An Exhaustive Look at Pokémon Brilliant Diamond

I went into Pokémon Brilliant Diamond with  tempered expectations and enjoyed my time with it. It’s impossible for me to convey just how much the original Diamond and Pearl mean to me.  So I relished the excuse to replay them with friends when Brilliant Diamond and  Shining Pearl released in November 2021. I have criticisms, of course. I mean, you’ve seen  the length of this video. But that’s just it, I wouldn’t be able to talk this long about  a game I hated. Ultimately the reason I’m making th

is video is I wanted to talk more  about a game – and a series! – that I enjoy. So! Whether you love Pokémon, are on a long  car ride, or are just trying to get to sleep, I’d be delighted if you’d join me on this  trip through Sinnoh. The good and the bad, the laughs and the gaffs. This is An  Exhaustive Look at Pokémon Brilliant Diamond. Before we get started proper, some ground rules. I’ll be playing through Brilliant Diamond rather than Shining Pearl. Spoiler warning  for Brilliant Diamond, S

hining Pearl, and of course the originals. I know, I know,  you’d think I wouldn’t have to say that, but keep in mind this is YouTube. There are timestamps in the description so you can pick this up and put it down as  you please. I will be repeating some points from the Omega Ruby video, sometimes  to give a new perspective, sometimes to better articulate my point, and sometimes  because I just plain forgot I’d said it, sorry! And just to head off some comments: I know this  is long, I know I h

ave an accent-slash-speech impediment, my name’s pronounced ShayMay,  hence the username, and I know we probably pronounce some Pokémon names differently. I  say gir-AH-tin-ah, you say gih-ra-TEEN-ah, it’s fine, we’re all adults here, arguing about  the names of cartoon animals for children. It seems inappropriate to start the game on  fast-forward, but we all know how this goes. You learn what a Pokémon is for the fourteenth  time, choose your gender and skin colour, give your rival a comedy ni

ckname, and start  the game in a town with about four houses. Twinleaf Town is a pretty direct translation of  its Japanese name Futaba Town, but it struggles a bit to convey the same imagery. From what  I understand, "futaba" literally translates to "twin leaf," but is used more specifically  to refer to a sprout with two seed leaves. You and your rival are those twin leaves - you sprout  from the soil of Twinleaf Town, and blossom over the course of your adventure. So "Twinleaf  Town," while b

eing a literal translation, unfortunately can't capture the same implication  of growth in English that it can in Japanese. This is more a difference between the two languages  than it is a problem; I mean, what else were they going to call it, "Dicotyledon Town?" No. I think it's to the credit of the game's theming, then, that it's still able to convey that  imagery to an English-speaking audience, but we’ll get to that in a second. So the story goes that you and your rival (I’ve just named him

Barry) are  best friends living in Twinleaf Town. Inspired by a Loch Ness-style documentary  on a fabled red Gyarados, Barry decides, seemingly for himself, that the  nearby Lake Verity must also have a red Gyarados. He rounds you up to investigate. You pass a Professor on the way in, and realise that his assistant has left his briefcase behind. To retrieve it, Barry convinces you to enter the tall grass where wild Pokémon live, and sure  enough you get ambushed by a couple of Starly. So far th

at sounds more or less  standard for the Pokémon series, but I found it to be a really impressive little  bit of writing. Within a couple of minutes, we're introduced to three distinct personalities  who drive the plot forward in their own way. Barry - both through action and by reputation  - is shown to be brash and impulsive. That impulsiveness push starts the story by hurrying  you out the door and to the lake. You're given no room to refuse or to even question him - he is, at  this point, th

e protagonist. You're the sidekick. But while he's applying a lot of  pressure to the player character, he's also relieving a lot of pressure from the  player. Because he's such a Type A personality, because he's effectively decided for you both  what you're doing, you're left plenty of room to fill in the gaps and characterise yourself as  you please. You can read your silence in a dozen different ways - resigned, enthusiastic, concerned  for your pal, or just trying to keep up with him. Dawn's

carelessness does just as much to move  the story forward as Barry's recklessness. She's anxious and easily distracted; it's perfectly  believable that she'd end up forgetting her case. Then there’s Rowan, whom we’ll get to in a moment. So while the intro is using the same template as pretty much every other Pokémon game, it  doesn't feel contrived; the plot is a natural reaction between these characters. A more careful  character wouldn't have forgotten the briefcase; a more sensible character

wouldn't go  charging into tall grass to investigate. The series has been insisting for years  that you can't go into tall grass without a Pokémon to protect you, but this is  the first time it's ever been credible. It always made sense on some level, of course,  but it always felt a bit irrelevant because the player physically cannot enter the tall grass  before they get their first Pokémon - they're always blocked by an NPC. It always felt a bit  toothless. The games would warn you about the

dangers of entering the tall grass without  a Pokémon while also making it impossible to enter the tall grass without a Pokémon. Here,  instead, you suffer the consequences when you get pecked to ribbons by dirty birds. And that brings us smoothly to the decision to choose our starter Pokémon. These are another excellent batch, all made discrete by being from a different animal group:  Turtwig's a reptile, Chimchar a mammal, Piplup a fish. They’re all great choices – I know it’s  a bird – they’r

e all great choices. Now, if you were to ask me which was the best? I'd probably  say Chimchar - strong, fast, and with basically no other Fire-type competition. You could make the  case that Turtwig is the weakest - its low speed and quad weakness to Ice make it difficult to use  in such a cold climate. But, consider this, if you will. When Turtwig bursts out of her Poké Ball she  is the happiest creature alive, look at her wee face. There's only ever been one choice for me. Turtwig is also why

I think the imagery of “Futaba Town” works in English. You hear the name "Twinleaf Town," and even if you don't choose it as your starter, one  of the first Pokémon you encounter is Turtwig: a baby tortoise with two leaves on its head. The  image of a sprout with two leaves is therefore still closely linked to Twinleaf Town. The theme  of growth is seeded in every Grass-type starter Pokémon; the sprout on Turtwig's head grows into  a mighty tree over the course of its evolution. Sure, it's a li

ttle more abstracted,  you need to do a little more lateral thinking to get the point, but even with the  difficulties translation presents, the game is still able to communicate its themes through its  character design. I think that's really strong! For some reason, Rowan has decided to let  you little whippersnappers keep his Pokémon, and you head on over to Sandgem Town to  explain yourself. So, even if it's just for the short time we're on Route 201, we get to  live out the fantasy of being

a Pokémon trainer. And it's such a lovely fantasy, isn't  it? To spend your days travelling the country with your magical pets. Pokémon's always had a very small but kind of unique advantage in bringing  that fantasy to life. The player's actions map onto the player character's practically 1:1. Unlike traditional RPGs, you aren’t communicating to a dungeon master or a computer what you want  your character to do; instead, you and your avatar are both communicating what you want your  Pokémon to

do. In traditional turn-based RPGs, you exist as a liminal entity, almost a director  or something, dictating everyone's actions even though they never acknowledge you're there. Of  course that isn't a problem, your brain's really good at compensating for the shortfall when you're  absorbed into the story, but it's a tiny little translucent barrier that doesn't exist in Pokémon.  It's a small detail, I know, but considering the game is about forging connections with these  wee critters the fewer

barriers the better. Speaking of which, Professor Rowan, in recognition  of our growing bond with Turtwig, lets us keep the little bugger. "This Pokémon seems to  be rather happy," yeah, you're telling me! Let's call her Back Garden,  because Torterra has a back garden. This is where Rowan entrusts you with a  Pokédex, and asks you to survey how many Pokémon exist in the Sinnoh region. The answer to that is “less than I would like,” but we’ll get to that later. Jokes aside, the game gives the p

layer a strong motivation to hear him out. You've already gotten  yourself into trouble at his expense and Rowan's response to that - nurturing interest you clearly  already have, rather than punishing you - means you can't help but respect him. He asks you  to record all the Pokémon of the Sinnoh region for him, and even though you can choose "no"  for the comedy “ha ha but seriously” response, you kind of can't help but tap yes. "Hm! Good  answer!" he replies. Despite his gruff exterior, he's

clearly a really kind man. He's probably  my favourite Pokémon Professor - he's the sort of man you couldn't help but look up  to. You know, if his head wasn't the same size as the entire rest of his body. It's a quick hop back to Twinleaf Town to tell our mum where we're going, and  that's basically us done with the intro! We've got our partner Pokémon, we've got our  beret, we're full of piss and vinegar, we've got an entire region to explore! The adventure starts  here! I'm delighted to be ba

ck doing this, folks. The game feels a bit cheap doesn't it? I'm loth to start our adventure proper with such a huge complaint, I truly did enjoy  myself with this game. But I feel like I need to start with this - it's both the most striking  thing about the game, and gives me an opportunity to discuss how my critical approach has changed  from An Exhaustive Look at Pokémon Omega Ruby. I’m going to do my best to avoid naming names.  Last time, I was reckless in shooting from the hip and attribut

ing intent to “Game Freak,” or  “Nintendo,” or “The Pokémon Company.” But with time and perspective, I realise the flaws with  that approach. Blaming developers or companies for the game’s shortcomings is futile at best,  and more often than not it’s extremely unhelpful. First of all, it risks being awfully unfair.  The fact is, we don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. I could sit here and call out ILCA for  being rigidly faithful to the original games, for example, but I don’t know the dev

elopment climate:  I don’t know what kind of time constraints they were working under, and I don’t know what kind  of mandates they were working with. For the sake of argument: if I blame ILCA it may turn out it  was The Pokémon Company who told them to keep it as faithful as possible to the DS games. In  that case, there’s no argument to be made - the point is simply incorrect. I can’t imagine  how frustrating it must be to be called lazy and incompetent for decisions you didn’t make. Even if y

ou’re a robot that doesn’t care about people’s feelings, here’s a logical reason  as well: attributing blame distracts from the actual criticism. Last time, I had a number  of people tell me that one of the writers on Omega Ruby had previously worked on a hentai  game. Here’s my question: so what? The problems with Omega Ruby’s story include a lot of fluff and  irrelevant text boxes, a very literal translation, a lack of focus in the Delta Episode, and so  on. The problem with Omega Ruby’s story

is not that a hentai writer worked on it. Or, to put that  another way: if Omega Ruby’s story were exemplary, none of us would be complaining. I mean, what’s  the end goal here? Do we imagine that if we can get that one guy fired all of Pokémon’s problems  will be solved? Not only is that objectively incorrect, it’s also kind of monstrous! See, what we’re doing by blaming individuals or companies is we’re trying to  reverse-engineer the cause of the problem. But that reverse-engineering process

is based on  assumptions upon assumptions upon assumptions; it’s assumptions all the way down, and the further  down we get, the more likely we are to make an incorrect assumption. If we do, every following  assumption – and our conclusion! – must also be incorrect. What I’d instead like to do, in this  video, is simply identify a problem and explain why it’s a problem. That way lies constructive,  forward-facing criticism that anybody can use. In that spirit, I’m just going to be blaming  Bril

liant Diamond for Brilliant Diamond’s problems. That way, even while we’re  criticising, we’re not attacking anyone, we’re not misattributing blame, and we’re being  as accurate as we can be. Assuming I don’t make any mistakes - and I’m likely to, check the pinned  comment if you notice one - we’re instead making points about stuff that’s actually verifiable. The reason I bring this all up now is because, like I say, I think the game feels a bit cheap. A big talking point about these remakes is

the fact they run on the Unity Engine. And,  putting into practice what I just talked about, my question is: so what? “BDSP uses  Unity" is a value-neutral statement, and focusing on that foregoes an actual  discussion of the criticism being made. The problem, I think, is Brilliant Diamond’s  mixed priorities. It’s caught between being as faithful as possible to the original games, made  15 years prior for hardware with a fraction of the Switch’s power, and justifying its own  existence as a rem

ake with fancy graphical effects. We essentially have two art styles  clashing: the original, and the diorama. While the DS was of course less powerful than  the Switch, the original games still look much better to me - both because my standards for DS  games are tempered, but also because the game used more illustrative effects. Grass and trees  could be “tiled” because they were 2D sprites. We understand 2D images as inherently abstract  because they don’t really exist in our 3D world. So it’s

much easier to read these repetitive,  perfectly aligned plants as representational; they’re conveying an idea rather than literally  what’s there. This is how Sinnoh always looked, but this is never what I imagined. Brilliant Diamond looks fake because it replaces the 2D sprites with 3D models. They’re  more concrete; our brains have a difficult time abstracting them. In essence, we read 2D and  3D differently. I think this is most easy to appreciate when an entrance is obscured  by trees. The

entrance, in the originals, doesn’t look great, but it was functional as  shorthand for disappearing into the shadow of the trees. In the remake, the seams are a lot more  obvious; the shadow sits underneath the trees like it’s a physical object. They’re both doing the  exact same thing, but going from low-res 2D to hi-res 3D (and lowering the camera) is not a  zero-sum act. The same techniques won’t work. Combined with the realistic lighting, which  shifts shadows with the time of day and bath

es the screen a beautiful orange at sunset,  these identical uniform models with their simple pastel textures create a kind of uncanny effect. The combination of simple models and realistic lighting can work - it’s been used in games like  the Link’s Awakening remake and Animal Crossing: New Horizons to create the impression of a  playable diorama, like you’re looking down onto little toys and models. Brilliant Diamond  even uses the same tilt-shift camera technique to make the game look smaller

: it blurs parts of  the background to simulate the shallow depth of field you’d get when taking a close-up shot of  a miniature. This technique is literally called “miniature faking.” But those games also used  shaders and visual effects to make the world feel tactile. You could almost reach out and  touch the fuzzy felt grass, or the fine sand, or the wood on the bridge. They also took care  to make the world feel alive, even if it never felt real. There’s always something moving - a  butterfl

y in the background, the river rushing downstream, or the leaves rustling in the breeze. Brilliant Diamond doesn’t have that luxury because it has to be faithful to the level design and  layout of a DS game - a game not made with these concerns in mind. And so realistic lighting is  draped over uncanny uniformly repeating pastel models. Even if the grass sways in the breeze  slightly, there’s too much off about this picture for me to really believe in it. The second half of my initial misgivings

were the controls. Your character feels floaty, like they’re not really touching the  ground when they walk. It’s something that’s difficult to put your finger on and even  more difficult to explain, but I’ll do my best to point out a few reasons why I think this is. When walking, your character kind of marches stiffly - arms barely swinging, and legs barely  moving out in front of him. Most of his leg motion is in the backward swing of the leg, which  gives the impression he should be overbala

nced, falling flat on his nose with every step.  Running feels better, thank goodness, but still doesn’t feel quite right. There’s no  animation for suddenly changing direction - the character will “jump” from facing one way to  facing the other in a single frame. The character will also try to “snap,” to “magnetise” to the  eight cardinal and ordinal directions, as well as awkwardly shift onto the grid if you choose to use  the D-Pad. It can leave the game feeling gummy, like it’s pulling again

st you a little bit. I also found my character getting stuck on walls and corners a lot more often than  I felt he should – presumably a result of the grid creating some blocky hitboxes. These all seem to be symptoms of the game trying to replicate the immediacy and simplicity  of a 2D game with digital input in a 3D game with analogue input. Again, it’s caught between having  to be faithful to the original and having to take advantage of the Switch’s new technology. As  sympathetic as I am to t

he reasons behind it, though, that doesn’t stop it from feeling just  a bit naff to play. It’s a good thing Pokémon doesn’t live or die by its character controls. If the game takes a minute to show you how to catch a Pokémon, honestly, I’m fine with that. Tutorials are a necessary evil, particularly in a series with such a large audience of children.  There is the risk of a player – especially a younger player – losing interest if they don’t  understand how to play. Most people I’ve talked to un

derstand this, and don’t consider tutorials  in and of themselves to be a problem. Of course, a skip option would be welcome almost 30  years into an incredibly popular series, but I can understand them not wanting to  let impatient kids skip important details. These days, Pokémon is infamous for the opposite  reason – for harrassing the player with exposition and tutorials throughout the length of the  adventure. This leads to fatigue and resentment, even when the game is teaching something  co

mpletely new. The games even seem conscious of this problem – the interruptions are so  eager to let you get back to it that they rarely go into detail. You’re usually given a  quick overview of a mechanic rather than any specifics – what it is rather than how it works. I’m not going to go too much further into that, partly because I don’t want to misrepresent  those games with a throwaway comment, but mainly because I’d rather demonstrate  how good this tutorial is instead. I’m not going to ove

rsell it, it’s not,  “Pokémon’s tutorials are genius, actually, and here’s why,” it’s fine. It takes literally  only a minute, it’s appropriately timed, and it’s a fairly comprehensive explanation. You’re even  given a bundle of Poké Balls – think of it as a spoonful of honey, if you need it. The conscientious tutorials continue in Jubilife City. Our first stop is the Trainer School to deliver the parcel to Barry, so you  can continue swotting up while you’re there. There’s some useful informati

on on status effects,  a little hands-on battle against trainers who try and buff their stats, that sort of thing. It’s all  good stuff, but even better, if you know all this or just intend to hit Flamethrower over and over  until everything dies you can just walk away! Just bugger off, there’s nothing to keep you here. It’s possible the game felt comfortable being so hands-off because the player’s  always carrying a guide with them. Every time you open the menu, you get a brief  description of

where you’re supposed to go next, smoothing out any bumps for  confused or lapsed players. There’s also a Guidebook in the menu, explaining  everything about the game in brief. Conceptually, this is possibly my favourite new idea from  Gen VIII, and one I hope is carried forward and improved on. If you think I’m overselling  it, consider this. A future game that took full advantage of the feature could have Dawn  go, “if you need to know how to catch Pokémon, I’ve jotted it down in your Guideboo

k!”  Yeah, now you’re hot under the collar. The thing about tutorials is, there’s  a huge margin of error because they’re temporary triggers. If you don’t understand  the explanation, or aren’t paying attention, or you forget, there’s no way to see Dawn’s  explanation again except to start a new game. If you do understand going in, because you’ve  played these games before, or your pal told you, or you’re just quick on the uptake, you’re still  forced to sit through a minute of unnecessary expla

nation. Not the worst fate in the world to  be sure, but it’s unnecessary nonetheless. What I’m getting at is, timing tutorials so they work  as intended for everyone is fairly difficult, if not outright impossible. Somebody is  going to slip through the cracks somewhere. The Guidebook solves both these issues by  being both persistent and unobtrusive. If you need a refresher on anything in  the game, tap it whenever you like, and if you don’t… don’t. It’s even unobtrusive  contextually – I have

no trouble believing the character would carry a wee notebook around. If anything, I feel like the Guidebook could be more comprehensive, since it’s not interrupting  anything. You really have all the time in the world to go into exact detail if the player has  to seek out that detail themselves. Regardless, this is excellent – I don’t consider the  tips or the Guidebook concessions at all. And you know, look, I get it. Here’s a grown  man complaining about the tutorials in Pokémon, who’s the r

eal clown here huh? But I  think Brilliant Diamond’s focus and its lighter touch has a huge impact on player  engagement. The intro is really well paced. The game wastes no time establishing its  setting and characters, then using those characters to guide you towards your partner  Pokémon. There are practically no distractions at this point – the major characters waste  no words, and the only interesting things in Twinleaf Town are you and Barry’s houses. The  game is laser focused on getting y

ou to make that first choice – Turtwig, Chimchar, or Piplup. It’s essential to get the player making important choices as soon as possible. The sooner you’re  making interesting choices, the sooner you’re engaged with the fantasy of the game. Before  you show the player how to play, you first need to show them why they want to play in the first  place. More important than good or bad tutorials is investment – there’s no point lowering the  barrier of entry if people don’t want to enter; there’s

no point in explaining Pokémon’s rules  to someone that doesn’t care about Pokémon. Ask your parents, they’ll tell you all about it. That said, when it comes to showing the player how to play, Brilliant Diamond is no slouch. It guides  your way and marks the entrance to the lake with dirt paths – notice how the well worn ground  branches more to the left, encouraging you to follow it. You may have also noticed that there’s  no battling tutorial. There’s no need – the game tells you everything yo

u need to know using the  UI. Each action you can take is a short, sharp command displayed in a big bold font. So long  as you understand basic words like “Battle” or “Run,” you have all the context you need for what  you’re doing. Even if you’re too young to be able to read, uhh, well, I don’t know what you’re doing  here first of all. Mum or dad, if you can hear me, I am going to be swearing, maybe change the video?  Even if you can’t watch this video , you’ll still be able to play Pokémon. Th

e actions are clarified  by basic colour association; each move has a coloured border indicating its type. There’s  simply no need for the game to explain all this using words – there’s no need to explain to anyone  capable of even pawing at the screen that grass is green, for example. This kind of conveyance  helps the intro go down smoothly – guiding the player without them even noticing. So the player gets through their first battle and is sent to the next town. They’ve  quickly made progress

past the game’s first roadblock – a particularly menacing patch of grass  – and afterwards they’re sent off on what is, essentially, the main quest. I  think explaining the buildings and returning to Twinleaf again is a bit of  a pacebreaker, but it takes seconds and after that the intro has just one more interruption. Catching Pokémon is more involved than battling, and as such I think it does require some  explanation. But even though it means stopping the player, that explanation is brisk  a

nd comprehensive. And, so far as I remember, this is basically our last mandatory tutorial. The result of all this is, by the time you’re in the first major city, the game’s already  finished all its housekeeping and can get out from under your feet. It directs you towards the  Trainer School, sure, but establishes some faith in you by allowing you to just talk to Barry and  duck out. All of this – introducing its setting to letting you loose – in about 10 minutes  (provided you’re not stopping

to smell the roses). That’s perfect. If all Pokémon intros  were like this, I’d be happy as a pig in shit. See? Told you I was going to swear. Jubilife City marks your newfound independence with a complete change in scenery. You’re not in the sticks anymore. You’re no longer under the shadow of your mum or Professor Rowan –  you’re out exploring this modern urban city all on your own. It’s not quite Grand Theft Auto, like,  you’re just tracking down some clowns, but you do get a smart watch out

of it so that’s something. Inside the parcel you delivered to Barry was a Town Map for each of you. The game has  been a straight line up until this point, but Jubilife is a big crossroads. Navigation  is linear of course, as it’s always been, but there’s a lot more criss-crossing from  this point forward, so this is the perfect time to present the player with the map. The game gets you moving around the city by having you find three clowns, who are  promoting the Pokémon Watch, or Pokétch. Pok-

etch. Pok-ay-tch? Pokémon is usually  excellent at portmanteaus but this is possibly the worst one, what an awkward word. I  don’t associate the “tch” sound with “watch” – I misread it as “Pokétech” for the longest  time. Wouldn’t that have been a better name? For 12 years, Pokémon existed on the DS family  of consoles, which each had two screens, the bottom of which was a touchscreen. What a  perfect way to control these games – the menus could take up an entire screen with big bold  prompts, a

nd you no longer had to fiddle around with a cursor. You could just prod at the screen  with your greasy Pringle fingers. Or Pringers. Going back to a single screen feels incredibly  clunky by comparison. In fairness, the Switch does have a touch screen if you’re playing in  handheld mode, but it’s more cumbersome because the console is so much larger and heavier than  the 3DS. Hefting the console in your left hand to stretch your thumb across the screen is a lot  less comfortable than just usin

g the buttons. Which is maybe why the touch screen doesn’t  work during the battles. Decide for yourselves if those two negatives cancel each other out. Nowhere is the downgrade more apparent than with the Pokétch. The feature was designed  bespoke for dual screen hardware – in fact, it feels a little like the game trying to justify  having a second screen at all. Without a concrete use for the touch screen on the overworld,  the Pokétch just throws everything and the kitchen sink on there. Some

times useful, often  frivolous, never essential. Want a digital clock? How about an analogue clock? What about two  different doodling tools? Why decide at all, why not use the Spinner, or the Coin Toss app?  Huh. Are there any statisticians in the comments? Because I am going to need an explanation here.  Brilliant Diamond, lacking a second screen, has to crowbar an awkward screen-within-screen  setup that demands touch controls on a console where touch controls aren’t a constant. It’s  such a

poor fit that I’m honestly surprised it made it in here at all. You’ll forgive me if  I spend most of the game with it turned off. Even beyond the touch screen, the controls  themselves are poorly laid out in my opinion. For me, the most important features or moves  should be mapped to triggers or face buttons. They’re where your hands rest naturally,  and they’re clustered for easy access. In Brilliant Diamond, Y is reserved for the Union  Room, which I used so rarely it may as well have been u

nmapped. Meanwhile, if you want to use the  Quick Menu – the Menu literally designed for easy access – you have to stretch across to Plus  or Minus. Personally I would swop Y and Plus, but even if you disagree, you have to admit  some control customisation would be nice. More annoying are the extra options in the menus,  which seem to map buttons at random. A, X, Y, and Plus are all context sensitive, which  makes the controls difficult to remember. Here’s the worst example I can think of: if yo

u  want to teach your Pokémon a TM while you’re in the Pokémon menu, you press A to sort their  moves, X to go to the TM menu, then X again to sort the TMs. See what I mean? A is being  used to sort, then X to access more options, then X to sort. The series had more elegant  controls even as far back as Generation I, where Select was used to reorder menu options. It was  intuitive, easy to remember, and universal – you could even reorder your Pokémon’s moves in the  middle of a fight. I’m not di

sputing the need for more sorting options nowadays of course, but the  modern context sensitive mapping felt so random to me that even 100+ hours into my adventure I’d  still find myself looking at the tooltips to remember how to do everything. That’s not ideal! I’m always surprised to realise that Route 203 is our first fight against Barry. Turn-based battles have fallen so far out of favour nowadays that they’re sometimes  implied to be illegitimate; outdated or archaic or however you want to

describe them.  They’re seen as a holdover from pen-and-paper RPGs – before computers were powerful enough  to perform complex calculations in real time, players would need to take turns performing  simpler calculations. To make that exciting, an element of randomness was introduced – D&D has  the players roll die to determine a lot of things, damage numbers, whether an action succeeded or  failed, and all that stuff. Not that I would know, I’ve never managed to get a bloody party together. The

appeal of real time over turn-based is obvious. Rather than have to wait  their turn and cross their fingers, players can instead rely entirely on their  own skill, with experience and dexterity instead separating the wheat from the chaff. Despite this, I find myself appreciating turn-based battles a hell of a lot. The focus on  decision-making over reactions; the tension of luck always being a factor; and the abstraction  that turn-based battles introduce helps involve me in the fantasy. Turn-b

ased battles are  again representational: they make no sense, so they’re impossible to take literally. That  allows imagination to take over – these systems create tension, and that breathes life into the  drama. Sure, on-screen it’s just a little turtle hopping up and down in front of a red monkey. But  if you’re invested, if you’re into it? It’s the first exchange in a game-long rivalry. It’s a very different attitude to what I came in with last time. Last time, I took what I think was a fairl

y reductive stance – “I play Pokémon for  the Pokémon battles.” That’s a lie – I don’t, and never have. The idea that Pokémon is just  about the battling for me is flawed. If it were, I would get the same satisfaction from  a simulator, which I evidently don’t. No, the bits in between are equally as important –  if not more so for most people! – than the battles themselves. Pokémon is an RPG, a role-playing  game – a game wherein you can make mechanical choices to characterise the adventure.  Su

re, Pokémon isn’t about story choice, you’re not about to be hit with multiple  endings here, but you choose your team, choose your approach, and yes, you choose  your strategies in battle, and that’s more than enough to change the flavour of the dish to  your liking. Battling is definitely an ingredient, but it’s just one ingredient among many. Both the overworld and the battles are needed to create the narrative. Emotionally, the  battles need context to be meaningful – the fight with Barry wo

uldn’t work to punctuate  the end of the introduction were he not established as your best friend and rival who  got his start at the same time. Mechanically, decisions on the overworld feed into the battle  screen in every way. They create different emotional textures – think of the difference  between fighting Brock with a Grass-type starter and fighting Brock with a Fire-type starter.  These emotional differences will be further atomised through playstyle and preparation –  you’re going to ha

ve a different attitude if your bag’s heaving with Potions than if it isn’t. For a long time, I was trying to figure out how I felt about Barry forcing you into a battle at  the beginning of the Route. On the one hand, unlimited access to full healing at the Pokémon  Centre defuses some tense situations, and the best way around that is to surprise the player. On  the other, it seems a little unfair to thrust the player into a tougher battle without any kind of  warning. So is it good? Is it bad?

The answer I’ve settled on is, it doesn’t matter. Barry ambushing  you is so in character for him – ready or not, here he comes! If you aren’t prepared, if you were  looking to heal up or do a little grinding, tough luck! The character’s actions on the overworld  create an emotional through line that feeds directly into the battle itself. The emotional  friction between you and your rival is emphasised by the mechanical difficulties you face. The reason, perhaps, I used to make such a distincti

on between adventuring and battling is  the game makes the same distinction itself. It even has a little ritual it performs every time  it transitions between the two. From there, the controls, the background, and even your character  model change completely. I said it last time, but didn’t flesh the thought out: before we  even think of getting rid of turn-based battles, I’d much rather see the hard separation  between overworld and battle screen removed. Technically Route 203 is our third  Rou

te, but it sure doesn’t feel like it. Those first two moved us pretty far from  our starting point, and even into our first thematic break in Jubilife City. Jubilife  also gives us two optional Routes – 204 and 218 – so it’s possible you’ve travelled  even further before hitting Route 203. So even though it’s our third Route, there are  already signs telling you how to cancel evolution – either by tapping B or voting Conservative.  It seems too early for that, but it’s definitely possible one of

your Pokémon is ready to  evolve – especially if you’ve caught Kricketot. Different Pokémon evolve earlier, later,  or not at all. Sometimes this affects their usefulness – Pokémon that evolve earlier peak in  strength early on; Pokémon that evolve later are weaker in the earlier parts of the game. More  important than any balancing consideration, though, is the way these evolutions characterise  the Pokémon and its life cycle. Bugs tend to grow quickly, and they’re also fragile: it follows  th

at early-game Bug-types peak quickly as well. So we pass through Oreburgh Gate,  get called a “total noob” by this wee shaver, and get to Oreburgh City. Ahh, “noob.” Is it weird that made me kind of nostalgic? I’ve not been called a  “noob” in ages. These days people hit out with two different slurs fused into a compound  word. That’s the last time I ever play DotA. Oreburgh City, as the name  suggests, is a big mining town. If you’re familiar with this channel, you  may be expecting a joke or t

wo about a certain prominent British politician, but it’s  been done, I don’t want to wear out the gag. Oreburgh seems to be based on Yūbari, a coal  mining city that shut its mines in the 1980s. Oh, boy, this is going to be more difficult than  I thought. Unlike Yūbari, Oreburgh’s mines are still operational, with its coal exported  to provide power to the rest of Sinnoh. The Oreburgh Mining Museum is one of those  bits of intrinsic learning that Pokémon is so good at – teaching kids how vegeta

tive  matter is subjected to heat and pressure underground for millions of years to  create coal. While it’s helping teach, though, the Museum is also fleshing out Sinnoh as  a location – we now understand, at least in part, how the region gets its energy. Energy production  even becomes semi-relevant to the story later on. Now, this may be me reading too much into it, but  there’s another little detail about the Mining Museum I love. It helps to clarify a thematic  choice. Because there’s a pop

ular association between coal and diamonds. The idea that diamonds  are made from coal is a misconception, coal contains too many impurities, but both are created  when carbon is subjected to heat and pressure over millions – if not billions – of years. So  the choice of a diamond to represent Dialga, the legendary Pokémon of time, makes a lot of  sense, doesn’t it? I love that. The Mining Museum is teaching stuff about the real world, fleshing  out Sinnoh, and introducing us to some of the game

’s theming all at the same time. I don’t care  who you are, that’s an impressive bit of work. There’s also a lot of optional dialogue  around town about how the nearby mine works. And like in Hoenn, the ecology seems  to be a huge concern for the people of Sinnoh. The Pokémon world is, of course, utopian. Like  with the Rusturf Tunnel, where construction was halted for fear of upsetting local wildlife,  there’s optional dialogue here that states the Mine was constructed without disturbing any  P

okémon habitats. It’s never explained how they accomplish this, but it seems to have something to  do with the Pokémon themselves being able to help. The fantasy elements of Pokémon’s universe  help relieve the logistics of its utopia. It’s fruitless to use Pokémon as a 1:1 comparison  with real life ecology and environmental concerns. I mean, there are Pokémon that literally love  to eat garbage, that kind of makes disposing of toxic materials a little easier than it is for  us. Here, the Macho

p help to break away rocks and dig tunnels – there’s no need for noisy  expensive machinery when you can just get your wee pal to do the same work quicker and easier. Still, even though it’s fundamentally unrealistic, there’s something to be said for fleshing out the  world like this. A kid isn’t going to ask the big logistical questions either in the real world  or the Pokémon world, so there’s no harm in the game imparting basic little bits of knowledge.  Like the fact that the coal is brought

up from under the sea, and that a slag heap is what we  call Maggie Thatcher. Gottem! Not even sorry. Possibly because there’s no dangerous  machinery around, we’re encouraged to head down to the Mine to train. The Gym  Leader Roark is down here, so you have to track him down to get him to do his bloody job. The Mine itself is disappointingly small for it being such a prominent feature. I dunno, just,  after having an entire city hyping it up and seeing all these conveyor belts and everything, 

I was expecting a bit of a dungeon here. But it isn’t, it’s just this little circle – this little  circle that, if you go around clockwise, you have to retrace your steps which is a bit of a pisser. I get it, you know, there’s not enough time in the day to make everything sparkle, and it’s not  like Oreburgh Mine is a particularly important location in the grand scheme of things. But man,  like, I really think this would have been a more compelling setting for Roark than the Gym is.  You come d

own here basically just so Roark can show off Rock Smash, then you have to toddle  off back the way you came. I think it would have been cooler if his Gym was down here instead. Back Garden hit level 13 and learned Razor Leaf. 55 Power, and a raised Critical Hit rate – that  is, a 12.5% chance of raising that power to 82.5. And I keep that move until the end of the game. I’m drawing attention to this now because, uh, hands up, this was a complete mistake  on my part. I was labouring under the as

sumption that Torterra’s Attack is so much higher than  its Special Attack that there was no point in using any Special moves. Turns out I was kidding  myself; I don’t know how the calculations work, do I? Apparently, even with its Careful Nature,  I would have been doing more consistent damage if I’d just switched over to Energy Ball. But there’s  another alternative I could have gone with that would have let me have my cake and eat it – a  consistent 80 Power running off of Torterra’s better a

ttacking stat – that I didn’t even know  was an option. Gen VIII did the wee thing a lot of favours, and I wish I’d known that going in! The series rarely finds a compelling way to introduce the Pokémon League. The game is structured as if this is the main story, basically the goal of the game.  Badges are needed to overcome the roadblocks on the overworld (whether they be HMs or NPCs),  and beating the Elite Four rolls the credits. But the story always treats it with a bit of  a shrug. It’s oft

en framed as a suggestion, “you should give it a go,” which doesn’t really  communicate that it’s basically essential. Brilliant Diamond is the worst example I can think  of, all but turning to the player and saying, “look, you know the drill.” Other trainers want  the Coal Badge – Barry puts in a bit of work here, bragging that he already has one. An inquisitive  player will also understand they need Rock Smash to get to the next area. That’s all you get. It  seems like a momentary concern, rat

her than the thread that spools out to the final boss. The  game doesn’t even bother introducing the League itself – the driving force behind the story and  it’s taken as read that you know what it is. The problem is, I don’t know what  it is. Like, let me ask you this: what is a Gym? Like, in a real-world context,  what is it supposed to be? Is it like a dojo, do people take classes there? Are the Gyms there  to be Gyms or are they, like, museums and swimming pools first and foremost? Is this s

omething  every kid is expected to do, a rite of passage into adulthood, or is it more like a sport? Sure, none of these questions are super relevant to the story, but the lack of information or  motivation leaves the introduction feeling weaker than it should. I’ve already mentioned  how strong the very start of the adventure is, but I always feel like I’ve missed a  page by the time I get to Oreburgh. We’re starting with a Rock Gym yet again. Like last time, starting with a type that has such

pronounced relationships with all  three of the starter types strikes me as a good idea. But I have two issues with it. Firstly, I wish it weren’t the same type, and the same Pokémon, so often. You’ve already got  limited choices for your team this early on, and starting off fighting Geodude and Onix yet again  only makes the beginning that bit more tedious. Secondly, the majority of Brilliant Diamond’s  early-game Rock-type Pokémon are Ground-type as well, making Water and Grass ridiculously  e

ffective. This does make Roark’s signature Pokémon, the pure Rock Cranidos, the  most threatening Pokémon in the Gym, which seems appropriate, but it makes  everything else real cannon fodder for Turtwig. I have a lot of misgivings with Pokémon  Gyms, and I’m going to try and get right down to the nub to explain why. The core  gameplay of Pokémon is resource management. Now, that’s a really reductive description,  right? It’s basically irrelevant to how people experience the games – imagine if s

omeone  told you, “I play Pokémon for the resource management,” you’d think they were a wankshaft.  I’m effectively stripping off all of the fantasy and appeal of the series to get here. But  resource management is the mechanical core of the game, and concentrating on it allows us  to examine problems that do affect the fantasy. So why do I describe it as resource management?  It’s because you’re always having to make sub-optimal decisions. Every choice you make  has a trade-off. Even if you lan

d a OHKO, you’re still giving something up, even if it’s  just 1PP for that move. By using that move now, you’re potentially giving up the  chance to use it again later on. As the battles are turn-based, taking damage  is not necessarily a mistake - you’re often trading blows, or taking a hit to manoeuvre  your pieces more effectively. In some cases it’s advantageous to take damage or even have  a Pokémon faint. Again, if you can strip off the fantasy and see the Pokémon as 1s and 0s,  you’ll re

alise they’re resources themselves, and sometimes “spending” a portion of a  health bar is the best way to win the battle. Of course, resource management also takes place  on the overworld. Money spent now means less money to spend later. An item used now allows  you to replenish your Pokémon’s health or buff their stats, but also depletes that resource  forever. It even costs money to buy Poké Balls, and each Pokémon you choose to put in your  party also costs you the opportunity to use another

