I could see them making a third game for Fire Red and Leaf Green for increased connectability between Diamond and Pearl on the DS.
Anyways... here are my poorly written thoughts of Pokemon Diamond, thus far:
Last Thursday, Pokemon Diamond was released to Japan and sold out sometime on Friday. When we were walking around on Saturday, a copy of Pokemon Diamond or Pearl was no where in sight. It’s still as popular as it ever was. ^_^ Japan should gets it’s second wave of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl this coming Friday, so little kids who missed their chance this past weekend will get another chance to pick it up.
The language barrier is rather amazing. Since it’s marketed for little kids, the text is all in either hiragana or katakana. There is no Kanji whatsoever, unless you count the yen kanji. It’s helps me build my reading ability of hiragana and katakana rather well ^_^, though i still don’t have the vocabulary to know what’s going on.
Pokemon Diamond plays just like any other Pokemon though, so finding out where to go and what to do is simply a matter of talking to everyone in the town and then venturing forth to places you haven’t been yet. I suppose later on in the game, this will become more of a problem. Currently though, i’ve been able to get two badges and defeat Team Rocket twice without getting lost or frustrated because of the language.. It’s not like Pokemon has much of a story anyways. I can read about the new cool Pokemon online somewhere if i want the story.
Back to the yen, i always wondered what the currency actually was in the game. When playing Pokemon Emerald, everything was in credits. 100 credits for a Poke-ball, 200 credits for a healing item. I tried to figure out how much that would be in real-life currency. Actually, i think about this quite often. “How much would a Final Fantasy tent cost in real life..” I mean, you make, like, thousands of dollars in the game. It’s not like the idea of going around killing monsters for a living hasn’t crossed my mind before. Anyways, it’s 100 yen for a Pokeball. That’s $1. What a fricken deal. I’d buy tons of those, if there was a Poke-mart nearby. Usually when you beat up some kid in the forest, you win $1 or $2 from him. That’s pretty mean. It’s like stealing milk money from children. I liked my idea before where 1 poke-credit equalled 1/10 of $1. Then a pokeball is $10 and a little bit more reasonable considering the amount of technology built in them.
Anyways…
The graphical style of Pokemon Diamond is quite impressive. They have effectively transferred the 2D graphics into a 3D plane without screwing over any of the individual detail you’d find in previous titles. The 3D plane is evident when you walk around and the foreground actually shifts along with your point of view. It’s a very subtle 3D effect that really looks amazing on the DS.
In battles the graphical style is alot like Pokemon Emerald, with a little bit more of a watercolor backdrop. The pokemon still have little animations when they enter, ala Emerald. This is where the touch screen is actually used. All the battle commands are presented on the touch screen. It’s like Phoenix Wright, where you can either use the the directional pad and select options, or you can just touch the options to select them. It’s pretty slick. I can still play pokemon one-handed!! Whoo hoo… guess who’s driving while playing Pokemon when he returns to the states.
While walking around, you get a little pokemon gadget that keeps tracks on various data on your second screen. It can keep track of your steps, the current time, your pokemon HP, and.. on other thing. It’s really helpful to have that info up front, especially the steps if you’re trying to hatch eggs.
Speaking of time, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl use a real-time system, much like Animal Crossing. When it’s night outside, it’s night in the game. When it’s day outside, it’s day in the game. My game is a little messed up since my DS is on US time, and i don’t really want to change it.
One thing that i’ve also liked about Pokemon Diamond is the Pokemon themselves.. They aren’t stupid looking, or ugly. Most of them are ligitimitly cute. I mean, when you began you have a choice between a leafy turtle, a cute little chilly penguin, or a cute little fire monkey. Awww.. I chose the Chilly Penguin ^_^. The first couple pokemon you face are actually pretty cute too. There’s a cute little bird and a beaver. I picked up a cute little kitty mouse looking thing near the beginning of the game, which has turned out to be pretty slick too. I’ve also been leveling up this Pikachu ripoff.
So anyways, i’ve played for about 9 1/2 hours and have beaten two gyms. I found about 49 pokemon and captured about 29 of ‘em. Well on my way to the new pokemon total of around 500 or something. I probably won’t pick up Diamond or Pearl when they are released in the states, but i’ll pick up the remake that combines the two. Unless, i end up running out of things to play by the time it comes out. :shrugs:
So yeah… Pokemon Diamond is pretty damn slick, i must say. It’s a great pickup for the DS.
