Pokémon Brilliant Diamond - Nintendo Switch

Its been a LONGGG time since i played the DS version, but these are the differences i think their are from the DS version: - art style - Pokémon walk with you?? - Hovering over a evolution stone says which Pokémon in your party are compatible with it. - Fairy types are in this game, which i guess could of been in the original also, but not that i remember. - When you use a item like a repel, where it can wear off, once it does wear off the game will ask if you want to use another. - all Pokémon get exp when defeating/catching a Pokémon [And i think it is weighted, depending on your Pokémons levels, but not the # of pokemon, like if i have a egg pokemon level 1, it will get 622exp compared to the 157exp my level 33s get, and my level 35 gets 146; and having only one pokemon in your team doesnt give all that exp too that pokemon (like the 622+157+146,etc so might as well fill the party]. - If you catch a Pokémon while party is full, itll ask if you wanna put it in your party or send it to the box. - You can go in Veilstone city and buy new outfits for your chibi character and 3d battle avatar, ranging from 8.5k to 120k. [In my opinion they all look good] - Hovering over a city on a map now says whats in it, such as Pokecenter galactic veilstone building style shop etc; So if your wanting to remember where the underground mans house is, you can just switch between the citys on map view. - Moves now show their effectiveness on enemy Pokémon under the move; from not very effective to super effective if you have faced that Pokémon before. - When you switch out Pokémon, its moves will be shown with the same effectiveness tips/info shown for them, so you can go between your Pokémon to find one with a super effective move/etc - Their is a button/shortcut to throw a pokeball - Checkpoint on map saying next stop, and on pause menu it says what to do next, Head to X [When you need to go to the lake, and need strength for mt coronet, at first your objective marker is on the lake, but then you go touch a boulder and it says might be able to move this with a hm, then you get a new flag/icon on the map for where to get strength, i thought that was pretty cool, i didnt have to google strengths location]. - HMs are now on the poketch, so you dont need a dedicated HM Pokémon now. - You can access your Box (normally/still in pokecenter) from your pause menu - If the switch detects a lets go save game on your switch, Itll give you a mew in floaroma town, or a jirachi if you have sword or shield data. - Friendship effects were changed in this game from the old versions. CONS [No longer differences, just things i consider a con] [spoilers]: - Its kinda weird the number of pokemon some homies have, like some trainers will have like 5-6, however the LEADER of team galactic has 3 when you first fight him.... hes the boss of stealing everyones pokemon but he only has 3.... - You beat the Team galactic boss... and he gives you a masterball... he says i have no use for this, but what if his red chain he created didnt work? unless he can farm masterballs it seems kinda strange where he would just give us a masterball without testing his chain first...aka saving the ball for a backup. - It is a pokemon game so you cant except the smartest decisions, but some gym leaders will have 2-3 hyper potions, but use them on their first Pokémon and not the strong Pokémon that they have a little cutscene throwing, that is stronger and has more hp/etc... - If you have a chonker, like Dialga walking with you, if your in a narrow path and you turn around, your character goes pretty slow... pushing around that 1,500lbs behemoth - You cant skip the end credits.... Were in 2021 and this is a pokemon game (aka they have a budget); yet we cant skip it...

So there are a lot of people that are upset by this game, and I understand its not exactly like all the other remakes. But this is the by far best remake to me. New content is pretty sparse. But if youre going into this looking to play Pokemon Diamond and Pearl as a veteran player, or a new player for the first time, this game is fantastic. The biggest thing to get used to is the art style. This is as close as they could get to the DS style without making it looks like its the DS game on Switch. A lot of people really dislike the Chibi art style, and I was one of those people on reveal. However, with my 150 hours of playtime currently, the art style continues to grow on me more and more. Battle scenes and Pokemon animations are what you would expect. I would say these are higher quality MOSTLY than Sword and Shield, but its the next game, so youd expect theyd improve. There are a few of them that are kind of bland/boring(The Team Galatic grunt battles for instance) but then you see the ones against the Galactic Commanders and the battle scene grows on you. Galactic Battles are...just kind of a dark background with their G on the ground, and the commanders are that same setup but then you see planets up in the background changing based on which commander youre fighting, which is fantastic. Pokemon Variety was one of the weakest parts of the original Diamond and Pearl, and with the inclusion of the underground, you can find WAY more pokemon than originally available. You can even find Pokemon that werent available in the wild this early until Platinum. You can dig up statues, and use those statues in the underground to influence Pokemon type encounter rates and everything! Something people were worried about was an always on EXP Share. This works exactly like the one in Sword/Shield does. Every pokemon on your team gets EXP when you catch or kill a pokemon. However, in my experience with Sword and Shield, it would leave you horrendously overleveled. In these games, it doesnt. I tend to be the type that will skip trainers. I can say that with my playstyle, it was very easy to fall behind in levels. I regularly would end up 2-3 levels down on gyms because of this. So the EXP Share doesnt break the game. Its great. There is also an affection system, which imo REALLY breaks the game. Heres what it can do. At 1hp or max hp, if a move hits you and could kill you, theres a chance your pokemon shrugs it off, surviving at 1hp So you wouldnt be sad. It ALSO has a chance to shrug off status effects. So if someone say burned your Lopunny, theres a chance that burn just goes away. The Pokemon wills it gone. Or, you could get super lucky with a crit. They land a crit so youll praise them for it (there is no mic on the switch. Its just text.) and these things kill some battles. I won my 2nd Maylene battle because of this. My levels were a bit off, but 3 crits and shrugging off paralysis twice won me the fight. It can make some fights a non factor. I wouldve preferred being able to turn this off, personally, but I can see why some people would like to have this. The biggest disappointment for me was follow Pokemon. You can only unlock this AFTER you get to Hearthome city...but man its disappointing. Most pokemon(Every pokemon Ive tried) can NOT keep up with you if you run. They will fall behind and get a pokeball enter and exit sound to pop up behind you. Ive seen comments from a few people that stuff like Lucario or other bipedal Pokemon can keep up, but currently Ive yet to see any. There are mods abound to fix it though, which leads to... If you have a homebrew Switch, these games get even better because theres already a pretty large modding community around them. Model swaps, minor game changes, and some audio changes are pretty common, but theres even groups working to fix some of the issues people had with the game. Increasing it to 60FPS, removing the DOF effect, fixing follow pokemon...lots of cool stuff. Even increasing the pokemon variety, adding some gifts, making gym leaders harder...theyve got it all! Thats about everything about these games. I would recommend it 100% of youre a fan of Pokemon, or even as a decent starting point! These games are supposed to get Pokemon Home support in 2022, so thatll be a lot of fun when its here. If youre looking for competitive online, Pokemon Sword and Shield is the official competitive stuff, but there is still battling online with people in these!

Ive played every mainline Pokemon game and this is definitely Diamond... to a fault really. Its simply Pokemon Diamond with a shiny new coat of paint that you can play on Switch instead of digging out your old DS to play it. It doesnt have a lot of the new quality of life features newer titles have and feels a bit lacking really, like it doesnt even have the stuff from Platinum in it! About the only noticeable change other than the new visuals, is the sudden jump in difficulty for the Elite Four and Champion in this version as someone decided to give them all perfect stats and adjust the AI to basically play like an actual competitive player for these last five battles. Everything else leading up to that though is a cakewalk and even for a remake just feels done to death. Personally unless you REALLY Diamond or Pearl on your Switch, Id suggest getting Platinum on the DS for a more full experience on this generation of Pokemon games.