. That’s something called  “opportunity cost,” funnily enough. My issue with Brilliant Diamond,  and many other Pokémon games, is that resources are so abundant it trivialises  decisions. Money, items, and PP are plentiful, so spending one becomes an easy choice. Most of  the time, I’m not even really thinking about it. Moves like Recover don’t have much appeal in-game  when your bag is heaving with items that do the exact same thing; that moveslot could be put to  better use on coverage or stat

buffs instead. You’re also never more than a minute or two away  from a Pokémon Centre, which restores your entire team back to 100% strength at no cost. Pokémon  Centres aren’t bad in and of themselves, I’d never want to see them removed. They cut the game  into chunks of management, rather than a game-long marathon. I think that’s the right decision – it’d  be too stressful for Pokémon if every mistake was effectively permanent. But it wreaks havoc with  the level design. Other RPGs benefit f

rom another kind of resource management: offsetting health  against experience. Going through a dungeon, you’re constantly deciding whether to fight  the mooks and level up or save your strength for the boss. Brilliant Diamond seems designed  for you to make this decision as well – it even hangs a lampshade on how easy it is to avoid  trainers in the Gyms. But those decisions are rare in Pokémon because progress is effectively  permanent: wild Pokémon are easily avoided, and Trainers don’t chall

enge you after they’ve  been defeated. You aren’t ever sacrificing any progress to return to the Pokémon Centre.  So that fundamental decision – to either preserve your health or get stronger – is  now completely discretionary. You can do both incredibly easily. So the question instead  becomes: can you really be bothered fighting? Now, it is possible for the game to better  capitalise on Pokémon Centres without changing any of the current systems. If there were  fewer trainers but each was more

difficult, for example, the resource management would be  focused onto a few points in every Route. You can’t return to the Pokémon Centre halfway  through a battle, after all. As it stands, the resource management is instead spread  out across a lot of quick and easy trainer battles. Hypothetically this would challenge the  player to manage resources across a longer period of time. But Pokémon doesn’t ask that of the  player, because the Pokémon Centre is an easily accessible infinitely replen

ishing resource. I’m not saying the game should be a lot more difficult, but you see how the decisions  are less rich? It smothers the tension and relief that defines the emotional peaks and  troughs of the best RPGs. You rarely get the satisfaction of successfully juggling health  and items. The game rarely manages to create the tension of working your way through  a tough area with dwindling resources, or the relief of cresting a tough boss or finding  a town when you’re about to run out of po

tions. The poster-child for these issues are  the Gyms. They all take place right next to Pokémon Centres and Marts, they’re all  filled with trainers who won’t rechallenge you, and they’re all short and easy to  navigate. It’s not even a decision anymore; it’s basically become a ritual for me to leave,  heal, and come back before I fight the boss. Enough of that, though, let’s  get down to some real criticism. Roark is embarrassed he lost to a  trainer with no badges, but didn’t that just happe

n with Barry? Ding! Game sucks. Going back through Oreburgh Gate with Rock Smash gives us the opportunity to explore the basement. Cut is usually the first HM you get, but here it’s Rock Smash, which I think is  a nice little distinction. Sinnoh is more craggy and mountainous than previous regions. Already we’re running up against a dead end – we need a Bike to clear out the rest of this cave.  Okay, so, let’s jot down that reminder, “need a Bike to finish Oreburgh Gate,” and let’s move on! Ther

e’s more to do in Jubilife on our return trip, but top of the list is our first  encounter with Team Galactic. The game makes good use of Professor Rowan  here – what better way to introduce the main villains than by having them threaten the  guy you’re indebted to? Still, Dawn’s clearly having none of it, and their ridiculous  outfits temper the threat appropriately. So the player is now acquainted with the three  driving goals of the game: helping Rowan out with the Pokédex, challenging the Po

kémon League, and  the ongoing drama with Team Galactic. As far as introductions go, 2 out of 3’s not bad! By the way, Team Galactic are known as Ginga-dan in Japanese. It’s the same name as the villainous group in Game Freak’s 1994 Mega  Drive game Pulseman. That isn’t relevant at all, but now that I’ve said it you don’t have to. Bebe comes along afterwards to hand us the Box Link, which lets us access  our PC Boxes from anywhere. This is one of those quality of life  updates that almost object

ively makes the play experience smoother. The tedium of trawling  back to a Pokémon Centre to retrieve a Pokémon is decisively cut from Brilliant Diamond. I have a lot of misgivings with this system, but they’re not really in focus yet, and they’re  tied quite closely to my misgivings with another system. So we’ll leave the negatives  aside for just now and focus on the fact that the Box Link is broadly well implemented. It makes the experience of getting new Pokémon a hundred times smoother. Pl

ans can be enacted as  soon as they’ve been made – encounter a Pokémon you like the look of and your entire party  can be reorganised without interrupting your progress. Being able to move items around; select  multiple Pokémon; trade directly from the Box; re-learn moves from the Box; and see the Pokémon’s  Summary before deciding where to send it is such a godsend after playing the older games. The way healing works has changed as well. Caught Pokémon are no longer healed when they’re  sent to

the Box, but when your party is healed at the Centre. Otherwise, you’d just send all your  new Pokémon back to the PC and then switch them back into your party. This also has the added  little bonus of making Heal Balls more valuable. The Box Link also complements the game’s  social features. Both the Boxes and the connectivity features are accessible anywhere;  there’d be no point decoupling the Union Room from the Pokémon Centre if you had to  be at a Pokémon Centre to use the PC. Lastly, the

Box Link can’t be accessed inside  Gyms or the Pokémon League. There’s at least some acknowledgement that the game needs to  limit you to challenge you. Limiting you to your chosen team of 6 is spot on. You want to see some Clown AI? Okay, so this fella does something pretty smart.  When faced with a Mr. Mime 2 levels above me, my first instinct is to start buffing. So imagine  my surprise when Mr. Mime… does this. Okay, shit, that’s pretty clever! My back’s kind of against  the wall here, I’m

probably going to lose this—oh. Well never mind then. There’s not a whole lot to talk about at Jubilife TV. The Lotto rewards you for trading Pokémon. The records room allows you to compete  with your pals. This was always something I felt should have been kept on the player – accessible  through a menu or something – rather than tucked away in a little-visited corner of the map.  Regardless, I never knew anyone who took an interest in these, the game’s better  at fostering competition in other

ways. The reason we’re here though,  is to get Mystery Gift early. Normally you’d get it by beating the  third Gym, but you can also get it here, presumably in case you’ve started a new game and  are in danger of missing an event. Like I was! Mystery Gift is weird, man. Fundamentally  it’s fine; it’s essentially just an easy distribution method for special items and events.  Which is cool, I’m totally down with that, but it seems weird having an entire menu icon  dedicated to it. Most games nowa

days would just automatically give you these gifts if you  turned the game on while they were available, rather than having to unlock the option then put  in a code. It feels like a vestigial feature from a bygone age. I’m not even complaining, I kind of  like it, I kind of like that Pokémon is still this awkward lumbering beast, tripping itself up with  features that haven’t been necessary for like a decade. That said, it’d be cool if something more  could be done with it – maybe an easier way

to trade items with friends or something. Ravaged Path is a long and gruelling—oh, it’s done. There’s a little optional bit to the West, but it’s essentially just there to ensure you  have Rock Smash. But it draws too much attention to itself to just be a progress check – it’s  both a named location and a change in scenery! Nevertheless, as far as checks  go, this is ideal; the player is given an active role in overcoming the obstacle. You can imagine a more passive scenario, like an NPC who’s h

ung his washing up to dry over the cave  entrance and will only move once the player beats Roark – the game essentially saying, “come back  later.” Getting past that obstacle wouldn’t feel empowering, but more like a relief: “finally.”  Reason being that the player wouldn’t be offered any context for how they cleared that obstacle. It’s a lot more difficult to be upset when a literal rock is being obstinate; it creates an  adversarial relationship between the player and the environment that crea

tes a sense of adventure  and progress. There’s a rock in your way, so you need to go elsewhere and find something  to break it. It’s a tiny bit of storytelling that creates a world of difference. The word “Sinnoh” is derived from the kanji 神奥, meaning “mysterious and profound.” It’s an appropriate name: the region is packed with myth and superstition; even an out-of-the-way  little town like Floaroma Town has its own history and culture. Floaroma is said to have once been  a barren wasteland wh

ere nothing would grow, until someone expressed their appreciation for  nature’s bounty, whereupon the hill flourished into the verdant paradise it is today. Brilliant Diamond takes a lot from Shinto mythology, as we’ll see, and a large part of  Shinto cosmology is belief in kami – that all things – animal, mineral, vegetable – have a  sort of soul or a spirit. Floaroma’s myth can be interpreted using this idea – that the flowers  bloomed when nature’s spirit was respected. The game also offers

a literal explanation, if you’d  prefer – that the Pokémon Shaymin’s power caused the hill to bloom. Shaymin’s Shining Pearl Pokédex  entry reads: “It can dissolve toxins in the air to instantly transform ruined land into a lush  field of flowers.” Its Platinum entry reads: “The flowers all over its body burst into bloom  if it is lovingly hugged and senses gratitude.” It’s also shown to have a connection to  the Gracidea flowers you can get here, which are said to symbolise gratitude. Both the

literal and metaphysical explanations coexist peacefully – they’re not even mutually  exclusive. My preferred explanation is that Shaymin is the spirit of nature itself. But  I think this storytelling is dead impressive: it says a lot about the world of Sinnoh that  these events are kept alive through myth. Speaking of myth – I need to remember to  give thanks to the spirit of segues for that one – you can also get Mew and Jirachi here. Well, you can if you’ve bought previous games, anyway – Pok

émon Let’s Go for Mew and Pokémon  Sword or Pokémon Shield for Jirachi. Balancing these kinds of rewards, where you’re essentially  thanking your audience for their loyalty, is a tricky business. If the rewards are too  meagre it doesn’t feel like the player’s being respected for sticking around. If the rewards  are too great you risk alienating new players. Nobody wants to feel like they’re missing out  on a core part of the game if they haven’t also bought the last two games in the series. Per

sonally, I think this is a reasonable compromise. You don’t have to have Mew or  Jirachi to get through the game, but nevertheless they’re pretty rare and elusive Pokémon. But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I? I understand the frustration. I don’t care much  about Mew or Jirachi, and yet I have them anyway; if you care a lot and don’t, I get how that would  be annoying. I’ve been on the wrong side of this sort of thing myself, in this very game even! I’m  still mad that I can’t use the Platinu

m outfit; I really like it, but I started this file long  after that promotion ended. This practice is designed to galvanise consumer response: buy more  games and buy ‘em quick before these bonuses are gone forever! Unfortunately “fear of missing  out” is always going to be an inherent aspect of a series about collectible creatures. Valid as I think the frustration is, recently the series has been accused of being  “anti-consumer” or “pay to win” because of these practices, and I don’t really a

gree. I don’t  get the impression you’re expected to spend a hundred quid just to get these two Pokémon. I  don’t think you’re expected to buy a new Pokémon game just to get the competitive powerhouse  legendary. Ideally these are cherries on top of an otherwise fully-featured game. The only way to  resolve this issue completely would be to release a new Pokémon game with no new Pokémon. I  understand that, for competitive players, the games themselves are a means to an end, but  you have to rec

ognise that competitive play is a small slice of a much bigger pie. I’m not trying  to tell you you shouldn’t be angry mind you: I think Pokémon’s handling of its competitive scene  has been atrocious – we’ll get to some of the reasons why later. I just don’t think it has to  be an anti-consumer problem to still be a problem! At the very least Pokémon’s anti-consumer  practices are nowhere near as egregious as any other given multiplayer game.  After all, in a worst-case scenario, you can trade

your friends for these rare Pokémon.  Count yourself lucky, there are far worse games that could have gotten their hooks in you instead. I don’t mean to tell you it’s fine because there are worse examples out there; that’s fallacious.  It’s just that crass monetisation isn’t a Pokémon problem, it’s a game industry problem. And  like I say, in the grand scheme of things, I think this is a fairly harmless concession – if  this is the worst Pokémon gets, I’ll be happy. But I will say, just on a per

sonal note? If the series  wants to thank me for my loyalty the best thing it can do is keep making games that I enjoy. I don’t  need these baubles or trinkets – especially not if they’re held over other players. “Look at  this cool guy, he has Mew and Jirachi,” man, I don’t want your blood Pokémon! Normally I’d put an ad about here, but I’d instead like to do some promotion of my  own. For those of you using AdBlock… uh, sorry. First of all, thank you so, so much to the  Kings, Queens, and Them

perors on Patreon for your patience and support, including those  names scrolling past the screen just now. I’m being completely literal when I say  this wouldn’t have happened without you. This video was a hell of a lot of effort to  make. If you feel like helping me out – first of all, thank you! – but you can do so by  clicking one of the thumbs and the bell, or typing something below. It’s a cliché for  a reason: even saying something stupid like, “Donnie got cheese crumbs in my mother’s  Ap

pletiser” helps a hell of a lot. I’ve also left my socials on screen if you’re interested.  Thank you for indulging me; on with the show. Floaroma seems to be based on the town of  Tomamae, judging by its location and the nearby Valley Windworks. This is our setting  for the first real Team Galactic incident. The game leads you nicely into getting involved.  There’s a history between you and Team Galactic, and there’s a wee lassie crying because  they’ve kidnapped her dad. Worst of all, two Grun

ts are guarding the bridge and I’m  far too socially awkward to tell them where to stick it. Part of me wants to complain about  the trainers that are right there on Route 205, like, why have they got the Galactic go-ahead, but  more than anything I just find it funny; I like to imagine everyone else just tells them to fuck off. Nobody can take the Galactic Grunts seriously, and that allows the story to account for a lot  of the silliness. Moments that should feel like contrivances – like the Gr

unts in Floaroma Town  just so happening to drop the key you need – land comfortably since they’re so clearly and  cartoonishly incompetent. The script plays this up beautifully – I still laugh at the lad locking  himself indoors with a triumphant, “In that sense, I’m no longer the loser!” only for you to come  back two minutes later with the spare key. Turtwig evolves into Grotle  just in time for one of Pokémon’s more infamous battles: Commander Mars. One detail I really like in the Galactic b

attles is the backgrounds. They whisk you away to a weird  sub-dimension. The background gets more planets and moons the higher the opponent’s rank, which I  think is stylish! The battle against Team Galactic is more of a focus than the environment, so this  feels like an appropriate bit of set dressing. Mars really earns her planets. Keep in mind,  we haven’t even reached the second Gym yet, and she sets a fully-evolved Pokémon on you:  Purugly. Decent attack and bulk for this stage in the game

, excellent speed, resistances to Fire  and Ice with Thick Fat, only a single weakness, and it’s even holding an Oran Berry. It’s no  wonder this thing gets compared to Whitney’s Miltank. It’s a bit of a difficulty hump to  be sure, but that’s not a complaint at all. Purugly is fairly high up there on my  list of favourite Pokémon, and I think a lot of that has to do with it sticking the  boot in in this fight. I love its design, too – I never realised before the series went 3D  that it's holdin

g its stomach in with its tail like a corset. That's really cute - they've  managed to balance the cat and the Victorian aristocrat aesthetic perfectly to create this  snub-nosed supercilious wee furball. You always get the feeling it’s looking down its nose at you. Mars’ AI puts in a good showing as well. Here, she confuses and then uses U-Turn, which allows her  to deal a little damage and then potentially get a switch after you’ve moved. Afterwards, she saves  Purugly by switching back to her

Zubat who has a massive Grass resistance. It distinguishes her –  and Team Galactic, by extension – as a legitimate threat, even in spite of her underlings. Anyway, with Team Galactic driven off and the girl’s smelly dad rescued – I love this  game’s script man, I swear down – we’re offered a clue into a rare and elusive balloon  Pokémon that sometimes shows up here. Now, Drifloon only shows up on  a Friday. Anticipating this, I took the Thursday off so I could  record this segment on the Frida

y, not realising that Drifloon only starts showing  up the first Friday after you beat Team Galactic. I’d be more mad at the game about that, it’s  a very awkward setup, but I already knew about this! The game released on a Friday and I had the  exact same problem then! What a fucking dunce cap. With the bridge cleared, our  next stop is Eterna City. Lots of NPCs flag up the distance  between Floaroma and Eterna, creating a sense of continuity and giving a  sense of purpose to this leg of your j

ourney. Route 205 is home to Eterna Forest, the  early-game forest filled with Poison Bug Pokémon that seems to be contractually mandated.  I kid, really I like this little tradition a lot, as well as its associated Bug Catchers. As you  probably know, Pokémon was created in tribute to a childhood spent catching bugs – a hobby  since paved over by urban sprawl. The connection between catching bugs and catching Pokémon  is so strong the comparison immediately makes sense of Pokémon’s fairly outla

ndish concept.  If you’re not familiar with Pokémon, the game’s basically telling you point blank, “it’s like bug  catching,” which is all the explanation it needs. An NPC complains that he hadn’t enough Antidotes,  advising you to stock up before you head into Eterna Forest. But this advice – as well as the  rest stop right outside the entrance – seems a little redundant when you’re going to get a full  heal between every battle courtesy of Cheryl. Cheryl is the first of what are known as “stat

  trainers.” Each of the 5 trainers focus on a different stat – Cheryl, for example, uses  Pokémon with high hit points like Chansey. The most memorable thing about these  trainers, moreso than their focusing on stats, is that you’re forced to partner  up with them while tackling their particular area. Battles become 2-on-2 affairs  with you shackled to an AI companion. Here’s a shortlist of frustrations. You now have  to wait while the computer makes 3 moves to your 1. There’s still no targetin

g with Poké Balls,  so if you want to catch anything you have to knock the other Pokémon out first. Once you do,  you have to pray your companion doesn’t KO your target while you’re tossing Balls; this is the  big one, there’s no way to coordinate with the AI, meaning you’ll sometimes trip one another up. Perhaps in acknowledgement of this last flaw, the game gives you an automatic full party heal  between every battle. Resource management is effectively non-existent during these parts;  there’s

no need to plan ahead when you’ve got a portable Pokémon Centre standing right next  to you. Chansey’s an inspired choice for their introduction, being pretty much the closest  thing Pokémon has to a cleric or white mage. I don’t even hate these bits really, it  just becomes a bit mindless. They show up and I think, oh, time to turn my brain  off for the next twenty minutes or so. I love Eterna City. The city was founded long ago in tribute to an ancient Pokémon. The  statue erected in its hono

ur is so ancient both the text and the memory of the creature have had  time to fade. The people aren’t quite sure what it even looked like, hence the mish-mash of  design elements from both Dialga and Palkia. But the City isn’t just frozen in time. People  live here so it’s constantly modernising; paved roads, bicycles, and condos stand  side-by-side with quaint little wooden houses. The city seems to be in danger of losing a lot  of its traditions; one old woman remembers how the statue used t

o be the centrepiece of many  festivals, which doesn’t seem to be the case any more. It gives the city – and Sinnoh,  by extension – a tangible sense of history. It’s really authentic. In older cities  – the one that springs to mind most for me is Edinburgh – there is no single  decisive modernisation effort. Instead, different bits and pieces get preserved or built  over depending on the priorities and circumstances and building permits of the people living there. The music drives home the them

e, beginning with old-fashioned instruments: wood blocks, woodwind,  and plucked violin. The clip-clop of the wood blocks evoke the constant forward march of time  – slowly plodding along, never hurried. Horses, of course – or perhaps Ponytas – would have  been used to help build the city, both as beasts of burden and to bring travellers. The song  progresses into increasingly more modern sounds, while the harmonica evokes a wistfulness  for the past. A jazzy piano and sax play as the song gets

more frantic, then a crescendo…  before the song remembers its history and returns to the violin and wood blocks. It’s perfect –  past and present both jostling for attention. I think this is why Sinnoh is my favourite region,  even with its shortcomings – no other region comes close to the quality of its worldbuilding.  Unique to games is the ability to allow their audience to just occupy a space; Eterna City is  objectively a tiny little blocky diorama, but the ability to move around at your l

eisure, talk to  inconsequential little background characters who happen to live there, letting the music wash over  you, the ability to just exist in this space lets it impart an atmosphere and story all its own. Team Galactic are menacing Eterna, their big spiky building looming over the city. I love how they’re used to direct your attention – you’re told not to investigate the statue, which  only makes you want to investigate all the more. This is also where we meet Cynthia. I’ve no  reason t

o hide it this time, Cynthia is the Champion. Even though she could probably walk in  and level the building if she had half a mind to, she instead gives you Cut and leaves you to it. To use Cut, we need to beat the Gym. To beat the Gym, we need to catch something that can do  a better job handling Grass and Poison types. To catch something that can do a better  job handling Grass and Poison types, we need to go Underground. The Grand Underground is a giant cave system that spiders out across th

e Sinnoh  region. We’ll talk about it in more detail later, but all you really need to know just now is you  can find wild Pokémon down here. We’re looking for two Pokémon at the minute: Togepi and Scyther. The fantasy of catching Pokémon is intoxicating. I’ve never been much into bug catching (we used  to race snails, I suppose, which was as exciting as you would expect), but I love animals, which  the majority of Pokémon end up resembling. While I’ve never felt compelled to catch ‘em all, I’ve

  always been compelled to catch the ones I like. Appropriately, catching and raising a new  Pokémon is one of the best feelings in these games. Playing Pokémon is inherently expressive;  no two playthroughs will look the same. Choosing which Pokémon you want to add to your team  and then deciding how you raise it is another little fractal branch that distinguishes  your journey from everybody else’s. Each decision you make feels personal; you get to  claim ownership of both your Pokémon and the

adventure. It only enhances the satisfaction  of overcoming a tough area when you’re given so much freedom in how you do it. There wasn’t  a script, you did it – you and your Pokémon. Sure, those Pokémon aren’t real. Your imagination  is having to do a lot of the heavy lifting here, and I can imagine if this isn’t the kind of  fantasy you get into you’ll be scratching your head wondering what all the fuss  is about. It’s just a poorly-animated cartoon tortoise standing around while  you select

things from menus. Big whoop. But I always end up sort of attached to my  poorly-animated cartoon tortoise because it reflects something about myself; the choices  that I’ve made across this adventure reflect my values and interests. I like Turtwig more  than the other choices, and while that probably doesn’t mean anything profound, it says a  little something about me. Why do you think discussions about starter Pokémon get so heated? Starter Pokémon often feel like they ought to be your most pr

ized Pokémon because they’re the one  you have the longest history with, but in many ways it’s the Pokémon you catch later that say  more about you - even if it’s just something as simple as, “I have a Noctowl because I play at  night.” Sure, again, not particularly profound, but I feel like you can tell a little something  about a person by their Pokémon team. Put it this way, you’d have a different impression  of how a player plays if they had a Garchomp on their team instead of that Noctowl.

Pokémon’s fantasy manifests mechanically as a unique twist on the traditional RPG:  rather than choose from a limited number of team members with defined roles, you instead  choose team members from an enormous pool. This mechanic offsets the genre’s linearity.  While you don't have many options for where you can go thanks to barriers and roadblocks  in the level design, the teambuilding mechanics give you endless options for  how you engage with the available areas. There are plenty of ways to

build a team:  covering weaknesses with a variety of types; complementing strengths with type or move combos;  playing hard and fast; playing slow and defensive; or anything in between. You can mix and match  loads of different effects, balance moves and stats, or even just do a grab-bag approach and  choose the designs you like. All valid approaches, all satisfying in their own way. You can’t  really understate the importance of options in a role-playing game, can you? I mean, without those  op

tions, how else are you supposed to play a role? It’s a hugely important point, it’s basically core  to Pokémon’s mechanical identity, and it makes the title “An Exhaustive Look at Pokémon” really kind  of futile. Fact is, this isn't an exhaustive look; I'm going through it once with one team. If I  wanted to get the full experience, I'd have to play through it dozens if not hundreds of times  with different builds and teams. In a lot of ways, a shorter video will be more authentic to most  play

ers’ play experience because with a lack of specificity comes a broad applicability. Trust me,  I’m well aware of my methodological shortcomings. We named Togepi Scramble, because Togekiss is both  an egg and a plane. We named Scyther Vice Vespa, because Scizor has like vices on its  hands, and it’s a pun on vice versa, and… uh, it vaguely resembles a wasp, I suppose?  You know, if you squint a little? Forget it then. Eterna Gym takes the form of  a maze, with the perspective used to hide traine

rs behind the trees. It’s one of the most unremarkable Gyms in the series. Sure, there are plenty of  less interesting ones conceptually – this reminds me of the Trick House a little – but  it slides straight out of my head because it reuses the stock plant graphics. If you can’t see  the walls, you may as well be outside. It doesn’t help that Vice Vespa made short work of the place  – what else is a scythe for if not cutting grass? The Gym Leader is called Gardenia, which, when I  first played,

I took as evidence that they were running out of names. I mean, they just took the  word “garden” and added a vaguely female sounding suffix after it right? Egg on my face though  because of course Gardenia is a girl’s name, taken from the flower. Apparently the flower  was named after Scottish botanist Sir Alexander Garden, who was born in Aberdeen. Just goes  to show you can accomplish a lot in life, even if you can’t kick a jelly bean. So Team Galactic are acting up in Eterna, engaging in su

ch antisocial activities as adding  menacing spikes to the side of their building, planting topiaries right in front of their  door, and, oh aye, stealing everybody’s Pokémon. I don’t actually understand why they’re stealing  everybody’s Pokémon. My first guess was that it’s a Pokémon game, and that just seems to be the  villainous team’s remit. But important to keep in mind for your understanding of Team Galactic is  this: they don’t seem to know what it is they’re doing either. Once again the

dialogue sparkles –  “Our objectives are incredible – too incredible for me to understand! I’ll fight blindly  to defend them!” They’re talking shite! And speaking of talking shite… Skuntank’s a  Pokémon. I’m not about to launch into a big diatribe about them putting a bum in a kids’  game, you know, even I’m not that miserable, but yeah, this isn’t my favourite Pokémon  design. It’s a skunk… it stinks… so it’s a bum and it makes a fart noise. It’s fine,  if there’s a fart joke in this game that

ruined my play experience, it’s not this one  – it’s just a bit on the nose – on the nose! Anyway, we rescue Rad Rickshaw’s Pokémon  – I don’t know what happened to everyone else’s – and are given the bike for our troubles.  I chose red because purple wasn’t available. What you’re looking at now is the first  time I figured out – and keep in mind I’ve been playing these games since 2007 – the  first time I figured out the game’s being literal when it says you can use the bike  stands. Is that j

ust me? Am I the stupid one? Leave a comment at your discretion calling  me either a fake fan, or funny and relatable. Normally this is where I’d go back to the Old  Chateau, because it’s here and we have Cut now, but we hit a bit of a snag trying to do so. You might remember I had a lot to say about these back in Omega Ruby – the game ushering  you away from interesting side content to keep you on track. I thought Brilliant Diamond  was going to give me the same sort of snash my first time thro

ugh, but thankfully  not, this was in the original games too, and it’s the only time it happens. Which  got me thinking: why? Why specifically block players who want to visit the Old Chateau? Well, the flag clears when you meet Dawn on the far end of Cycling Road. She gives  you the Vs. Seeker and the Dowsing Machine, so it seems likely the game needs a way to stop  you from skipping her by going all the way back to Oreburgh and up the slippery slope. It’s a  bit of a clunker all the same – Eter

na Forest is filled with spooky little hints that you want  to go investigate, but this is a hard roadblock, it’s a pretty firm “no.” They employed  a way more elegant solution in Platinum, which was just to put Dawn slightly further along  the path! It's not the most egregious omission from Platinum, but we’ll get to that later. With no other choice, we’re off down Cycling Road. Open road, the wind in your hair… or maybe not, as  it were. Cycling Road in this game’s nowhere near as interesting

as the one in Hoenn, unfortunately  – just a straight shot from North to South. Recent games have had your character puff into  some cycling gear when they bring out their bike; you look a bit of a goon but it’s definitely  the responsible message to send to kids. Honestly were it not for protective gear  I think my immediate family would probably all be dead – I remember coming off my bike at  one point and it looked like someone had taken a small ice cream scoop to the knee guard. Anyway, I wa

s a grumpy little stubborn baby boy and went the long way around  back to the Old Chateau. Listen, I was playing at night specifically for this bit,  and there was no way I was waiting another day. Eterna Forest is shown to be a supernatural place  on your first visit – the Psychics mention a presence there, and you can catch Gastly (and  Misdreavus or Murkrow) at nighttime. The Old Chateau seems to be the source of the disturbance  – an abandoned mansion filled with Ghost Pokémon. There’s not m

uch to do here – you can  only really find one thing of interest, and that’s in the post-game and entirely optional.  And that’s brilliant. The Old Chateau leaves so much more of an impression as an unexplained  side area, one all but forgotten by the world and the characters in it. There’s always the  temptation to go further into these things, to try and stir the pot with a tantalising  mystery, but just as effective, I feel, is to leave it alone and let the atmosphere thicken.  Something bad

has clearly happened for the building to house so many resentful spirits, but  you’re the trespasser here; it doesn’t owe you any answers that could offer an easy emotional exit.  All you’re left with is the glare of the painting, the discordant phrases of music like snatches of  memory, and the static of the television screen. The pièce de résistance of this creepy  little vignette is this. I really don’t want to draw attention to this, as with a lot  of things it’s better unexplained, but I ne

ed to talk about how this works because it’s so  simple and so effective. This event is random; the girl has a small chance of appearing every  time you enter this room. And that wee bit of random chance adds so much to the unexplained,  urban legend nature of this area. The first time I ever played Pearl back in 2007, the girl  appeared on my first try. But she absolutely refused to show up for my friend, who thought  I was taking the piss. There’s no better way to show mischievous ghosts sowin

g distrust and  confusion than by having the player live it. Route 206 winds itself between  the legs of Cycling Road. It’s interesting perhaps because of how linear  the upper Route is. There are tons of nooks and crannies, narrow passageways to squeeze through,  and secrets to be found. It reminds me of the forgotten bits of land beneath railway bridges  or between fields – its purpose served, it’s left to become overgrown with rocks and thickets. Ponyta can be found here, just below Eterna –

maybe it really did help build the city! Ponyta is, infamously, one of two Fire-types in the original Pokémon Diamond  and Pearl. The other is Chimchar, so if you didn’t pick the Fire-type starter,  you had the option of… one Fire-type Pokémon. The Fire-types are victims of a bigger problem –  a limited Pokédex. Diamond and Pearl are infamous for their paddling pool of available Pokémon. There are 151 Pokémon in the original Sinnoh ‘Dex, but that isn’t even the whole story – Kanto had  151 Pokém

on too and nobody complains about that. I’ve no idea how I’d go about testing this, but I  don’t really feel like Sinnoh is that much bigger than Kanto that could account for the difference. The problem is, you’re not working with 151 Pokémon; you’re working with far fewer. You’ve  already got the usual Pokémon staples like starters, legendaries, and version exclusives  thinning out the herd, that’s normal. But on top of that, a huge number of Sinnoh’s Pokémon are  novelties. If we cross out the

Honey Tree Pokémon, daily or event Pokémon, and a bunch of  miscellaneous Pokémon (Happiny can’t be found in-game; Unown is there for lore reasons  rather than teambuilding), that’s you slashed the Pokédex substantially. There’s definitely  debate about the validity of my choices; the point I’m herding you towards here is there’s  only about 47 families you can find in grass, caves, and water. Sure, Spiritomb, Milotic,  and Snorlax are technically in the Sinnoh ‘Dex, but practically they may as

well not exist.  That’s not even mentioning the Pokémon that are difficult – if not impossible! – to evolve; those  that are only available very late in the game; and the abundance of Water-types. Goldeen and  Finneon? You spoil us. If you aren’t either incredibly lucky or willing to grind for ages your  options are limited considerably by these Pokémon. You can make the argument that it may be good  to limit the player’s options. It could force players to make more meaningful decisions, it  co

uld help focus the balancing of the game, it could help weaker Pokémon represent a better value  proposition since they have less competition. But that’s all hypothetical; Pokémon has never  been especially well curated. QED – there are two Fire-types in Sinnoh, and that’s about  it. And that has a knock-on effect with the rest of the game’s options. Sunny Day is less  useful, for example, and Steel-types become more viable because one of their major weaknesses  is removed. Scizor, whose only we

akness is Fire, has very little to worry about in this game. On a more basic level though, in a role-playing game, I don’t think balancing is as important as  options. Players can – and will! – essentially balance themselves by making different choices. The remakes address this issue, presumably because if they didn’t the fanbase would  descend on their keyboards like their only natural predator – infinite monkeys. The Grand Underground does wonders for team diversity, offering you not just an 

enormous pool of new Pokémon but also a lot of freedom in how and when you catch them.  I wouldn’t have been able to use Scyther or Togepi in the original Diamond and Pearl. Unfortunately it still feels like a band-aid solution – a plaster over the problem  rather than a proper fix. Because the limited pool of Pokémon is not just an issue  in a vacuum: it’s also a level design issue. Sinnoh is perhaps the series’ most well-defined  ecology. The whole region makes sense: there’s no moment like Sh

oal Cave, where  you’re not sure how it works but you roll with it anyway to catch some Ice-types. That’s a  huge strength – it’s something I prize greatly. But it’s also the game’s Achilles’ Heel. Part of  the reason I think there are so few Fire-types is because there’s no Fire-type level to support  them. So while Sinnoh is really well-defined, that also means that any Pokémon that wouldn’t  fit the cold and craggy landscape is out. So you’re going to encounter many of the same  Pokémon acros

s the length of the adventure. And that makes wild encounters less valuable  and less interesting. If you caught a Geodude in Oreburgh Gate, you have less reason to  investigate a patch of grass on Route 206 when it’s likely to just be another Geodude. So while the Grand Underground fixes your teambuilding problems, it doesn’t interact with  the rest of the map. Trainers don’t update their rosters from the original games, and none of  the new Pokémon have been added to the regional Pokédex. “Got

ta catch ‘em all,” the tagline says.  Except for that one, apparently, that one doesn’t count. It also means that Pokémon aren’t grounded;  they’re not enriching the world and its history like they were before. I find Absol down here – a  Pokémon with a subtle narrative function in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, now plucked from that  context and just thrown in a random room designed to generate Pokémon. It’s not the end of the  world or anything, but you see how that’s weaker. I’m trying not to j

ust make this the Pokémon  Platinum fanboy hour, but that game’s greatest triumph was how organically it fixed these  issues. It didn’t crowbar in any new areas that could upset Sinnoh’s ecology – if anything, it  doubled down on the cold climate! Instead, it made considerate additions to expand the regional ‘Dex  by a whopping 60. The Fire-type additions are the perfect example. Nothing about Houndoom suggests  it has to exist in superheated environments, and being pack animals it makes sense f

or them to  exist on the rocky plains of Route 214. Magmar, on the other hand, is attracted to the heat  of the molten foundry at Fuego Ironworks. I think that same consideration would have  made Brilliant Diamond all the stronger. Still, with all that mealy-mouthed prevaracating  out of the way, it has to be said… Brilliant Diamond fixes the issue! Good for it! At the end of Route 206 sits Wayward Cave, home to Bronzor. Bronzor has a lot of myth and culture surrounding it, but who gives a shit,

it’s also  got a 1 in 20 chance of holding the Metal Coat. Evolution can be induced in many ways. Levelling up, levelling up with high friendship, levelling up with an item held, using an item,  trading, trading with an item held, levelling up in a particular area, levelling up with high  Beauty, levelling up while holding the console upside down – yes, seriously, no, seriously. As time goes on, I find myself appreciating these unique and outlandish evolution methods  more and more. And the mai

n reason, I think, is because of the Exp. Share. I’ll have a lot  more to say about the Exp. Share later, of course I will, but it makes gaining experience passive; a  byproduct of playing rather than an representation of learning and growth. I’ve got Meditite in my  party specifically to evolve it – until then, it’s literally just set and forget. Having to  perform a silly ritual to evolve once again makes you an active participant in that process. Unique evolutions have many advantages besides

. They can create “side quests;” they can lock  away powerful evolutions until certain points of the game; they can better characterise the  Pokémon and its life cycle; and they can just be more fun. I love that there’s a Pokémon  that actually evolves in a particular way if you give it an item and spin counterclockwise  for more than 10 seconds between 7 and 8pm. The problem with them is, the series is  horrendous at directing the player towards these evolutions. I never figured out there was a

  relationship between Scyther and the Metal Coat; I saw a picture of Scizor in the Pokémon Handbook  2 and eventually looked up “how to get Scizor.” I never figured out there was a 5% chance of Bronzor  holding a Metal Coat; I punched “how to get metal coat pokemon brilliant diamond” into Google. The  relationship between the two makes sense – Scizor resembles a Scyther covered in a metal coat – but  it only makes sense in retrospect, after you’ve seen Scizor, and even then there’s nothing  tha

t suggests it needs to have been traded. I have no shame about using a guide, I  don’t think there’s any more problem with that than there is asking a friend. The  problem is, unlike talking to a friend, looking up a guide just isn’t very much fun to  me. And yet it feels practically essential if you’re interested in evolving your Pokémon.  Because figuring this stuff out for yourself isn’t fun either; it’s practically impossible.  Maybe I’m just ignorant, maybe I’m showing my whole entire arse

here, but I’ve very rarely  been able to put the pieces together myself. Funnily enough, one of the few weirdo evolutions  I think people will figure out on their own is Alcremie’s, is the one where you need to give it  an item and spin in place. The description on that item strongly hints at what you need to do. And  that’s a brilliant solution. Having something in Scyther’s Pokédex entry that mentions the Metal  Coat, or even just an NPC somewhere who offers an oblique hint, would encourage pl

ayers to pay  attention and minimise their reliance on guides. Having to trade to evolve certain Pokémon is  another locus of complaint. And although I like the idea, it feels so arbitrary that, yeah,  I’m with you: I’m going to complain about it too. Evolution represents your Pokémon’s growth. This  is often literal: the traditional three-stage evolution sees a Pokémon grow from infancy  into an adolescent into an adult. Part of the fantasy there, part of the appeal, is the idea  that you’ve he

lped them grow, and so in their growth you see a reflection of your own progress.  This doesn’t only apply to experience either: progress can take many forms – solving a puzzle  or tracking down a rare item. Personally, I think social interaction is a valid way to  mark progress. So trade evolutions basically work for me. Trading and social interaction are  huge parts of these games, so it makes sense to lock certain evolutions behind that criteria. The execution makes absolutely zero sense. It

doesn’t match the fantasy of either raising  Pokémon yourself or trading. Your avatar – your representative in the game world – doesn’t  get to see the Pokémon they’ve raised evolve with their own eyes, so it doesn’t feel like the  culmination of your efforts. Sure, if you’re in person you can look over your pal’s shoulder, but  that’s assuming you’re even both in the same room. You also don’t get the satisfaction of passing  the torch or helping a friend: you’re not passing along your beloved P

okémon for them to raise,  and you’re not giving them anything they want in exchange. All you’re doing is handing the  Pokémon off and then they hand it straight back. It just isn’t fun. I’ve never had an interesting  interaction doing this – it’s always just been, “hey, have you got a minute? Sorry about this.” The only saving grace could be – again – if it told us something about the Pokémon. But it’s  a random smattering of Pokémon that evolve this way. If Scyther evolved by holding the Metal

