Name: Poke'mon Diamond / Poke'mon Pearl
Platform: DS
Players: 4 (and online play)
Developer: Game Freak
Wow, my first real online game. Better do it justice. Now, ever since I was 7, I have been playing Pokemon games. My first game was Pokemon Blue, and my gameboy colour was that special pokemon one that was released at that time. From there, I bought every pokemon game that came into existence. The only ones I don't own are XD, Ranger, Trozei, and Dash. And through all of them, they've had the same basic principle. Catch all the pokemon, or at least, train a team that can kick the other persons butt.
The story goes that you're a 10 year old boy, and in the world of pokemon, that's your coming of age (go back to the first game, it explains this), and it means you can get your very own pocket monster. Your town has a professor of pokemon (in D/P's case, Professor Birch), who gives you your very first pokemon. You also have a rival, who also starts out with a pokemon. And in this version, the professors grandchild gets the last starter. Each pokemon has a different type, like, poison, dragon, grass, etc. All professors in pokemon games have three different types. A water type (in this case, Piplup), a grass type (in this case, turtwig), and a fire type (Chimchar). You pick which one you want (through a battle with a wild pokemon), and it becomes your partner. Which one you start with is very important, and make the game easier or harder. For example, the first gym is a rock gym. Water and Grass pokemon are very effective against rock types; fire types suck. So you have to catch other pokemon to help you if you want to win. And you'll need to level up your pokemon, to give them any real attack advantage.
From left to right: Turtwig, Chimchar, Piplup. I started with Piplup, because penguins are awesome.
Now, anyone who's played these games before will know what I'm talking about in that last paragraph. New players will be going "what? Gym? battle? catch pokemon? Level up?" Never fear, I shall explain for new players:
Trainer: a pokemon trainer has pokemon friends that he fights with. You will battle against many different trainers on your adventures, and each will have unique pokemon.
Gym Leader: These are the bosses of Pokemon if you will. They're much stronger than normal trainers, and specialize in a single type of pokemon (eg. ground, ice, whatever). In this game, you need to beat 8 gym leaders.
Gym: The place where you find gym leaders. sometimes containing puzzles or trainers to fight (sounds like Zelda games).
Levels: Being an RPG (role playing game) each pokemon has different levels of strength, ranging from lvl 1 - lvl 100. The bigger the number, the better your pokemon is. To train your pokemon and level them up, you fight other trainers.
Pokemon: How could I not explain this. Animals with great powers, they can be found hiding in grass, mountains, rivers, caves, snowy peaks, and forests. Never in cities. Pokemon are used as pets for normal people, fighting machines for trainers. Basically a friend. You can catch pokemon and make them your friends by battling wild ones, and catching them in poke balls.
Now that the terminology is out of the way, i can get onto controls. Since the DS has the touch screen, a lot of the button bashing that was in the old games has been replaced with stylus stabbing. You'll still use the d-pad for walking around, and the other buttons to interact with the world, but most of the battle and inventory screens are handled on the touch screen. This control will probably not be used by hardcore pokemon fans, who've gotten used to using the buttons, but it is a nice alternative. As for graphics, someone at game freak likes their 3D engine. It has been used to the point of bragging in this game. Players of the GBA games will recognize the look, and approve of the new adjustments made. Every pokemon has it's own animation, which ads to the effect, and other small adjustments make the game more enjoyable.
Now, online play. When you make a good team, and can beat everyone on the game, you can take your team online and get beaten to death by people around the world. Using friend codes, the scum of the earth, you can fight against anyone else with the game using Nintendo's Wifi connection. You can also play wirelessly with friends, trading, battling, and even (in a place called the battle tower) co-op battling. Incidentally, trading. Any pokemon you catch you can trade to another person. If you want to catch all 493 pokemon, you'll need to do this, as the people who make the game have cunningly designed it so that you need to either have all the GBA games, and Diamond and Pearl, or friends with the copies, to catch all the pokemon. That's the reason I've taken so long to do this review. I have caught 489 pokemon, I still need 4 legendaries which can only be caught by hacking/ trading someone who has a hacked one.
So, overall. I spent a lot of time explaining pokemon. This is a good RPG/adventure title which is worth investing in. Even if it is 12 years old, and the same as it was in the old gameboy games, even if people think it's childish (that's not the games fault, that's 4kids entertainments fault), it's still one of the best DS selling games, and well worth playing.
Graphics: definite boost from GBA. Not mind boggling, but more than we were expecting. 8/10
Length: I clocked 250 hours playtime to catch all those pokemon. It'll take at least 40 hours to finish the game normally, without all the side quest stuff. 9/10
Gameplay: Tried and true. Not much is brought to the table that is new. However, I'm not comparing this to the old games, but games nowadays. 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10
That's finally off my chest. I might let Cloudy review Phantom Hourglass, and then criticize it afterwards. As for me, I'll have Super Mario Galaxy and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games by the end of the week, so I have a lot on my hands.
