it and that increases the odds of certain Pokemon showing up in the ‘main rooms’.

 

’Main rooms’ are what the corridors are connected by and in them Pokemon are wandering around Let’s Go style and you can find items as well. 
 

That’s the gist of it, but it’s hard to get the most out of it because like a lot of Pokemon games the systems are quite vague and the RNG numbers are secret and hidden.

 

I will probably need to look at a guide online to understand it fully but my general impression right now is it’s a neat idea let down by a lot of hoop jumping and unfavourable RNG like a lot of Pokemon meta games. Lots of do A to get B to get C and hopefully D will happen and knowing Pokemon the odds on it even after all the hoop jumping will be terrible. Maybe, I’ll need to read about it.

 

It doesn’t seem as horrible as Sword and Shield’s Wild Area fuck shit where you have to cycle for energy then trade energy for items then use items to partake in online raids what you can only do once a day and the odds are shit. 
 

It’s not that level of offensive.

 

But even off the jump it feels like it could be better.

 

I think what it wants to be is an online, rouge lite, dungeon crawler style thing. Instead of running around in circles mining jewels just to run around in more circles. If it were randomised and mission based at least you could set yourself aims and targets for exploring and the randomised nature wouldn’t make it feel as repetitive as it currently does. 
 

I don’t hate it, I need to understand it more. But right now it feels very circular and time wasting. And after 2 hours I didn’t even get anything that special at all. I was hoping the Pokemon down there would have their HA’s but nope

[Maf]

Wow you can get Manaphy, Mew and Jirachi in this game

 

 

The Manaphy can be downloaded up until the 21/02/22 via Mystery Gift 

 

Mew is given to you by an NPC if you have Let’s Go save data

 

Jirachi is given to you by an NPC if you have Sword & Shield save data

 

It’s weird how “free” they are but I’ll take it

[Maf]

Made it to the city last night that lets you change your character's clothes. Unfortunately you can only change whole outfits, of which there wasn't that many, instead of individual clothing items. So it's actually a back step from Sun & Moon which did avatar customisation really well. Oh, well. At least you don't have to look like the default model with his dumb hat so I'll take it. 

[Maf]

About half way through the game now and my interest in it is starting to drop off. This game has 2 big problems as far as I can see. Firstly the random battle RNG is way too high. I just had a trainer battle, went to walk and couldn’t even get off the first grass tile before getting in a random battle, I ran away from the Pokemon to get another random battle 2 tiles later with the same Pokemon. 

 

Which wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t for the other problem is that they won’t use the Pokédex. A NPC just said “there’s rare Pokemon between here and there” and I couldn’t find any on the route. So I googled it to see if I just had bad luck but no it’s the same 6 Pokemon that have been on all the other routes.

 

This is so annoying because this game has nearly 500 Pokemon in it and they’re only using maybe 30 of them between the start and half way point in the game. I’m hoping now in the second half the game starts to pick up a bit in terms of Pokemon variety because I’ve caught and trained all the Pokemon I’m really interested in so far, and now most are fully evolved is where I would start boxing them and catching new Pokemon but there aren’t any. I almost went and caught a Geodude just for something new to use.  
 

Playing this game again has reaffirmed what I always thought about these games and that’s they are the definitive, standard Pokemon experience. They are not great games, they are not bad games, they are completely just routine Pokemon.

 

And after the underwhelming Sun and Moon and flat out trash Sword and Shield it’s been really nice to return to just a classic Pokemon formula I enjoy. But after roughly 20 hours it’s starting to wear thin. There are little gripes I have with this game like the traversal being kind of annoying, and it’s a shame that it’s big new features like Pokemon Contests and the Underground are not interesting at all (But thankfully completely ignorable), so I’m just left with the core Pokemon game. Which I would be happy to play and enjoy, but the lack of Pokemon in the Pokemon game is becoming a huge issue. 
 

Having said all that I still like it and the game has it’s upsides. The best thing this edition of the game has going for it is it looks so fucking good. That helps a lot. But I just wish there were more Pokemon to catch.

[Maf]

This the most torturous shit of all time

 

In a earlier post I said Pokemon doesn’t respect the player’s time and has you jump through maddening hoops to achieve shit. Well one of the worst in the series is trying to catch a Feebas. You have to fish for it in a certain body of water. See map below.

 

 

What makes it so awful is Feebas only appears in 4 tiles. Of which there’s probably 12-15 across and god knows how many high. I started at the bottom right corner at about 2pm. It’s now 17:15 and I’ve just reached the top of that 3rd pink square up.

 

Oh, also, even if you find one of the right tiles the Feebas only has a 50% chance of appearing. So you have to fish at least twice on every tile to give it a good chance.

 

And the tiles reset randomly every 24 hours so if I don’t get it done by 12am it was all for nothing.

 

And there’s nothing in the game or online to help work out what tiles they could be. It’s just random.

 

This is the worst.