  Coat and levelling up, that I could understand: your Pokémon being forged in battle. If it  were a social Pokémon that evolved via trade, like Jigglypuff, who loves an audience, or Sylveon  who’s literally called the “Intertwining Pokémon,” that would at least tell us it’s a species that  loves human interaction. It makes new friends and that’s how it evolves! Instead, we get trade  evolutions like Kadabra into Alakazam, or this: Scyther into Scizor. I don’t know how to feel  about either the

mechanics or the fantasy of this evolution because it feels so arbitrary. Trading for Vice Vespa to evolve gives us the opportunity to talk about the Union Room. The Union Room forces you to halt all your progress and squeeze into a weird liminal space.  Here you can battle or trade with anyone nearby, or with a small selection of people  chosen randomly if you’re online. This is, obviously, much, much worse than the  PSS from Gen VI, but I find it difficult to be upset about that. Apparently, f

rom what I heard  after the fact, the PSS was an incredible strain on the servers. Keep in mind, Pokémon sells  absolute gangbusters – I can imagine that, yeah, the servers would buckle under the strain  of the entire Pokémon community playing at launch. The Union Room downsizes. It gives social  functions a dedicated area so you can’t just keep them on in the background perpetually.  And that makes a lot of sense. It’s still quick and easy to access, you just have  to let the game know ahead of

time that you’re ready to interact with other players. The only thing I don’t like is how your options are restricted while you’re in here. You can’t  change your Pokémon’s held items or anything like that. I guess it has something to do with the game  having to save data beforehand, but either way, it’s clunky to have to go out and back in  if you want to trade an item to your friend, or you need a specific item for evolution. Wayward Cave is a dark and confusing labyrinth. Not to worry, becau

se we still have Flash, which,  being a TM rather than an HM, still works like it used to. Instead of choosing the move from your  Pokétch, you need to have a Pokémon that knows Flash in your party and then use it from the  Pokémon menu. The Box Link makes this pointless busywork – you don’t have to dedicate a moveslot  to it, you can stick the Pokémon back in the Box and the effect still lingers. You can also do  this with Teleport, by the way – it's handy if you want to get back to a Pokémon C

entre quickly. Now, I like a good labyrinth. It can be enjoyable to form a more complete picture of an area in  your mind and puzzle past some misdirection. But I feel like Wayward Cave overplays its  hand. Using the same repeating rock pattern over and over is so artificial that it draws  attention to itself – it’s trying to confuse you, but it’s way too obvious about it. I imagine it  would have been more effective if this pattern only repeated once or twice to throw you off.  Instead it just

gets a bit exhausting – especially with random encounters interrupting  your train of thought every few seconds. Mira, the second of the stat trainers, has  gotten herself lost deep in the cave. Even though her Kadabra is not a cleric type, she still  keeps you fully healed. So this is our first real opportunity to see the new recruits in action. For all its frustrations getting there, Scizor represents a really good idea for Pokémon  evolution that I'd like to see explored further. Instead of i

t just being a direct upgrade, Scizor  has an identical Base Stat Total to Scyther – the stats are just distributed differently. Obviously Scizor is the better of the two on the sheer strength of its typing alone –  Bug/Flying is not a great combination. But I think it'd be cool to see more Pokémon  like this? It could be a legitimate choice sometimes not to evolve your Pokémon. Scizor’s main strength, though, is the combination of Technician and Bullet Punch. Bullet Punch  is a priority move, i

t will usually go first, so it’s balanced by being at a piddly 40  power. This is where Technician comes in, boosting the strength of weaker moves by 50%.  Along with the bonus the attack gets for being a Steel-type using a Steel-type move, Bullet Punch  becomes a 90 power move that usually goes first, covering for Scizor’s lower speed. Scramble, on the other hand, is having a tougher time of it. Having Mira here kind of  made this the perfect place to train – Kadabra’s Reflect and the full heal

after every fight  mean it’s not getting tanked every two seconds. All Scramble really has going for it at the moment  is the funny meme move Metronome. Metronome pulls any move programmed into the game at random and  then just uses it sight unseen. It results in some kind of funny mental arithmetic – me  having to weigh up whether it’s better to use Grass Knot for the guaranteed damage, or  literally any other move in the game. Huh. While the problem is exaggerated in the  Gyms, there’s practi

cally no resistance to you going back to the Pokémon Centre  to heal while you’re out on the Routes. If you’re in trouble here, it’ll probably  only take a minute’s round trip to nip back to Oreburgh – even shorter, probably,  especially if you have Repels on you. The weird thing is, I think part of the problem  here is that series has been getting better and better. Movement is faster and smoother, and  the levels are more carefully designed to be of a relatively consistent length. Route 207  c

ompetes with Route 201 for the shortest and most unremarkable Route in the game, and yet  it still has a little optional loop with 4 or 5 trainers you can tackle if you feel like it. Compare with Pokémon Red and Blue. The movement is slower and clunkier, small  trees respawn after trainer fights, HMs require a dedicated move to clear and a visit  to the menu every time you want to use them, and the Routes can be anything from a single screen  to multiple lengthy mazes packed with trainers. The s

eries has smoothed out the experience in an  uncountable number of subtle ways over the years, which is obviously a good thing. But the funny  thing is, when replaying Pokémon Red, I found myself engaging more with the resource management.  I was less willing to return to a Pokémon Centre because it would be kind of awkward to do so.  Multiple times I found myself pressing onward with healing items, sometimes even to the point of  letting my PP run out. Because bag space is at a premium, I could

n’t guarantee I’d keep my Elixirs  or Ethers on me. Compare with Route 207, where it’s easy and convenient to return to Oreburgh to  get a complete top-up whenever the fancy takes me. I still think Pokémon Centres are successful  as they offer a very modular, player-driven difficulty – you can return to one between  every fight and that’s technically optimal, it just depends how much time you want to  waste for yourself. But that option is only really meaningful if you’re wasting much time  in t

he first place. It’s an odd contradiction. I hesitate to say outright, “the game would  be better if it wasted more of your time,” but I sort of feel like that’s the case! Route 207 leads us into our first of many trips through Mt. Coronet, where we have our  first encounter with Galactic Boss Cyrus. Cyrus, realising that he has his audience  cornered, launches into a heady monologue, speculating about what a fresh universe looked  like, without human spirit mucking it all up, one where time and

space were left to expand  undisturbed. Unfortunately, I’m still too socially awkward to tell him where to stick it. But, eh, I wasn’t really paying attention to that, I was laughing at his grumpy wee chibi face. The camera during the cinematics tries its best, man, but these super deformed models were  clearly not intended to be seen from this angle or distance! Textures become pixellated  when turned away from the camera, and there are a lot of difficulties animating chibi characters  besides

. The proportions make exaggerating poses impossible – short little stubby arms can’t  reach beyond the ears, and polygons have to stretch awkwardly to stretch the leg forward  enough when you’re running. These are difficult to notice in the top-down view, but they’re all  you can notice when zoomed in at a low angle. The reason the super-deformed art style hangs  together better in the top-down view is because it’s clearer what it’s going for. The massive  heads emphasise expression and exagger

ate perspective. You’re viewing them from a top-down  angle, so their heads will be closer and therefore bigger. I still think it works better in the more  abstract 2D space, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been done successfully in 3D as well.  Brilliant Diamond, as we’ve discussed, isn’t a successful example unfortunately, and it gets  even worse drawing attention to itself like this. Route 208 is a lovely little Route, transitioning  from the cliffs and waterfalls of Mt. Coronet to a mor

e lush and gentle plain at the bottom. It’s an appropriate metaphor if nothing else. Because I have an apology to make. In An  Exhaustive Look at Pokémon Omega Ruby, I went on a massive rant about memes when I saw an old  fella make a fairly inconsequential Lord of the Rings reference. I still stand by the underlying  criticism: I find memes distracting, a little obnoxious, and that they take me out the game. That having been said, in retrospect I feel the whole thing was really disrespectful to

  the translators and localisers. There’s no call for a lot of this – I all but  accuse the localisers of being lazy, and that must be incredibly frustrating. Here’s a story. I used to do work for Did You Know Gaming? – great bunch of lads – and my first  assignment was on Sonic Adventure 2: it’s me, of course it was. One of the biggest rumours  surrounding that game was that, at one point, the game was planned to have multiple story  branches. I had a week to do research on the game, and I spen

t three days out of that entire  week just tracking down a source for this rumour. Eventually, I found what I thought was  a verifiable source – a preview in an official Dreamcast magazine. So, I put it in the script  and send it off no danger. Then, when the video comes out, Game Historian Liam Robertson – again,  great lad – leaves a reply saying, “hey, I asked the director about this personally and he told me  it was never planned.” Hands up, my mistake – not my fault, I don’t feel I did anyt

hing wrong, but  my responsibility nonetheless. But the responses to that were, predictably, kind of snotty and  unfair. Wow, did they even do their research, DYKG just uses Wikipedia, that sort of thing.  And that was, as you can imagine, frustrating – I busted my hump tracking down that info! My point being that we don’t know what went on behind the scenes. This is why it’s  so fruitless to attribute blame or intent, we don’t know the circumstances that led to  the decisions being made. Sure,

I don’t like “the great Maxie,” it seems like an awkward way  to translate his pomposity into English, but accurate translation is a valid choice – if even  the scriptwriters got a say in it at all! Sure, I found the meme distracting, but to accuse them of  being lazy? Oof, come on. More likely it was just a localiser trying to make people laugh! Does that  deserve this much hostility? I don’t think so! There was even more egg on my face when I learned  that Nob Ogasawara, whom I’d championed as

this untarnished memeless genius of localisation, also  included memes in his scripts – albeit memes I didn’t recognise. I still really like his scripts,  but yeah, it’s a bit rich to be using him as an example of how to do it right when he was doing  the exact same thing I was saying was so wrong. So this is me humbly apologising. I’m sorry.  It was unfair and shitty of me, and it was a huge overreaction besides. Now, I understand this  is perhaps too little, too late: there’s a real danger th

at people are going to see that original  rant with all of its misinformation, but not this retraction; it would be arrogant to assume that  video’s success was anything more than a fluke. I would honestly just cut the segment if YouTube let  you make cuts to videos over 6 hours long. What an oddly specific way to hamstring yourself. Anyway. This game’s script is, thankfully, the ideal circumstance for me. It’s not 1:1  so far as I can tell, but it’s faithful to the original Diamond and Pearl sc

ript with  all its little idioms and turns of phrase, while also getting rid of the memes. This painter  no longer titles his painting “My Pokémon is Fight!” – a joke I still don’t understand  – but the more benign “Pokémon Can Win!” Hearthome City is Sinnoh’s central hub. It’s luxurious and clean, a real tourist trap of a city. Between Amity Square, the Contest  Hall, and the Fan Club, it’s very up-market, very hip-and-happening, very chic. There are a  lot of young couples with newborns around

here, presumably having moved to be at the heart  – ha ha – of Sinnoh’s cultural scene. How perfect a reflection of her city is  Fantina though? Like Roark working in the coal mines and Gardenia investigating the Old  Chateau, Fantina participates in her city’s vibe rather than just locking herself away in  the Gym. She wears an elegant purple ballgown and peppers her speech with French phrases –  the most elegant and sexy of all the accents, except of course for the Scottish accent. Now, Fanti

na claims that she won’t challenge us until we become much stronger, but as we see  in the Gym she’s already fought Barry! And it’s not like he's become that much stronger than  us in the meantime – he challenges you again on your way out. Either way, Fantina’s not here  just now, which seems in-character for her, she seems like she’s juggling a lot of plates.  Maybe she was just making an excuse when she said you weren’t strong enough, to get you to carry  on rather than just wait around. Eithe

r way, the result of all of this is that she’s going to  be the fifth Gym Leader, rather than the third. One thing I really like about these games,  and their world being so close to ours, is there's a lot less of a barrier to entry. We can assume that religion works similarly to how it does in the real world, hence the  “Foreign Building,” which appears to be a combination of a church, mosque, and synagogue.  It works as a universal symbol of religion, easily understood around the world. There'

s no  need for a character to explain how religion works in this world; if you went up to someone in  a church and they started expositing information about the entire history of Christianity out  of nowhere you'd be a little taken aback. I appreciate Pokémon's approach to  this kind of worldbuilding. It takes a kid’s perspective. Religion exists  and textures the world accordingly, but it isn't really a kid’s focus and so it  doesn't need explained in such a way that would perhaps foreground an

adult's perspective  and their political and spiritual views. Because there is a way to handle this that  completely avoids any potential controversy, and that is to not handle it all. It would be  very easy for the series to get the Tippex out and blank out any religious reference. Pokémon tends not to take that approach. Even if we're not doing a deep dive into  religion, or the economy, or animal cruelty, the game still accounts for them in microcosm  by factoring them into the world and, on

occasion, having them influence certain  characters’ decisions. I think that’s a stronger proposition than just ignoring it. Anyway, the atmosphere in here is lovely, and is created almost entirely by a lack of  music. Like in a real church, moving around is kind of a self-conscious act because it’s so  quiet – you don’t want to disturb anybody else. That’s left me in a pious mood, now. Pokémon  often concerns itself with scientific progress and discoveries, but I love how religion and  spiritu

ality are highlighted in Sinnoh instead—oh, what’s that mate? Your Pokémon  evolved? Okay, never mind then! The most gentrified part of  Hearthome City is Amity Square. It’s a park where you get to walk with your  Pokémon tagging along behind. It seems like a sweet idea, but only a ludicrously short  list of pre-determined “cute” Pokémon are allowed in. The starters weren’t even  allowed in here until Pokémon Platinum. I’m not using that as a criticism either – the  original games found a very g

ood justification for this limitation, as we’ll see later. The follow mechanic goes a long way to addressing some of Pokémon’s issues with conceptual space. Pokémon is keeping a lot of plates spinning. The sheer number of creatures means it has to  employ a lot of shortcuts and workarounds to manage its insane workload. Even the basic  premise of catching creatures and keeping them in little opaque capsules saves the game from  having to render all of your party at once. This is presumably why o

nly a small list of  Pokémon were allowed in Amity Square back in the originals – there wasn’t the time to animate  walk cycles for every single one. The consequence of this, of course, is that the overwhelming  majority of Pokémon exist almost entirely within menus or on the battle screen. Essentially,  they have no impact on the world around them. Now this is going to seem like a bit of a  tangent here, but bear with me for a second. There’s a concept in comics called “closure.”  Scott McCloud

defines it as “the phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole.”  For example, let’s take these two panels from Amazing Spider-Man #39, illustrated by John  Romita. In the first panel, Spidey’s grabbed one fella around the head and socked this other  one. In the next, he’s fighting off two more guys, with the first still in a headlock. These two  panels are completely static pictures separated by thick black lines and a gutter. But your brain  is excellent at making associations

between two separate pieces of information. So, expecting  there to be an association, it automatically fills in the blanks between these two images to create a  single chain of events: Spider-Man holds a guy in a headlock while fending off three assailants. You  observe these panels as parts, but you perceive it as a complete sequence. This is called closure. It’s this idea, of your brain taking separate pieces of information and smoothing over  the gaps to create a complete picture, that I thi

nk Pokémon does poorly. When  Meditite used Flash to light up Wayward Cave, I just chose the option from a menu and the screen  lit up. What’s supposed to be happening here, I think, is that Meditite has come out of its  Poké Ball and used its powers to light up the room. Imagine how they’d handle this scene in the  anime and you should get the picture. But that’s entirely imagination; there’s no closure, per se,  because there’s not much association between the two events. They’re too separate

for your brain  to fill in the blanks. I understand why this is – it would be an untenable amount of work to  account for and animate every Pokémon performing every task. But it doesn’t change the fact that  the Pokémon feel completely compartmentalised from the world around them. Encountering a wild  Pokémon sees you walking around in empty patches of grass before you’re suddenly whisked away to a  completely different screen; you don’t even hear their cries on the overworld in this game.  You

don’t get to play with your Pokémon, or see them interact with their environment. So it’s  difficult sometimes to build a complete picture of this world in your own head; to see in your mind’s  eye the fantasy of living, playing, and travelling with your Pokémon partners. It’s difficult for  the games to create a singular conceptual space. Having your Pokémon walk alongside you goes some  way to remedying this problem. They literally exist on the overworld, side-by-side with your  avatar, and th

at makes it so much easier to locate them in the same world. They’re not abstracted  into menus, they’re right there, front and centre. It’s not ideal: the Pokémon don’t interact with  or impact the world in any way that would make them feel more tangible, but it helps solidify  the fantasy. It must be a lot of work, but it’s unquestionably paid off. Pokémon walking alongside  you ought to be a priority for the series. Unfortunately, the execution in this game is  tragic, and I mean that, it’s h

eartbreaking. There’s so much effort and attention to detail  gone into it, and it only makes it worse. Pokémon don’t just follow directly behind you any  more; they have different speeds and rudimentary pathfinding to try and keep up with you. This  approach makes sense on paper. It feels more organic and shows off each species’ attributes:  a faster Pokémon like Scizor keeps up easily, while a massive lumbering turtle lags behind. This must have taken a lot more time and effort than just havin

g the Pokémon glued to you,  and yet the alternative still would have been better. Because this barely works. The Pokémon  have to be shrunk down to fit within Sinnoh’s narrow architecture – even the likes of the  mighty primordial leviathan Kyogre. All this and they still get caught on every bush and corner  in existence. Every time they do, there’s a flash of light and a sound effect as they return to the  ball to reset position. And with a slow trudging Pokémon like Grotle, that means you’re

going to  be seeing that more than its walking animation. It gets distracting and repetitive really quickly.  Look at the poor thing, it’s just trying to keep up! I feel bad! You may also find yourself trying  to walk around in a small space – which Sinnoh is packed with – while your Pokémon won’t get out  the bloody way. So you end up having to shove them aside, which also doesn’t feel great. The Pokémon following also looks awkward because it doesn’t match the overworld’s art  style. While the

humans are super deformed, the Pokémon are just miniaturised versions  of their battle models. Scizor, for example, doesn’t have a massive head. It isn’t employing  the same perspective trick as everything else, so it doesn’t look like it fits in the same world.  HeartGold and SoulSilver nailed this back on the DS; obviously they had the advantage of using  sprites, but the results speak for themselves. On every level, Brilliant Diamond looks much worse. For me, though, this game never had to n

ail the graphics - they were kind of weird and  transitional in the original anyway. No, what it had to nail was the music. For me, this always felt like a theme of awakening, putting me in mind of early morning,  dew still on the grass, chill still in the air, that sort of thing. The song begins with an  arpeggio on the piano, it’s kind of cool and crisp, but there’s an underlying feeling of  warming up with the harp underneath rising towards the brass, and the bell calling us out.  The brass r

epeats a phrase twice to warm up before it shifts up the octave, with another – I want  to say trombone? – joining in for emphasis. That crescendo comes back down with descending phrases  on the piano – still undercut with hopeful, uplifting phrases on the harp behind it – before  we relax into the main melody. I feel like the arpeggiated chords serve a double function  here – this song is also used for Route 212, and it works well with the peal of the rainfall. It would take a far more experien

ced and knowledgeable musician to really do this song  justice, I feel like – there’s a lot more phrases and instruments going on in here than what I’m  able to cover, and I’m still not completely confident I’m using the terms correctly. But I  think it’s the swell and release, like taking a deep breath of fresh air, that makes this song  so special to me. It inflates with the triumphant brass before exhaling into a confident rhythm.  It really is a remarkable composition, I think, it re-energis

es me every time I hit Route 209.  It’s almost certainly my favourite Route theme, not just in this game, but in the entire series. There’s always been a long list of music I really loved in this game – Eterna Forest, Route 209,  the GTS theme, the Surf theme, and while I was researching it I learned all of these songs  were composed by one Hitomi Sato. And honestly, what a marvel she is – she even co-composed  that absolute belter of a Frontier Brain theme with Gō Ichinose. What a hero. The mar

ks that  Sinnoh’s atmosphere left on me, in large part through her compositions, are indelible. Thankfully, I think Brilliant Diamond by and large does her – and everybody’s! –  compositions justice. The Switch Pokémon games seem to have a very harsh sound that a  friend (who is far more knowledgeable about audio than I am) finds grating. I couldn’t hear  it myself until I was working on this video; I had to do a lot of fiddling to find the sweet  spot where the game was audible but without bein

g so shrill it overpowered my voice. That having  been said… yeah, they nailed it. This gives me the same elated feeling the original does! Imagining that I’m not completely off-base in feeling like this Route is  something of a refreshing reawakening, Joggers can only be fought in the mornings. The Joggers – as well as the Policemen who can only be fought at night – have an unfortunate  interaction with the Switch architecture. As you don’t have to turn it off completely or close  the game when

you stop playing, the game doesn’t have to reload the area when you turn it back  on. If you enter the Route during the night and then send the console to sleep, the Joggers  still won’t fight you in the morning unless you reload the area. It’s testament to how much of  a complicated proposition game development is; it’s funny how these seemingly unrelated  little things can impact one another. “Are you maybe a Pokémon genius?”  Not according to my comments! My ears are eating well just now.  L

ost Tower brings back another of my favourite tracks – Eterna Forest’s theme. I love love love the atmosphere it creates. The echoing note on the piano to ease us  in, this place is empty but its history arrests your attention, followed by the sort of  fumbling, slightly syncopated melody on the flute, like an obscured intention. Beautiful. This song is strongly associated with lingering spirits, but the story it tells is more  uplifting than you might expect. Death, in Sinnoh, is often very ser

ene. Maybe the more spiritual  focus implies the existence of an afterlife, or at least the idea that death is not a  full stop on one’s existence. It’s a lovely thought. The Tower is actually fairly bright to  reflect this, with a strong blur effect softening the hard edges of reality; this is a liminal  space, a space between this world and the next. There’s one trainer here – Roughneck  Kirby – who’s here to mourn his Pokémon, killed by Team Galactic. I love the Roughnecks, man, that tough gu

y demeanour disguising a sensitive  heart – his Cleffa is hilariously at odds with his vibe. Kirby’s kind of the perfect name  for him! After the battle, Kirby decides that he’s not honouring his Pokémon’s memory  by wallowing in his own resentment and misery. It also makes Team Galactic that little  more villainous. We don’t get any details, so you can fill in the blanks how you like, but  I feel it doesn’t undermine their comedic tone. Stupidity can be just as dangerous as malice. Other traine

rs have similar stories. A father reminisces on sad farewells being  accompanied by new beginnings. A couple on the top floor are here to remember  the Pokémon that brought them together. I love that the game allows itself to sit in  these emotions – there’s no gag to relieve the mood at the end of these stories. It  means the atmosphere percolates rather than dissipates. It’s not super heavy either – it  just creates the impression that death is an inescapable but perfectly natural part of life

. Anyway, let’s talk about the sexy bunny Pokémon. Buneary’s evolution, Lopunny, looks like this.  And sounds like this. Yeah, it’s not subtle. Okay, so a quick history lesson here. Playboy is  a gentleman’s magazine that became famous for the full-frontal nudity featured on the centre pages.  The logo, of a rabbit wearing a collared shirt and bow tie, projected an image of class and  sophistication, but also of fertility; rabbits have a bit of a reputation for… how do I phrase  this delicately.

.? Being ultra turbo shaggers. Playboy Bunnies were the waitresses at Playboy’s  resorts and nightclubs, and they tapped into that same juxtaposition. The air of sophistication  created by the cuffs, collar, and bow tie defined the boundaries of a more carnal gaze, one  encouraged by the associated rabbit ears and tail. That image became a bit of a phenomenon around  the globe, nowhere moreso than in Japan. It became such an icon that it seems to have lost a lot of  its edge. Beyond Playboy, the

brand-neutral “bunny girl” is all over the place in manga and anime –  my first exposure was Bulma in the first volume of Dragon Ball, ostensibly a comic for young  boys. I couldn’t tell you why that is – it’s almost certainly down to cultural differences  around sex, or rabbit imagery, or both – but the bottom line is, from what I can gather, the  bunny girl isn’t quite as salacious in Japan. Still, while it is a little weird for us  Westerners, it’s not like Lopunny is explicitly pornographic

or anything. It suggests the bunny  girl imagery without ever being inappropriate. A bust is suggested by its cute pose and  fluffy cuffs, and the bottom of a corset is implied by the line separating hind legs  from torso, which is also a characteristic of rabbits. I’m not convinced it was the cleanest  idea for such a global franchise, but credit where it’s due, I think they did a good job. The Sinnoh region’s newspaper is printed out of this perfectly ordinary house, with two  employees insid

e. Presumably they’re not publicly traded or their shareholders would have  their guts for garters. Maybe that’s for the best. These guys ask you to catch a specific Pokémon  and show it to them before the end of the day. I really like this sidequest. The series doesn’t  often task you with catching a specific Pokémon, which is a missed opportunity. It’s a great  way to clue you in to some of the Pokémon you may have missed. “Catch ‘em all” is such an  overwhelmingly huge task, and it’s nice to

have the game break it down into smaller chunks.  Gens VII and VIII did this particularly well. The Solaceon Ruins reintroduce the Pokémon Unown  to the series – a Pokémon that takes 28 different forms: one for each letter of the alphabet,  then a question mark and exclamation mark. I love Unown. It’s a similar kind of vibe and  puzzle to the braille puzzles in Generation III’s Sealed Chamber, but with a cypher unique  to Pokémon. The solution to the maze, here, is spelled out on the first floor

, provided you  can read Unown. You just have to note down the instructions and follow them to reach the bottom. The music, again, is Eterna Forest’s. Like the Lost Tower, the mystery of these ancient  ruins doesn’t seem to be anything sinister. The Unown on the seven main floors spell  out the word, “friend,” and at the bottom, you find a mural that reads, “friendship/all  lives touch other lives to create something anew and alive.” There’s no crisis about  what caused the downfall of this anci

ent civilisation or anything like that. Instead, it  feels more like a gentle reminder from the past. What better place, then, for Grotle to evolve?  That’s Back Garden finally living up to her name. A fully evolved starter Pokémon before the  third Gym, oops. I love Torterra though. It strikes just the right balance between cool and  clumsy, threatening and adorable. There aren’t many Pokémon with this kind of asymmetrical  design either, which helps set it apart. Your reward for tracking down

and catching all  of the Unown letters, in this game, are new slots for your Ball Capsules, which I didn’t think was  worth an hour and a half’s work. I do appreciate that the game isn’t cheapening its mysteries  with easy answers, I don’t think you should catch all the Unown and you get this massive  revelatory sidequest or anything, but I dunno, maybe just a little message would be nice—wait,  what’s this--! The letters--! What could it mean? Most of Route 210 is blocked by Psyduck, who  all h

ave headaches and don’t want to move. Honestly, lads, that’s a mood, we’ll  leave you to it, we’ll come back later. It’s chucking it down on Route 215, which,  combined with the brashness of the soundtrack, creates a really fun adventurous mood. You may have noticed, but there is a huge gap between the second and third Gyms in Sinnoh. It’s a design choice that’s attracted some criticism – the pacing of the game being  disrupted by such a huge gap between two key events. But honestly… I like it.

I guess I  just don’t see the Gyms as emotional climaxes; they’re more checkpoint than antagonist.  So, while I have the opportunity, I’d like to say a few words in its defence. So far, Sinnoh has been mostly player-driven. It’s still mainly linear of course but there’s  less of a sense of being funnelled from place to place, and I really like that, especially at the  beginning of the game. It gives you opportunities to investigate side areas, do some spelunking,  or go off and catch some Pokémo

n, all at your own pace. That’s important for a handheld game;  a game that can’t guarantee a captive audience. Beginning the game by showing the player the  size of the world and letting them discover it themselves is also really effective at  pacing interest. At the start, the game is low commitment, but while you’re exploring and picking  up on whatever threads catch your interest, you’re also developing a relationship with this world.  It may not be a profound emotional connection, but when

the story begins to pick up later  on, the game can cash in on that interest; it can afford to be a little more hands-on  because by that point the player should hopefully be invested in the world. Even  if they aren’t, they at least understand what’s at stake – they’ve seen it for themselves. I understand the shortcomings with this approach. Because there’s so much ground to cover  between the second and third Gyms, your selection in the Poké Marts are limited  for huge chunks of the game. You

can’t buy Great Balls or Super Repels until after the third  Gym, meaning that while you’re covering all this ground your options to avoid or catch Pokémon are  limited. Not a huge offence in the original games, but far more objectionable with the Grand  Underground’s huge selection. Sometimes you need something a bit better than a Poké Ball. I also feel that this contributes somewhat to the limited Pokémon pool. We’re literally at the  opposite end of the map from where we started, and we’re no

t even at the third Gym. Since  the game can’t introduce most of its Pokémon selection this early, huge cuts of the map are  occupied by mostly the same kind of monsters. We’re still fighting Geodudes, and after three  Generations of these things being a mainstay I don’t blame you for getting a bit sick of it. What’s more, if you’re the kind of player that’s better motivated by story beats to confirm  your progress, then yeah, I can totally see how Sinnoh would leave you out in the cold. I’m not

saying this is the unequivacol objective best way to design a region, just  that it worked really well for me. I like Sinnoh a whole heck of a lot, and its lopsided,  sort of wonky pacing is a huge part of that. Team Galactic have set up their  headquarters here in Veilstone City. I like how this is set up. The first thing you’re  greeted with when you enter the city is a couple of Galactic Grunts guarding a warehouse. Of  course you’re drawn to them, but they won’t let you past. One of them ta

unts you, telling you  to go and play at the Gym instead: “After all, the Gym Leader happens to be a kid just like  you!” It’s found a way to guide you towards your next step without pulling you by the nose. Veilstone City is built on uneven ground, with tall buildings squeezed in  amongst the cliffs and crags. It is, however, limited by the DS’s hardware  (and of course the remakes’ dedication to being faithful to those limits). You don’t get the full  impact of the topography and the tall buil

dings clambering over one another when everything  is framed through this flat top-down angle. Not even the high angle shown by the sign really  does the idea much justice; the game is just too blocky for it to leave any kind of impact. The Veilstone Department Store is a big Mart with a wider selection. They  also sell TMs – Technical Machines. I’m not really sure what TMs are supposed  to be – they’re presented as little CDs, suggesting that they contain the move’s data.  How that’s transferre

d to the Pokémon, though, we don’t know. Personally I’ve never been satisfied  with that – it’s difficult to get into the fantasy of training your Pokémon when the only way you  can teach them directly is a big question mark. Since Generation V, Pokémon has made TMs reusable.  Once you’ve purchased or obtained a TM, it’s yours to use as many times as you like. This, along with  easy access to Move Reminders and updates to Egg Moves, seems to be a bid to make moves more of a  situational strategi

c choice in-game. I appreciate that a lot. You’re still limited in battle, after  all; preparation and foresight are rewarded, and experimentation isn’t punished. Brilliant Diamond is the first game in the series to drop reusable TMs since their  introduction. It instead has single-use TMs, but often gives them to you in bulk. Going into  it, I thought that was an elegant compromise. Let me play Devil’s Advocate for single-use TMs for a  minute. I like them in theory because they force you to th

ink more deeply about your options and  strategies. When I picked up the Earthquake TM (knowing from experience it was likely to be the  only one I’d get), I had to carefully consider which Pokémon to use it on. I had to think about  when I’d be switching that Pokémon in, whether or not that Pokémon would learn the move itself,  and if not, if it had a decent movepool otherwise. If I had infinite Earthquake TMs, I would have  just slapped it on everything willy-nilly. It’s an incredibly strong a

nd versatile move. The problem with that, and the reason I ultimately don’t like the single-use TMs, is that  the game doesn’t give you enough information to let you make even a partially informed decision.  The game doesn’t tell you your Pokémon’s movepool going in, so unless you look it up on Serebii or  Bulbapedia, the decision is essentially guesswork. The availability of TMs is also fuzzy. Some  are limited, some are unlimited; some are incredibly high commitment, some essentially have  no

commitment at all. Many of the TMs – including Earthquake – have a random chance to appear  every day in the Grand Underground’s vendors. Get lucky and you may not even have to make any  tough decisions about your movesets. So far as I understand it, in the entire game, you can find  but a single copy of the situational move Dig; meanwhile, bread-and-butter no-brainer  moves, your Thunderbolts and Ice Beams, are dead cheap at 3,000 Poké Pennies a pop. All together, the lack of information and th

e random chance of availability makes it unclear  what you can and cannot afford to experiment with, which is ultimately why I come down on the side  of preferring unlimited TMs. It’s impossible to consider your strategy more deeply if you don’t  yet know what your strategy is. Getting a good TM in Generations V-VII was a triumphant moment – a  new toy to play with that opened up your options. Even if we take as read that balancing  considerations are more important, the series has found an exce

llent compromise  in Sword and Shield. Moves were split between infinite use TMs (Technical Machines) and  limited use TRs (Technical Records). It was a near perfect solution – it was clear what was  and was not limited, and you were always given the opportunity to get more TRs. The choices made  perfect sense to boot: TMs contained weaker or situational moves, while TRs contained powerful  moves like Earthquake, Thunderbolt, and Dragon Dance. It’s a great system by any metric, but  compared to

Brilliant Diamond it’s exceptional. At least some TMs are readily available, or so  you might think, but the fact they’re still a finite resource means you’re constantly having  to top up your supply to experiment. Vice Vespa had two situational moves in False Swipe and  Swords Dance. To change between the two, I had to occasionally traipse back to Veilstone and  halfway up a building to buy some more TMs. If the game wanted me to make a final decision between  the two moves that’s fine – like I

say, I’m down, force me to decide which I prioritise more –  but this isn’t imposing restrictions or asking me to weigh up risk/reward, it’s just wasting  time. The question it’s asking is essentially, “can you be arsed going back to Veilstone?” The Game Corner in Veilstone has been replaced with the Metronome Style Shop. Trainer customisation has been a priority for the series since Generation VI. You  can choose your character’s looks at the beginning of the game – it’s a pretty  basic hair a

nd skin colour selection, and that’s great. Pokémon’s supposed to be an  inclusive, worldwide franchise and the avatar is supposed to represent the player. The more you  can see yourself in that character, the better. A seeming staple of the series now is boutiques  and parlours where you can change your hair and togs. While most of them allow you to mix  and match headgear, shirts, accessories, and all that, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl  are a lot more limited, instead asking you to choo

se from a small selection of pre-determined  outfits. I guess there’s not much point in going full customisation when you’re only really  going to be seeing the top of their bonce, but it is objectively less customisable and  therefore less expressive… in a system designed for self-expression. It’s disappointing.  I’m sorry for avoiding the games that have full trainer customisation, by the way, I swear  that’s not intentional! …Maybe it’s for the best. I like how the bag icon changes to match 

your outfit, though, that’s a cute touch. There’s a subtle little gag elsewhere in  Veilstone about the Gym – a clown says, “It’s pretty cool! Reminds me of an athletics  center.” Because, yeah, what would the people of this world call actual Gyms? The puzzle inside is about shoving these thin walls around to clear a path. It’s well  designed for what it is, but it doesn’t really feel much like a gym – that is, a proper gym, not  a Pokémon Gym. I really enjoyed going to the gym for a good while

until some wee vandals burned it  down. That’s not the setup to a joke or anything, that’s just what it’s like to live in Scotland.  The only other one nearby was plastered with aggressive slogans like “beat the rest to be the  best.” Buddy I make Pokémon videos for YouTube. The Veilstone Gym is one of the  game’s precious few examples of non-linearity. It’s actually possible to  beat the Pastoria Gym beforehand, meaning either Maylene or Wake can be your third Badge. I don’t think it’s framed v

ery well at all. Had the game simply allowed you to go east on Route  209 or south on Route 212 from Hearthome, I’d be praising this to the high heavens. Instead, the  path to Route 212 is only unlocked after you reach Solaceon Town. If you’d like to argue that this  Reporter is offering an oblique hint that she’ll move once you reach Solaceon, I’d accept that, but  I’m only putting that together after the fact. To discover the option exists at all, you either  have to double back halfway to Vei

lstone for basically no reason, or skip the Veilstone  Gym on your way through. Neither ideal, neither elegant. I think it says something that,  despite having played this game a lot, I didn’t even know about this until surprisingly late  in this video’s production. I’d wager a lot of other players didn’t either. Options don’t really  mean a whole lot if players don’t know they exist. Still, having said that, it is non-linearity, and  that’s fantastic. Because allowing a player to pick a directi

on invites them to engage more  deeply with the mechanics. Presented with a choice, a player thinks about the challenges  – and their solutions! – more closely. They may decide that their team deals with Wake’s  Water-types better than Maylene’s Fighting-types; or that they’d like to visit the Great Marsh  to catch their next team member sooner rather than later. The player is given a lot of  agency in how they build their teams and manage their types. Non-linearity really  complements Pokémon’s

core mechanics! Now, I understand this is a lot more difficult  than it sounds. The series seems to have been gunshy about giving the player these kinds of  options since Generation II. Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal were injured by some really poor  implementation. Because of Ecruteak’s crossroads, the game had to lowball its levels,  treating you as if you were finishing the fourth Gym all the way until the seventh. But I think the series has done it remarkably well before – before Gold an

d Silver, even! This  is exactly what makes replaying Pokémon Red and Blue so inviting. Not only do you have Pokémon’s  staple teambuilding options, you also have a lot of choice in how you approach your adventure.  While the levels are curved appropriately, and the game guides you through its Gyms in order,  the middle of Kanto is literally a big crossroads. You can tackle the third to seventh Gyms in almost  any order you want – the only caveat being you have to fight Koga before you can reach

