Pokémon: Diamond/Pearl

Don't you be thinking you've caught them all just yet...

A year ago now, I played Pokémon Sapphire for the first time and then spent a good few more hours playing it. It was like being a kid again, I said, as my Poké-party grew into a team very much in training, but with high hopes of big things.

That was on the almighty Game Boy Advance, but when Nintendo moved onto the DS, it wouldn't be long before the Pokémon series would as well, and the double release this time around is Pokémon Diamond Version and Pokémon Pearl Version.

If you've played any Pokémon title before, you'll know the deal: Get reminded that the little critters are everything in this world, get told to hunt them down while helping to stop criminals (probably) from doing something evil (probably) involving legendary Pokémon. Probably.

It's not going to be a tough plot to follow, nor a radical departure from an established RPG formula is what I'm saying.

Fun Times

The intro video gives us a tease as to the changes in store for us with this new generation: 3D buildings. Not a 3D Pokémon game, mind you. Just the environment. Some of it. It's still heavily sprite-based, which is a-ok, but this is a bit of a bullshot - you can't move the camera like this. At least I haven't found a way to do so.

I'm emulating the Pokémon Diamond Version here, and at first, there isn't much difference between what I remember of Pokémon Sapphire, but on closer inspection, you do indeed start to see more details. It is a step up from the GBA, and it starts with a brief documentary on the TV regarding a rumoured red Gyarados in a lake.

It's a story that inspires your friend and rival, Insert Name Here, to rush out in search of strange Pokémon in the lake just outside our small town of Twinleaf. Less of a town, more an estate. Either way, it's home, and like all other Pokémon titles, we're going to find a way to leave it as soon as possible.

Strangely enough, as we get to the lake there is a professor and his assistant already mulling over things here. This is the Sinnoh region, which we haven't explored in previous titles, and it sits apart from them, in its own little northern world. It apparently snows up here, but it sure doesn't look it from this opening.

The professor here has an interest in the region for some reason or other but has gone and left his suitcase behind. We've been warned not to go into tall grass because of all the wild Pokémon, but with Insert Name Here acting much like South Park's Tweek, we're already in and about to regret it.

Would you look at that? The professor's suitcase happens to have three starting Pokémon in it, Turtwig, Chimchar and Piplup. It was a choice between two (sorry, Turtwig, you're just not cool enough to be thought about), and when one of those two is a monkey, you know what choice to make.

Pokémon games are mostly about pressing the A button a lot, and the tradition continues here as Chimchar scratches the life out of this Starly. You can use the stylus if it suits you, but I didn't see the point. If there are any gimmicks that make use of it, so be it, but nothing has appeared yet. It's just another Pokémon title to me.

Dawn, the professor's assistant, rushes back to put up the suitcase but doesn't bother to check the contents. She knows there are Pokémon in there, and asks us whether we have them, but does she check, or does she assume our pleading of ignorance is authentic?

So, obviously, we've now got two Pokémon to help defend ourselves from birds and beavers and whatever else lurks in the tall grass of the starting areas but Insert Name Here (I went with Damion, by the way. Not sure why.) thinks we ought to go and tell this professor that we have his Pokémon. Some trainer, though, if he casually walks off without them...

Frustrations

It doesn't take long for the familiar scenes of previous Pokémon titles to appear. The professor is absolutely fine with us nabbing one of his Pokémon but asks us to go out and catalogue them all in this Pokédex that he's similarly happy to casually throw our way. Dawn introduces herself a little more formally and will serve as our mentor, having been a Pokémon trainer for longer than us, but that's hardly difficult considering we've only just become one through sheer dumb luck.

All in all, Pokémon Diamond Version can be replaced by any other Pokémon title, and vice versa. You know what you're getting with a Pokémon game. The plots will differ, but the story beats do not. Rinse and repeat for each new console, rake in the money.

After ticking off "Say bye to Mom and never return to Twinleaf" from the to-do list, we get taught how to catch Pokémon (what do you know, more presses of the A button), but the first wild monster (can you have a domesticated monster?) we come across with Pokéballs to throw at its face is a Kricketot, and my Chimchar burnt it to a crisp in a single Ember attack.

I've never seen a Kricketot since. All I see is Starly and Bidoof and Shinx. Still, better nab some of them for the inevitable fight against Damion, or a Gym battle, whichever comes first.

Jubilife City isn't too far away and feels pretty big. Not very city-like, but this is a portable game with hardware limitations, so a few streets and large buildings, a water feature and a sprinkling of people will have to do the job of selling this place as important.

Poké Centers and Poké Marts and two or three doors to poke your head into contain more people to interact with, and they're all chatty to strangers like you. They'll be sure to remind you what Pokémon are, how they can be used and so on, but a few of them here point out the fancy new features in Pokémon Diamond Version, thanks to the Nintendo DS hardware - online battles and trading. We're in the future now, Pokéfans.