 

I dunno why I did this. I knew this was bullshit and have never even bothered before. So I don’t know why I said yeah let’s just try it how bad can it be. I’m going to lose my mind. I don’t remember ever doing a video game challenge that is so low skill and so difficult. It is insanity. I can’t believe this is a thing in the game. 
 

I hate wasting my Saturday doing this, but now I’ve put so much time in to it I don’t want to quit now. 
 

I should just pay the Nintendo online fee and trade with someone online but then it isn’t my catch and trading Pokemon with people is never as satisfying.

 

But it might be a worthy trade off instead of throwing real hours away trying to find a fake fish.

 

This is one of the worst things I’ve ever done in a game. I can’t believe not one of the 4 tiles was in the bottom 3rd of this lake. What are the odds on that.

[Maf]

Oh, yeah I managed to do it. 
 

 

I say “do it” like it was hard. Mentally exhausting and patience testing. I also caught a few so I can breed them later and maybe trade them for harder to get Pokemon. These are like the 3rd rarest Pokemon in the game or something so could be good for trades. 

[Maf]

Damn I kind of hit a doomsday scenario. So I’m in the fight with Palkia (Legendary Pokemon) but I’ve completely mismanaged the situation and am both understaffed and under resourced. All my Pokemon are not good against it, or good at surviving it. I’ve got Pokeballs, which are pretty useless, and Ultra Balls which are pretty good. But I have 60 of one and 3 of the other. Guess which is which. I also have 3 revives and 1 hyper potion so I can’t even extend the fight that long. And the game won’t let me leave and restock. Anyway I try to exit it just tells me no.

 

Palkia also has this annoying move called Aqua Ring which gives it health back each turn. I thought maybe if I could poison it it would counter act the healing but the poison does more damage so eventually it just kills it.

 

Sigh.

 

I’ve played this game terribly lol. It’s also quite hard for a Pokemon game and this is what happens when you don’t take it seriously. I fought this one boss that put out a Gyarados against my electric type and it was like eye roll. Dumb game, don’t you know anything. But that Gyarados was holding a Berry that reduces electric damage by 50% and then hit back with an Earthquake and killed my Pokemon. Like damn. Then the next 2 Pokemon we’re both flying types that the rest of my team doesn’t handle that well because of typing and being under levelled. And my Electric guy who would have been perfect for the job was DEAD

 

I do have a get out of jail card in the Master Ball but I refuse to use it on Palkia

 

I don’t know what I’m going to do. I reset the fight 5 times and so far the Pokeball has rocked once and that’s it. I’m going to need some sweet fucking RNG for this one

[Pikman]

On 27/11/2021 at 23:01, Maf said:

Oh, yeah I managed to do it. 
 

 

I say “do it” like it was hard. Mentally exhausting and patience testing. I also caught a few so I can breed them later and maybe trade them for harder to get Pokemon. These are like the 3rd rarest Pokemon in the game or something so could be good for trades. 

 I have to comment just to say well done 😂

[Maf]

YOU @#!#!%+@ DIRT BAG

 

[Maf]

Oh my god it worked. Literally my whole team was dead, Palkia is using ‘Struggle’ and killing itself because it’s run out of moves, it self harmed down to as low HP as it could have been before dying, and it’s really quick but you can see it’s my second to last Pokeball. 
 

And me and Infernape did it ☺️
 

It took 4 hours but I got it!

 

Masterball preserved 🙌

 

Cuz I ain’t no bitch 🙌

[Maf]

 

40 hours! Fair enough 10 of that was catching the fish Pokemon but still. That’s a long time for a Pokemon game. I saw people complete this in a 11-12 hours.

 

But they’re probably wimps who never swap their Pokemon out and their first 6 is their last 6. 
 

That was the hardest Elite 4 challenge I can remember in a long while. Embarrassingly I lost the first time. It was so difficult. Mainly because I was trying to use Lucario but I maintain is a shit in game Pokemon, and you will notice is absent from the above picture.
 

On the first attempt I was trying to tactically sack and revive Pokemon trying to get to the end. Then she brings out her Garchomp and the first thing it does is Swords Dance which gives it +2 attack, which if you know about Pokemon a +2 Garchomp is a nightmare. But I did manage to damage it slightly with poison and hail to try weaken it, sacking, reviving and rotating Pokemon in and out to try win, I swear I got it down to the last turn, had a ace up my sleeve in Ice Shard, a priority attack (so always goes first no matter what) and Garchomp is 4x weak to it and….it had a fucking a Yache Berry. And item that reduces the power of ice attacks by 50% so it survived and killed me. Fuuuuuuck I can’t believe I lost.

 

Second attempt I dumped Lucario for Luxray which despite not being very exciting Pokemon and weirdly slow for an electric type, has been clutch this entire game. Every time it was on the team success just came easier. And second attempt I blew this bitch out the water (While still having to revive and play around her team a little bit, her team fucking sucks)

 

But yeah what a hard end to a Pokemon game. And that isn’t even the actual end because there’s the battle tower and all that.