Cinnabar.  Along the way, you get to choose how and when you catch your Pokémon. It’s not perfect – you still  have to clear world events, and you could make the argument that there’s not much reason to do the  Gyms out of order as a result. But totting it up, you have 60 different orders in which you can  beat Kanto, and yet its level curve is smooth as silk. Navigating Kanto is a joy, with the  benefits and drawbacks to each decision making each one more personal and significant. It makes  it

so easy to pick those games out for a replay. It’s a bit late now, of course, but a Sinnoh that  took full advantage of its winding interconnected map would have been a real treat. At least it  still has a ton of optional Routes to explore! After we beat the Gym we run into Dawn outside.  She’s had her Pokédex nicked by Team Galactic, so of course we go to sort them out. Know what makes Dawn come off better here though? The fact she joins in. She asks  for your help, sure, but she’s playing an

active role in sorting out her own messes. Anyway, after we beat Team Galactic – yeah, sorry, not much to say about that – Dawn gets her  Pokédex back, we learn that Team Galactic have moved onto Pastoria City, and we get the Fly HM. Fly, of course, comes after the third Gym because of the huge amount of ground we’ve already  covered this early on. Look - if we wanted to backtrack to, say, the second Gym, we’d have  to through 6 Routes, 2 cities, and a cave. Fly is now mainly accessed via the To

wn Map,  which saves you fiddling around with the Pokétch. Grouping flight and navigation together  – as well as showing you where Berries and Honey trees are on the map itself – is a lovely bit  of streamlining. You’re not having to pop in and out of different menus to check where you  want to Fly and then Fly there. It makes the Pokétch Berry tracking app a bit redundant as  well, though. Yeah, sorry, this thing is not getting through this remake smelling of roses. Unfortunately, the Town Map

is kind of lacking compared to Omega Ruby’s AreaNav, which had all  of these features, folded in the Vs. Seeker, and allowed you to Fly to any Route as well.  There is a slightly convoluted reason for this omission. Pokémon Emerald added a lot of  quality of life features to the AreaNav in 2005, and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl kept  all of those features in 2007, albeit decompartmentalised into different  menus. The Gen III remakes in 2014 updated Emerald’s AreaNav beautifully, making it even  mor

e streamlined and easy to use. But then, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl  launch with different priorities: they’re incredibly faithful remakes, and so  they don’t even acknowledge many improvements made since the originals. I don’t believe  that subtraction is necessarily a bad thing, but I can’t see any advantage in this case.  This is what makes being a fan of this series frustrating sometimes – simple linear improvements  are sometimes revoked somewhere down the line. Okay, so. It was ar

oundabout this point  that I realised I’d made a mistake. I plan these videos fairly far in advance.  I decide what my team is going to be, when I’m going to catch each Pokémon, and  what moves they’re going to have. The reason for this is because I want to show off as many  of the game’s mechanics as I can. For example, I chose Vice Vespa because it gave me an  excuse to show off a weird trade evolution. My plan here was to go down to the Maniac  Tunnel, catch a Hippopotas, then breed it with a

n Eevee so I could get a Vaporeon with Yawn.  One small problem. You can’t get Eevee – at least until the post-game. I mean, am I stupid?  It’s in Platinum, and I had just assumed it’d be in the Grand Underground! So, while I decided what to do, I thought I’d go back and show off  the GWS – the Global Wonder Station. The GWS takes the place of the Global Trade  Station from the original games and allows you to Wonder Trade with anyone from around the world.  Wonder Trading is still great, allowi

ng you to pass on Pokémon that are just sitting in your Box  for whatever reason to someone who may actually want them. Unlike regular trading, there's no need  for any co-ordination - you just set and forget, fire off your excess and roll the dice on what you  get in return. The tension in waiting to see what you’ll get is perfectly pitched. The first  one I got was a Doduo—I mean a Ditto, fuck! The GWS was unfortunately unavailable until  March 15th, 2022 – about 5 months after the game’s rele

ase. This is what makes talking  about games so tricky nowadays; I’m having a fundamentally different experience to the one many  of us got at launch. If you were playing on launch day as so many of us were, this feature and all  the options it enables were just not in the game. And the game was worse for it. Features like this  go a long way to extending the lifespan of a game, but this was too little too late. Many  players had moved on by the time it launched. So, was it worth the five month

wait? Well, no…  but that doesn’t mean it’s not damn good. The Globe was always the centrepiece of this area.  Trading wirelessly all over the globe was seen as the “ultimate” expression of trading, and as  someone who had many of their first online gaming experiences over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection it  made quite an impact. Filling in a Globe is such a perfect way to calcify the connections being  forged, and the GWS takes full advantage. You’re encouraged to trade with people from as many 

locations as possible, and rewarded with Rare Candies if you do – like, a lot of Rare Candies. The only slight wrench is that the game asks you to select an area you’d like to trade with, but  often ends up trading with someone random. You can ask for a trade in Scotland and end up  trading with someone in Japan. It’s probably the right way to do it mind, rather than keep you  waiting – it just means you might be frustrated if you’re going for full global domination. I was still in a bit of a pi

ckle though. I could keep Wonder Trading until I got  an Eevee, or even just ask someone to trade me one on Twitter or something. But I was  really resistant to that idea, and I couldn’t figure out why. It’s not like I consider trading  cheating – these systems are a part of the game. If there is a reason behind this weird  neurosis, I think it’s this: I want there to be a wee story behind it for the video. You  know? Like, catching a Pokémon is a little story, there’s a little arc there: I can

talk about  my decision to use that Pokémon in particular, some of the prepwork, anything I had to go out  of my way to do, that sort of thing. Trading someone for a specific Pokémon I want but can’t  get would feel almost like me going, “here’s one I prepared earlier.” That’s rubbish! And that’s when this happened. One of the most frequent complaints I got on  the last video was that I was wrong about the Hoenn starters. I basically said that even  though Mudkip was my favourite, Torchic was al

most objectively the best choice. I’d like  to take this opportunity to issue a retraction, with the tone rather than the remark:  Torchic is the best choice in my opinion. Now I know what you’re about to say! I’ve been  getting that comment for like 5 years – all the speedrunners use Mudkip! Right! But speedruns are  not the normal way to play the game. I thought that was self-evident, but apparently not:  speedruns use incredibly specific razor’s edge strategies and manipulations that aren’t r

eally  practical under normal circumstances. They’re cool, don’t get me wrong, but that clearly wasn’t  what I was going for, you know? Apparently you can fit the world record into that video twice over! The other one I got was, Swampert is better competitively. I wish I could go there, so I could  land an easy slam dunk with Blaziken’s Uber tier in Gen VI, but let’s be real with ourselves here:  competitive tiers don’t matter a lick in-game. So while I don’t agree with those particular  lines o

f reasoning, people nevertheless presented a bunch of compelling reasons why they prefer  Mudkip. It’s only weak to Grass, it has great coverage, and the amount of water in Hoenn  makes Torchic a less appealing choice. Again, I still think Torchic pips it: I don’t really like  many of the other Fire-types (although at least there are other Fire-types); the amount of water  means there are plenty of effective Water-types in Hoenn; Speed Boost is an incredible Ability; and  Blaziken performs excel

lently against the Elite Four. But regardless, there’s a lot of room for  disagreement there. I’m not even sure there was a point in my taking it so seriously when pretty  much every Pokémon, including our neglected pal Treecko, is eminently usable in-game. So this random trade presented an opportunity for a bit of a redemption arc  – both for Mudkip and for me. I love Mudkip, and I did it dirty last time,  so I’m going to make up for it, and Mudkip is going to get to strut its stuff on a fuckin

g  Z-list YouTube channel. It even learns Yawn, which was one of the main things I wanted  on a bulky Water type, although I would need to breed with a Snorlax—oh, there’s one!  Yep, this is going to work out just fine. Since it was a bit of a rushed decision, I just  went with what I used to call my Mudkip when I was a kid – Kipz. It was 2003 and I was 10 years  old, give me a break. I still have fond memories of going into town one Thursday evening, getting  to pick out Pokémon Ruby at long la

st, and going to Burger King immediately afterwards. That’s like  10-year-old Nirvana. I woke up the next morning with the worst food poisoning I’ve ever had in my  life. Both of my parents had to work, so I had to go into my dad’s office with him. Still, though,  there was a silver lining: I had all day to sit quietly and play through Ruby with Kipz. Or at  least that’s what I thought until I flicked the switch and found the battery flashing red. Guess  who’d forgotten to bring the charger with

him? As for the rest of these Mudkips, we’ll  just pay them forward—oh you little fucker. Route 214 can be either a maze or a craggy  cliffside path, depending on your preferences. Of course, this wouldn’t be An Exhaustive  Look if I didn’t do both, and battle all the trainers along the way, but I don’t feel  that’s how you’re expected to do it? This level wasn’t designed for pedantic YouTube stupidity;  I don’t feel as though you’re intended to scour every corner of the game. But you can! So I

did. I feel like the way trainers work feed into this compulsion. Trainers represent a finite Experience  source that’s only really going to be valuable your first time through an area. If you come back  to Route 214 to fight the trainers, they’re going to be too low a level to be worth much. So if you  want to get through the game without grinding, a surefire way of doing so is to just clear  as many trainers as possible along the way. It’s also kind of nice, mentally, to  be able to “tick off

” an area. To say, yep, I’ve battered everyone there is to  batter there. It’s kind of like tidying up, which isn’t the coolest reason to play a game, you  wouldn’t catch The Gaming Brit just tidying up, but it’s pretty cathartic when you just need to  turn your brain off and do something relaxing. Judging by a lot of playthroughs and challenge  runs I see, it looks like I’m the weird one, if you can believe it. It seems to be normal to  avoid battles and just grind up in the tall grass when you

need to. Last time I implied that it  was laziness that led players to skip trainers, which leaves me another slightly sheepish  retraction. Yeah, I’d cuff myself from five years ago too. It’s an RPG, you make your own choices.  This is kind of the fun of challenge runs, right? Optimising builds and using unorthodox strategies  to get past problematic areas really tests a player’s ingenuity and resourcefulness. Even  if you have to grind later for whatever reason, if that’s the way you pace you

rself that’s just as  valid as whatever the fuck it is I’m doing here. There’s an interesting localisation quirk  to the PIs here. They’re not really Private Eyes – they’re Gamblers. As the series has gone on, laws around the depiction of gambling have  become more stringent in certain countries. Gambling has always been censored in the Korean  versions, but the first time I saw any changes was when the Game Corner was censored in  Pokémon Platinum to comply with new PEGI guidelines. Had the slo

ts been kept in, it would  have jumped to a 12+ age rating, which would have been unacceptable as I’m sure you can imagine. After Gen IV, the series just lost interest in fighting that battle, and didn’t bother including  slots or Game Corners in the first place. Which I think is a shame! It gave the world an underbelly,  an appealing bit of seediness that lent it more texture. But what are you going to do? Anyway, one of the earliest bits of censorship came in FireRed and LeafGreen, where the G

ambler  trainer class was changed to “Gamer” – “I’m a rambling, gambling dude” became “I’m a rambling,  gaming dude.” Of course if he were a real Gamer he’d just hit out with a compound slur. In Sinnoh, the Gamblers are a lot less haggard and down-on-their-luck – they’re  suave, trenchcoat-and-fedora-wearing, coin-tossing men who leave luck to heaven or  whatever. It’s that hard-boiled fantasy that makes the change to Private Investigator so  seamless. They didn’t even need to change the dialogu

e. It’s remarkably efficient. We finally reach the second of Sinnoh’s three Lakes, Valor, but we can’t get  in yet. Two scientists block our path, having been tricked by Cyrus. Replaying this game so often and knowing the twist, I misremembered this as a bit  of a plot hole. Why would your character not just say to the scientists that Cyrus is bad news?  But, of course, we don’t know who Cyrus is yet: we met him at Mt. Coronet, but we never put a name  to that grumpy little face. We’ll be back h

ere finding plot holes later though, don’t you worry.  Because as we all know, finding a plot hole in a piece of work means that you win at criticism. The Seven Stars Restaurant at the Hotel Grand Lake carries on Pokémon’s grand tradition of  fighting randos who are just trying to eat their lunch. In this case, it’s pretty much our  only opportunity to talk about double battles. Now, last time, my attitude towards double  battles was a resounding “eh, whatever.” I did not appreciate them at all,

and I didn’t  care to. I won’t be making any apologies for my change of heart this time, but my heart was indeed  changed in the interim. Double battles are great. Double battles, while still being just as easy  to understand as everything else in Pokémon, make the entire game simultaneously faster  and more complex. Faster because there are more Pokémon on the field at once; KOs come  quicker and more reliably when your Pokémon can gang up on a single opponent. At the same  time, you and your

opponent’s options are each doubled – predictions become exponentially more  complicated as you each have to account for a much deeper pool of possibilities. This makes  predictions far less reliable. For example, now, not only do you have to account for a  potential counter, you also have to foresee which Pokémon will be switching out. And that’s  just one simple, linear example: you can see how much more complicated things get when you realise  your opponent is also trying to outpredict you. L

ess reliabile predictions makes  type effectiveness less of a focus, so team synergy gets to shine instead. Moves  like Protect are more valuable in doubles because they’re no longer stalling out a turn. It can  potentially waste your opponent’s turn completely, giving your other Pokémon a free move, and that’s  to say nothing of its value when paired with Earthquake. Weather’s effectiveness is essentially  doubled – 5 turns means 10 moves in singles, but 20 moves in doubles. Setting up or assis

ting  your teammate is more efficient when it takes up a quarter of a turn instead of half. It’s no  wonder this is the official VGC format! It’s so much deeper and so much more exciting! I wish any of these strengths were realised in-game. It took me a long time to realise the  value of double battles because they’re framed as a novelty – a weird little mini-game that  pops up every now and again. When it does, the straightforward AI and the fact I’ve prepared  my team around the singles format

that makes up 99% of the game means it’s usually a case of just  selecting a Super-Effective move and watching the fireworks. Business as usual, then. I wasn’t even  aware until very recently that moves that hit both opponents (like Rock Slide) have their power  reduced by 25% in Doubles! Maybe that contributed to why I was so cagey about the format – I knew  that something felt off! If you’re going to bring people like me around the game needs the time and  the room to show off the strengths o

f this system! The obvious solution is to have  double battles become the standard; the de facto way to play Pokémon, even  in-game. I’m sure that’s easier said than done; such a fundamental change would have ripples  that affect the overall experience. I still think it’s worth trying at least once; it’d be  something to put on the back of the box at least! Or, alternatively, pack that nonsense in and make  an entire game about Rotation Battles. For that matter, where are my Rotation Battles in

Brilliant  Diamond? Where’s my burrito? Where’s my burrito? There’s a lady at the hotel who’s lost her key on  her way from reception. Nightmare. But the Dowsing Machine won’t return that the key is there. It’ll return that something’s nearby, sure, and I get that the game maybe doesn’t want you to  just have the definitive solution to the problem on-hand. But I dislike this moment because the  Dowsing Machine is effectively breaking its own rules. It undermines the player’s faith in  the featur

e, and makes solving the puzzle feel a little unfair, because that’s not how it  works literally everywhere else in the game. Another reason I enjoy fighting all the  trainers is I really like their scripts. There’s a Cyclist on Cycling Road that has the  platonic ideal of trainer dialogue. He taunts you before the battle with, “Let me see if you  know how to shift gears properly.” You fight him, we’ll fast forward that, and afterwards,  “Huh? I was supposed to be checking if you know how to shi

ft gears. Why am I checking out  your Pokémon?” It’s not comedy gold or that, don’t worry, you can stow your courtesy chuckles,  I mean it’s good structurally. There’s a clear relationship between what he’s saying before  and after the battle. Think of it like a setup and punchline – you get a weird non-sequitur,  leaving you to wonder what he’s on about as you’re fighting, and afterwards you get the payoff of him  wondering the exact same thing himself. It creates a small arc that helps maintai

n player interest. Another example, on Route 213, is the Fisherman. Since he’s facing away from you, he can’t  battle you unless you talk to him first. So the game behaves as if you’ve disturbed him  and scared away the fish. He’s so narked off at you! “You need to settle down some,” is so  blunt and characterful; this guy exudes more personality than some characters with hundreds  of times the screentime. I also love that you defeat this Tuber earlier in the Route,  and her mind immediately tur

ns to clouds and ice-cream. It’s full of character too – the  fast track-switching of a kid’s train of thought. There are loads of lovely little dialogue  flourishes besides. There’s a running gag about the Pastoria Gym Leader, Wake – I mean, Crasher  Wake – that I don’t feel like I’m in on? But the running gag is so easy to understand and it  suggests a story about how familiar and well-liked this big cartoony wrestler is that it’s difficult  not to get caught up in it. The other one is the Mov

e Reminder – the phrase, “honest-to-goodness  Heart Scale” is going to be lodged in my brain forever, and I couldn’t tell you why that is. Appropriately for a city in a marshlands, Pastoria’s mascot is Croagunk. This Croagunk statue is the first clue we had that Pokémon Diamond and Pearl would be getting remade  in Generation VIII. This same statue appears in your rival’s room in Pokémon Sword and Shield. The area used to be under the sea, before it drained, leaving behind the Great Marsh – Past

oria  City was founded to protect that habitat. I love that, the series taking what it learned from  Hoenn’s focus on climate and geography and bringing it forward without making it a focus. Apparently Pastoria is ideal for Water-type Pokémon because the Marsh keeps it cool during  the summer! I love how they’ve fleshed out the relationship between the Pokémon and the area –  this is the kind of detail that helps locate the Pokémon in their world – that whole conceptual  space thing I was talkin

g about earlier. Pastoria’s main attraction is the Great  Marsh, this game’s version of the Safari Game. Before we go in there proper I’d  like to talk about the Defog HM, which is possibly the best placed key item in the game. Most of the HMs are basically forced upon you when you reach mandatory points on the map. You  have to walk through Oreburgh Gate, so you’re stopped at the entrance and given Rock Smash. You  have to go to the Galactic Building in Eterna, so Cynthia stops you to give you

Cut when you get  near it. This works, it’s functional, and it makes sure no player is left behind, even really young  kids who maybe aren’t the best at reading yet. But I don’t think these examples take  full advantage of the format because they don’t draw you into the world. You’re  not being invited to investigate anything or put pieces together yourself; these NPCs  are basically agents of the game design, doing your thinking for you by stopping you  and saying, “you’ll need this later on.”

The Defog HM is similar in concept, but ends  up playing out very differently. It rewards exploration and curiosity, giving you a greater  sense of agency and feeling of accomplishment when you find it. But it also draws you into  the Great Marsh. It’s right at the entrance so you can bounce if you can’t be bothered,  but while you’re here, you may as well make the most of your $500 and play the game, right?  Instead of waiting until you’re at a choke point and forcing an item on you there, the

game  instead incentivises you with the item and uses it to get you exploring. It feels expansive,  rather than restrictive; the game is multiplying possibilities rather than narrowing them. If  you found this, what else is out there if you look around? The game is still guiding the player  quite firmly – you’re not likely to miss Defog, and even if you do it is technically optional.  Nevertheless, there’s a lot of value in keeping the player from noticing that’s what it’s doing. I said last tim

e that I thought optional stuff was satisfying because you knew some players would  miss it, but I’m not sure I was really convinced by that even at the time. I don't think optional  items and areas are good because you can miss them. I think they’re good because they reward  investment. The only way to make the world feel like it has more to discover is to put more stuff  to discover in it. At the same time, it's also giving the player some sense of accomplishment.  You can only take ownership

of your discovery if you have to actually discover it yourself! I really want to keep this focused on Brilliant Diamond, but I can’t resist taking the opportunity  to talk more about this. Because the biggest problem with Pokémon, for me, isn’t Dexit, it  isn’t the animations, it isn’t the generational gimmicks: it’s this, the suffocating linearity. The series has become more and more infundibuliform over the years, herding  the player from cutscene to cutscene, harassing them every step of the

way to make  sure they’re never lost. Along the way, you’re given every item you’re going to need. Obtaining  the rare and elusive Wishing Stars in Pokémon Sword could have been an interesting sidequest  that built towards the player’s first Dynamax; instead they literally drop out of the sky in  front of you. You don’t even get to pick it up. I understand these are handheld games for kids;  they have to be heavy-handed to ensure that lapsed or inattentive players don’t get lost.  But there’s su

ch a thing as too much. Getting on the train for the first time in Sword involves  five separate cutscenes: one outside the station, one when boarding the train, one on the train,  one alighting from the train, and one when you exit the station at the other end. As you’re  champing at the bit to finally start playing, your rival explains to you every step  of the way how exciting it’s going to be when you finally get to start playing. Besides just being plain infuriating, the big issue is this:

by coddling us so much,  the game creates an incurious playerbase. If the game insists on force-feeding a player  all the important stuff, then it designates the rest of the game as unimportant. I think  there’s a ton of really cool shit in Sword; I actually rate it quite highly. But it’s so  easy to miss all the good stuff, because the game is practically conditioning you to skip it. Here’s my shocking example. I decided, when gathering footage for this video, that I was going  to use Runerigus

. For those of you who don’t know, Runerigus has a convoluted evolution method that  involves it taking at least 49 HP of damage. Of course, Galarian Yamask is pretty frail, so  this is a delicate and sometimes frustrating balancing act. But between the Pokémon Centre and  Route 6 where you can catch Yamask, there’s this building. Inside, after a brief tutorial, a man  gifts you the Focus Sash, an item that allows any Pokémon to survive at least one hit so long as  they’re at full health. This i

s simple, elegant, purposeful game design, and yet because  the game hadn’t thrust this under my nose, I didn’t find out about it on my own. I only  know about this because I looked it up. I was so pampered, so inattentive, so slothful, that  I didn’t even bother to find out for myself. Now, I know, I was playing through this game to  refresh my memory and record specific bits of footage; of course I was being inattentive  when I was literally rushing through it, right? Except I replayed Sword b

ack-to-back  after Red and Crystal, and didn’t have the same issue with those. By not drawing a clear  line between important and unimportant, Red and Crystal made everything important! Even  something so simple as a bottle of lemonade, or a watering can, could be the key that unlocks  the next segment of the map. And in searching for these clues the player comes to better  understand the game and its world. I actually missed the Fly HM in Crystal, and insodoing  I came to appreciate how excelle

ntly Johto is designed! It’s very easy to get around that map! This is why I prize important items like Defog being obscured. They encourage inquisitiveness;  they demand of a player the curiosity to explore. Through this curiosity and exploration, the  player, entirely through their own play, discovers a deeper understanding of the  world, and a deeper understanding of the game. Anyway, onto the Safari Game. The Safari Game is a totally different catching experience. Remember, the  city was cre

ated to preserve the Great Marsh – it wouldn’t do much for it if you could pay to wade  in here and give endangered species twenty rapid. While you’re in here, neither you nor the wild  Pokémon exchange damage. Instead you’re working with a flat catch rate, and the Pokémon has a  chance of running away. You can throw mud to agitate it but raise its catch rate, or throw  bait to calm it but lower its catch rate. The Pokémon fanbase, industrious and dedicated  as always, have figured out that your

best option – statistically – is just to keep  throwing Balls, which would seem to really restrict the appeal of the game. But the thing  is, 1) most players won't know that, and 2) depending on the situation you'll be tempted to  do something sub-optimal. I’m generally not of the disposition to min-max – I get a few Balls in  and the urge to sling some mud is overwhelming. I really really like a section like this –  one that sticks to the core principles of the series while mixing it up a litt

le. I just don’t  think it’s fleshed out. There’s no information, so the player’s ability to choose between the  available options is limited. You just keep rolling the dice until an outcome is reached. And  that doesn’t play to the strengths of the series. All it leads to is a variable amount of time spent  grinding to get the dice to land in your favour. Where the Great Marsh excels is in its structure.  It’s split into 6 clearly defined areas, which can all be quickly reached by  using the tr

am. Before you go in, you can pop $100 in the binoculars upstairs to get  an idea of what Pokémon are appearing where – they change day-to-day. With that information handy,  you don’t have to waste your time or your steps finding the Pokémon you want! You check the  binoculars, and you can head straight there. Unfortunately the Great Marsh’s main downfall is  its lack of selection, which has only gotten less appealing because of the Grand Underground.  Because the rare Pokémon change day-to-day,

there’s only really one Pokémon here that you  can’t get easier anywhere else, and that’s Marill. I mean, Staravia? That’s not exactly uncommon! Speaking of Marill: I singled out Azurill as a bit of a small disaster in  Omega Ruby, and unfortunately I’m going to be adding to the pile here. Okay, so the audio in Brilliant Diamond is generally really good. As you explore, you hear  your footsteps on different materials, the whirr of the bike as you pedal, the hiss of rain, the  roar of the waterf

alls, that sort of thing. The audio cues even extend into the battle screens.  You can hear the flapping of Pokémon’s wings, and there’s a little audio cue if a floating  Pokémon comes in. This attention to detail can’t make up for the lack of verisimilitude  in the visuals, unfortunately, but that’s not the audio’s fault. In a vacuum it’s solid. Now, like I say, unless you get lucky at the Pokémon Mansion, the Great Marsh is the only way  you can catch Marill. So if you catch a Marill before th

e National Dex, it’s going to come in a  Safari Ball – a Ball that releases a putrid cloud and makes a stinky fart sound every time it opens. I mean, look, I'll roll with the punches, alright, I had to use a Quick Ball for Kipz and that’s  fine, I’m trying to stop taking it quite that seriously, you know? But, like, come on man,  I don’t want to use that. You’re stood there, up against the Champion, the big climactic  moment where all those hours of hard work together pay off – “I choose you, Az

urill!” and  it shits itself. Nah, we’re not having that. The Pastoria Gym is a maze themed around  a swimming pool, where you raise and lower the water levels to walk across the floats. I don’t really get it and it’s pretty linear anyway, so let’s just glance off that. While I adore the overworld music, the battle themes in this game are  not particularly strong in my opinion. I just don’t find the compositions particularly  exciting. The only way I can think to exemplify that is to compare Ome

ga Ruby’s Gym Leader  theme with Brilliant Diamond’s Gym Leader theme. The former, a stand-out example of a  boss battle theme; the latter, not so much. Hoenn’s Gym theme is layered to reflect the  relationship between you and the Gym Leader. The first thing we need to understand is the  role that our two main instruments play. First, you have the strings: the family that distinguish  a band from an orchestra, the strings are able to hit the highest and the lowest notes, creating  a sense of sca

le and drama. They represent what you’re up against. On the other hand, you have  Hoenn’s famous brass – the heroic instrument, the instrument usually associated with the  bravery and tenacity of our protagonist. The main melody is a call-and-response played  on these two instruments. The strings ask, “can you overcome this challenge?” before  the brass replies in kind: of course you can! In the next phrase, the brass takes over  the questioning. It’s a constant challenge, the two sides clamberi

ng over one another to  reach new heights, the exultant tone conveying that this isn’t a fight of any consequence, this  is a fight for the sheer joy of improving... until it all climbs as high as it can go, and tumbles  over and calms down into the second segment. Oaft. That’s your daddy right there. I’ve always found the Sinnoh Gym theme forgettable, and I think that’s down to the melody  and the tone it creates. There’s interplay between the strings and the brass again, with the two  weaving

around one another in an appealing way, but it doesn’t really rise to any conclusions  before falling into musical stings. It feels like the brass is complementing the strings, echoing  phrases rather than challenging them. Sinnoh’s battle themes in general are much more focused  on the rhythm section – heavy bass and rolling snares make the fight feel more portentous than  I think the context really allows. All the Gym Leaders are goofballs – as they should be! – and  yet the music sets this up

as a tense conflict. I’m not saying Omega Ruby is the only way to do  Gym themes, of course, just that I think it’s very successful. And if you like Brilliant Diamond’s  battle theme, uh, honestly, I’d like to hear why! Maybe with a different perspective, an insight  into the story it’s trying to tell, I’d “get it.” The reason I’m confident saying I don’t like it as  much regardless, though, is my very basic litmus test for this sort of thing: I don’t think I  could hum it to you off the top of

my head. The Galactic Grunt outside kicks off the next  story beat by loudly talking about his really important package – steady on now – and  then running away. And this is the point that the game falls apart a little, structurally. The map here is designed really elegantly. To me, it looks like the you should head up Route 212  and back to Hearthome to collect the fifth Gym badge. Afterwards, you could head back up Route  209 and Route 210 to reach Celestic Town. Instead, the story forces you

backwards up Route 213  to Valor Lakefront, led along by a breadcrumb trail left by the Galactic Grunt. From there,  you’re asked to backtrack to Route 210 and up to Celestic, completely skipping Route 212. Besides feeling like a bit of waste to just ignore a lengthy and pretty fun Route, this  structure feels muddled. Location is really important in storytelling in general, but  especially in this kind of linear RPG. The strength of Sinnoh’s interconnected world is  that the areas inherently r

eflect the player’s progress. The only way to advance to new areas is  to have overcome the current area’s challenges, accomplished, more often than not, by increasing  your level – a numerical representation of your strength. The player enters a new area, rises to  and overcomes its challenges, and forges ahead to challenges anew by moving to the next area. Here,  the player has just overcome the challenges in Pastoria, but rather than be allowed to move  forwards, they’re instead forced backwa

rds, away from a new Route and back through a series  of areas they’ve literally just conquered. Backtracking, of course, can be done well. But in  order to do so, it needs to create new emotional contexts or new mechanical situations. Returning  to an old area can help you realise how far you’ve come, or allow you to clear an obstacle you  couldn’t deal with before to form a deeper understanding of this place you thought you knew.  Often the two go hand-in-hand – how often in RPGs have you retu

rned to an old area that gave  you grief, only to find it’s a piece of cake, that the battles aren’t even worth fighting? The Galactic Grunt chase has none of these strengths – it’s literally just A to B  to A with no new scenario or challenge. It feels like you’re being yanked around. “Ah,” you start, before I rudely interrupted. Sorry. The structure doesn’t fare much  better if you choose to do Wake first. You have to beat Maylene before this flag clears.  So now you’re going from Pastoria to

Veilstone, back to Pastoria then halfway back up to  Veilstone. Neither way is horrible – this way you can polish off Route 215 on your way to the  Psyduck – but neither is really very tidy either. Once the chase is concluded and the Grunt  escapes into Lake Valor, your character doesn’t bother to say anything to either  the scientists or to Cynthia. At this point, there’s no way you don’t know that Team  Galactic are up to something at the Lake. This presents an interesting quirk of these  kind

s of games. If you had full control over your character – if you existed in this world  – you could simply tell the scientists that Team Galactic are lying scumbags! But as  a silent protagonist, you play more of a passive observer. This is one of the big problems  that makes Pokémon’s storytelling so tricky – the protagonist can’t really be a character. Most  of the time they’re more like a moveable camera, allowing the audience to experience the story’s  events without having any direct input

on them. For the most part, this works, but one of  the areas it struggles is when dramatic irony is introduced – when the audience knows  something the characters don’t. In this case, the audience knows that Team Galactic are up to  something dastardly, but the scientists don’t. The problem is, unlike in other media, the  player – the audience – also has a physical presence in this world. They’re represented by  a character, who also knows that Team Galactic are up to something dastardly, but n

ever even  attempts to warn anybody. The game highlights the limits of the player’s agency in this  world by forcing their avatar to remain silent, and that undermines their involvement. Now, obviously, this has to happen for the story to continue, you know? I’m not usually one  to criticise a story for characters not behaving sensibly, because people aren’t sensible! But this  isn’t your character not behaving sensibly, this is your character just not behaving, not acting  at all! What, is my g

uy like a baby, does he lack object permanence? He can’t see the Galactic  guy anymore so therefore he just doesn’t exist? The game could preserve the frustration of the  moment while also respecting the player’s intent, I feel, just by having the scientist acknowledge  what you’re probably thinking. “Kids and their imaginations!” Of course, that’d be more  difficult to do with the literal Champion standing right next to you, and – you would think!  – backing you up. But then, this is Cynthia, s

he’s known for two things: being ludicrously strong  and being completely fucking useless. Oh, and for the incredibly generous fanart, three things. Well, we’re headed back to Solaceon Town anyway, and Meditite is on the cusp of evolving,  so this seems like as good a time as any to sort out my next team member. So grab a shovel and a spade and a hand grenade: it’s off to work we go.  Look, I’ve not actually seen the film. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl  are games pulled in two diff

erent directions. On the one hand, they had to be faithful  recreations of games released in 2006. At the same time, they are Generation VIII games,  so they had to incorporate many of the changes and updates the series had made in the interim. The Grand Underground is Brilliant Diamond’s compromise. It combines the original  Underground with elements of the Wild Areas from Pokémon Sword and Shield. Broadly, I see what they were going for and I really like it. Sinnoh’s criss-crossing network of

tunnels are used as a big playground; you can go down  and collect items and/or Pokémon in a dedicated sandbox. It’s impossible to make progress while  you’re down here – you always resurface where you entered, not where you are on the physical map.  Obviously it has to be that way logistically, but it also means the Underground is low  commitment. It really is just a timesink, making it easy to whittle away ten minutes digging  here and there. It’s great to have the option to spend some time do

ing something mindless in a  game like this: a handheld game where you can’t always commit yourself to a longer play session. The Grand Underground doubles as the game’s online area, which is a fantastic idea to incorporate  some of its predecessor’s mechanics. In Sword and Shield, the Wild Areas could be played online,  but the draw distance and sheer number of players made it chug like a slideshow at launch. Having  a dedicated area for online multiplayer separate from the main game lets both

focus on their  task. You don’t have to decide between being anti-social or tanking your framerate in the  single-player, and you’re not distracted by the single-player campaign in the multiplayer. So I should love this. But it never comes together quite as well as I’d like it to. The original draw, carried across from Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, is digging. Tap away at the screen to dig up Spheres, Shards, evolutionary Stones, Fossils, and other  helpful items. Strike the wall too often and i

t collapses. It’s compulsive and just a little  bit mindless, which is perfect for this kind of timewasting bonus minigame. Since you’re  accumulating items, it feels productive, even though you’re not actually doing much of anything. But like the Pokétch, it is really hurt by the Switch hardware. Of course you can  use touch controls in handheld mode, but even then I tend to just use the buttons  anyway because of the console’s size and weight. The buttons work, obviously, but they  feel so muc

h less immediate and tactile. The biggest addition to the Underground  in the remakes are the Pokémon Hideaways. Rendering Pokémon on the overworld before you  encounter them has been a priority for the series on the Switch. I can’t know for sure, but  I don’t imagine that would play well with Sinnoh’s narrow maps and top-down camera; you’d just be  running into everything anyway. Hideaways, then, make a lot of sense: the game trying to have  parity with the rest of its Generation without having

to give the overworld a huge rework. Now, I have a lot of thoughts about being able to see random Pokémon on the  overworld, but I don’t really have the opportunity to go into them here. I think  it’s probably better than random encounters, but for just now let’s assume that’s the case. This should be a slam dunk, then. One of the advantages of seeing Pokémon on the overworld  should be that you no longer have to grind out random encounters to find the one you want.  But the grind in the Grand

Underground is, if anything, arguably even worse. Because  the rooms are so small, all the Hideaways end up doing is frontloading the same random  chance. You’re still just rolling the dice, the only difference is you don’t have to start  the battle to find out! If you’re looking for a particular Pokémon and can’t find it, you have  to run out and back in to get another chance. That sounds like it would be quicker than random  encounters, and it is, especially because each reroll spawns 5 or 6 n

ew Pokémon. But in tall  grass, you can partition your attention, grab a cuppa, stick on a YouTube video in the background  and relax through the grind. This new capture method is marginally less tedious, but it’s more  frustrating because you have to dedicate a lot more attention to it. To be clear, I’m not saying,  “they should make it so you don’t have to pay attention,” I’m saying they haven’t really fixed  the problem of grinding out the random generation. Maybe I’d find it less objectionab

le if it weren’t  for the awkward collision. Moving around in the Pokémon Hideaways feels awful. The hitboxes don’t  seem to line up with the geometry at all – while the rocks and logs look a lot more natural than  anything on the overworld, the game is still grid-based. There’s a clunky square hitbox around  even the most organic curves, meaning you’re stopped by invisible walls all over the place. Compounding the issue is the camera, which, unlike the overworld’s camera, doesn’t keep  you dead

centre. It seems to slow down when you approach the top or the bottom of the room; since  it’s at a three-quarters angle, it means that you can’t see anything if you’re heading south.  And with wild Pokémon all over the place… yeah, I don’t need to explain how that’s frustrating. If you were here last time, you may remember what I thought of Secret Bases: not really my thing,  but an incredibly robust and well considered feature I would love to see return. When they came back in Generation IV,

they were less diverse visually because you  had to make them Underground. Besides that, though, they were completely intact. If  anything, there were advantages because you didn’t have to fiddle around with  Link Cables to see your pals’ hidey-holes. Secret Bases are in Brilliant Diamond in name  only. You can’t decorate them with furniture any more; instead you can only place statues,  which manipulate Pokémon spawn rates in the Underground. They have basically been gutted  of all their appeal