Damion speeds ahead once more. Everything happens at a hundred miles an hour for him. He seems to know where he's going, though. For what reason he's going there I've no idea, but we'll be bumping into him plenty of times along the way.

As a helpful hint to new players, he's found in the Training School, which allows us to learn a little more about Pokémon, as well as fight some old foes.

There are around 500 Pokémon by this point in the series, and those that I've seen so far aren't too bad at all. I have my grumbles about monsters that look like ice creams, or alien text, or chandeliers (seriously, cut it out), but we don't seem to be straying into that territory yet. Arguably they're running out of ideas on how to make bird Pokémon look different from actual birds, but hey, I'll take it over them looking like inanimate objects.

Taking the hint to go and give myself more options, I roam around for a short while to grab a Bidoof. A Chimchar, a Shinx, and a Bidoof. That's got to be enough to start with, right? I should really be cycling them around and training them up, letting them share the fight XP so that they level up, learn new abilities, and form a formidable fighting force the likes of which the Pokéworld has never seen, but if I'm being honest, I didn't really want to. Not right now, at least.

For some reason, Pokémon Diamond Version wasn't grabbing me like Pokémon Sapphire did. It wasn't urging me to keep playing. Maybe it's because it was only a year ago that I last played a Pokémon game, rather than over a decade. I think to some degree, it's the mix of sprites and models. It's a style that can work, but here it feels a little like an afterthought. Maybe it's used better later on.

Heading back into Jubilife City, I'm greeted by a guy giving away Pokétches to people who can prove they've visited and successfully answered questions about Pokémon given by a bunch of clowns, which is easy enough and finally - I hope - means Pokémon Diamond Version will set me free to go where I want in this world.

But what does this watch do, other than filling the bottom DS screen with a giant clock to remind you of the unstoppable march through time we're all on?

A calculator and a sound board/health tracker? It's not amazing, but it's a free digital watch. I've barely got the time to admire all its features when Damion is alerted to my presence and issues a battle.

It was fairly uneventful. Pokémon kept staring at each other, hoping to intimidate the other into being weaker before Chimchar thwacked them into unconsciousness. Piplup loved to growl at anything it saw, but at some point Chimchar had learned Taunt which managed to get Piplup to stop growling for a few turns and attempt to pound instead.

As I say, it wasn't worth watching. Two kids thinking they're all that, throwing animals at each other. As soon as it began, it had concluded, and Damion had sprinted off to his next vital destination.

After an hour of playing, I left it there. I'd seen the opening for Pokémon Diamond Version, though perhaps not the big plot reveal, and I'd found it... eh... a Pokémon game. Another one. Does what it says on the box.

Final Word

I've been quite negative about Pokémon Diamond Version, but it's not a bad game. It's just not a revolutionary leap from anything that has come before it. It's still incredibly friendly for newcomers, still clichéd to players already familiar with the series, and still involves an awful lot of the A button to progress through battle after battle after battle.

Don't get me wrong, I like gathering a Poké-party of monsters that speak to me. I'll probably enjoy seeing the new designs as and when they start to filter into the story. I wonder where I'll be taken, and what interesting places I'll get to visit, but unlike Pokémon Sapphire, I think I can wait, thanks.

There's nothing urgent about my journey in Pokémon Diamond Version, nothing that demands I stick with it for another six hours. Arguably, there was nothing in Pokémon Sapphire that demanded that either, but everything that worked for me there doesn't work for me here.

Is Pokémon Diamond Version too similar? Is there too little difference to be wowed by what it does? It's not the first game on the 1001 list to evoke strong memories for near-identical games, and, unlike some of the more egregious odd inclusions, this game does at least look and play a little differently to the Pokémon titles that have come before it?

Well, it looks a little different at least. Played one Pokémon, played them all, right? While not strictly true, to an outsider that's how it looks. You release two games at the same time with different box art, and you do that for every new console, and you're going to get that kind of reaction.

There is absolutely no doubt that Pokémon is a must-play game. If you didn't have a Game Boy, don't worry, a Game Boy Advance will do fine. If you don't have that either, don't worry, a Nintendo DS will do fine. If you don't have that either, don't worry, because whatever comes out in the future will probably have a Pokémon game on it, and it'll probably play just like the rest.

a great many people probably wish Pokémon was different now, but to be fair, the formula it sticks to so strongly works and is generally fun to play. You'll find your favourite. It might not be Pokémon Diamond Version, but it may well be, and that's fine.

Fun Facts

Some Pokémon are found at night more than during the day, and coming back at the appropriate time of day according to your DS clock will increase your odds of finding them.

Pokémon Diamond Version and Pokémon Pearl Version, developed by Game Freak, first released in 2006.

Version played: Pokémon Diamond Version, Nintendo DS, 2007, via emulation.