 

This game has one major issue in that there’s a lack of variety of Pokemon which at times made the game really boring. Both in terms of the fights but also in there being nothing to catch. Aside from that it’s just a very average Pokemon game with a surprise in difficulty. 
 

I really enjoyed it, though. It was super cool and despite the fish challenge didn’t feel like 40 hours at all. Just a good, solid, fun time.

 

I think what helps elevate it is this OLED Switch. I’m starting to realise what magic this thing is. Epescially for a game like Pokemon that is so colourful, this game looks amazing on this screen. It’s just such a pleasurable thing to look at. I haven’t been the biggest Switch fan, but the OLED version might be what turns me around on the console. I love playing this thing now. And having such a good looking game like Pokemon SP on it made a game that, even when it was kind of dull, just fun to keep playing and looking at. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Started this over the weekend and have put about 5 hours into it so far. I've just got past the Valley Windworks and am on my way to Eterna City to pick up my second gym badge. 

 

After playing so much Pokémon over the years the setup is pretty much exactly the same as all the other Pokémon games I've played with you starting off in a small town, getting your starter Pokémon then going off into the world to collect all the gym badges and have many battles with your rival, catching a multitude of monsters along the way and battling many other trainers. 

 

It's got kind of a nice mix between familiar Pokémon of the OG 150 and whole new stuff like Pidgy not being in here.  I haven't really seen before (or more likely don't remember that well), I know this is a remake but I'm not sure I ever played through the original back in the day, I might've played a bit of Platinum though when I got my DSi? But I never got far into it. 

 

What is also weird is the art style. Going from Let's Go Pikachu and Shield to this is quite a big difference, in those there's an awful lot that's in 3D, you can see Pokémon through the tall grass etc. but here it's almost like going back in time to something like Black/White. The battle scenes, texture quality, Pokémon models and stuff like that is obviously better than those older titles but the top-down isometric kind of view and chibi kind of caricatures are very similar.  

 

I am enjoying it though, it's just compared to Shield and Let's Go it's a bit uneventful at the beginning really. A lot of the wild Pokémon aren't that interesting yet either and I'm still getting shitty Pidgy-type Pokémon for the most part and none that I've been too excited to catch.

 

My team at the moment consists of:

• Monferno
• Luxio
• Magikarp (trying for that Gyarados!)
• Bibarel
• Geodude
• Kadabra

I need to get rid of Bibarel really but I stupidly gave him the rock smash ability which means I have to keep him around for the time being, I need a Grass Pokémon in my line-up, I picked up Budew recently so may switch him into the party as well. I'm thinking of swapping out Geodude for Starly too. 

 

But yeah, if you like Pokémon then you'll like this pretty much, just don't expect to be wowed or anything, it's just a bog standard no-frills Pokémon game at the moment but I'm still pretty early in.

 

Pics:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Maf]

You can dump Bibarel for free. Anytime you need to use a HM you can just use it and a 'Wild Pokemon Appears' to help you. Your team doesn't need to know any of the moves 

[DisturbedSwan]

14 minutes ago, Maf said:

You can dump Bibarel for free. Anytime you need to use a HM you can just use it and a 'Wild Pokemon Appears' to help you. Your team doesn't need to know any of the moves 

 

Lovely stuff, ta. He will be dumped first thing tonight.

[DisturbedSwan]

Now about 16 hours in.

 

This is my current squad:

 

 

Managed to persevere and finally get a Gyarados too which is a first for me (I think I've caught one in a previous game though?)  

 

Caught a fair few Pokemon too, the save screen said 60 before I turned it off last night so the below pic might be old? (Or I might just be getting it wrong, both possible).

 

I think this is the biggest gap between Gyms I've encountered in a Pokemon game, I think I got my 2nd badge around the 6 or so hour mark and 10 hours have gone by where I've gone from town to city and can't fight anymore gym leaders yet before I reach Veilstone City, which I'm on my way to now after Hearthome City and going through numerous routes and a few dungeons along the way. Think I'm still got a ways to go though.

Really enjoying it now though, it has definitely hit its stride. I will say though that I'm massively over levelled already and as a result the game has been a breeze (like most recent games in the series to be fair).

[Maf]

Alan 😄

 

Box some of the Pokemon and get new ones. Catch Pokemon you've never caught or used before and see what they do. It's always a fun way to play 

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah I should really do that but I get scared lol. I've definitely got enough of each type that I could create a whole second squad I guess, might be a good idea. 

 

I forgot to mention in my previous post, but I had a little explore of the huge underground area and goddamn that shit is daunting, it is absolutely humungous! It's a cool idea though and I managed to catch a few different higher level Pokémon down there which was cool. 

[Maf]

I know it's silly but have you noticed how good the reflections are in this game? Like when you're in a Pokemon Centre or battling on water. It's surprisingly good 

[DisturbedSwan]

I didn't notice it before you mentioned it and now I have quite a bit haha.

 

Are you about tonight or over this weekend sometime so I can trade you my Kadabra to get Alakazam back?