. You can still place the statues how you like, sure, but that’s  a moot point because the statues are a practical rather than an aesthetic concern.  I didn’t want to arrange them beautifully, I wanted to shove them in wherever they’d fit  for maximum payoff. Not that it seemed to matter. Different Pokémon being in different biomes  presents another problem. The Grand Underground is segmented – there are 6 discrete parts, and the  only way to travel between them is to resurface and then dig in a

different area. So if your  Secret Base is in a different segment of the map and you’re looking to change which Pokémon  type you’re searching for, it’s a huge detour to go and sort it. This is the kind of problem  that couldn’t exist when the Secret Bases were their own insulated system. To be fair, you can  use other peoples’ Secret Bases and their type bonuses which is nice, but it’s a crapshoot  unless you have a friend to co-ordinate with, in which case it’s just as fiddly as going back  a

nd changing your own. I ended up keeping a few Drills on me so I could just change where my  Secret Base was whenever I needed. It was more efficient for me to create a completely new Secret  Base than it was to backtrack to my old one. Again, I have to stress, I’m not saying  any of this was the result of incompetence or whatever the fuck. I haven’t a scooby about  game development but I imagine it’d be easier to retexture existing models than create hundreds of  pieces of unique furniture to d

ecorate your base with. And, to be fair, tying the system back  to capturing Pokémon is logical and economic. But in trying to tie the Underground and its  systems back into the main game, we’ve only really highlighted how pointless they are. That was once  by design – these systems were never supposed to support the main game like this. Before, you were  gathering Spheres to get furniture for your Secret Base, and it didn’t matter where you chose to put  it because there were no differences bet

ween the different segments of the map. Wherever you  put it, you weren’t missing anything. Now, you’re gathering Spheres to get TMs, so if  you’re desperately needing one to carry on with the game you’re going to spend a lot of  time seething down here, tapping on walls and hoping the Vendors have the right item today.  You’re gathering Statues to catch Pokémon, and once you have enough statues to maximise your  chances there’s no point in digging for more, at which point Digletts and their inc

reased  chances of finding Shiny Statues become less valuable. These systems buckle under  the weight of their increased relevance. Anyway, we’re down here because we want to  catch Elekid. Eventually I’m looking to have an Electivire that knows the three elemental  punches. And you’re going to have to sit with me through this incredibly long and tedious  process. Or, you know, you could just click away I suppose. I didn’t think this through. Elekid is a rare spawn – bumped up thanks to my Elect

ric statues – and they each have a 5%  chance of holding an Electrizer – bumped up to a cool 20% thanks to Super Luck Murkrow.  I’m feeling pretty good about this. Anyway, four hours later I finally got  one. Yeah. My partner was searching alongside me and seemed to encounter one  every other time they reloaded the room; I went for almost an hour without seeing one. There’s one of two possibilities: either there’s a change in appearance rates depending on how  far through the game you are, or I

just got incredibly, incredibly unlucky. As I can find  no documentation suggesting it’s the former, I’m going to say it’s probably the  latter. The game can just be a real bastard when luck’s not on your side. Anyway, after all that we got one, so now it’s onto the next ingredient: a male  Medicham. Eugh, “ingredient.” “Take one cup mommy, three pumps daddy,” augh, that’s really gross. I haven't used Meditite at all in battles, but was still able to level it up comfortably in  a reasonable time

frame. Without the Exp. Share, I wouldn’t have even considered this  strategy, and so I probably wouldn’t have even used Electivire in the first place.  This is just one way in which the Exp. Share fundamentally changes the act of playing  Pokémon. What would have been a grind before, a concentrated effort, is now completely passive. Or so I thought: I actually found a Meditite one level higher when I was looking in  the Underground, so maybe I would have. If you want to give this a try yourself

  this seems like an easier way to do it. As soon as Meditite evolves, it can learn the  three elemental punches by going to the Move Reminder. That’s what we were looking for. Context for the move selection is generally strong. I have no problem believing that  a disciplined Psychic/Fighting monk thing would be able to master the elements and punch.  This is obviously important to the developers too – there’s an anecdote about the designers  getting rid of a Pokémon’s tail in Generation III, on

ly for them to realise they couldn’t because  they’d already given it tail moves. Of course, the series isn’t always successful, there are some  head-scratchers. It’s particularly tricky when you take localisation into account; Sucker Punch,  for example, can be learned by Pokémon without hands and doesn’t gain bonuses from Abilities like  Iron Fist. That’s because Sucker Punch is a slight misnomer; the move is called “Surprise Attack”  in Japan. “Sucker Punch” is a great name for the move, but

it does lead to a wee bit of confusion  until you learn about this translation quirk. Still, even with these (and other) complications,  the series’ hit rate is remarkably high. If you don’t know how breeding Pokémon  works, here’s a quick breakdown. Breeding allows a player to customise their  Pokémon more deeply. You take two Pokémon of opposite genders that seem vaguely like they  could breed, bung ‘em in the Nursery, and they’ll produce a baby Pokémon that combines traits from  both; it can

adopt certain moves it wouldn’t normally be able to learn, as well as certain  statistical strengths and weaknesses. In this case, we’re chucking in a female Electabuzz and a  male Medicham, resulting in a newborn Elekid that knows Thunderpunch, Fire Punch, and Ice Punch. All of this is, of course, euphemised. It has to be: kids are playing this. All interactions  between the two Pokémon go on behind closed doors, and the Eggs produced dissociate the mechanic  further from sex. Every kid knows t

hat chickens hatch from eggs – it’s even the basis of one of  our most common idioms. It’s perfectly sanitary. This leads us into our first big problem: this  euphemism, while necessary, also prohibits the game from explaining a lot of breeding mechanics.  There’s a load of rules that the game doesn’t explain. Pokémon can only breed if they’re in  the same “Egg Group” – explaining this would require some acknowledgement of the underlying  biology so the game doesn’t bring it up. Different items

and Abilities have arcane effects – you  couldn’t explain Destiny Knot’s effect without acknowledging the child inherited its parents’  traits. To make full use of this mechanic you really have to have a guide handy. Considering the  popularity of games like Minecraft and Terraria which seem to encourage having a Wiki page open  while you play, I’m a bit gunshy about criticising this too harshly, but having to stop what I’m  doing to consult a guide just isn’t fun for me. The second big problem

is it’s boring. Sorry,  guys, like, look, I don’t want to be reductive here. There’s a lot of time and effort  that goes into Pokémon breeding – steady on now – and when it all goes well and you get  that perfect Pokémon you were looking for it can be satisfying. It feels like your expertise,  your eye for quality and demand for perfection, has paid off. But what you’re doing to get  there is moving back and forth for minutes if not hours at a time. Or try spinning. That’s  a good trick. Repetit

ive actions are more useful when you’re not even looking at the screen. Director Junichi Masuda, when talking about Pokémon Let’s Go, said that he’d “be really sad  to think that, for [some players], Pokémon is just hatching eggs.” Now apparently he caught  a lot of flak for that remark. But, god, he's right, I’m sorry, he’s right! Imagine spending  all this time and energy creating these games only for people to spend a majority of their time  on a single Route not even looking at the screen! N

ow, I know someone’s going to come in and  tell me if you have a Pokémon with Flame Body, Eggs incubate faster. It’s such a cool bit of  context, but while Shining Pearl has Magby, you can’t actually get a Pokémon with Flame Body  (or Magma Armor for that matter) in Brilliant Diamond. It’s a fun little Easter Egg, but  it’s not like it makes the act of rotating the analogue stick more engaging. Breeding’s also just a bit cynical, isn’t it? One of the series’ core  thematic pillars is mutual grow

th. You and your Pokémon are both growing together,  bringing out the best in one another, you know, friendship overcomes all trials and all that. The  narrative breeding creates is that some Pokémon are just of better stock. What is it Mewtwo said  again, “the circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant?” Yeah, not so much as it turns out. You have to give Gen VIII some credit: it made a ton of quality of life improvements.  The Day Care is now called a Nursery, with the functional difference b

eing that Pokémon no longer  level up while they’re in there. It means you pay a flat rate, and you don’t have to worry about  them levelling up and overwriting any of their moves you may want to pass down. You also may  remember that I talked about Razor Leaf being Back Garden’s strongest move. Her children could  always learn Seed Bomb with the right breeding, but I didn’t want to get rid of my starter  Pokémon. Turns out, a Pokémon can teach another Pokémon of the same species an Egg Move  ju

st by leaving them both in the Nursery. That’s quality! It’s so quality I wish it were  the new way to pass on Egg Moves. Like, one of your Pokémon could teach another compatible  Pokémon one of their moves, even if they’re not of the same species, something like that? Honestly? This is 110% pure molten speculation, but it seems like we’re building towards the  breeding mechanic being retired. I’d be all for that, personally. A lot of its benefits  have been shouldered by other systems, it creat

es a whole bunch of contextual headaches  that means it can never really explain itself, it’s got a bit of a weird eugenics vibe to it,  and it’s just really, really dull to execute. There are benefits, of course there are! Breeding  lets you trade your friends a rare Pokémon like a starter without having to give it up or start  a new game; that alone makes it worthwhile. But I think the series can have its cake and  eat it here; I’m sure there must be dozens of ways to preserve the benefits wit

hout the tedium. Look, I’m not the only Pokémon fan in the world, and I’d like to stress anew that making  ridiculously long videos doesn’t make my opinion more valid. I guarantee there’s a ton of people  that have played these games a lot more than I have. I’ve gone into a lot of detail trying to  explain my problems with the mechanic, but I can’t shake the feeling there’s something I’m missing;  I don’t think I really get breeding. “Yeah, we can tell!” But if you’re a staunch defender,  I’d be

genuinely interested to know why? What is the appeal of this system that I’m not getting? Anyway, despite my misgivings, here’s our boy now. I’m calling him VHS because of all the fuzz  and static. In fact, this is another thing, why do you have to nickname them before you  get a look at their summary? Surely it would be better if you could confirm this is  the one you want before nicknaming it? As before, we’re just going to trade  off the excess. A Geodude for an Elekid? That’s not worth it,

we’ll just trade  that off too—sigh. Wonder Trades, man. I joked earlier about Cynthia having a reputation  for being useless, and this is a prime example. Why send someone to help the Psyduck if  you’re just going to follow them here anyway? I always got the feeling that was  the point. Cynthia’s your senior, having been sent on the same Pokédex quest by  Professor Rowan when she was your age. She’s watching over you but not doing everything  for you; she’s giving you the opportunity to grow an

d prove yourself. She even asks you to  deliver an Old Charm to Celestic, coming up with an excuse for you to explore Route 210 and find  some rare Pokémon – like Geodude! Although part of that seems to be that she just doesn’t want  to be bossed around by her gran. Fair enough. It's been a few years now that Pokémon  has done away with having to teach your team HM moves. Here, they're Pokétch Apps –  you use the Pokétch to summon wild Pokémon. I think removing HMs is the right move. I can  now

use the Pokémon I want and the moves I want when I want with no concern about whether  I need slots for moves I don’t want to use. This was particularly fiddly in Sinnoh, which  had no less than 8 HMs – unless you knew what was coming ahead of time, two entire team  slots would be dedicated to getting around unhindered – that’s not including Flash! If  you didn’t, you’d run the risk of having to backtrack to a Pokémon Centre. Very disruptive. HMs, then, were a peculiarity for the series. Pokémon

teambuilding offers the player unlimited  choice. But HMs restricted those choices. You had to keep specific moves on your team to be sure  you could progress. That often meant you had to keep certain Pokémon on your team – ones  that could learn the HM moves you needed. A Water-type Pokémon was pretty much a necessity  on every team for the first six Generations to ensure you could use Surf, Waterfall,  Whirlpool, and/or Dive when you needed to. Now, normally I’d be the first to argue that  bo

ttlenecking the player can force them to think about their priorities, make tough decisions,  engage more with the game, and blah blah blah. But these decisions weren’t interesting. If  you had to cross a body of water, for example, you had no choice but to use Surf. The only  decision you got to make, then, was which of your party members learned Surf. At most you may  have had to decide which Pokémon to switch out of your party for a few minutes; exchanging a Pokémon  you cared about for one y

ou didn’t. In an absolute best case scenario, this body of water would be  optional, in which case you get to decide if you can be bothered adjusting your party in the first  place. None of these are compelling decisions. The only time this system ever made any kind of  sense to me was all the way back in Generation I. There were only 5 HMs; movepools were far more  shallow, meaning most Pokémon could comfortably find room; and most importantly the non-linear  structure meant acquiring HMs and t

heir associated Gym Badges had you picking a route through the  game. If you wanted to catch Zapdos as early as possible you would have to make a beeline to  Fuchsia, completely altering your path through the game. Again, it isn’t elegant, but this is where  it at least makes sense to me. As the games became more linear HMs became more tedious to use. So overall I like that there are fewer restrictions now. Yet they’ve never found a  replacement I’ve found satisfying. Generation VII had Poké Rid

es, where you would hire  a Pokémon almost like a taxi service, and most of the obstacles were removed in Sword  and Shield, with everything else being handled by your bike. But HMs’ strength was that it  was your Pokémon performing these feats, and I think that’s a core part of the fantasy.  You were on this journey with your Pokémon, training them up and overcoming challenges  together, and that doesn’t just mean fights. If you needed to crest a waterfall, you and  your Pokémon had to overcome

a rite of passage, and then you had to teach them how to do it. It  made you feel more like a team working together to overcome these trials, and it gave your  Pokémon an opportunity to show off their powers. Of course, like I say, this was undermined  by the idea of an “HM slave” – a Pokémon you didn’t really plan on using for battles  that you stuck in your party nonetheless to get around the overworld. Brilliant Diamond  effectively canonises that – a random Pokémon, usually a Bibarel, comes

along, helps you out,  then goes away. They both share the same issue: neither are quite as compelling because you  aren’t growing or training with it. It’s the Pokémon equivalent of a contract worker. The problem, of course, is that the modularity of the core teambuilding mechanics makes it  effectively impossible to bring your monsters into the overworld in a meaningful way. Sure, yes,  your Pokémon are following you on the overworld, but they have no way of interacting  with it. It’s that co

nceptual space problem I was talking about earlier; it’s  difficult to imagine these creatures as part of this ecosystem, part of their surroundings. Let me try and explain myself more clearly. The essential fantasy is that you’re working together  with your partner Pokémon to overcome obstacles. You encounter a river you can’t cross, and so you  get your Water-type Pokémon to ferry you across, or a Pokémon with claws to fell a nearby tree to  create a bridge, or a tunnelling Pokémon to tunnel u

nder the river, or a Bibarel to dam it up, or –  you get the picture. Taking the magical animals at face value, in a tactile world, you would  have physics and chemistry giving you almost limitless numbers of ways to tackle the problem.  But Pokémon isn’t a tactile world, Pokémon isn’t real – sorry to be the one to break it to you –  it’s a game. So to capture that fantasy exactly, each of these possibilities would have to  be imagined by the developers, planned, programmed in, animated properly

, sound effects  added, bug-tested with every single Pokémon, and probably a lot more besides. You get the  point, that’s an unfeasible amount of work. How do you reconcile this? How do the developers  allow the Pokémon to exist in the same space as the player, interact with the terrain and  environment and have an impact on and a presence in the world around them, without limiting  the player by forcing them to use specific kinds of Pokémon? The answer Brilliant Diamond  reaches is to just hand

-wave it. A random Pokémon helps you out, superficially keeping the focus on  Pokémon without capturing the underlying feelings of teamwork and growth. All things considered  it’s an acceptable compromise, but it’s still not ideal. It’s just that done is better than  perfect, so if it carries on like this I’m happy. Brilliant Diamond is also struggling  with that same old identity crisis: the levels having been designed for Gen IV’s  mechanics even though it’s a Gen VIII game. The limitations of

the HM system went beyond team  management – most were, and still are, just boring to use. You’d see a breakable rock, walk up to  it and press A, and continue playing the game. In the original games, that was at least an  obstacle. I don’t think it was a very good obstacle as we’ve discussed but it was, at  least, a factor in your decisionmaking. Now you always have the HM on you no matter what.  Cut and Rock Smash are completely pointless in this game past their respective introductions.  The

re is no point in any of the rocks existing past Ravaged Path because you cannot reach  that point without having Rock Smash always available. Look at this tree on Route 209. It’s  impossible to reach this part of the game and not have Cut on you. There’s no decision  to be made here, no challenge to overcome, no interaction with any of the other mechanics;  what obstacle does this tree now represent? In what situation would you not want to cut this tree  and see what’s behind it? And yet, to re

move these obstacles outright would be to remove some of  the few opportunities the player has to interact with the overworld. Do you see the dilemma? Funnily enough Defog actually remains one of the stronger examples in the game, just  because it’s optional. It’s conceivable that a player would come here, realise that they  can’t get past without a lot of difficulty, go exploring, and come back with the HM,  which is a small arc, it’s some kind of accomplishment. Bolstering that is the fact the

re  is an alternative – you can just brute force your way through here with limited visibility.  You’re not honestly telling me I’m coming out of the Brilliant Diamond video saying Defog  is the best HM; I did not expect that going in. It was around this stage that I realised how  many Pokémon were available thanks to the Grand Underground, and so I made a rash decision –  or should that be, a rasher decision, ho ho! My original plan was to catch a Garchomp to  round out my team of 6, but then I

remembered how adorable Swinub was and all those plans  went out the window. Look at its wee face. I’m not made of stone. Unfortunately we won’t be  seeing much of the wee lass – it evolves into its final form fairly quickly. I always loved  Swinub, but was never so big on Piloswine. I’m so glad Mamoswine came along and helped rocket  the entire line to one of my all-time favourites. Look at this good piggy girl. We’re calling her – and this is my favourite nickname – Boarealis. If Hoenn’s majo

r theme was land vs. sea, how the environment shapes people and the way  they live, then Sinnoh’s major theme is mythology. Celestic Town is said to have been here since  the very creation of Sinnoh. There’s etchings of Dialga and Palkia, a mural of the Lake Trio  inside the cave – even the Mart here is themed, being run by an elderly couple out of heir home  rather than the sleek franchised blue building we’ve come to recognise. The centrepiece of  the town is a small shrine, presumably in trib

ute to a kami – in this case, likely one of  Sinnoh’s legendaries. Like the statue in Eterna, like the church in Hearthome, we have another  location dedicated to showing how myth and religion influence the people that live in Sinnoh.  Celestic Town is very much stuck in the past, with myths being kept alive and passed down through  rituals and traditions. The very fact there is a village Elder – Cynthia’s grandmother – says a  lot. This more of a tribal heirarchy than a city. So of course Team

Galactic are going to blow the  place up with a bomb. Which seems a bit mindlessly destructive even by Team Galactic standards,  especially as Cyrus shows up two minutes later and decides it’s not really worth bothering with.  Keep this moment in mind, we’ll get to it later. Like much of the region, Route  211 is bisected by Mt. Coronet. The mountain draws a straight line roughly down  the middle of Sinnoh. This is usually used to explain the two forms of Shellos and Gastrodon  – West Sea Shello

s are pink with a crown, while East Sea Shellos are blue with little  pigtails. It’s a neat touch – especially for a scrapped Gen III Pokémon – grounding it and giving  it a stronger relationship with its environment. More interesting to me is the relationship between  Celestic and Eterna. There’s a little bit of soft storytelling to the level design here; they  both have a focus on history and tradition, even sharing that same music track I like so much.  The mountain acts almost like a mirror

– while both are ancient settlements, Eterna is  constantly plodding forward into the future, while Celestic remains rooted in tradition. I  don’t think it reveals a huge secret about the setting or anything, but their proximity invites  comparison. While Eterna City has forgotten about its festivals and even the shape of its deity  Pokémon, Celestic still passes down folklore and in some small way keeps its legends alive;  while Eterna allows Team Galactic to build a giant evil building slap ba

ng in the middle of  town, Celestic’s Elder isn’t having any of it. Brilliant Diamond doesn’t go into enough specifics  to really foreground these ideas – we’re pretty much done with Eterna City for the rest of  the game – but it’s still a nice detail on the level designers’ part. Route 212 is muddy and damp and it annoys everybody. The thick mud appears only in the Great Marsh and a third of Route 212, and yet it  made such a negative impression that it’s become a staple of Gen IV criticism. It

would be an  extraordinarily contrarian act to defend it. So here goes: I love it. I’ve always loved it.  Route 212 is my favourite Route in the game, and that is not remotely an objective  assessment. Through sheer chance, the level design and theming come together to  create something I find uniquely evocative. See, I grew up on the lip of a nature  reserve with a lake at its centre, and there are loads of forested paths all looping  back around on themselves and feeding back into each other.

And my favourite days to walk  the dogs were always the rainy days. Sure, you’d have to tramp through the mud, but otherwise  it’s very peaceful – nobody else is around, the rain creates a nice veil of privacy, there  are no bloody midges to annoy you, and once you get back in you can get dried off and warmed up  which is always cosier than having to cool down. And, while I’ve not exactly been looking very  hard, the closest I’ve come to finding that experience in a video game is right here on 

Route 212. Multiple paths layered on top of one another give the player tons to explore in  a linear space. That level design is strongly contextualised: raised wooden platforms allow  people to easily cross the marshes and swamps without disturbing the local wildlife. I’m also smitten with this Route and the mud because they’re both tactile. Not  only are these surroundings familiar, but my character is actually interacting with them.  Dropping into the mud isn’t just a visual quirk; you have

to manually shuck yourself free  each time. That would get frustrating if you were contending with it for entire Routes  at a time, but the level design is reserved. It keeps the mud only where it makes sense,  and usually gives the player a way around it. Considering how much everyone seems to hate it I  hesitate to recommend the series add more stuff like this, but it gives Route 212 a believability  a lot of other Routes lack. If you want to know what I mean by that, look at these plants: it’

s  constantly raining here and yet they still have to be watered. That’s bad context; that makes  the world feel less real. The mud is frustrating, sure, but it’s authentic, and god only  knows Brilliant Diamond could have used more of that authenticity. Technically you can only catch Drapion in the Great Marsh (and Grand  Underground), but since we’re all muddy I thought I’d talk about version differences. Here’s a bit of behind the scenes trivia for you: this video was originally going to be “

An  Exhaustive Look at Pokémon Shining Pearl.” Pearl was the version I always went with, all the  way back to 2007 – I always thought Palkia was cooler than Dialga. The original plan was to  use Magmortar in place of Electivire, and Drapion in place of Scizor. In the end I couldn’t get the  team to fit together properly, so I decided to go with Brilliant Diamond instead. Had I known how  off the rails the teambuilding would go anyway, I’d’ve probably just stuck with Shining Pearl,  but that’s ne

ither here nor there at this point. I don’t necessarily think that having two versions  is an entirely cynical decision – although I’m sure it doesn’t hurt their bottom line. I can kind  of see what they’re going for. They’re forcing the player to engage more with the game’s systems;  even with online trading making everything easier, trading would be demonstrably less rich if you  had access to every single Pokémon in the game. I guess I don’t really see it as predatory because  I’ve never had

the impression you’re expected to buy both versions. Through my partner, I  have access to both versions of this game, yet I’ve never felt compelled to go for that  second playthrough – you’re still getting the entirety of the experience by playing just one. There was some controversy recently when hackers learned that you could change Brilliant Diamond  into Shining Pearl just by changing an internal flag. I get it’s a bit of a slap in the face  – the cartridge you own essentially includes the

entirety of both games on it – but I don’t  think that’s a problem in and of itself. The two versions have always been almost identical, and  from my limited understanding of game development changing a flag strikes me as an efficient way  to implement that feature. Either way it’s beside the point: it could be a hundred times more  complicated for hackers to change the version, but that wouldn’t make the two version system any  better or worse when played as intended. I say all this to establis

h that I don’t really have  a huge moral problem with Pokémon releasing as two separate versions. Again, FOMO is an inherent  part of a series with this premise, and you can always trade for something you want. I’ve played a  lot of games with far shadier business practices. But that doesn’t mean I’m a fan. I feel like  the dual versions weaken the games in some ways, particularly when it comes to storytelling.  Every game with two versions inevitably has two box legendaries as well, each with t

heir own  discrete theming. The story of the game always has to account for a thematic dyad; two separate  themes, meaning it can never truly delve into either. Dialga and Palkia are themed around time  and space, respectively. I feel like Dialga does a much better job expressing the game’s themes:  time is closely tied to a game so concerned with history and mythology. I have a harder time  justifying space as part of that – Sinnoh doesn’t really seem to be about space. Team Galactic are  space

men, but that’s a superficial similarity, one just as easily justified by the word  “futuristic” instead. So both versions suffer: if you’re playing Shining Pearl, Sinnoh’s themes  may not come across so strongly to you, but it’s not like Brilliant Diamond players have a markedly  more interesting story. Because the game has to concede for Shining Pearl, Brilliant Diamond  can’t ever really explore the idea of time. While a unique selling point when the series  was starting, mechanically the sys

tem feels redundant at this point. Quality of life  improvements have narrowed the differences to the point of being irrelevant: breeding  makes previously valuable Pokémon disposable, and trading is no longer a social event  as it can be done anonymously in seconds. The only relevant difference between the two then  is if you have limited access to the internet or don’t want to trade for whatever reason. In  those cases, the two version system doesn’t really present a fun dynamic. You have to 

either spoil some of the game’s surprises for yourself or make a completely blind decision  about which version you want. Call it wrong and the only way to correct it is to drop another £60. The game does a fantastic job forcing the player to make meaningful choices elsewhere – it’s  literally the first thing you do in every Pokémon game. There’s a reason everybody contests  the best starter so hotly, yet in all my years of playing this series I’ve never had anybody  ever argue about which is th

e best version. Of course, it feels a bit futile to be criticising  it at this point, because I can’t see it changing: it’s a business decision first and foremost. None  of my criticisms are damning either – the series is not carrying its own cross by releasing as  two versions. But even giving it the benefit of the doubt, I have to ask myself one simple  question: would I have had a better time if I’d been given the chance to catch every available  Pokémon? And the answer is, unsurprisingly, ye

s. The Pokémon Mansion is owned by Mr. Backlot  – the same gent who owns Amity Square. Backlot’s not up to much just now, but  in the post-game you can catch a bunch of rare Pokémon that don’t ordinarily appear  in Sinnoh. The game knows how much of a tool the guy is – using altruism as an excuse  to boast about the cute and exotic Pokémon that don’t live in his Trophy Garden. Caught  in a lie, he tells his butler to go and add that creature to his collection, giving you an  opportunity to go an

d catch Clefairy, Meowth, Eevee, and so on. It’s fun context for a daily  mechanic that also justifies Amity Square’s weird limitations. You love to hate Backlot – he’s  a terrible person, but a wonderful character. The Pokémon Mansion is a deceptively  small area – there are plenty of doors, but the player can’t go through them. It’s a bit of a monkey’s paw: an effective way of making the area feel  larger than it actually is that can also leave the player feeling a little short-changed. Games

are about interactivity, and while we all love to joke about barging into strangers’ houses,  the best way of letting the player experience the world is to let them interact with it. Often, if  a player isn’t intended to interact with an area, it’s abstracted away. Take your house, for  example – your bedroom takes up an entire floor and there’s no toilet. I don’t  think we’re to take that literally, I just think the toilet isn’t really relevant –  there’s no shitting mechanic in Pokémon. I hope

I’m not courting too much controversy when  I say that’s probably the right decision. Having these doors here, then, resulted in  a sense of anticipation that the game never intended to pay off. It isn’t really a problem,  more just a level design quirk, but this is the kind of stuff playground rumours are made of.  Players want to see what’s behind the door! While we’re back in Hearthome, just outside the  Berry Master’s house, I thought it’d be a good opportunity to talk about Berries and Hon

ey Trees. Berries’ underlying systems are impeccable as always, striking the right balance between context  and involvement; everything works as you’d expect, but Pokémon never tips over into being  a farming sim. But the devil is in the details, and Brilliant Diamond’s Berry  management is hampered by its map design. I suspect if Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl  had been more ambitious remakes, they would have included a dedicated gardening area like in  Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. As th

ere isn’t, agriculture involves a lot of backtracking  and flying around, which can get tedious. There seems to have been some consideration about  this – the Berry Master is in a central location, which is great. But with one weedy wee patch  of soil, he can’t exactly be your Berry hub. I also found the graphics really misleading.  Watering a patch of soil actually waters all the plants in that same patch – there’s no reason  not to water them, so that’s a great little timesaver! But the colour

s are all wrong. The game  outright states that darker soil indicates a plant has been watered. Turns out it’s lighter soil that  indicates this – I compared the values and yeah, that seems to be lighter. Yet more confusing, once  Berries reach a certain stage of development, the soil stops changing colour. The game fumbles both  of these simple pieces of conveyance so badly that I spent my first playthrough thinking I was doing  something wrong. But no – Berries work exactly how you’d expect, a

nd exactly as they always have. And while we’re on the subject of running around Sinnoh to tend to trees… we have perhaps  Sinnoh’s greatest misfire, the Honey Trees. Pokémon has constantly strove to make the act  of finding Pokémon more considered than just wandering around in the tall grass. Headbutting  trees to knock down hanging Pokémon like Aipom and Pineco; fishing to catch deep water Pokémon; and  now slathering Honey on trees to attract Combee, Heracross, and Munchlax. It ties these Pok

émon’s  designs together with their environment – just through their capture method you get a better  idea how they live. There’s continuity there that better locates them in the world. So while I really like that basic pitch, and would love to see more stuff like this, the  issue is once again the execution. You slather Honey on a tree to attract wild Pokémon, and then  return between 6 and 24 real world hours later to see if you’ve found anything. If that sounds  torturous, you’ve not heard th

e worst of it. Your reward for this is overwhelmingly likely to  be something you don’t want – it could be nothing, a Wurmple or its evolutions, or a male Combee  which are unable to evolve. And if you want a Munchlax in particular? Good luck. Four trees  are randomly given heightened chances of giving you rarer Pokémon. There’s no indication given  which these are, and they’re randomly selected when you start a new game. Slathering Honey on  these rare and randomly selected trees gives you a 1%

chance of spawning a Munchlax. A 1% chance  every six hours – and that’s assuming you found the correct tree in the first place. Earlier I  said Pokémon like Munchlax functionally may as well not be in the Sinnoh ‘Dex, and this is what  I meant. The conditions for getting one are so stringent that I’ve never heard of anyone  even bothering. Heracross is rare enough, going from a 1% chance to a 3.5% chance on special  trees – oh, okay, just when I’m complaining about it. The one time I wouldn’t

be happy to  get a Heracross is when I get a Heracross. None of this is new, we’ve all been moaning about  the Honey Trees since 2007, and yet here it is, in 2021, completely untouched. Well, okay, no,  that’s not true – besides Heracross, the Grand Underground just includes all the rare Honey Tree  Pokémon as a matter of course, so you’ve got even less of a reason to use this system! I mean,  I kind of respect it as a preservation effort? But yeah, if the game’s all but telling me not to  bothe

r, we’ll just not bother, we’ll just move on. That brings us back around to our  second major visit to Hearthome. The location would suggest this is supposed  to act as the game’s main “hub” of sorts, similar to Mauville in Hoenn. Mauville  accomplished this by having a ton of useful vendors and features so you’d want to make  frequent visits and being in a central location so it was easy to make frequent visits. I’m a big  fan of that – defining the player’s relationship with the city entirely

through the level design. Getting Fly so early in Sinnoh diminishes the need for a centralised hub, so the region  instead has towns prioritise specific features. Hearthome is dense with vendors  and NPCs who assist you with preparing for the Contests – that makes perfect sense both  mechanically and narratively. It would make no sense either for the people or the game design  if the Poffin House was located in Jubilife. Before I start with the Contests proper, I feel I  ought to spare a few wor

ds for their introduction. Contests are an optional activity, and  appropriately their introduction is short and economic. Sure, it’s all very convenient –  you save someone’s Buneary, she just so happens to know your mother, who just so happens to be in the  city at the same time – but coincidence is not the enemy of effective storytelling. Like when Rowan  asked for your help with Team Galactic earlier, it’s expanding its narrative and mechanical  possibilities through existing relationships.

I found myself far less resentful of Contests  here than I did in Omega Ruby thanks to a brisk introduction and optional tutorials.  You’re even allowed to participate sight unseen without any further instruction – the  game advises against it, you’ll probably get trounced without preparation, but it respects  your intent. Many people learn better just by throwing themselves in at the deep end. Preparation mainly involves cooking and feeding your Pokémon little treats  called Poffins – essential

ly this game’s Poké Blocks. I like Poffins better  just because of the name though. “Pokémon” and “muffin,” but a lot less conspicuous. The difficulty with talking about Poffins, smoothness, contest stats, and Sheen is that  they’re all governed by arcane terminology that requires me to first explain in order  to discuss. Otherwise I’d very quickly leave most of you behind. Sorry, everyone, this next  segment is going to be a bit of an infodump. Poffins increase your Pokémon’s looks –  literally

, the stat is called “Sheen,” or “fur sheen” in Japanese. There are five  kinds of contest – Cool, Beauty, Cute, Clever, and Tough. Each Pokémon has five corresponding  contest stats, which are increased by feeding them one of five Poffin flavours – Spicy Poffins  increase Coolness, Dry Poffins increase Beauty, Sweet increases Cuteness, Bitter increases  Cleverness, and Sour increases Toughness. Depending on interactions between your Pokémon’s  Nature and the flavour of the Berry used, your Poké

mon will either like it more or less. Pokémon  with a Modest nature like Dry food, so it’s far easier to raise them to enter Beauty contests. This becomes relevant because your Pokémon’s overall Sheen acts as a hard cap to how often you  can raise these stats. If you’re looking to enter a Beauty contest but your Pokémon hates Dry food,  you’ll have a tougher time raising it. If you play suboptimally – say, because you’re still figuring  out the terms and conditions – there’s a risk you’ll max ou

t your Sheen before you max out the  Beauty stat. What the game never shows you though is that feeding a Pokémon Poffins it doesn’t  like also lowers its Friendship. Incidentally, along similar lines, herbal remedies, which  are described as being extremely bitter, will even lower the friendship of Pokémon  that like bitter flavours. Are you confused yet? I haven’t even gone into smoothness, which  affects the feel that governs the overall Sheen of a Poffin, and is completely distinct from  the

unrelated stat firmness which does nothing. The Very Soft Pecha Berry and the Super Hard  Chesto Berry both have a “smoothness” of 25. I need you to understand something here –  I haven’t actually done any criticism yet. This may have sounded like I was criticising  it for being too secretive and complicated, but I wasn’t. I was just describing how the  system works. This is me criticising it: this is all too secretive and complicated. All  of this information is of nebulous relevance, scattered

across a dozen different menus, vendors,  and NPCs. Even with multiple guides and years of experience playing these games, I have a tough  time. Maybe that’s fine for those of you that love bitter flavours, but I always feel like  I’m just throwing things at the wall. I suppose it’s to the game’s credit that I’m still able to  succeed, but then what is there to keep the folk that actually know what they’re doing coming back? I feel like the issue here stems from Pokémon’s admirable reluctance t

o reduce the monsters  to numbers and stats. It would be incredibly disillusioning if the game explained  the underlying mechanics directly; like real animal trainers, you’re working on  instinct and experience rather than objective numbers. But the context needs to be a lot  stronger to get away with that. For example: I would have an easier time understanding what  I was doing given the option to groom my Pokémon instead. Personally I don’t feel particularly  beautiful after scoffing half a do

zen muffins. The cooking minigame itself is well-presented,  but likewise would benefit from stronger context. The act of cooking makes a lot of sense. You  stir slowly at the beginning to prevent the mixture from sloshing over, and quickly at the end  when it’s become firm, to prevent it from burning. The burner underneath is a graceful visual  indicator of when you should be changing speed. It turns out, though, you can put in a perfect  performance and it doesn’t matter. If you use more than

one of the same kind of Berry the  Poffin will turn out foul no matter what you do. You can use four Berries with completely  different flavours and that’s more likely to be successful than the Pokémon equivalent  of a blueberry muffin, which makes no sense to me. Unless you’re positively catastrophic at  spinning the analogue stick, playing the minigame only optimises already successful Poffins. And if  you’re looking to do that, may I suggest doing it in Amity Square? The more Pokémon you have

with  high friendship standing around while you cook, the better quality Poffins you produce. Once you figure all this out you can get it right every time. But that only introduces a new  problem: making Poffins is boring. Consistency is good, of course, but it also makes the minigame  repetitive and predictable once you have a feel for it. In the originals, this was mitigated by  the novelty of the DS’s systems – touching the screen to swirl the batter had an immediate  tactile feel that made

it a simple pleasure. You could even invite friends and play together.  Both of these are absent in Brilliant Diamond, and the game is poorer for it. With all the prepwork out of the way, it’s time to enter the contest itself. We’ll  be entering Back Garden in the Coolness contest to start. I was going to enter her in the  Toughness contest because she’s a tortoise, but she seemed to want to go this way instead. I learned while editing what the problem was: flavours cancel out the flavour counte

r-clockwise  to them. I was feeding Back Garden Spicy-Sour Poffins, but since Spicy overwrites Sour,  she ended up Cool rather than Tough. Bizarre game. So aye, there we go, now you know. The first part is a simple beauty contest – the higher your Pokémon’s Coolness, the more points  you get. It’s impressive that the game will actually account for your Ball Capsules here, and  award extra points if they fit the theme. That’s a really clever bit of depth for what is otherwise  a completely option

al bit of personalisation. The second part, rather than being a move  showcase, takes the form of a simple little rhythm game. You can use a move: different  moves have different effects and you can only activate them once so you have to be  strategic, but that quirk aside I don’t feel the need to explain this bit. You already get it. So contests are no longer the chore to play they once were, but the problem is they’re still  not rewarding. I understand this minigame is a tertiary concern, but

it isn’t even complex  enough for that. And despite how simple it is, it’s still fairly sloppy: the sound of points  tallying overwhelms the background music, and the animations are frankly embarrassing. They wouldn’t  have the time to create choreography for every Pokémon in the game, of course they wouldn’t,  but that doesn’t mean it looks any better when the camera lingers on the Pokémon just standing  around vacantly. That’s not that cool, is it? I really don’t want to dismiss contests. Last

time I said they seemed like a waste of time and development resources, but like  I say I’ve since realised it’s foolish to try and reverse-engineer somebody else's  creative process. Like the Underground, they’re a wee bonus befitting a handheld game.  You can chip away at them for ten minutes here and there rather than dedicate yourself to a big  adventure. I also got a few comments from people telling me that they do enjoy the contests, and  that’s great! Pokémon can and should account for d

ifferent fantasies – people work with  animals in a huge number of different ways, and there’s value in reflecting that in Pokémon’s  mechanics. Contests are about showing your Pokémon off in a more flamboyant and theatrical light than  the more valorous one-on-one battles allow. That’s not what I focus on personally, but I’d love to  be brought around on the idea; I know first-hand the appeal of games where the ultimate goal is  customisation and self-expression. A Pokémon version of that seems

like a recipe for success. While I’d like to honour other perspectives, though, ultimately I can only speak for myself,  and contests have never found a way to draw me in. I find the preparation obtuse, the minigames  boring, and the theming kind of muddled – we seem to be moving away from a Crufts-style pet show and  more into idol territory. It’s a good thing the game never forces you through them, but it also  means, all told, there’s just not much reason for me to care. The game is packed w

ith far  more compelling ways for me to spend my time. Her domain conquered, it’s finally time  to meet Fantina on more familiar terms. If we were playing Pokémon Platinum we would have  fought Fantina our first time through. I see what they were going for here; Fantina refusing to  fight makes the world feel a bit more alive, less like it’s there for your convenience,  and it gives Fantina more of a presence as you anticipate fighting her. It’s kind of a similar  setup to your father in Gen III

– it’s even the fifth Gym. The series must have decided this was  a formula worth experimenting with. Unfortunately it’s far less effective as there isn’t any real  emotional connection with Fantina otherwise. The structure of Pokémon Platinum arguably has  more forward momentum, and creates a sense of mastery when you work your way back around. Sinnoh’s Gyms have some pretty weak theming. Gardenia uses Grass-type Pokémon, so her  Gym has trees. Maylene is a martial artist, so she's in an athle

tics centre. Crasher Wake  uses Water-types, so his Gym's a swimming pool – even though he seems to be based mainly  on a luchador. As for Roark, you may recall that I said at the time I thought it made more sense  to fight him in the mine. Compare these examples with Roxanne’s Gym in Omega Ruby. She’s a  student, she uses Rock-types, so her Gym is themed around a museum – the perfect setting  that justifies her design and type affinity. Fantina is the worst offender in Sinnoh because  she’s so

close to getting it spot-on. She uses Ghost-types, and is elegant and fashionable.  There’s plenty of room to make something of this – if I had to imagine a setting just  based on her character design, I’d imagine abandoned mansions, spooky big halls with elegant  chandeliers, a setting that’s both graceful and dilapidated. Maybe she prizes a kind of elegance  and grace she feels is dead? It doesn’t matter, because in reality her Gym is themed around  simple mathematics. It just doesn’t add up.

