Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

[Moonface]

There's going to be a presentation on August 18 that will feature this game alongside Pokemon Legends Arceus:

Anyone excited to see anything in particular?

[Mr EliteL]

I suppose I'll watch on the day, but not expecting or looking for anything as I didn't play Diamond/Pearl. The QoL Platinum had that was mentioned earlier to be more evident in this presentation hopefully, oh and my personal but unlikely to come to fruition desire of improvements to the covers.

[ShiraNoMai]

Yeah I have to say I'm more interested in what they have to show of for Legends than the remakes. I mean, they basically showed us what everyone really needed to see anyway with regards to a game that's already been made before, I'm not quite sure what else they'd have to show for it.

[Moonface]

Dig into the details of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl!
See what awaits you in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl, including going underground, showing off in contest shows, and walking around with your favorite Pokémon!



There are some details that were mentioned in the Pokémon Presents video but are not present or fully explored in the above trailer:

• The Grand Underground offers the ability to dig up fossils and create your own base, but there is a new feature called Pokémon Hideaways, which are special areas that generate Pokémon based on which statues you have placed in your secret base. Certain Pokémon of the Sinnoh region can only be found in these areas, so be sure to fully explore!
  
• Stickers can be used to customise the effects that appear when Pokémon spring out of your Pokéballs! Some of these effects include confetti and fireworks.
  
• Another new feature is the ability to change your outfit!
  
• The Super Contest Shows have been improved.
  
• Local and online communication can be used in the Union Room. However, there will be no Ranked battle system present in this title.
  
• Any Pokémon that appear in these games can walk around with you in the overworld!
  

[ShiraNoMai]

Well, I'll give them credit where it's due: they improved the look of the games in between then and now. Definitely a welcome change.

The other QOL stuff is also nice, more specifically the Hideaway stuff seems like the best neat addition. The stickers stuff never quite interested me, the contests are what they are, and well, I don't intend to battle online anyway so that's fine.

I also like that they're bringing back Pokemon followings for the remakes! One of my favorite little additions they can add in the games.

I dunno, I might get these and see if I can actually finish this game for once.

[Dragon Lord]

Liking the look of the character outfit customization. Glad they are bringing that to these remakes (one of the few things later gens of Pokemon have done), hopefully there's some super cute outfits for the female protag. Games don't look as terrible as I remember, though still majorly lacking compared to Legends.

Really wish they would have made the cover art for the games look a lot less derpy though.

I'll probably pick up Diamond though. I enjoyed Gen IV just barely enough to make me interested in experiencing the remakes.

[Moonface]

The cover art definitely leaves a lot to be desired. For me it just shows how the switch to 3D models has diminished the character of the Pokemon compared to their 2D art and sprites.

What about the look are you disliking @Dragon Lord? Is it just the art style itself or the actual visual quality, or something else?

[ShiraNoMai]

I think he said before that the art style wasn't appealing. It's clear to me that despite the art style being the way it is, they've shown a definite improvement over the modeling and lighting of the characters and environments.

But the cover art is an absolute travesty. I get the message they were trying to convey but it's clear to me this box art was an executive level decision and not an artistic choice.

[Dragon Lord]

What about the look are you disliking @Dragon Lord? Is it just the art style itself or the actual visual quality, or something else?

The game looks much better now, but the original way the game looked was pretty ugly. It seems like they improved on the quality pretty drastically compared to when they first announced it. But even then, you can tell they put a lot more love and effort in Legends over these.

[ShiraNoMai]

I do believe that these titles aren't being headed up by GameFreak, and they outsourced it to someone else? -checks- Yeah, they have ILCA doing it while GameFreak supervises. Huh. Apparently these will the first mainline titles not made exclusively by GameFreak. I wonder if ILCA is some other second-party studio to Nintendo?

[Moonface]

It seems they've mostly just been a support studio on various games: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/0...rl_remakes

However, the amount of support they provided isn't specified nor on what they specifically focused their support on. There's a lot of notable games listed, so they must be pretty decent at whatever they do to keep being hired onto big projects. It looks like this might be their first game with them at the helm though.

[ShiraNoMai]

Been stewing on it since announced but I think I may actually give these games another try. I really want to say I've been able to "beat" the game, considering it's the only Pokemon game I've never done so with; I look back on it a little less fondly as a possible result of that.

[Moonface]

Stumbled across a new trailer that came out today. From what I've looked up most of the features being shown are returning and not new, although it seems Amity Square has been expanded to allow any Pokemon to be used in it, compared to the limited number that were allowed in the original version. I'm not sure if any of the other stuff shown is exactly the same or if anything has been changed for them.

[ShiraNoMai]

I think the coolest thing I suddenly noticed was that the game isn't cardinal-only directions. It's completely free roam 360°. Somehow that quality of life detail sparks a lot of joy

[Dragon Lord]

So I see on Twitter that some new details about the game have emerged, and people are very split on them.

-EXP Share is active from the start of the game and cannont be turned off.
-TMs will go back to being single-use items.
-The game will feature auto-save.

My thoughts on these changes are:

EXP Share should at least have the option to be turned off for people who don't want their entire team to become over leveled. Pokemon games are already easy enough without your entire team becoming 20+ levels over your opponents, but overall not a huge deal to me.

TMs going back to single-use is GREAT! I hated them changing them to infinite use. It's so much better when you have to really consider which Pokmeon gets a really good move from a TM.

Auto-saves are cool and will be good for when I inevitably leave my Switch in sleep mode without noticing the battery is low and having it die on me.