Incidentally, the only way to fight Fantina’s  underlings is to deliberately get the questions wrong. If you want to fight the trainers here  and get that juicy Exp. you practically have to mess up – as if the maths questions weren’t  easy enough, you also have a calculator on your wrist. The game all but assumes you're  doing it deliberately if you get it wrong. This is a problem because it means there’s not a  huge amount of character to either the environment or the characters themselves. Thi

s was a missed  opportunity to give the Gym Leaders – the game’s major bosses – more texture and impact. Without  that additional context in either their character or location to draw players’ attention and flesh  out the Gym Leader, we get a very unclear picture of them as people. I have no idea who these people  are supposed to be because, as I said before, I don’t know what Gyms are supposed to be. I could  describe them to you, of course, but I couldn’t tell you how they work. Presumably you

have to be  a fairly reliable trainer to become a Gym Leader, yet I’ve met children that could thrash Roark  no problem. It’s easy to account for that discrepancy structurally, but it contributes  to a kind of vagueness around the game’s main quest that leaves it feeling kind of hollow. With Electivire and Mamoswine now in our party, this seems like a good time to bring up the  topic of Pokémon designs and evolutions. Generation IV is infamous for introducing a  huge number of new evolutions fo

r existing Pokémon. Magneton, Lickitung, Rhydon, Tangela,  Electabuzz, Magmar, Eevee, Togetic, Aipom, Yanma, Murkrow, Misdreavus, Gligar, Sneasel, Piloswine,  Porygon2, Kirlia, Nosepass, Roselia, Dusclops, and Snorunt all got new evolutions in Generation  IV. And while I evidently seem to like them, suffice it to say they’ve been met with a far  more mixed response from the fanbase at large. This gives me the admittedly kind of flimsy  excuse to talk about Pokémon designs. Now, I’ve been with th

is series a long time. I’m old  enough to remember when people took the hump with Numel and the rest of the Gen III designs  because the Pokémania craze had died down. I was there for the buzz about Electivire and the rest  of the Gen IV evolutions. I was there when people flaked on Vanillite and Trubbish got trashed.  I was there asking “why” when Mega Evolutions were introduced in Gen VI – you may remember last  time. I was there when people were giving Bruxish lip. And I’m still here seeing E

iscue getting the  cold shoulder. My point is, there’s never been a new Generation of Pokémon that didn’t come  with some backlash towards certain designs. Ultimately I’m going to end up defending Pokémon  designs right up until the present day. In order to do that we first need to establish what I’m  defending them from: we first need to examine what people’s problems with these Pokémon are. Don’t  worry, this isn’t going to be a strawman: it’s not like I love every Pokémon ever made or anythin

g. On a surface level, the major complaints are valid. There are quantifiable differences in  the design philosophy between Generation I and Generation VIII – of course there are. These games are being made under entirely different circumstances, presumably by  entirely different personell. That inherently means they’re going to have a different approach. One of the most contentious changes is the greater focus on what I’m going to call “activities.”  Entire Pokémon species will embody a hobby,

sport, job, or other human activity. Let’s compare, for  example, the Fire-type starters from Generation I and Generation VIII. Charmander is a baby  salamander with smooth features, tiny claws, and big eyes; Charmeleon changes it into a  tougher, meaner looking lizard with a horn and larger claws; and Charizard is essentially a  dragon (even if the Type says otherwise). You have to make room for your understanding of Pokémon for  them to suddenly grow wings, but otherwise what we have here is a

fairly straightforward maturation  for a fantasy fire-breathing lizard: child, adolescent, adult. Scorbunny goes through much  the same process, but it now also incorporates a football motif – I would say soccer but it’s  Galarian. Scorbunny is energetic and constantly moving – an excited child just getting into  the sport; Raboot takes it more seriously, wearing a thick sports hoodie which evokes the  image of it training even in bad weather; and Cinderace has trained hard and is now wearing i

ts  football togs, literally kicking pebbles around to turn them into giant flaming footballs. It’s not  subtle – its Shield Pokédex entry makes reference to pro football’s ostentatious celebrations,  and its Hidden Ability is even called Libero. To be clear, I’m not saying Cinderace is badly  designed, it isn’t. I’m saying there’s a clear difference in design priorities. Charmander  didn’t have to distinguish itself from anything else – it being a Fire-type starter was novel  enough because the

re had literally never been a Fire-type starter before it. Scorbunny not only  had to distinguish itself from its 7 predecessors, it also had to embody the specific themes  this new Generation of Pokémon was using to distinguish itself from the last 7, all while  under the incinerating pressure of being one of the new faces of the most lucrative franchise  in history. Of course these two monsters are not going to be designed the same way. Football  seems like a good choice: it’s the most popular

sport in the world pretty much everywhere but  America, giving Scorbunny a global appeal. I don’t have a problem with Pokémon  taking after human behaviours. After all, the first batch of Pokémon came complete with a  monster called Mr. Mime, and one of the new fan favourites is a line of miniature spartans  called Falinks. But there are two problems associated with them that the series has never  found a satisfying way of accounting for. One: if a player isn’t interested in that  activity, the

y’re less likely to be interested in the Pokémon. This isn’t a problem for, say,  Mr. Mime, because it’s easily ignored: if you don’t like it, don’t catch it. It’s a much bigger  problem for the starter Pokémon. If you, like me, think bunnies are cute but have no interest in  football then you might feel a bit alienated when Raboot evolves and your trusty partner Pokémon  ends up as a narcissistic showoff. Personally, having grown up surrounded by horror stories  of the Old Firm and its associat

ed violence and sectarianism, Cinderace having a football  motif turned me away from ever wanting to use it. Compare with Charizard. The strength of  its simple animalistic qualities is their broad appeal. Starter Pokémon are said to be designed  after certain personality types; while Charizard is said to have prideful characteristics,  without specific motifs or associations you’re free to imagine its temperament how you please. The second problem is, the games don’t always do a good job justif

ying these behaviours.  I understand there’s a futility in taking a series about magical cartoon animals too  literally. But Pokémon, broadly speaking, is excellent at using its monsters to create  a coherent and investible world. This is the main reason the series has kept my interest right  through to the present day. Here’s the catch. The more specific the ideas get, the more work the  game has to do to justify those ideas. Why has Cinderace evolved to imitate football players so  closely in

action, temperament, and look? That’s not a trick question, and nor is it rhetorical  – I think it would increase Cinderace’s appeal to learn this answer. I understand how ridiculous  this sounds. The reality is, Cinderace looks and acts like a football player because it’s a cartoon  character. But judging how invested people are in this series and its world, and judging by how  cagey people seem about this kind of design, I think there’s value in selling the idea. Because we so rarely see these

Pokémon as part of their surroundings – because they just  magically apparate out of thin air when it’s time for a battle – it’s a lot more difficult to get an  idea of how they’re supposed to behave. I’m loth to pick on Gen VIII starters again, but I can’t  resist talking about the design that kicked this whole thought process off, and my erstwhile choice  for least favourite starter Pokémon: Inteleon. Half sniper, half wetsuit, Inteleon is obviously  combining a secret agent with a chameleon,

hence the name – intelligence and chameleon. The  basic idea is obvious, and I think, really strong, but I had a difficult time imagining how this  thing moved and acted. That was, until I imagined its habitat. Picture, if you will, an Inteleon  living upstream, maybe near a waterfall or some rocky rapids. It could snipe prey downstream, and  then glide down to retrieve them. All of a sudden, its design makes perfect sense; maybe that  was the whole idea in the first place. Again: the more spec

ific the ideas get, the more work  the game has to do to justify those ideas. All it took was a little bit of justification  and I was turned around on Inteleon. This problem is especially pronounced for starter  Pokémon as they don’t appear on the overworld. But it potentially applies to every Pokémon ever  made. To give you a more relevant example, before this turns into An Exhaustive Look at  Pokémon Shield: I used to hate Hippopotas until I realised its periscope eyes allow it to see while 

it’s submerged in sand. An absolutely perfect cartoon representation of evolutionary adaptation,  and it took me years to appreciate because I never got to see Hippopotas in the sand where it lives. Evolution presents another challenge. I’m sure we’ve all had a moment where we’ve  caught a cute or cool looking Pokémon, only to end up disappointed when it evolves. This problem is especially pronounced when Pokémon evolve into their activities; see the earlier  example of a cute little rabbit bend

ing it like Beckham when he grows up. A lot of recent starter  Pokémon in particular evolve to share a body type; the more specific their mimicry, the more human  they have to look. I wouldn’t say any are generic, but if you aren’t a fan of that humanoid  body type it really limits your options! So you may think this problem is fairly recent.  If you were a big fan of Rowlet and Dartrix being round little dapper gentlemen, you may have been  put off by Decidueye becoming a Robin Hood-style figur

e. And of course, the most infamous example:  if you chose Litten because it’s a scrappy little fire cat, you may have found your enthusiasm  doused when it suddenly became a plantigrade biped, grew a six-pack, and started behaving  like a professional wrestling heel. You may love cats but have no interest in professional  wrestling. Or the other way around, I guess. But while Incineroar is perhaps the most  extreme case of this happening, it’s inevitable, to a certain extent, with all evolution

. You  may like or even love a Pokémon’s first form, but find yourself put off by what it changes into. Even Bulbasaur, perhaps the most linear expression of the evolution concept, suffers from this  to some extent. If you chose Bulbasaur because you loved its cute wide-eyed appeal, you might  find yourself put off by Venusaur’s warty skin, small eyes, and half-lidded glare. Squirtle  and Wartortle begin as a representation of the minogame, a turtle that lived for millennia and  trailed a tail o

f seaweed behind it. Blastoise loses the tail and instead sprouts cannons from  its shell – the result of the designers mashing two evolutionary lines together so there weren’t  two turtle families in the original 151. Dratini and Dragonair are elegant depictions of eastern  dragons; Dragonite has been often compared to Barney the Dinosaur. Remoraid is a fish; Octillery  is an octopus – their gun evolving into cannon motif obscured through revision. The list goes on. The problem is not just that

these Pokémon exist – the problem is that they also preclude  other potential evolutions from existing. Incineroar, as the most extreme example, is the  perfect case study. If you were anticipating an actual tiger rather than Tiger Mask, not only do  you get the disappointment of a Pokémon you didn’t want, that disappointment is compounded when you  realise the Pokémon you did want literally doesn’t exist. There’s a lot to be said for managing  your expectations, of course, but the fact is peop

le were only so hyped up because they loved  Litten so much. I don’t think getting them to care less is an appropriate solution. I had the  opposite problem. I love Incineroar’s energy. The association between a cat and a wrestling heel  is fun and original: both pretending that they don’t care what people think when of course  they thrive on others’ attention. But for me, the idea could only go so far because it was  stapled onto the Fire-type starter. The concept is just begging to be a Fighti

ng/Dark type, but  we’re never going to see that concept taken to its logical conclusion. If that seems unfair to you,  I agree – let’s put a pin in it for the moment. The Gen IV evolutions are almost like prototype  Incineroars. The intent was noble: to give a bunch of underused Pokémon a new lease on life. But the  very fact of giving them new designs fundamentally alters their theming and people’s relationships  with them. Before, if you liked Murkrow you liked one singular design with specif

ic ideas behind  it. After 2006, liking Murkrow sees you bridge the gap between witch’s familiar and mafioso. A part of this problem is the juxtaposition of different design priorities. It’s the same  paradigm I described earlier with Charizard and Cinderace, but this time shoulder-to-shoulder as  part of the same evolutionary line. Rhyperior is a prime example. Rhydon is the first Pokémon ever  designed, and its concept is as simple and elegant as can be. The hard skin of a rhino becomes  Rock-

type, and the association is further cemented with a fantasy twist: a drill in place of a horn.  I think it’s a great design. But as the series went on, the idea of a rock animal became kind of  passé: a rock rhino, a rock snake, a rock tree, and of course, a rock. Rhyperior really needed  to do something to distinguish itself, and so it doubled down on that construction theme with  armour that vaguely resembles a high-vis jacket, a hard hat, a wrecking ball for a tail,  and piledrivers for arms

. It develops its predecessor’s theme, while also giving a  clearer idea how it functions mechanically: rock-hard defences thanks to an Ability that  reduces incoming Super-Effective damage. It’s a good design, I think, but Rhydon’s appeal  is completely lost. The series could get away with Rhydon’s simpler design because of a lack of  competition; a decade in, Rhyperior really needed to double down on its own niche to stand out. The other problem, of course, is that until this point Rhydon was

thought of as already being fully  grown. Many of the most successful evolutionary lines clearly indicate the Pokémon growing from  childhood into adulthood. Maturing, basically. The best designs complement this idea by making the  intermediate stages an awkward middle ground. This is why I’m a big fan of Quilladin, not despite  how goofy it looks, because of how goofy it looks. When creating new evolutions after the fact, new  designs effectively have to expand on designs that were already cons

idered “complete” – in other  words, a fully grown Pokémon has to become even more fully grown. In a best case scenario, you get  Togekiss, whose overall shape makes it feel like the egg-themed Togepi line was always heading this  way. Otherwise, you get Pokémon like Electivire, who exaggerates Electabuzz’s traits even  further and risks becoming overdesigned. It’s even hairier, its Popeye arms get even  bigger, and its stripes go from lightning bolts to electrical sockets. I love Electivire,  b

ut I totally get why someone wouldn’t. Some later revisions also struggle to carve out  a niche against the original design. So far this has all been pretty rhetorical, but I’m going  to take a break from playing Devil’s Advocate and talk about a design I truly dislike.  Aipom is an all-time Pokémon design to me: a cheeky little monkey, with its prehensile tail  being exaggerated into an actual hand. Ambipom, despite its great name, fails to really evolve  the concept: instead of one prehensile

tail it has two. Its bowl cut hair is unappealing, the nose  adds nothing to its expression, and – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – there’s too much purple,  lending poor definition to its extremities. This is speculative to be sure, but I have to imagine  that at least part of the problem was in adding to an idea that was already so well-realised. The common thread between all of the complications I’ve discussed so far is evolution. I don’t see many people defending Eiscue, for example, bu

t I also haven’t seen anybody  really upset about Eiscue either because it’s so easy to ignore. If you dislike Eiscue, you simply  don’t catch it. It’s when evolution changes a person’s relationship with a Pokémon design that  we run into trouble. And unfortunately there’s just no way of eliminating that problem entirely. Your mileage may vary on everything I’ve said here, of course, because there are basically as  many ways to get a Pokémon wrong as there are people playing. I think people’s cr

iticisms  are legitimate. I even agree with a bunch of them. There are a lot of Pokémon I’m not  that keen on. What I never see talked about, though, and what I want to talk about, is  Pokémon’s absolutely astonishing success rate with these monster designs. I can sit here and pontificate about Incineroar’s “missed potential” all I like, but  the series absolutely should not care. Millions of players fell in love with this goofy guy,  and that’s not meaningless. Even accounting for Pokémon’s ins

ane popularity, there’s no obligation  to like Incineroar even if you love the series. Just as I can’t go through every Pokémon  design to criticise it, I can’t go through every Pokémon design to praise it, but I think  it’s worthwhile examining some of the techniques Pokémon uses to make its designs appealing. One thing the Pokémon series gets almost universally right is its use of theming. Generation IV is a prime example. The story and setting are both heavily concerned with mythology  and re

ligion, and many of the Pokémon designs reflect that. Bronzor and Bronzong, for example,  seem to be based on an old Japanese myth wherein priests asked women to donate their bronze  mirrors to create a new bell for the temple. The Sinnoh starters are my pick for the best  of the bunch, and that’s due in large part to their reflecting their region’s theme. All  three start out as a simple elemental animal, before evolving smoothly into their mythological  inspirations. Torterra takes its inspira

tion from the image of a turtle embodying the world that  appears in Hindu, Chinese, and Native American mythologies. Empoleon’s trident-shaped beak  and position as an emperor of the water calls to mind Poseidon. And Infernape seems to be  based on Hanuman of the Hindu epic Ramayana. Sidebar, because I already see you lot typing:  a lot of people have interpreted Infernape as a reference to Sun Wukong from the Chinese epic  Journey to the West: here’s my supposition. Hanuman is associated with

martial arts, is  often depicted wearing gold, and cannot be harmed by flame. One of his most famous feats  is having his tail set on fire by the demonic Ravana, escaping his bonds with his incredible  strength, then running from rooftop to rooftop, burning the city down with his flaming tail. Then there’s the 1993 Indian-Japanese animated adaptation: Ramayana: The Legend of Prince  Rama. Note Hanuman’s white fur, which gives him a resemblance to the Japanese macaque –  another point of commonal

ity with Infernape. Infernape does still resemble Sun Wukong, of  course, with his strength and gold adornments, but then that’s to be expected: the resemblance  between the two mythic figures is well noted, with some scholars believing Hanuman was the  inspiration for Sun Wukong in the first place. As it stands, without the gold circlet or magic  staff I find the resemblance more fleeting, but things can be inspired by more than one thing.  There’s a wee ticket of wisdom for you, “things can be

inspired by more than one thing.” Good one. Of course, it’s irrelevant to my overall point anyway: whether you believe it resembles  Sun Wukong or Hanuman, either way Infernape is inspired by world mythology, and  thus fits nicely into Sinnoh’s theme. Strong theming can even help vindicate some  Pokémon designs. Galar is a fairly industrial region, so many of the Pokémon designs seem to  have responded to humanity’s influence by taking on man-made characteristics. If you like this  theme enough

, it may help justify idiosyncratic Pokémon like Carkol, Appletun, and Polteageist. Of  course, I’m not saying you have to like them. As with a lot of things, execution is important,  and Pokémon like Toxitricity, Barraskewda, and Copperajah manage to embody that theme more  subtly which makes them easier to imagine as living creatures. Galarian Corsola and Cursola  take it even further by also serving as a subtle criticism of man’s involvement with nature. Read  into these designs too much and

Galar is imbued with an unvoiced queasiness. Nature is warped  and corrupted by man’s influence, perfect for the birthplace of the industrial revolution. Alongside theming, context is important for making sense of these creatures. Here’s  some of the ways Pokémon gets it right. Some people seem leery about “man-made”  Pokémon designs, but the majority are extremely well justified. I wouldn’t dream of  setting “Pokémon must feel like living natural creatures” as a hard and fast rule. Magnemite, 

Voltorb, Porygon, and Mewtwo are classic, quintessential examples of Pokémon, and all of  them appear to be or literally are man-made. It’s also kind of futile to put down “living  creatures” as criteria when Ghost Pokémon exist. Nevertheless, context is important. Porygon and  Mewtwo work perfectly because their origins are literally part of their design. Magnemite and  Voltorb have to do a little more work. The best Pokémon designs make sense for their surroundings  and the overall world. Of c

ourse, Pokémon’s fantasy setting affords it a lot of wiggle room in  what “makes sense”; if they can make me believe a magnetised clod of iron is a creature, then they  can make me believe anything. It just depends on how it’s justified. One of the first things  that the artists do when designing a Pokémon, apparently, is first figure out what it eats, and  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better litmus test for grounding a fantasy creature. Magnemite feels  a lot more alive when you realise it’s

found near power lines and a power plant: without a mouth,  you’d have to assume it consumes electricity. The explanations don’t even have to be explanations –  one of my favourites is Voltorb, whose existence and resemblance to Poké Balls bewilders  even the scientists of the Pokémon world. While we’re on that subject, then, we absolutely  have to talk about the undisputed king of locating Pokémon within their surroundings: Generation  VII. One subtle touch is that a lot of the native Alolan P

okémon are incredibly rare. Mareanie  will only occasionally appear if Corsola calls for help, and will then attack the Corsola – a  completely unique interaction that demonstrates the antagonistic relationship between the two.  Yungoos and Rattata also have an adversarial relationship – Yungoos having been introduced  to combat the growing pest problem only to fail spectacularly because it’s diurnal whereas  Rattata is nocturnal. Yungoos has, as a result, become just as big a pest itself. This

story draws  inspiration from actual events where small Asian mongooses were introduced to Hawai’i to combat  the rat population. And these examples are to say nothing of the Totem Pokémon and the Tapus. Rattata and Yungoos present a great way of justifying Pokémon: by exaggerating real world  events and phenomena. It’s funny how many of Pokémon’s cartoonier designs are dismissed when  they actually have a strong basis in real life. If you think Magcargo is too farfetched, for  example, look up

the scaly-foot gastropod: a deep-sea snail that lives in hydrothermal  vents and literally incorporates iron and minerals into its shell and foot. The funny thing  is, the species was actually discovered after the release of Pokémon Gold and Silver in 1999. If  anyone ever tells you that life imitates art, maybe they’re onto something. Incidentally, the  scaly-foot gastropod is now considered endangered because of underseas mining. Thanks Oreburgh. While we’re talking about endangered species, I

also want to mention the humble Wooper. Wooper  is based on an axolotl – a neotenic creature, meaning it becomes sexually mature during the  larval stage. Rather than “grow up” into an adult salamander, the axolotl instead remains  in its nascent aquatic form all its life. It also displays a remarkable ability to regenerate  lost tissue. It was this ability that drew the curiosity of André Marie Constant Duméril,  who brought the strange creature back with him to Paris, only to discover that so

me had  metamorphosised into salamanders. It turns out the ability to change had lain dormant, but could  still be reintroduced externally. You shouldn’t actually do this, of course: it results in a host  of complications for the poor little thing, but if I talk about humanity’s treatment of axolotls  I’ll just upset myself so I’ll get to the point. Cartoonish and exaggerated as it is, Pokémon  evolution is not quite so outlandish a concept as it may first appear. Some animals do undergo  a sudd

en metamorphosis – again, the initial inspiration for the series was bug-catching.  Caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. If the axolotl is anything to go by, some of these metamorphoses  can even be induced by human interference. Humans have a profound influence on nature.  Domestic dogs have developed an extra muscle in their eyebrows to better appeal to humans.  Foxes have basically entirely changed their behaviour adapting for urban sprawl. Ligers  only exist because of human interference. Red

squirrels basically no longer exist where I  live, having been bullied out of existence by the American grey squirrel. It’s easy to  see how, allowing for a bit of exaggeration and artistic license, Pokémon evolving in  response to humans isn’t all that strange. Good context can’t make up for some bad first  impressions though. I actually think both Vanillite and Trubbish are really well thought  through. The former is an icicle-like Pokémon that ends up covered in snow and resembling an  ice cr

eam through sheer coincidence. The latter is the byproduct of industrial waste, no more  outlandish than Grimer which is, and I quote here, “Sludge that was transformed when exposed  to X-rays from the moon.” The problem is, even with these explanations, the inspiration  is too obvious, which makes them difficult to abstract. Explain it all you like, that’s an ice  cream with eyes. That’s not a problem, Pokémon can more than accommodate for that, but it makes the  design difficult to imagine as

a creature and not a mascot. It feels intentional, it feels designed,  even though I don’t think it’s necessarily better or worse than any other given Pokémon! I think  the design is well done, and there’s clearly work gone into justifying it. It’s just that  first impressions count for a lot: even with the greatest context in the world, a lot of people  aren’t going to go back in for that second look. Pokémon isn’t always perfect at context,  of course. As we’ve discussed, Pokémon like Hippopot

as feel like they’re missing a page,  and Inteleon was almost ruined for me because it felt like it was missing an entire chapter.  That lack of context even applies to some of our party members here. I imagine Electabuzz evolved  to become hairier and more yeti-like in response to Sinnoh’s colder climate, but imagine  is the operative word there. Nevertheless, I’d recommend sometimes looking into some  Pokémon designs you might think are outlandish or stupid. Sometimes you can be caught out  by

how well thought through they really are. All of this is, of course, incredibly subjective,  which is so obvious I feel daft even pointing it out, but I do so because the final point I  want to raise is how we, the Pokémon community, discuss these Pokémon designs. I’ve seen a number of thinkpieces putting forth a criteria for what qualifies as  a legitimate Pokémon. None of them have reached a satisfying conclusion for me, and I’ll tell you  the reason why. There is no objective criteria for cr

eativity. There’s no formula here, there’s no  rule that you can establish that the series cannot break or has not already broken. If you do find  a formula, what then? If an artist imagines a new monster that has to break those rules to realise  its design, do you homogenise it so it fits? What about, say, the Ultra Beasts, Pokémon  literally designed to appear alien and uncanny? Is the series just not allowed to try  that? If you’re about to say, “it doesn’t fit the theme,” yes it does! It’s a

sci-fi take on  invasive species. Alien species being introduced to an ecosystem through human interference is a  topic Alola is explicitly concerned with! If you think that’s me getting smug because I happen to  like all these Pokémon, my response is simply to state the fact that I don’t like the Ultra Beasts.  But I don’t think that means they’re not Pokémon, I think it just means they didn’t click with  me! Oh, well. Better luck next time. It’s absolutely possible to simply not like a Pokémo

n! Funnily enough, that kind of prescriptive analysis seems to be the exact opposite of Game Freak’s  approach. There are stories of Pokémon designed deliberately to challenge people’s conceptions of  what a Pokémon can be. Without that truculence, we wouldn’t have gotten personal favourite Blaziken! The fact is, we can’t categorise so rigidly around 1,000 designs made across 25 years by a small  army of artists often working under stringent and weirdly specific constraints. Early  Pokémon desig

ns were comparatively simple: was that because the franchise was still  in its early years, or was it because the Game Boy screen was a black-and-white 160x144  resolution? These designs also have to account for the mechanics – which moves can each Pokémon  learn? What about their types and Abilities? About 15% of all Pokémon are Water-type, and that’s  because so many designs lend themselves to that type – they have to fill all those lakes, ponds,  rivers, and oceans with something after all! S

ome Pokémon are made or broken by their types,  but their types are justified by their designs. Steel/Fairy Pokémon are at a significant advantage  before we even account for their stats, Ability, and movepool, and that’s determined by how they’re  conceived and illustrated. Designing characters for a game is a very complicated proposition. Even if we could neatly categorise everything, it would be futile, because those artists will  be growing and changing all the time! That’s how creativity wo

rks. Sometimes an artist will  know they could do better as they’re creating; sometimes the stars will align and lightning will  strike and you end up looking back on a work, having no idea how it turned out so well.  Perfection is the enemy of good, they say, and this is why I felt my Incineroar critique  was so unfair. From a top-down view, sure, maybe it would have been neater and tidier  to split Incineroar into a Fire starter and a Fighting/Dark wrestling heel cat Pokémon, but  creativity i

s never that linear or logical. This is speculation, but the wrestling heel idea  probably only ever came about because of the association with Tiger Mask. Honouring that spark  of inspiration is, in all likelihood, the clearest way to convey the idea to the audience as well.  But even if not, I can’t imagine Sun and Moon had the time to second-guess themselves too often. Even when it comes with the risk of failure, allowing creative people to be creative  is important. For all their faults, I’v

e rarely if ever felt a Pokémon design  was played safe or phoned in – that’s pretty impressive for such a lucrative franchise!  I’d much rather this than they started watering designs down for mass market appeal. Of course, we, the audience, change too. Five years ago I knew that the Omega Ruby video  was going to be my last word on Pokémon, and here I am, 5 years later, retracting half  the things I said. Who’s to say that tomorrow you won’t discover something about your least  favourite Pokém

on that makes you love it? Your opinion can change based on the stupidest little  factors. One of my least favourite Pokémon is Mr. Mime, and most of that, I think, is its localised  name. Apparently Nob Ogasawara felt similarly, as he recalled: “if they ever introduce genders we’re  hooped.” So if I were Japanese or German, I’m not even sure I’d have an issue with Mr. Mime at all! Don’t get me wrong, criticism is important. I think Pokémon’s batting average is astonishingly  high, but I don’t l

ike every Pokémon, and discussing what we like and dislike can  help us understand more about these games and more about ourselves. If nothing else,  hopefully it’s useful feedback for artists. But sometimes I feel like basic criticisms are  made into bigger issues when the simplest answer is usually more useful and more honest:  sometimes you just don’t like a Pokémon! After the fourth Gym, you’re not really  travelling to completely new areas of the map, but instead branches of areas you’ve al

ready  seen. This is perhaps the biggest shortcoming with Sinnoh’s unorthodox structure. Obviously these branches are new in and of themselves, but it lacks a singular thrust,  the forward momentum of moving across the map. Instead you’re Flying back and forth to fill  in the blanks, which is a bit less romantic. Still, the pacing is deceptively good. Early  on the player has a lot of space and free time to discover the map at their pace. Gyms 5 and 6  reuse the most content – Hearthome is a rep

eat visit and Canalave is about 20 seconds from  Jubilife. Like with Hoenn, this is a little speed boost in the middle of the game to keep you  going. Afterwards, we pick back up with Gyms 7 and 8 being longer branches that have been blocked  off for most of the game. These take you to the northernmost and easternmost parts of the island  respectively. It’s not perfect, but it’s good. So, how about that Surfing animation  eh? Yep, we weren’t going to get away with doing a video on Pokémon Gen VI

II  without talking about the animations. The dilemma facing the Pokémon series  has always been the same. How do you animate such a huge number of Pokémon, each  with unique body shapes and capabilities, performing such a huge number of moves? In Generation I, the solution was simple. Pokémon were completely static, so all the game  had to do was create generic animations for each of the moves. The Game Boy’s comparatively  modest processing power actually did the series a lot of favours at thi

s stage. This whole  setup – static 2D images on a tiny little monochromatic screen – is inherently abstract.  It’s so clearly not a literal representation of what’s going on. That makes it much easier  for our imaginations to fill in the blanks by latching onto the morsels of context offered by  the descriptions. I talked about comics earlier, and Pokémon battling practically was a little  comic book: strong poses and accompanying descriptions sold movement and action despite  being completely

static. This is also why it was easier for Pokémon to create closure back then,  to create a better sense of conceptual space. Your imagination was doing all the heavy lifting.  If you were into the fantasy of Pokémon (as many of us were) it was easy to imagine these static  images blinking and disappearing as cool battle scenes in your head. The blank background let  you fill in the surroundings appropriately. It also helped that the Game Boy wasn’t known for  being a graphical powerhouse – in

fact, that was practically its selling point. The Game Gear  featured a larger backlit screen and 32 colours, which meant it was more expensive and chewed  through batteries like nobody’s business – not exactly ideal as a cheap way of keeping your  kids quiet in the back of the car. Pokémon’s graphics seem less remarkable when everything  on the system looks so modest by design. I don’t think it can be overstated how big an  improvement Gen II was. They’re some of the best-looking games on the h

andheld. The changes  were simple but impactful. Gold and Silver used an identical approach to Generation I, but the  sprites were so much cleaner. Strong colours and controlled use of dithering contrasted with bold  blacks, lending the sprites a lot of impact and definition, making them readable even on the  tiny screen. Crystal went above and beyond: strong poses and lovely little hand-drawn  animations when the Pokémon burst out the ball gave a clearer indication of their movement  and person

ality. It did this without undermining the abstractions that let the player’s  imaginations fill in most of the blanks. Pokémon could still remain static while battling,  with all the same advantages as Generation I. That’s where we sit for the next two Generations,  even though they released on much more powerful consoles. The Game Boy Advance’s higher resolution  meant that every single Pokémon had to be redrawn for Gen III even as they added more, and that’s  perhaps why it took until Emerald

for the sprites to start animating again. Even then, those  animations were two frames warped and stretched, doing a poorer job communicating the creatures’  behaviour. The competition was also stiffer – the GBA is home to a lot of incredible spritework  that made Pokémon look primitive in comparison. Despite another hardware jump, these teething  issues seemed mostly ironed out by Generation IV, but it faced its own problems. These games  attracted a lot of criticism for the incredibly slow pa

ce of the Pokémon battles. There seemed  to be a short delay between every action, which was a small annoyance, but the speed at  which health depleted was the real problem. From what I understand, the health bar’s speed in  Generation IV was based on actual hit points rather than percentages. If a Pokémon had  200HP, it would take twice as long for its health to drain as a Pokémon with 100HP. In the  most extreme case, OHKOing a level 100 Blissey would leave you watching a bar deplete for about

  26 seconds. The most engaging part of Pokémon, mechanically, happens at the beginning of  a turn when you’re making your decisions: choosing your moves, Pokémon, or items. The rest  of the turn isn’t worthless by any means! It shows the results of your decisions and provides  context as a basis for further decisions, as well as building a bit of tension as you wait to see if  your risky gambit paid off. But it’s not the most engaging part. Lingering on it for so long gives  the player more tim

e to get bored, more time for the fantasy to lose them, and thus more time to  register just how rudimentary the animations are. Perhaps in response, Generation V gave us, for  me at least, the best-looking battles the series has seen to date. All the Pokémon are constantly  moving, displaying their personality and giving the battles a sense of energy and aggression.  Their animations would slow down when they were weakened, the camera zoomed in and out to  accent certain attacks, and the whole

thing moved blisteringly fast. Less time spent dwelling  on your decisions meant more time making them instead. Combined with the constant movement and  eye-catching camera angles, Gen V gives us fewer chances to pick at the seams in its presentation.  It gives itself less opportunity to lose you. All this, and the game still preserves the strengths  of its forebears. The 2D Pokémon are animated independently from the attacks; it’s clear this  is not literal. The way the game managed this is a r

eally economic use of resources. Rather  than hand-animate every Pokémon from scratch, the game instead repurposes a lot of sprites from  Gen IV, adding joints to create puppet animations. You may not like this approach, and that’s  totally valid – the puppeteering can’t quite match the charm and personality of full hand-drawn  animation, and the sprites get pretty pixellated when zoomed in. Again, for my money, this is the  best the battle screens have ever looked. Even if you disagree I hope t

he advantages are clear,  because we’re about to talk about Generation VI. Generation VI dragged the series kicking and  screaming into the third dimension, but it’s not like they had much of a choice here. We simply  wouldn’t have accepted another 2D Pokémon game, especially on a console called the 3DS. Pokémon  has been a system-shifter for every Nintendo handheld, and there’s no way Nintendo would  accept the series not taking advantage of their new console’s unique selling point. Even the mo

st  enlightened of us would have called that a missed opportunity; who knows how the mass public would  have responded. I know for a fact I wouldn’t have taken it gracefully. I say “kicking and screaming”  because, as I said earlier, we inherently understand 2D images as abstract because they  physically cannot exist in our reality. 3D models register differently; they feel more tangible and  thus less abstract. It’s still clearly fake, but on some level your brain is trying to understand  the m

odels as physical, tangible things. This made the proposition of animating these  creatures and their attacks a hundred times more complicated. The series could no longer  get away with the Pokémon wiggling in place while the attacks manifest in front of them.  Now, each and every Pokémon needed a 3D model with an animation for emerging from the Poké Ball,  idle animations, multiple attacking animations, animations for taking damage, animations for  fainting, and probably more I’m forgetting. Th

ose animations were then strung together with  the move’s animation; a call-and-response that saw the attacking Pokémon attack, the move go  off, then the defending Pokémon respond. It is, again, an economic solution. You can imagine  how they would do this: each Pokémon is given a custom animation for, say, a physical attack,  and when Tackle is called the game simply plays that Pokémon’s physical attack animation  alongside Tackle’s unique modifiers and effects. The unfair thing about this is

the animations have  had more work put into them than any mainline game that came before. But their procedural nature  combined with the more intelligible 3D space made the cracks easier to see than ever. It works, for  the most part, but certain combinations of Pokémon and moves are really weak. Physical moves suffer  the most as the Pokémon doesn’t cross the screen to make physical contact, presumably because of  the risk of the two models clipping into each other. This robs the move of all it

s impact. Some  circumstantial combinations look weak as well: Blastoise’s Hydro Pump, for example, doesn’t  shoot out of its shoulder mounted water cannons. I have to imagine those things are  specifically for using Hydro Pump. Instead the water just materialises in front of its  belly. Again, I have to stress: Blastoise has never fired anything from its cannons in  the main series, but it was a lot easier to imagine that happening back in the 2D games. Nevertheless, Pokémon got through the 3DS

generations without much issue. Like the DS and  Game Boy before it, the 3DS was never heralded as a graphical powerhouse. Pokémon’s shortcomings  weren’t spotlighted enough to do heavy damage. I’m sure Pokémon Amie and Pokémon Refresh didn’t hurt  either, every Pokémon bursting with personality. That all changed with Pokémon Sword and Shield. A  wayward comment by an on-the-spot Junichi Masuda lit the fanbase aflame, illuminating all of  the series’ shortcomings. It was impossible not to be aw

are of how rudimentary  the animations were when they were being used as an excuse to cut half the Pokédex. Of course if you actually think about Masuda-san’s comment, you’ll realise… yeah, it makes sense.  Not only are they having to port the existing Pokémon over to an HD console, they’re also  having to create about 100 new ones. In total, there were 400 Pokémon in Sword and Shield (not  including different forms) that all had to be modelled and animated. That’s already an insane  workload ev

en with these rudimentary animations. And that’s ignoring that this was a comment  made off-the-cuff, on-stage at a live event, that had to be quickly translated. It’s easy to  misspeak even with a fraction of the pressure. Two days after Masuda made that comment, he gave  another interview that I think makes an important distinction. Quote from USGamer: “There are  a couple of different parts to the thinking behind that [Dexit], but really the biggest reason  for it is just the sheer number of

Pokémon. We already have well over 800 Pokémon species, and  there’s going to be more added in these games. And now that they’re on the Nintendo Switch,  we’re creating it with much higher fidelity with higher quality animations.” To clarify, that  doesn’t mean they were cutting back the numbers to focus on animations. It means it takes more  work to create the same visuals because of the Switch’s higher resolution. Which, so far as  I understand it… is objectively true. Sorry, I know that’s not

what a lot of you want to hear. Even if Masuda hadn’t said anything, though, I still think there would have been a lot  of dissatisfaction. For the first time, we were seeing Pokémon in full HD. No longer was  the series competing with comparatively modest handheld games but with the absolute best this  industry has to offer. God of War released a whole year before Pokémon Sword and Shield, and it looks  like this. Is that an unfair comparison? Sure, absolutely, I think so! I mean, take your pi

ck  here: different priorities, different age range, different budget, different rosters, different  dev times, different hardware, different games from top to toe. But you could still pop into  Ye Olde Game Shoppe and see them side-by-side on the shelf. One game prizes its animations so much  that Kratos will actually correct for the player’s positioning, potentially undermining the strategy  to ensure the models line up. The other game seems to care so little that you tap “Headbutt” and  Dubwo

ol kicks. If you’ve been with this series for the 20-odd years it’d been around in the West,  the fact that you were still waiting for your childhood fantasy to be realised was a kick in the  teeth. No, I said kick- oh, for goodness’ sake. That brings us back around to Pokémon Brilliant  Diamond, which inherits all of Sword and Shield’s problems. It even adds some of its own for good  measure. The colours are really washed out, perhaps to play better with the more realistic  lighting. The action

is framed with a static camera as if these are still 2D sprites. Poses  and animations don’t reflect the Pokémon’s skills or personality; somehow static 2D sprites convey  more movement and character than the animated 3D models. Eyes are often 2D textures on otherwise  flat surfaces; cartoony and expressive when handled well which they often aren’t. Physical  attacks lack impact. Missed or failed moves don't animate at all, completely deadwalling the  drama. Moves that hit multiple Pokémon insp

ire a hit reaction even if they miss or the Pokémon  is immune. Flying Pokémon suffer from awkward idle animations – being airborne allows them to  convey their mechanics better, but often results in them either flapping desperately or essentially  T-posing. Scyther is literally too big to fit on the screen. Scizor’s Bullet Punch, a rapid series  of jabs, is a clumsy swing. Scary Face doesn’t change the Pokémon’s expression. Surf and Dig’s  animations look horrendous, presumably because they can

’t create custom swimming or digging  animations for every Pokémon that can learn them. Some Pokémon have always looked kind of awful;  Typhlosion is a huge victim. Its design is defined by its blazing collar; having it flare up only  when attacking is a really caring touch, I love the idea, but it makes it look like a soggy weasel  in its idle animations. Et cetera, et cetera. This is a problem because, well, because  animations are important. Games rely on visuals to create the fantasy, to con

vey the actions and  sell their impact. Many of Pokémon’s moves don’t: even with the 3D games’ greater  focus on animations, you’re still relying on text boxes to make sense of the events This isn’t the first time we’ve been here either. It’s become a bit of a cliché, when discussing  modern Pokémon’s animations, to bring up the Pokémon Stadium series and its descendents.  Pokémon Stadium had 3D Pokémon as well, and low-poly models aside, they did a much better  job of capturing the Pokémon’s pe

rsonalities and capabilities. Not only does Blastoise shoot  water from its shoulder mounted cannons, but it also retracts them when not in use, a  lovely little detail that gives a much better idea of how this creature behaves! In a lot  of ways, Blastoise has never looked better! But I feel that Pokémon Stadium doesn’t  present a workable alternative. If anything, it suffers from the exact same problems that the  series is facing today. Because Pokémon Stadium is not Pokémon Stadium: it’s Poké

mon Stadium 2.  The first game was Japan-exclusive, and featured a far smaller roster of just 40 Pokémon. The game  was seemingly created, at least in part, for early Pokémon tournaments – to fix some balance issues  and create a more interesting viewing experience. Blastoise could get these bespoke little  details because, not only was the game to be viewed by an audience, it wasn’t jostling  for attention with over 700 other Pokémon. When Pokémon Stadium 2 released – our original  Pokémon Stad

ium – all of these Pokémon retained their animations from the first game. And then  they did it again for Pokémon Stadium Gold and Silver – our Pokémon Stadium 2. And then they did  it again for Colosseum. Then XD: Gale of Darkness. It did get updated for Pokémon Battle Revolution  on the Wii, albeit with a lot of missing details. Obviously it’s not the same model, but it has  so many of the same quirks it must at least be referencing the Stadium model. And yet, some  animations are missing – mo

st notably, it no longer retracts its cannons. And Blastoise isn’t  an outlier here. Many Pokémon, like Kangaskhan, saw even fewer updates to their models and  animations. Think about that for a minute. Blastoise and Kangaskhan were given minimal  touch-ups over eight years – eight years in which the industry saw perhaps the most  rapid increase in graphical fidelity it’s ever likely to see! These models and animations  were created to compete with the PlayStation 1, and variations on them were

still competing  with the PlayStation 3. Keep in mind that’s when the roster was roughly half of what it  is today; when the console’s grunt was weaker; when SD televisions were the standard; and when  the game was literally dedicated to Pokémon battling in 3D. These animations are the whole  reason Battle Revolution exists, and yet much of it had to be repurposed from the Nintendo 64! My point isn’t that “they were just as lazy back in the day” or “these animations are  bad,” or whatever the fu

ck. My point is, these animations were reused across five games  and three generations of consoles. Isn’t that the exact same thing we’re complaining about now? Oh, and don’t get me started on Pokémon Snap. It’s literally on-rails. If you think about  it for more than a picosecond you’ll figure out why its animations look better. Here’s a bitter pill to swallow. If you didn’t see this coming at least in some  form, then you haven’t been paying attention. Pokémon is an insane logistical undertaki

ng.  It’s been staring down a ballooning workload in one form or another since it went from a game  to a series. Because Pokémon’s only meaningful way of adding new content is to add more Pokémon.  The workload becomes exponential: every new generation – especially when that generation  was on new hardware! – meant increasingly more Pokémon that needed to be rendered in increasingly  more detail. Keep in mind that the series’ first major hardware jump also saw it take a step back  graphically ev

en with a higher resolution: Crystal had short animations when the Pokémon emerged;  Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, and LeafGreen did not. That Pokémon would fail to live up to expectations  on its first HD system was kind of inevitable, at least without an enormous gap between generations. I know what the response to that is: delay the games until they’re as polished as possible.  Personally, I’d be totally happy with that: I’d be happy to wait an extra year or two if I knew it  meant I was getting t

he best possible experience. The biggest heartbreak with these games, for me,  is when they have a lot of potential they don’t quite get to realise. It’s a nice thought, but  I get the feeling it’s practically unfeasible. The Pokémon games are in the driver’s seat of  the most lucrative media juggernaut in history; a juggernaut with so much momentum that it can’t  suddenly change direction. What I mean by that is: each new Pokémon game is accompanied by lorryloads  of merchandise and licenses. A

nime, manga, movies, card games, plushes, action figures, pyjamas,  underwear, toothbrushes, shampoo and conditioner, ice lollies, kids’ meals, and hundreds if not  thousands of other products. Delaying a game to polish it up a bit may bring the entire media  franchise to a screeching halt. Is that worth it when it’s only a small fraction of hardcore fans  that care? Is that worth it when the games make up such a comparatively small amount of Pokémon’s  overall intake? It’s the merch that’s the

main moneymaker so far as I know – merch that relies on  the game developers designing those mascots in the first place. We’ve seen the consequences of delays  fairly recently. Nintendo’s stocks plummeted when they delayed Animal Crossing: New Horizons by  a few months, and it’s not like that game had nearly as much at stake. I can’t imagine how much  money they’d lose if they did that with Pokémon. I know what the response to that is too. If  it’s the most successful series in the world, they s

hould be able to throw more money and  staff at it. Meanwhile at TPCi they’re all slapping their foreheads, “why didn’t we think  of that?” I hate to burst your bubble there, but putting to one side the possibility  that more staff just means more bloat, this is still fallacious. It’s a fundamental  misunderstanding of how capitalism works, and that’s not said as a radical political stance,  but a statement of simple fact. Pokémon is not the most successful franchise in the world because  it’s t

he best necessarily, but because it’s the most profitable. And it’s the most profitable  because it regularly releases relatively cheap products that sell absolute gangbusters. God of  War, with its beautifully rendered animations and environments that must have cost a mind-boggling  amount of money to make, was still comfortably outsold by the basic-looking Pokémon Sword and  Shield. That means Pokémon’s profits are so much higher, and that’s even before you factor  in all the merchandise, lice

nsed products, and the two sequels and multiple spin-offs Pokémon  has managed to squeeze out in the intervening time. Why would they spend exponentially  more time and money developing the games when there’s no financial incentive to do so? “Hold on a minute here, are you simping for the big corpos?” No, not at all! I’m not saying any  of this is good! I’m not saying you’re wrong to be disappointed by the way Pokémon looks – I sure  as hell am! I’m saying this is a systemic issue, rather than t

he fault of the developers or even  really the corporations. I mean, what else are they going to do? If I were a shareholder and I  was told we’d be reneging on the Friedman doctrine because Johnny Two-Tits on YouTube wants his  Shiny Fuckachu to do a little dance, I’d seriously consider investing my millions elsewhere,  maybe into that promising new baby-eating startup. Jokes aside, the system rewards  commercial interests, not artistic ones. There cannot be a productive conversation  about thi

s series that doesn’t acknowledge these realities. And I haven’t found the  conversation around it particularly productive; in fact I’ve found it downright toxic. Every  decision has been taken in the worst possible faith. I’ve seen invective about day one patches  as if those aren’t standard practice in the modern games industry. I’ve seen fans ignore input from  industry professionals if it meant they had less reason to be outraged. I’ve seen people basically  make stuff up about the developer

s to justify their hatred. And of course, I’ve seen a fanbase  hound Junichi Masuda for four years because they never learned to read. All those moments will be  lost in time, like Cheeto dust down a keyboard. Don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not saying TPCi  or any company is flawless. What I’m calling for is more honesty from the fanbase. If you want to  have a conversation about late-stage capitalism, sure, let’s have that conversation. But somehow  I don’t think that’s the conversation you’r

e starting when you bleat about the Pokémon Sword  tree. You can just… dislike a game, you know? That doesn’t have to be a moral outrage? I hope my assessment of the state of the series doesn’t sound defeatist. Are there solutions to Pokémon’s logistical issues? Almost certainly! But once again: I  don’t know what the series’ priorities are; I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes;  I don’t know who’s making what decision. It seems futile for me to offer advice to this enormous  multinati

onal corporation about how they should handle their business. Especially so when the  fanbase’s speculation seems so ignorant to the realities of both business and game development.  It seems like a waste of energy for us armchair analysts, whose only real qualification  is liking Pokémon a whole heck of a lot, to be fretting about how to run this business  successfully. Quicker, easier, and more accurate, I feel, to simply say what we mean: that the games  look pretty bad and we’d like them to

look better. In that spirit, I’m going to  focus up and talk more in-depth about Brilliant Diamond’s animations. Creators are often very clear about how useless it is to instruct them on how to create.  It makes sense. Creativity is, funnily enough, creative: no two people’s ideas will be  the same. It’s never neat and tidy either: we have no way of knowing what went into  the decisions being made. Nevertheless, sometimes the most effective way to express your  problem is to express how you’d li

ke it to be instead. I’m about to make a few suggestions  of my own here, but please don’t take this as “here’s definitively how the developers should  do their jobs.” Instead, take it for what it is: a vector for me to express what I feel are the  shortcomings with Brilliant Diamond’s animations. The main thing I’d like to see is an increased  battle speed. Battles can be horrendously slow sometimes, what with all of the mechanics.  Abilities, buffs and debuffs, status conditions, held items, a

nd affection mechanics, all activate  an animation and then a separate clarification. I feel the animations and accompanying text  boxes draw too much attention to themselves: an animation plays and then a text box explains to  us what we’ve just seen. In a worst case scenario, if a Pokémon buffs multiple stats at once, the  game stops to painstakingly explain how each stat has changed individually. While I think the text  box is necessary for accessibility and clarity, with better audio-visual

feedback I feel both  could happen at the same time. If stat buffs were accompanied by an insert that shows what stage all  of the Pokémon’s stats were at, there would be no need to explain it any further. If critical hits  were accompanied by their own unique sound effect, there would be no need to pause afterwards  to explain it was a critical hit: the box could just appear simultaneously, and after the  first couple of times the player would associate the sound with the effect. We’ve already

seen the  benefits with weather effects: a text box appears when the weather begins, and the weather remains  a visual effect until it dissipates. The benefit of speeding the battles up is the same as it was  in Gen V: it relieves the burden on the animations to keep people engaged. Instead, they spend the  majority of their time focusing on the game. Clever direction can help disguise some  rough animations. Aqua Jet, for example, sees the Pokémon morph down into a ball of water  in a really un

convincing way; all I see there is the 3D model standing in place and being shrunk  as if by a slider. If the camera cut away earlier, not only would the move be snappier, but we’d  have less opportunity to see behind the illusion. There would be closure between the two shots  – you’d easily imagine the ball of water was supposed to represent your Pokémon, especially  if you weren’t given much time to dwell on it. Simpler execution could go a long way too.  3D is inherently less abstract than 2D

, but that doesn’t mean there are no abstracting  options available. Stronger posing and less animation can be better at conveying the fantasy,  by allowing people’s imaginations to take over. If you’d like an example of what I mean, look no  further than Retaliate, which conveys all the drama of the technique with minimal animation.  At least in Gen VII; Gen VIII makes some great additions but completely fumbles it at the end. That’s the main problem, I think: the players aren’t involved in the

drama. I don’t mean  the character drama either, I mean the drama created through the combination of context  and mechanics: the drama created by the game. I think addressing that problem isn’t so  much about addressing the animations in a vacuum as it is acknowledging some of the  problems with Pokémon’s structure. Fact is, the series could have animations that are  twice as polished and twice as characterful, and it would still become tedious because of  the sheer number of battles. It’s impo

ssible to be emotionally invested in every fight  when so many of them are fodder by design. If you want proof, go back and actually  play Pokémon Colosseum rather than just watching the animations on YouTube. It  makes Gen IV look positively breezy. Those super characterful animations lose  all their charm on the hundredth battle. There’s a problem that not just Pokémon but  practically every turn-based RPG faces down, and that’s repetition. The first time you encounter a  random Pokémon, the s

ting of the theme kicking in and the screen flashing and wiping might create  some tension. The hundredth time, it’s more of a nuisance. By the end of the game, it’s downright  exhausting. Yet the game is still maintaining that same intensity – you could fight a level 2 Bidoof  with a level 100 Arceus, and that fight will still kick off with the same pomp and circumstance  as when you fought it with a level 5 Turtwig. Trainer battles fare a little better sometimes.  If they have a decent team th

en the time spent gearing up for the battle feels appropriate! Not  so much when they have a single Staravia. I said earlier that I’d like to see less delineation  between the overworld and the battle screen, and this is why. By the end, it just becomes  a pacebreaker. I feel that battles should be as streamlined as possible to minimise time spent  waiting on what is usually a foregone conclusion. None of these criticisms just apply to the  Pokémon’s battle animations either. Trainers now appear

on the battlefield – initially added  for Z-Moves, this still has inherent value because it locates them and their Pokémon in the same  space. But they pop in and out of existence when Pokémon use their moves; hidden by a camera cut in  singles, but conspicuous as hell in doubles. They have a lot of awkward quirks besides. The Galactic  Grunts repeating identical animations in double battles only draws attention to the copy-pasting.  It’s as if they’re waiting for the camera to be on them to re

act. If one had slumped and the camera  had panned across to their partner in the exact same pose, that would have read as a joke instead.  Similarly, one Waitress in the Café Cabin tells us she loses with an unusually big smile. That’s  not the story her animation is telling. I could be mistaken of course, but this reads to me more  as an oversight than a joke; the game reusing Diamond’s script even when it doesn’t fit the new  animations. Evolution sees the Pokémon and its evolved form shrink

and grow to exchange places  – the kind of generic solution that robs some Pokémon evolutions of a lot of the excitement.  The animations for Pokémon eating a Poffin are very basic, especially disappointing after we were  spoiled by Pokémon Refresh. The idle animation on your guy loops too fast, making them feel restless  even in tranquil surroundings. And, of course, the Surfing animation is horrendous. One of the  advantages of having wild Pokémon use the HMs is they have a much smaller pool o

f Pokémon to  animate. That Bibarel floats so lazily no matter what speed it’s going is a lot more difficult  to justify when it’s the only Pokémon that had to be animated Surfing. The engine is left to  do all of the water effects as well, clashing hard with the exaggerated cartoony style of the  rest of the game. Such obvious problems stymie our ability to immerse ourselves in the fantasy. If there’s a conclusion here, that’s it. Pokémon has never been a graphical powerhouse, and  considering

the baggage the series has to lug from game to game I don’t think it ever will be.  The reason we never cared that much before was because it was so easy to involve ourselves  in the fantasy. It seems like the series is fighting an uphill battle recapturing that in  3D. I hope that doesn’t sound too preachy. I genuinely do agree with the overall point: that  the animations are pretty subpar. I just don’t think the solutions are as simple as what have  been put forward, because we haven’t really

been looking at why we’re playing these games in the  first place. Nobody’s ever been out here saying, “I play Pokémon for the graphics,” right?  Hopefully the series can resolve those issues. I know it’s possible for sure – you  don’t need the highest-quality AAA graphics to get people invested. Abstraction,  illustrative techniques, strong writing, and clever direction can’t replace bespoke  animation outright, but they can make it so a lack of bespoke animation is less keenly felt. There’s a

couple of choice bits of level design here in the port city of Canalave. Of course, the only way to get here is to get Surf, so as soon as you enter there’s an  NPC who subtly brings up the beach near Sandgem Town. Getting Surf opens up so many new nooks and  crannies to explore it can get a bit overwhelming trying to remember them all. Directing the  player’s attention towards one of the major ones is a great way to narrow that possibility  space without reducing the player’s agency. The hidden

Route to the south is one  of my favourite little secrets. Again, a nearby NPC spurs your curiosity, but the “hidden  path” itself is deceptively simple. You just have to notice there’s enough room next to this Sailor  to Surf. I think I like this so much because the game isn’t breaking its own rules – you just  kind of assume the water’s decorative here, but of course, it isn’t! There’s another secret  like this on Route 209 that I didn’t realise existed at all until this playthrough.  This pa

th has stayed hidden from me for about 15 years – I think that’s pretty cool! Canalave Gym is led by Roark’s father Byron. Just as Roark works in Oreburgh’s mine,  Byron used to work in the nearby ore mine on Iron Island. As a coal mine justifies  Roark’s use of the Rock-type, an ore mine justifies Byron’s Steel-type preferences.  But the type choices also communicate the relationship between father and son. Both are  tough, but Steel is a little more tempered. You can tell this guy’s old-school

. Canalave  Gym looks like a health and safety nightmare, install some railings Byron for fuck’s sake! The maze the lifts present isn’t very interesting. It’s possible to go the wrong  way, but it becomes obvious it’s the wrong way so quickly it feels more a waste of  time than any test of spatial awareness. It doesn’t help that the suddenness of the  lifts made me a little dizzy, and I think that’s because there’s no acceleration.  Let me explain my thought process here, keeping in mind this is

going to be an incredibly  amateur explanation. The human body is capable of travelling at incredibly high speeds, but  accelerating or decelerating too quickly is likely to cause injury. It’s why we have  seatbelts in cars – to stop sudden deceleration, such as in a crash, from sending us hurtling  through the windshield. The distance between the floors in Canalave Gym seems much greater in  Brilliant Diamond than it did in the originals. But the timing of the lifts seems roughly the  same. To

cover this distance in the same time, we need much higher speed – speed equals distance  over time, basic Pythagorean Theorem – so the acceleration is far more sudden. If someone were  dedicated enough to useless trivia, they could probably use Newton’s Second Law of Motion – Force  equals Mass times Acceleration – to figure out how much force this lift would be applying. I got  stumped at the first hurdle, personally, but if you’re a bored mathematician and you’re desperate  to get started on

that problem, I can give you the avatar’s height and weight: he’s 142cm tall and  weighs 38kg. Either way, my stomach dropped every time I used these lifts. I don’t think it would  kill someone, but I feel like it’s fast enough to cause some bruises at the very least, either when  you crumple at the bottom or launch into the air at the top. Also I know it’s not Pythagoras, it  was a joke. No, no, don’t delete the comment now! Since Gen VII, battle screens will now tell  you a move’s effectivenes

s before you use it. I initially balked at this – accessibility,  in my children’s video game? – but the more I thought about it the more sense it made. Rather  than having to memorise a complicated type chart or look at an online reference every two seconds,  the game now cuts out that busywork and does it for you. It’s unreasonable to expect players to  have memorised every single Pokémon’s type when there are almost a thousand of the buggers  now. Of course, if you’re a real Poké Chad you hav

e all this memorised anyway, in which  case this feature doesn’t matter a dot. You already know your moves are Super Effective,  especially when it comes to the ladies. Still though, it does kind of  preclude experimentation a bit, and I think there was a better compromise to  be reached here. The game only shows you the type matchups after the first time you encounter  that species. I think perhaps if the type chart only updated based on which moves you’d used  against that species, that would

still allow for some experimentation but without forcing  players to memorise everything. So, for example, if you used Flamethrower against Steelix, all Fire  moves would now read “Super Effective.” Of course, if it’s even slightly more obtuse that may send  players back to the guides, maybe the only way a feature like this justifies itself at all is to  go all-in with it, but even so, there’s something about just being given the answers with no chance  to figure anything out that I find dissati

sfying. The problem with it – at least in this game –  is that it’s often incorrect. The readout will only reflect one of the two targets in a double  battle, at least at first, meaning it can read “No Effect” when it is in fact Super Effective  against your target. It also doesn’t account for Abilities – attempt to use a Ground-type  move against a Levitating Bronzor, for example, and it’ll say “Super Effective” even though it  does nothing. The reason for this, I suspect, is that the game can’

t tell you what Ability to  expect without undermining its own systems. One way to outsmart your opponent is to choose between  a Pokémon’s two different Abilities – Bronzor can either be immune to Ground moves with Levitate or  take less damage from Fire moves with Heatproof. If the game accurately reflected these Abilities  before the move was even chosen, then this extra little layer of depth would be completely paved  over. I get it, but as far as I’m concerned it’s one thing for the game to

withhold information,  it’s another for it to offer incorrect advice. Anyway, with that, Byron gives us  the Mine Badge. Mine badge now. Barry instructs us to go to the Library as soon  as we leave the Gym, but doing so essentially kicks off the story’s climax – a lengthy  sequence of events that carries us well past the seventh Gym. Perhaps Sinnoh’s greatest  strength is the wealth of optional content, and ideally I’d have liked a little bit of time  to go wandering before the game pressures y

ou into finishing the story. But honestly I can’t  think of a more elegant way to indicate you’re supposed to go to the Library next, and besides,  it’s not like the game forces you into anything. You can stop for a muck about whenever you  want. Still, for the purposes of this video, I’d like to do a bit of exploring  before things really start heating up. There’s a hidden entrance to Wayward Cave  below one of the struts of Cycling Road. You may be asking how you’re supposed to figure  out thi

s is here, but there’s actually a hint to this entire lower floor in the main entrance.  There are a couple of rooms you can see but can’t access that give you a clue where to start  searching. One can be seen as soon as you enter. I’ve no idea how the lower floor has better  lighting than the main cave, though. Actually, I’ve just thought about it as I’m saying that? And  it’s perfectly conceivable that there’s a crack in the wall or something. Never mind. We’re down here to get the seventh mem

ber of our team – Gible. I think Wayward Cave is a great solution for hiding the game’s pseudo-legendary. Rather than  lock it behind endgame conditions like Bagon and Larvitar before it, Gible is instead hidden very  well. It gets even better in Platinum, I feel, where the Strength boulders are removed and so it  can be accessed after the second Gym. Its final evolution coming at level 48 means you spend a lot  of the game raising the wee spud in a weaker form. That’s the kind of dedication to

a drawback  that makes its eventual power feel earned. I never ordinarily use 7 or more Pokémon – I  was always too anal about maximising experience, and besides, I didn’t like the idea of putting  team members in the Box. A lot of subtle changes to the mechanics have me revising this policy.  With the new Box Link giving you access to any of your Pokémon anywhere you like, and the new  experience system giving you diminishing returns the higher your level, the game seems to be  encouraging you

to raise a larger group of Pokémon than just 6. What eventually brought me round on  this arrangement was thinking about it this way: in the old games, you had a pool of 6 you could  access at any time, but only the first one would gain experience. In this game, you have an almost  unlimited pool of Pokémon you can access at any time, but only the first six gain experience. It’s  the same principle, just with bigger numbers. Now it’s not my preference, personally I prefer the  stronger bond forg

ed by having to actually raise those Pokémon through battle and blah blah blah,  but the series has made it clear by this point what direction it’s taking; all I’m really doing  by being stubborn is hampering my own enjoyment. Let’s put a pin in that for a few hours. This does mean that my team is packed with Ground-type physical attackers. Torterra,  Swampert, Mamoswine, and now Garchomp. Is that a Sinnoh thing or is that just a me  thing for this playthrough? Either way, I’m glad I didn’t take

it too seriously  – I still had a fairly comfortable time even with all the Ice-types we’ll be facing. Speaking of which, with the Fairy type introduced, Garchomp is facing more threats than  ever before, so I’m quickly breeding it with Bastiodon so it can learn Iron  Head. This wouldn’t normally be feasible, since Bastiodon learns the move at level 51, but  then I did get these Rare Candies from Wonder Trading. None of this was the plan, I’m full-on  winging it at this point, and it’s pretty f

un! In that spirit, we’re calling Gible  Giblets. Ferocious wee thing isn’t he? Remember earlier I told you to jot down that we  needed a Bike to clear Oreburgh Gate? No? Well, that’s alright, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Asking players to come back to an older area with a new item can be a powerful motivator, but it  suffers badly from diminishing returns. Lean on this trick too much and the player just gets fed  up, or worse, begins to distrust the level design. Oreburgh Gate requires fou

r different  items to clear: Rock Smash, a Bike, Surf, and then Strength. Each time, the only way to  really figure out you need the next item is to have already returned with the previous item. The fantasy is, of course, exploring this cave and discovering its secrets, and the way the  game expresses that mechanically is by putting obstacles in your way. In the fantasy there are  dozens of ways to deal with any given problem, but games are complicated, and so its obstacles  and solutions take t

he form of simpler, lock-and-key affairs. The only way to unlock  the “door” of this ramp for example is to come back with the proper “key,” in this case the  Bicycle, which you get by getting further in the game. Thinking of it like that, the problem with  Oreburgh Gate is obvious: if you finally get to unlock that door only to find another locked door  behind it requiring another kind of key, you’d begin to wonder if someone was playing a cruel  joke. And if the game is willing to do this once

, what’s to stop it from doing it again? What’s to  stop there being another locked door behind this locked door – a nesting doll of disappointment? Those misgivings inspire some very cynical decisionmaking. As a game, the player understands  implicitly that every puzzle must have a solution, even if they don’t have access to that solution  for the time being. Eventually you realise, thinking of it as a game, the most efficient way  to explore this whole area is simply to return once you’ve coll

ected all of the possible  keys. So unless you know what’s coming, be that because of a friend, guide, or memory,  you’ve got less reason to thoroughly explore the map between your first visit and the endgame. As it stands it’s essentially just gating your progress through the cave with your progress  through the game. There’s no opportunity to explore outside the constraints of the  level design – there’s no advantage to be gained exploring this area that the game  hasn’t accounted for. That’s

not bad per se, but it does rob exploring of a bit of the romance. Nevertheless, Sinnoh’s greatest strength is its abundance of optional content. One such optional  area is Fuego Ironworks. It’s pretty small, it’s not a hidden mega dungeon or anything,  but it’s a worthy inclusion for a few reasons. As games get more advanced, they take  exponentially more time to make. Even adding limited colour in Generation II would  have massively increased the artistic workload. Generation IV of course woul

d have had even more  to do than that, but for whatever reason the games could justify including some optional areas like  this: areas that only a fraction of the playerbase are going to find. I feel like that’s a much  trickier proposition for a game that has to render the overworld in full colour high definition  3D. I could be wrong, I’m not speaking for anyone there. It may just be that the designers  have lost interest in this sort of thing, or there are disadvantages that I don’t know abou

t.  Regardless, I think there’s some value to this kind of little cranny you have to go out of your  way to find. I do tend to miss them when they’re not there; they rewards a player’s investment. Fuego Ironworks does a lot of worldbuilding. You can imagine that a smelting plant that uses  ore from Mt. Coronet would be located a lot closer to the mountain – maybe near Eterna City or  something. But it’s actually halfway between Mt. Coronet and the now-defunct mines of Iron Island.  They obviousl

y used to get their iron from Iron Island, but switched over when the mines closed.  I really appreciate this attention to detail. It gives the world a more grounded quality, where  the culture and setting make sense considering the established geography and history. Even  if you don’t consciously keep the complete big picture in your head, this kind of thoughtful  design still makes the world feel more coherent on some level. This is speculation, but it may be  a result of basing the game’s wor

ld so closely on a real-world region. Later games condense  an entire country down into a Pokémon region, which gives them a kind of tourist-y feel – you’re  only really seeing the highlights, rather than the more rounded experience of living there. Giving the player a wider world to explore not only benefits the narrative but also  the mechanics. I mentioned earlier that the overworld is essential for giving  context and texture to the Pokémon battles, but it also feeds into them more directly.

You’re  encouraged to explore because it may result in you growing stronger. The Fire Stone Mr. Fuego gives  you is literally useless just now – you can’t get anything that needs it until the post-game,  but the Flamethrower TM is very welcome! I can only speak for myself, obviously,  but this is what I want from the series. Rather than a focus on new mechanics like  Mega Evolutions, Z-Moves, and Dynamax, I’d much rather have a robust map with plenty  to explore that’s mainly focused on the cor

e mechanics. Which isn’t to say they should just do  this every time, of course – the games are already on thin ice when it comes to stagnation, and  honestly if I really want this kind of game I’ve already got like five Generations’ worth of it to  go back and play whenever I want. Nevertheless, if you were to ask me what I prefer… it’s  this. What can I say? I like what I like. Another game, another optional sea route where  I'm trying to level up a Dragon/Ground type. It’s like poetry, they r

hyme. Like I say, I  consider Sinnoh to be the strongest map in the series, and that’s mostly down to consistency. There’s definitely stuff other maps do better – it doesn’t quite have the highlights of, say, Hoenn’s  first half – but the map maintains a high standard throughout. It doesn’t have, for example – and  take a drink – an abundance of sea routes that diminish the quality of the latter half. Instead, we basically get 2 dedicated water routes: Routes 219 and 220. I think my biggest prob

lem with Hoenn’s sea routes is the monotony. You’re  essentially doing one thing, travelling across one kind of terrain, for the majority of the  back half of the game. Sinnoh’s two optional water routes are instead a nice change of pace:  there’s nothing else really like them in the rest of the game. This is another of the region’s  strengths: the Routes tend to be pretty varied, mainly visually, but sometimes even mechanically. If you were to ask me which HM I’d be happy for the series to keep

no matter,  I’d have to answer Surf. It’s one of the few that has a mechanical  implication beyond just checking to make sure you’re far enough in the game to access a  particular area. The levels need ponds, rivers, lakes, and seas to look natural, and Surf  takes advantage of that. Not only does it allow access to new locations, but it also makes  existing levels richer, adding an extra layer to explore without feeling as naked as, for example,  a rock in the way. At the same time, it also ad

ds the chance of encountering a wild Pokémon on any  tile. These Pokémon are likely to be Water-type, so you can even strategise before dipping your  toes in. It’s not a seismic mechanical revolution or anything, but it’s an organic wee change. It is a little difficult to tell where the sea ends and the beach begins, though,  which means a lot of time wasted as you hop on and off your Pokémon. Again, a  bit of streamlining would go a long way. I also can’t resist pointing out a little change  th

e series has started making since Gen VII. When battling on the water, the battle  screens will show everybody standing in the shallows – some attention to detail that makes it  that bit more believable. This is what I mean by conceptual space – before, I had no idea what was  going on when I sent Blaziken out on the water, but now I can actually imagine a Fire-type  like Blaziken battling in the shallows. The ultimate goal of this little  detour is to find Ramanas Park. We can’t get in here yet

though. I’d  apologise, but then you are watching an eleven-hour Pokémon video. At this point  I just assume you want your time wasted. Take a boat from Canalave and you can travel to  Iron Island, the site of the old ore mines. The mines have been long since shut down,  so people come here to train and play. Riley, the stat trainer for this area, considers  it to be a waste of time, which is a bit cheeky. What do you think of people spending 11 hours  listening to someone else talk about peopl

e training Pokémon then? He’s slagging you off,  guys, are you gonna sit there and take that? Riley accompanies you through the island  with his Lucario – teasing the Pokémon he’ll eventually give you. Lucario was marketed pretty  heavily during the run-up to Diamond and Pearl, even appearing in his own movie. I’m not  sure if it was the design, the backstory, or just a random choice, but the marketing  created a bit of a mystique around Lucario that it doesn’t quite live up to. It is – or  was

– one of the few non-legendary Pokémon to learn Aura Sphere, but the same is true of  Togekiss and it didn’t get its own movie! Speaking of which, we find the Shiny Stone  at the end of this dungeon, meaning that, despite having been backbenched for the majority  of the runtime, Scramble can finally evolve. I think item- and location-based evolutions are a  really cool idea, both for the context they give the Pokémon, and also because of their balancing  potential. If a single evolutionary item

can potentially be used on multiple powerful  Pokémon, then the player needs to make a careful decision between the two, even if just  temporarily. If an item can only be accessed once a certain point is reached, or – more directly  – if a Pokémon can evolve in a certain area, then the game can keep certain Pokémon from  the player until they overcome a challenge, explore a dungeon, or, at the very least, reach  a later portion of the game. So long as they’re well contextualised, any of these ca

n help  to make evolution feel more meaningful. The game doesn’t always follow through. The  availability of evolution items is inconsistent, narrowing viable options. I never found a  Moon Stone playing Brilliant Diamond. Had I chosen to use my wee darling Clefable  I’d’ve had to pick my poison to get one: hours grinding in the Grand Underground  or hours grinding Thief on wild Cleffa. Stone evolutions’ specific drawback isn’t  always enforced. The idea is evolved forms stop learning moves alto

gether, forcing you to  carefully choose when to evolve your Pokémon. Too early and you have to rely on TMs for a decent  moveset; too late and it struggles in its weaker form. It’s an inspired idea. If you get to  choose exactly when to evolve your Pokémon, you need to have a good reason to choose not to. The problem is, it’s always existed as just that: an idea. Roserade, Mismagius, and Clefable  are beholden to this limitation; Honchkrow, the Eeveelutions, and Froslass are not. As such  they

continue to learn new moves; go ahead and evolve them whenever you like. Sometimes  this even applies without evolution items: Breloom misses out on Spore if you evolve it  before level 40. There’s a strong argument to be made in favour of all these choices. Of course the  Eeveelutions need to learn new moves; of course Breloom shouldn’t get the best sleep move in the  game for free. But it’s this kind of inconsistency that has me punching “Bulbapedia” into the search  bar whenever I make even t

he slightest decision. While Gen VIII doesn’t fix the problem outright,  it seems to have made cushioning it a priority. Pokémon can now re-learn all the moves they  missed upon evolution. The Heart Scale cost is prohibitive, so you still need to make  tough choices if you don’t want to grind, but mistakes are never permanent. It’s this kind  of design that makes me unclench my buttocks and get absorbed into the game a little more.  If I mess up, ah well. I can fix it later. I mentioned in the l

ast video that having certain  Pokémon evolve in certain areas was a potential logistical issue. “Going forward, every game  would need to invent a high-magnetism area for every game that has Magnemite, for example.”  But really that’s bollocks, because it can just make up whatever excuse it wants! In the  next game, Magneton could evolve by feeding it three Irons and then throwing your Joy-Cons out a  window if the game wanted it to. And in fact, it probably should! I mean, maybe not throwing y

our  Joy-Cons out a window specifically, but it can and should change how certain Pokémon evolve, when  appropriate. There’s no point in grandfathering in an evolution method if another option would  work better for whatever the game is trying to do. I said last time that Kadabra’s evolution  should have something to do with the TwistedSpoon, and I still think that makes a lot more sense  than just trading it. If, in a future game, there’s a new area or bit of context that  would justify Togetic

’s evolution better, I hope the series takes advantage. I hope  it isn’t locking itself into these evolution methods just for the sake of continuity. As thanks for helping to get rid of Team Galactic – they were doing Team Galactic stuff,  it doesn’t really matter – Riley gives us an Egg, which contains our eighth team member. I realised halfway through Iron Island that, despite being a big Sinnoh boy, I had literally  never used a Lucario in any of my playthroughs. It felt a bit sacrilegious to

go to all this  effort making an exhaustive look at Sinnoh and not even use the region’s prodigal son. Still, because Riolu is a baby Pokémon and because you can only get one, I was pretty much  locked in to whatever nature and Ability this fella had. I didn’t want to go to all the  trouble of hatching it, then raising its friendship to evolve it just to hatch it all over  again. It’s a good thing I decided that early on, too – Brave Nature (+Attack, -Speed) is not ideal  for a Special Attacker

, and if I’d given myself the excuse I would have taken in-game Natures way  too seriously. I ended up using Kelpsy Berries to raise its friendship while making sure it  wouldn’t inherit any Attack EVs at the very least. “Bandage” is probably the most generic name I  came up with – I told you, I was winging it at this point. I was asked if it was a reference to  mummification – there’s a link there to ancient Egypt, with Lucario bearing some resemblance to  the jackal-headed Anubis, the God of t

he Dead. Or technically the God of Enbalming; Osiris was—you  know what, Google it. I wish I could tell you I had such lofty allusions in mind, but in reality,  he’s called Bandage because he’s black and blue. With that, it’s finally time to kick  off the story’s climax, which starts at breakneck speed with a trip to the Library. I’m kidding, of course, but I actually think Canalave Library is a pretty smart bit of pacing.  It’s a short palate cleanser that re-establishes a lot of the thematic g

roundwork the story  will be building on. As we’ve established, mythology is a core part of Sinnoh’s  theming. Bookshelves on the top floor of the Library will give you little insights into  Sinnoh’s history and mythology when inspected. A lot of these texts take inspiration from various  world mythologies. Take Sinnoh’s creation myth, The Original Story, for example: it seems to take  inspiration from Taoism. It reads: “From itself, two beings the Original One did make. Time started  to spin. S

pace began to expand. From itself again, three living things the Original One did make. The  two beings wished, and from them, matter came to be. The three living things wished, and from them,  spirit came to be.” Here’s the relevant passage from the Tao Te Ching, translated by Victor H.  Mair: “The Way gave birth to unity, Unity gave birth to duality, Duality gave birth to trinity,  Trinity gave birth to the myriad creatures.” You can see the parallels: one becomes two becomes  three becomes le

gion. The idea of Arceus being born from an Egg of primordial chaos and dividing  creation also contains some parallels to the Chinese myth of Pangu: “Heaven and earth were in  chaos like a chicken’s egg, and P’an Ku was born in the middle of it. In eighteen thousand years  Heaven and the earth opened and unfolded. The limpid that was the Yang became the heavens,  the turbid that was Yin became the earth.” Sinnoh Folk Story 1 seems to draw from Yupik  and possibly Ainu mythologies. It reads: “Pi

ck clean the bones of Pokémon caught in the sea  or stream. Thank them for the meals they provide, and pick their bones clean. When the bones are  as clean as can be, set them free in the water from which they came. The Pokémon will return,  fully fleshed, and it begins anew.” Yupik myth tells that their game all possess souls stored in  the bladder: an annual tradition in Alaska was to release seal bladders back into the sea that  they may be reborn. This wasn’t just a mark of respect for their

prey, but also ensured their  own survival: after all, if there weren’t more seals they wouldn’t have anything to eat. Replace  “animals” with “Pokémon” and “bladders” with the slightly more universal “bones” as a symbol of  death and the myth is practically identical. There’s also some resemblance to the practices of  the Ainu people, the native people of Hokkaidō. They believed in a symbiosis between aynu¬ –  man – and kamuy – spirits or gods that appeared clad in the form of animals, among o

ther things.  Eating meat would often involve a “sending-back” ritual where the kamuy was returned to  the spirit realm with man’s blessing. The flip-side of Sinnoh Folk Story 1 is the fable  called “Veilstone’s Myth.” A young man carelessly slew Pokémon by his own hand, driving them away  and leading to food becoming scarce. He embarks on a journey to find them, and when he does, they  give the following warning: “If you bear your sword to bring harm upon us, with claws and fangs,  we will exac

t a toll. From your kind we will take our toll, for it must be done. Done it must be to  guard ourselves and for it, I apologize.” I can’t find a real-world inspiration for this myth –  although I’m no scholar, a lot of this information is coming from Wikipedia – but I don’t think it  really matters anyway. Knowing the inspiration behind Diamond and Pearl’s mythology is cool, but  it’s trivia. The more relevant question, I feel, is why these myths were adapted in the first  place. What do these

myths say about the world and the story that these games are trying to tell? Pokémon is a utopia; technology is used to deliver this world from questions of ecology and  sustainability. Discussions about the logistics of this world are marginalised – depictions of  people eating Pokémon are rare and often morally unambiguous. You’re not supposed to see Team  Rocket harvesting Slowpoke tails as anything but exploitative. You may think the question is  dodged because it’s a child-friendly franchis

e made to sell Nintendo systems, but that doesn’t  account for the many, many times that Pokémon chooses to grapple with these problems of its  own volition. The series has surprisingly robust worldbuilding. The Pokédex often mentions  predation and ecological concerns, and the mythology here proves that sustainability was,  at one stage, a concern for the people of Sinnoh. We, as players, aren’t often concerned with  the logistics of the Pokémon world because it’s just not relevant to what we’r

e doing.  There’s no hunger or survival mechanics in Pokémon – there are no toilets in Sinnoh. In  kind of the same way, questions of how Tesco sources its chicken aren’t relevant to this  video even though I ate some over the course of making it. If you think that's hypocritical or  wilfully ignorant, I'd have to agree. The world we live in is filled with cruel contradictions.  I love my pets even though I’m not a vegetarian. And that’s only so absurd because my love is  genuine. I exist as a b

ody that requires the destruction of other life to sustain itself, and  yet, I also seek companionship with other life. I have no reason to believe this fictional mirror  of our world doesn't work the same way. Sure, the game never explicitly brings the subject up,  but we can tell a lot about the people’s concerns and ideologies through the stories they tell.  Sinnoh’s mythology suggests that the people of this fictional world were struggling with the  exact same moral quandaries as we are in t

he real world. Not only were these people trying to  make sense of the world but they were also staking moral claims: they created an ethical framework  to justify eating meat. There’s even shades of Abrahamic mythology worked in there. The Sinnoh  Folk Stories draw a lot of parallels between people and Pokémon: in English the text reads  that people and Pokémon ate at the same table, but in the original Japanese it was said people  and Pokémon would marry. Ha ha, yes, furry jokes, very good, bu

t the point being made in both  cases is that there once wasn’t a distinction between the people and Pokémon. So far as I know  there isn’t a Pokémon equivalent of Adam and Eve, but at some stage, humans were burdened  with knowledge and therefore morality, distinguishing them from the beasts of the world. If the Pokémon world truly is a reflection of our own, then it must be just as hypocritical too.  And if that's the case, eating Pokémon doesn't undermine the series’ core narrative: it doesn’

t  undermine the genuine affection the characters share with them. The idea of being vegetarian  seems a more complicated proposition in the Pokémon world where the plants sometimes come to  life. And yet, the stories in the Canalave Library are laced with many of the same misgivings  about eating meat we have in the real world. I used to be of the mind that Pokémon had to do  a better job explaining this stuff, a better job justifying its own setting. But as time goes on,  I realise that we're

probably not going to find the resolution to the bizarre contradiction that  is human existence in a Pokémon game. I think the Pokémon world is more textured and more authentic  for having these kinds of contradictions: that is, after all, how our reality works as well. I feel like these were all things the staff were concerned about during development. Masuda  tried to galvanise the developers at Game Freak by pitching Diamond and Pearl as the “ultimate  world.” “Overall, I wanted to depict an

ideal world, which was peaceful with no environmental  issues or racism. The relationship between human beings and Pokémon characters is much closer  than the owner-pet relationship, which is what I envision to be the ideal relationship. I want  everyone to feel something when interacting with this world. In Japan, people sometimes don’t  give up their seats for the elderly on a train. I wanted to show a world of kindness. It’s  not just about what’s good and what’s bad, I wanted to show that th

ere are even better  ways to act than normal. For instance, the Pokémon Celebi is said to only appear when you  help nature to flourish in a forest in the Pokémon world. Another example I’ve imagined is despite  the normal reputation that electronics like refrigerators and trucks damage the environment  or waste energy, these devices would be something closer to nature in the Pokémon world.” We don't live in that kind of perfect universe, that “ultimate world,” and we never will. But  even with

all the limitless possibilities of the Pokémon world, humanity still struggles with  some worrying questions about its own nature. That’s what it means to be human, I guess. Pokémon evolution is an abrupt and sometimes extreme metamorphosis, but it also serves to  give the world a surprising amount of texture. Professor Rowan wonders why some Pokémon evolve  and others don’t. The boring metatextual answer is, of course, that some Pokémon evolve and others  don’t depending on the designer’s goals

. Again, rather than side-step the question, Pokémon  leans into it. Professor Rowan is troubled by the implications of Pokémon that don’t evolve;  could those Pokémon, like the Lake Trio, be considered “perfect” beings? That’s interesting!  Can we be considered perfect beings? Or in a few million years will the six-toed and seven-fingered  descendents of humanity look back and see us as a bit primitive? I’m not saying these musings could  hold up to rigorous academic review, of course, but the

fact that there seems to be some kind  of thesis underpinning Rowan’s musings gives the world a lot more depth. It’s a wonderful little  bit of sleight-of-hand on the part of the writers. We’re asked to investigate the three Lakes  said to house the legendary Pokémon. We’ve come full circle: our task now is the same  as it was at the beginning of the game, when it was just you and Barry. But! The explosion at Lake Valor changes our plans: now, we have to rush out and…  investigate the Lakes, oh,

that was lucky! Generally I think this bit is really well paced  like I say, but the explosion is so poorly framed as to rob it of any tension. I feel like it  should be a much bigger event: the atmosphere sucked out of the city as everyone responds to  what seems to be a pretty grim disaster. But nobody really seems all that bothered – it doesn’t  interrupt Canalave’s laid-back theme, and the NPCs in the Library are just cracking jokes. They’re  pretty good jokes, to be fair, but still! Bandag

e doesn’t seem at all impressed, either – I know  that’s unfair, I know these responses are random, but it’s not half adding insult to injury. I think the remedy to this admittedly very minor problem would have been to have the  explosion occur when you’re closer to the Lake. You were on your way there anyway after  all. Maybe if it had been set to trigger on Route 213 or 214 it could have drawn more attention  to itself. Proximity would increase tension, and you’d already be anticipating a conf

rontation  with Team Galactic after the events earlier. I really like how Team Galactic  are handled here – they toe a very tricky line between comical and dangerous. It’s difficult to build much tension with such comedic villains. The Grunts, who represent the  majority of Team Galactic’s on-screen presence, have the comic air of career criminals who just  aren’t very good at their job. Easy defeats let all the air out of their tough guy façade.  The retro sci-fi aesthetic calls to mind mad sci

entists, space invaders, and experiments  gone wrong, which all seems fitting but also means they look really goofy. I don’t think any  of this was unintentional. It’s a Pokémon game, after all: too much narrative pressure would  stifle the player, or else turn away some of the kids that are the series’ core demographic.  Nevertheless, when the comedy spaceman stumbles and farts and Three Stooges his way over to Lake  Valor, it leaves this plot point ticking away in the back of your head. What a

re Team Galactic  up to here? And what was in that package? Both of those questions are answered  here. The danger is established with surprising clarity. I think this is where a lot  of other Pokémon villains fall down. Last time, we had Maxie break an ancient seal unleashing  the power of a mythical primordial behemoth. Now, I understand what both of those things are  conceptually, but the threat doesn’t have much punch. I have no experience with ancient seals  or primordial monsters, so the i

mplications and consequences can’t be as tangible. In Brilliant  Diamond, Team Galactic blow up a lake! I know what a lake looks like, and I know what a  crater looks like. It’s a lot less abstract. And so when Team Galactic say they’re going to  do the same thing to your hometown, you believe the threat! They’re bumbling idiots, sure, but if  anything their blind dedication only makes them more dangerous. We’ve just finished reading about  the lengths people went to live in balance with nature;

Team Galactic’s wilful carelessness seems  especially heinous in contrast. The juxtaposition is remarkably effective: I really did not think  I’d be saying this coming in, but that’s good writing, and not just by Pokémon standards either! Another strength is how personal the conflict has been with Team Galactic throughout. They’re  often messing with your friends or blocking you from progressing, which gets you into  conflict with them in an organic way. Even now, they’re threatening to blow up

Lake Verity  not because of any personal vendetta but because of its well-established connection  with their goals. The personal dimension to this conflict is created by the level design. My point is, you’re never really treated as the hero in Brilliant Diamond. You’re never the  centre of the universe or the focus of anyone’s goals. And without the game telling you you're  the hero, your heroic deeds have to have actual context. It’s a weird kind of paradoxical  quality of stories - we're ente

ring into this knowing that we're playing the role of  the protagonist, but if the game acknowledges that I find it takes me out of it. Important trainers in Sinnoh will have a “signature” Pokémon of sorts. I like this a lot – it says a lot about the character’s personality, suggests some  of their history, and in some cases clues the player into the existence of rare  Pokémon they might be interested in. But the desire to use that signature Pokémon as  the climax of the battle can result in the

AI behaving rigidly. Lots of times I'm fighting  what is supposed to be a tough boss and they refuse to send out their ace even when it would be  advantageous because they want to keep it for the climactic turnaround. But that's useless - Pokémon  is very much not a game of linear strength. The exception to this, for some reason, is  Mars. In both of our fights she was absolutely comfortable switching into and out of Purugly. I’d  love to see more of this – Mars is only made to feel more compet

ent and Purugly more threatening  by taking full advantage of their options. With Valor and Verity accounted for, all that’s  left is Lake Acuity, at the northern tip of Sinnoh. To reach it, we first have to travel  through the northern part of Mt. Coronet. Again, weird little bit of non-linearity I  didn’t know about: you can actually head to Lake Acuity before clearing Lake Verity  and Valor. There isn’t much reason to, mind you, you skip two fights you have to  come back and do anyway, but th

e game finds no reason to railroad you and I appreciate that. This underground lake is the only spot in the game where you can find Feebas. So we’re going fishing. As I said earlier, I think fishing does a great job creating continuity between the  overworld and the battle screen: I have a much clearer idea of the scenario  here than I do encountering a previously invisible Pokémon in the tall grass. I have a  couple of nitpicks. Maybe the method of fishing could be a bit more interesting? I don

’t really  understand why your guy reels the rod back in so quickly – surely if you don’t land a fish you just  wait longer? But these are the kind of threads you can pick into holes only when you’re really  bored. Which brings me nicely back to Feebas. Feebas, in its first two appearances in Gens  III and IV, was known for its incredibly obtuse encounter requirements. While Omega Ruby made it  far easier to find, Brilliant Diamond extends no such courtesy. Feebas appears on only four tiles  in

this entire massive lake – four tiles which shuffle around daily. On those four tiles, it  has a 50% encounter rate – even if you’re on the right tile, it’s a coin flip whether or not  it’s going to be a Feebas at the end of your line. It massively extends the time spent fishing –  if you want to be sure you’ve not missed it, you have to land a fish on each tile a good three  or four times. I have Machoke here because its No Guard Ability increases the chances of landing a  Pokémon. Otherwise, t

here are no shortcuts, and it is excruciating. If you want an indication of  just how long this took me, well… yeah. I managed to find a full-odds Shiny, the final word in rare  Pokémon, before I even caught whiff of a Feebas. The complaint being that it took me hours to  catch the little bugger, and for me personally that goes beyond the pale. The fantasy the game  is trying to fulfill, or at least so I think, is that of you tracking down this creature that’s so  rare as to almost be legendary.

Even if you heard about it in the playground, there’s a lot of room  for doubt here with these mechanics. Of course, for me, that fantasy is stone dead – I know Feebas  is here and furthermore I know the exact inner workings of how and when it appears. That’s not  a black mark against the game in and of itself, in fact, it’s a positive thing that I care  enough to know that. But it is a black mark that I have to know that, I have to kill the  fantasy, to have any chance of finding one. I feel t

he game went too far. There’s no way you  tracked this thing down under your own power: you either got incredibly lucky or you were told how  it works second-hand. The alternative is that you, for absolutely no reason, decided you were going  to fish on every single tile of this underground lake in a single day just because. There are  absolutely no clues anywhere in the game about how this works – again, a single NPC talking  about a rumour could have remedied this. Even if you see Feebas becau

se a trainer has it, its  Habitat isn’t registered in the Pokédex. It was in the originals; this was likely an oversight, but  that’s neither here nor there. Even if you knew, somehow, that it only appears in this single  body of water, you’d have no way of figuring out exactly how the capture method works. If you  assume it works like literally every other Pokémon in the game, you’d probably just sit in the same  spot casting your rod over and over – that being a complete waste of time. I can’t

stress enough how  time-consuming it is – I knew it was here, I knew the optimal method of tracking it down, and it  still took me a good three hours at least. That’s more than enough time for the novelty of fishing  to wear off. What a little bastard. A Feebastard. And yes, don’t worry, I know what you want  to see. Here’s me catching the Barboach. Break out the good headphones, because  Route 216… is banger territory. There are a lot of clichés employed when  it comes to snow levels in comput

er games. Gently falling snow, sleigh bells, slippery  ice physics, that sort of thing. I really don’t mean to do a drive-by in saying  that: they’re clichés for a reason, they obviously work. But their effectiveness  is diminished by having seen, heard, and played these kinds of levels so many times before. I love, love, the atmosphere on Routes 216 and 217 because, like Route 113 in Hoenn, they  clearly think through how this kind of climate would actually work. There’s nothing gentle or  rela

xing or Christmas-y about this – even with the walking pine trees. It’s a harsh, unforgiving  environment. Visibility is limited; it's sleeting sideways. Your mobility is limited when you have  to wade through deep snowbanks. And your Pokémon are constantly taking damage if they aren’t  Ice-type. Again, like Route 212, the fantasy of this area has not just aesthetic implications but  mechanical ones as well. That’s how you sell it; that’s how you make it seem wrong for your  guy to be out here i

n a shirt and a beret. All of that is complemented by the excellent  music. A single note, and a twinkle on the piano – a blank white canvas, and the sheen of  new snow. It’s a classic example of a winter theme. But then, after some buildup, the song  kicks up a notch. Violins and synths doing a call-and-response at the same time, voices being  whipped back and forth as if by the wind. The roll of the snare imitates the crunch of snow, a  less decisive rhythm to evoke the feeling of your feet fa

lling through the top layer to compact the  snow underneath. The white of the snow is not an inviting blank canvas, but an exhilarating whirl  of activity. It’s always in danger of descending into chaos, with the heavily syncopated rhythm and  the instruments all drowning each other out. And while that never settles completely, the song –  and your character, presumably – catches up with its own rhythm as it goes along. It decides on a  more standard beat – more relaxed syncopation on the drums,

and the sax responding to the synths  harmoniously. It’s still energised – the snare is still rolling – but it feels a lot more  in control of itself. There comes a point, when you’re out in extreme weather, when you  get used to it. The shock of the cold wears off, or the wind dies down a little. At that point,  it’s much easier to find your feet. I feel like the music captures that moment perfectly.  Sinnoh, man, I swear to god. What a soundtrack. These Routes are of course  the game’s dedica

ted Ice area. Areas with a natural inclination towards  a particular type, or “mono-type areas” as I’ll be calling them, present an interesting  design challenge. The game has two conflicting priorities here, between level design –  creating an investible world – and game design – creating an interesting play experience. I say “conflicting” because broadly speaking I think having a greater variety of Pokémon  is better for the game. If you randomised all the Pokémon, the player couldn’t rely on

a  one-size-fits-all counter for a particular route, and they’d be able to find Ice-types to add  to their team before reaching this area. But I don’t think that’d make for a better  experience. Not every Pokémon makes sense for every area. It would confuse our understanding of  the world if, for example, you found Charmander here – an area where its fire would constantly  be at risk of blowing out. That may seem trivial, but it’s something the series clearly takes  very seriously. I can’t think

of a single time a Pokémon has seemed like a poor fit for its  environment. It's such a priority, in fact, that I find that some regions include anachronistic  biomes on purpose, seemingly to justify including certain types in the Pokédex. Like deserts in  the middle of otherwise temperate climates, for example. Considering the complaints about the  lack of variety in Sinnoh, I’d say this approach is probably better overall, but nevertheless it  makes the world that tiny bit less investible for

me. I think one of the reasons I love Sinnoh  so much is because it fits together so well. Nevertheless, you see the dilemma. Having a clear  relationship between Pokémon and environment allows players to make educated guesses about  what kind of Pokémon they’re likely to encounter there. But then the map has to be designed very  carefully to lend those designs the full weight of that context. Grouping a lot of Pokémon  with similar types can present an interesting challenge – I’m almost certai

n Gible was only  made available right before a long stretch of Ice-types for this very reason. But the trade-off  is, encountering almost exclusively Ice-types for two Routes a row (followed of course by the  Ice Gym) runs the risk of getting monotonous. You’re going to be seeing the same small  handful of Pokémon for the next wee while. I described all this as an interesting design  “challenge,” and I’d say that, on the whole, the series has risen to the challenge admirably.  It may lean sligh

tly too far one way or the other sometimes, but with one notable exception (take  a shot) I’ve never found mono-type areas outstay their welcome. One way the series maintains  this balance is by considering more than just type when choosing where to place each Pokémon.  It makes perfect sense for Machoke and Meditite to be honing their minds and bodies in such  harsh conditions, and Graveller seems hardy enough to weather the hail. Or not. But then, Hail was always the worst weather condition, f

or me. Sun, Rain, and Sandstorms bestow advantages on multiple types, allowing creative  players to design teams that would take advantage of them while limiting their adverse effects.  Hail is the only one that feels undercooked. There’s no scope for experimentation as  it only benefits Ice-types. Other weather conditions limit teambuilding mechanics as well,  but they have enough interactions and effects to force a player to consider their options more  deeply. Sun benefits Fire-types, of cour

se, but it also benefits Grass types with Chlorophyll  or Solar Beam. You may also find that another type of Pokémon can fill a niche or cover a weakness  on a Sun team, even if it doesn’t benefit from the weather itself. Hail has no such scope –  you’re locked into making what is essentially a mono-Ice team, which doesn’t seem like the best  idea considering how woeful they are defensively. Poor Ice-types, man, they’re still being punished  for the war crime that was Blizzard in Gen I. Blizzard

s don’t seem to affect Snowpoint City  nearly so much – presumably this is why they built the city here and not further south.  The hail has turned into gently falling snow, and the music has calmed down to match. I like this theme a lot in principle – the stillness and loneliness of such a remote  settlement allowing the melody to echo, quiet enough for wobbling vibrations of  the accompaniment to be heard clearly. There’s a short glissando twinkling away on  the percussion in the background so

metimes, perfect for a town shaped like a giant snowflake.  There’s a strong contrast between the bluster of Routes 216 and 217 and the solitude of Snowpoint  City, and that’s reflected perfectly in the music. Nevertheless, this song never landed that well  for me. Perhaps I didn’t really resonate with the emotional arc the song was creating; perhaps  it’s because it always sounded a little more creepy than it did relaxing. It’s a very frosty  and hollow sounding melody even with the harmony. I

wonder if it has anything to do with its  similarities to Sector 5 from Metroid Fusion. Take a listen. Either way, even if it doesn’t land for  me, I don’t think that has anything to do with the quality of the composition or anything like that. There are a couple of NPC interactions in Snowpoint I feel obligated to point out. One is a cute little detail added in the remakes: you’re rewarded for changing into your Winter  clothes when coming up to Snowpoint. There’s no concrete benefit to wearing

appropriate clothing  otherwise, so I absolutely love that the game rewards you for taking its setting so seriously. The other NPC is one of the most infamous in the entire series. This lass offers to trade you a  Haunter for a Medicham. I’m not even going to pretend to build up to the punchline because you  already know what it is – the Haunter’s holding an Everstone so it doesn’t evolve. Look, you know  by this point there’s no love lost between me and trade evolutions, I don’t like them that

much. But  frustrating as it was back when I couldn’t trade that easily, I’d be mad if they took this out  honestly, it’s a really fun little practical joke. Candice is the Ice-type boss at  the end of the Ice-type area. Her Gym sees the player using momentum to  break the giant snowballs that block the path directly to her. The analogue controls make  this slightly awkward, but it’s a really great setup – a fun twist on sliding puzzles that has  a bit more visceral satisfaction. You want to se

e the snowballs smash apart more than you want  to see a block land on a switch or whatever. Ice often enjoys a prominent position as  a late-game threat, which is unfortunate as it’s broadly considered one  of the weakest types in the game. Ice-type moves used to be Dragon’s only  weakness (except of course from other Dragons). But Ice-type Pokémon themselves struggle  to overcome their numerous weaknesses to Fighting, Fire, Rock, and Steel. The only thing  Ice resists, in contrast… is Ice. The

balancing isn’t perfect. But does it need  to be? Is it a problem that there exist types that are worse than others? That might sound  like a stupid question with a clear answer, but obvious advantages aside, a perfectly balanced  game doesn’t necessarily mean a more enjoyable game. Eliminating disparity only makes things more  homogenous. Ice-types lacking defensive options doesn’t strike me as a balancing oversight but a  clever bit of theming. It characterises Ice-type Pokémon as being fragi

le, which makes sense! Using  them feels that bit more expressive because their extreme strengths and weaknesses convey the  type’s physical qualities. I’d prefer a bit of disparity than every type having the  same number of strengths and weaknesses, and each getting a 90 Power 100 Accuracy  staple you can just splash on without thinking. Balancing is a really tricky proposition. If  a buff were to make Ice that bit more usable, that would also result in an indirect nerf  to Flying, Ground, Gras

s, and Dragon types. Dragons are already in a precarious spot thanks  to Fairy, and an indirect nerf to Grass could potentially mean an even more indirect buff to  Water-types (especially Water/Ground types like Swampert). It’s a delicate ecosystem and  I see why they’re reluctant to upset it. A big part of the problem seems to be that, while  Ice has been balanced to be frail defensively but powerful offensively, that doesn’t make sense  with Pokémon’s mechanics. If you know anything about how

Pokémon works, you immediately see  the problem: you don’t have to be an Ice-type to use Ice-type moves. Adding insult to injury  is that any Water-type worth its sea salt will learn a ton of Ice moves. It’s really easy  to pair one of the best defensive types in the game with one of the best offensive types. So, you know, maybe Ice could do with a little buff. At the very least stop trying  to make them defensive walls. I mean, how do you think I feel – Aurorus is a top  three Pokémon for me an

d the poor thing’s Ice and Rock! If it gets looked at funny by like  half the types in the game it just keels over. I really like Candice’s little  speech at the end of her fight. She doesn’t act how you’d expect an Ice-type  trainer to act – that is to say, cold – but she is who she is. She’s the opposite of Flannery in  a lot of ways, which means she lacks an arc but also means she’s a more distinct character. If you had forgotten why were up here in the first place I wouldn’t really blame you

–  the game seems to have forgotten as well. Your first time passing through Acuity  Lakefront on the way to Snowpoint, two Grunts are blocking the entrance. Okay,  that’s fine, I get that the game needs you to investigate the other Lakes and beat the 7th Gym  first. But there’s no excuse given, no dialogue that suggests your character has any motivations  of their own whatsoever. You’re here to fight Team Galactic – or so I thought – and when you  get here you just don’t fight Team Galactic. T

hey’re treated like an incidental detail,  rather than your entire reason for being here. So after all that, you beat the Gym, come back,  immediately get told to head back to Veilstone, and that’s it. You don’t get the chance to avenge  Barry, you don’t get the chance to fight Team Galactic, you don’t even get a “you’re too late!”  speech from Jupiter. I’d be happy to take her gloating on the chin – that’s clearly the point,  they’ve won this round – but your character is so passive for no reas

on it’s difficult to care. But then, that’s Team Galactic all over, isn’t it? They just don’t live up to their potential. The consensus seems to be that Team Galactic are among the series’ weakest villains. Before  this video, I would confidently agree. Despite being the world’s foremost Sinnoh fanboy –  keep in mind you’re listening to a fella who defended the mud of all things – I likewise  dismissed Team Galactic as generic clichés. The wonderful thing about making videos of this  length thou

gh is it forces me to engage with every part of the game. It feels like the least  I can do. Examining even the greatest media this closely is inherently unfair, in my opinion,  because it’s such an atypical way to experience a creation! Artists, writers, game designers,  musicians – all are trying to evoke something, to in some way connect with other people  through their work. Such a thorough, clinical post-mortem of a game is the antithesis  of that. It’s possible to find flaws in anything if

you look closely enough, and dissecting a  game just to display those flaws like a grisly trophy completely rejects the humanity of creating  art. The only way a video like this is worthwhile, to me, is if it can illuminate some of the  artistry that may have otherwise gone overlooked. Such is the case with Team Galactic. I don’t  think I ever gave them as much credit as they deserved. They’re not perfect by any stretch of  the imagination – the fact it took until this ridiculous deep dive for

me to figure out that I  actually liked them is a flaw in and of itself. But conceptually I think they’re very strong. Team Galactic are written really inconsistently. I thought that was just because they were villainous  clichés – doing anything at all to demonstrate that they were evil. But that inconsistency, as  it turns out, is actually written into the story! Galactic Grunts have unclear motivations. Some are  petty thieves. Some are mindlessly destructive, gleefully indulging in acts of t

errorism. More  still seem keenly aware that they’re just the tropey cliché comedy villains. But many are  magnetised to vague promises of something better. Posters and text repeated by the  Grunts tell of Team Galactic “setting its gaze beyond the stars,” “creating a new world  order,” harnessing new forms of energy. “Look to the stars – they belong to Team Galactic!”  I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like you’d want to be on their side, right? That’s the point. Team Galactic are not

dedicated to a singular vision; they’ve been manipulated  into joining by a charismatic leader. None of the Grunts can tell you what Team Galactic’s  goals actually are – they just pay lip service to the genius of their leader’s plans! They’ve  already thrown their lot in with Team Galactic, so they now have a personal stake in seeing Cyrus’  plans through. To admit they don’t actually know what they’re up to would make them seem stupid.  It gives the Galactic Grunts a pathetic edge, in both se

nses of the word. They’re pitiful,  but also I kind of get it. I don’t think it’s stupid to want to be a part of something  greater – the human is a social creature after all – just that it’s possible for charismatic  individuals to exploit that to their own ends. Of course, if the Grunts knew what Cyrus  was actually planning I reckon they’d be less keen to go along with it. The Scientists  at the heart of Veilstone HQ are the perfect example. They’ve been talked into creating the  Red Chain bu

t they’re disgusted with themselves afterwards. I suspect Cyrus’ rhetoric  sounded more noble than the reality. I think it’s a really interesting pitch  for a villainous team – one that’s not really a team in the first place. They  aren’t united by common goals or values, but joined by the manipulations of a single  individual. No other villainous team is quite so self-defeating as this one. What a great writing  trick that is. I’m stealing that – no need for continuity or consistent character m

otivations  if not even your baddies know what they’re up to! So why was this story not more effective? Why  is it that this hypocrisy, intentionally written into the characters as it is, missed the mark for  so many people? I mean, I’ve played these games dozens of times, yet I had to do this to have  anything nice to say about Team Galactic at all! The main problem, so far as I  can tell, is a lack of focus. None of the story beats really land with much  impact. Galactic’s plans are scattered

across a series of seemingly unrelated incidents. Here’s  a rundown of their plan so far: they took over the Valley Windworks to get the energy to create  the Galactic Bomb to blow up the lakes to kidnap Mesprit, Uxie, and Azelf to create the Red Chain  to enslave Dialga. That’s already five degrees of separation, and we haven’t even gotten to why  they wanted to enslave Dialga in the first place. We haven’t even talked about any of their  unrelated plots. You’ll recall that Galactic’s first app

earance has them take an interest in  evolution – that’s why they were after Professor Rowan’s research. This thread is never followed  up. Their subplot in Eterna City seems to just be mindless thuggery: they’re there to investigate  the statue, but the reason you fight them is because they’re also stealing everybody’s Pokémon  for basically no reason. And you only find out why they needed energy from the Valley Windworks  if you talk to a random Grunt in the Galactic Warehouse, on the opposite

end of the map. It’s  a breadcrumb trail of plotting, with the added complication that some of the trails lead to dead  ends. The result is that the player is given no clear through line: no understanding of what Team  Galactic are working towards, and therefore no understanding of what they’re working to prevent. Again, that’s the point: not even Team Galactic know what their goals are. To tell that story  effectively, then, I feel the game needs to draw better attention to that point. It isn’

t at all  clear that Team Galactic are not working towards a common goal. Take, for example, the Celestic  Town incident. A Galactic Grunt threatens to blow up Celestic Town seemingly just out of sheer  dedication to being a bastard. Moments later, Cyrus appears, implying he wasn’t involved  with the Grunt and explaining he was looking for information here. Now, on a first pass this  scene seems to work, at least in the original games. The remakes introduce a subtle difference  in storytelling:

Cyrus’ ties to Team Galactic are made explicit from the first time he’s introduced.  You can see the Galactic logo on his uniform in the remakes: the originals were a lot more  ambiguous about his relationship with them. But on repeat playthroughs, or any playthrough  in the remakes, this scene raises some questions. Assuming he wasn’t just blowing smoke, why was  the Grunt so eager to blow up Celestic if Cyrus considered it a potential source of information?  Maybe I just have the wrong bead on

his character, but Cyrus doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d  blow a place up just because he didn’t find what he needed. He doesn’t seem that vindictive: cold  emotionless logic is kind of his whole thing. The game has an answer to these questions, of course:  because his underlings don’t actually know what Cyrus wants. But without a scene where that’s  made explicit, without a scene where, for example, Cyrus reprimands the Grunt to demonstrate  that there’s some kind of miscommunication,

the player is left to make a lot of assumptions.  Many will just assume it’s a mistake. It’s a Pokémon story, after all. Who cares? It’s a strong pitch, but the story needed much tighter story and character beats to make it  clear that the contradictions were intentional. With so many holes, Team Galactic leave a weak  impression. And I don’t mean plot holes, either: all of this makes sense. Believe me, I checked. It  makes perfect sense that they investigated Pokémon evolution as a potential en

ergy source before  moving onto something more practical. But stories are just as much about omission as inclusion,  and a lack of focus in each scene clouds the player’s understanding of the plot overall.  Introducing Team Galactic with a thread about Pokémon evolution tricks the player into thinking  this information will be relevant going forward. Having Cyrus’ connections to Team Galactic be  ambiguous for most of the game distracts from the fact that he’s lying to his underlings  as well. T

here’s a lot of fluff. You can understand Team Galactic as a fable about cults of  personality, but they’re much easier to understand as your run-of-the-mill tropey cliché villains.  They’re very easy to dismiss as a result: keep in mind this is the same organisation that often  indulges in those clichés and tropes for laughs. Cyrus’ plans come to fruition at the peak  of Mt. Coronet. I can’t imagine a better climactic dungeon than scaling the mountain  that’s been towering over the entire game.

The level design draws attention to Mt. Coronet  throughout the game – it bisects the region, meaning any journey between East and West has  to cut through its tunnels. It makes the map a little confusing at first, Mt. Coronet having  5 or 6 exits, but it’s easier to understand when you realise the northern section  lets you go to up north to Snowpoint, and the southern section lets you go up the  mountain. That’s how I remember it anyway. Accordingly, it’s now become a key location in  the nar

rative as well. Having it loom over the entire game makes scaling it feel climactic  in and of itself – you’ve been waiting to see what this fabled mountain looks like for the  entire game. And it doesn’t disappoint. The treacherous climb through craggy tunnels,  snow, and lashing winds really creates the impression you’re building towards the finale.  This isn’t a journey people make lightly. Cyrus’ plan is to awaken Dialga (or Palkia,  if you’re nasty) at Spear Pillar, the peak of the mountain

where the world was said to have  been created. He intends to use their power to recreate the universe. Cyrus is the nexus of  the game’s story, the point where Team Galactic’s plotting meets the mythological theming. In a lot of ways, Cyrus is the series’ ultimate villain. He stands in opposition to the  values of the entire series. His motivation is that he considers emotions, or “human spirit,”  to be a flaw, an imperfection on an objective universe. In creating a new universe through  Dialg

a’s power, he hopes to rid creation of that “flaw.” Let’s call that story what it is:  it’s a cliché. You’ve heard that chestnut before: the villain who believes emotions to be a  weakness and the hero who believes emotions to be a strength. “I have no emotions and I’m  going to destroy the universe” is the plot of pretty much every episode of Doctor Who. Clichéd  as it is, I think Pokémon has a worthwhile take on this story because of its mechanical focus. The  series is all about forging conne

ctions with these wee cartoon critters, and beyond that, forging  connections with other people through these wee cartoon critters. A character outright rejecting  those connections as a weakness is destined to be a villain in this series. He shackles Dialga  with the Red Chain, believing a Poké Ball would only limit its power; if you so choose, you can  catch Dialga yourself and thoroughly disabuse that notion. You learn why he’s wrong just by  playing the game, and prove that emotions make us

stronger by defeating him with your partners. The legendary Pokémon reflect the two sides of this conflict. Dialga and Palkia represent  objective reality: time and space. The Lake Trio represent the subjective nature of humanity:  Knowledge, Willpower, and Emotion. Their existence inherently implies that Cyrus is lacking  something in his assessment of the universe. He has Knowledge and Willpower, but rejects Emotion.  It’s no wonder your character specifically stands in his way, having grown u

p next to Lake Verity  and Mesprit, the Being of Emotion. It’s no wonder Mesprit lingers before you fight Cyrus. It’s an  all-ages franchise so I’m really not criticising it when I say it’s basic – it’s concise,  effective, and direct, using the legendary Pokémon’s theming to drive home the subtext.  The game knows the story it’s trying to tell. But it means Cyrus is carrying all of the story’s  weight. And unfortunately, he completely buckles. I feel as though there are a lot of pages  missing

with Cyrus; he only puts in a total of four appearances across the entire game.  That’s nowhere near enough for the character that carries the entire story on his back. His relationship with Team Galactic suffers in particular. It’s difficult to believe he’s a  charismatic manipulator when we never even see him interact with any of his underlings. It becomes  impossible to believe after talking to him: he doesn’t seem remotely personable, let  alone charming, let alone charismatic. I know he is

charismatic, the entire story is  contingent on that point, I just don’t buy it. There’s never a moment where his heartlessness  is juxtaposed with the loyalty he’s inspired. There’s never a moment where he faces the  ultimate irony of his master plan: that he could only accomplish what he did because he was  so good at stirring emotion. The game doesn’t even follow through with his backstory during  your battle – his Golbat evolves into Crobat, even though that’s only supposed to happen if it’s

  loved. Instead, he spends his limited screentime blethering to himself about highfalutin concepts,  like a Funko Pop of Xavier: Renegade Angel. These failures matter, to me, because they  muddy our understanding of the themes. I’ve heard it said the game’s theme is  mythology vs. science, but I don’t agree, personally. Cyrus prefers the company of machines  over people, but he doesn’t display any disdain for mythology or superstition. His goal isn’t  to rationalise Sinnoh’s myths as scientific

phenomena or anything like that. If anything he  gives Sinnoh’s mythology a lot of respect – he prizes knowledge of all kinds and is vindicated  when he awakens Dialga. No, I think Cyrus’ alien theming and preference for machinery is  just to demonstrate that he lacks emotion. It may be that this misunderstanding is born  of inherent cultural differences. In the West, we see science and spirituality as kind of  opposite and incompatible. My understanding is that it’s easier to reconcile the two

in Japanese  culture; the literal and the metaphysical are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I could be  completely off the mark here; I’m not Japanese myself so the full implications of this heavily  Japanese story are probably lost on me. Whatever the case, I can only speak as a native English  speaker playing a translated version of the game. For me, the theme seems closer to something like  “tradition vs. progress.” The whole game has been preoccupied with preserving myths and traditions 

in an increasingly more urbanised world – another expression of Pokémon’s core ecological  themes (let’s not forget how the series was conceived). We see it in Eterna City, with the  meaning of its famous statue lost to the ages, with its children disinterested in the festivals  the elderly used to enjoy. We see it in Oreburgh, a community created around mining fossil fuels  that is in danger of being replaced by the renewable energy provided by the Valley Windworks.  I think we can all agree t

hat renewable energy is, overall, a good thing, but what does that mean  for the people that have created a community around the old ways? We’ve already seen something  like this happen with Iron Island; Canalave City formed around a mine that’s now closed. Roark is  at some point going to go the way of his father. These communities are changing all the time. The  question that Sinnoh seems to be asking is how to change; how to move forward without forgetting  where it came from. It is, again, w

hy I think Dialga is stronger thematically than Palkia;  time is the unstoppable force of this story. Team Galactic are the villains of this game  because, in forging towards the future, they give no respect to the past. Cyrus is  the most extreme expression of their villainy, trying to erase everything that’s ever  happened to create a new universe that can no longer change – it can only expand,  time and space increasing but nothing else. Of course, that’s just my interpretation.  If we were t

o ask Masuda-san, he’d probably tell us that the theme is “ultimate.” At least,  that’s what he said in the April 2009 issue of Nintendo Power. Here’s the quote: “I decided that  ‘ultimate’ was the theme in the beginning. I set myself a task to pursue what was the ‘ultimate’  for Pokémon games, and started to act on this theme when making the games. […] The key element  was to create the storyline around the Pokémon in Sinnoh mythology. The relationship between  all these Pokémon is the key elem

ent. I wanted to express the importance of the balance between  substance — Dialga, the ruler of Time, and Palkia, the ruler of Space — and spirit — Uxie, Mesprit,  Azelf. If the substance becomes too large, the balance of the spirit collapses. I wanted Dialga  and Palkia to become counterparts for a sense of balance. Infinite time and infinite space — that  to me is the ‘ultimate.'” This is what I mean when I speak about inherent cultural differences  creating translation difficulties: I get th

e gist, but I’m not completely certain what this means. Even if you disagree with my or Masuda-san’s interpretation (which is fair enough), I  think we can agree the game doesn’t really convey any of these ideas especially clearly.  Pokémon Diamond and Pearl have great ideas, but you have to be determined to give the  game the benefit of the doubt. You have to look past a lot of cliché and fill in a lot  of gaps to see what the story is trying to do. This is going to be an odd thing to say, but

that  makes sense, right? I think it’s probably very difficult to tell stories in a Pokémon game. Where Pokémon succeeds, narratively, is in creating compelling, personal stories through  its mechanics, which are enhanced by little bits of context and history. The story of how you  caught each team member is its own little memory; the location you found it in and the struggle  to catch it helping to define these bits and bytes as their own individual creatures.  Other characters and their teams

present challenges for you to overcome, whether that  be the thematic challenges presented by Cyrus or the personal challenges presented by Barry.  Along the way you travel with your Pokémon from a small town in the middle of nowhere to become  bigger, stronger, more confident; your Pokémon changing in appearance to reflect that growth. I think the series much less successful when it comes to creating a story out of whole  cloth. A lot of recent complaints with the series have focused on the inc

redible  number of text boxes, with NPCs explaining their motivations in comprehensive detail. Yet these NPCs are essential because believe it or not you need characters to tell a story. And  your Pokémon are not characters. The resources you use to engage with the mechanics cannot themselves  play an active role in the story. They’re non-verbal, and even if they weren’t there’s  no possible way the story could account for the infinite possible team combinations. So the  problem that every singl

e Pokémon narrative faces, the problem the series has never really been able  to solve, is that the mechanical narrative of catching and raising Pokémon has limited ways to  interact with the story it’s trying to tell. Sure, sometimes the themes bleed over into one another.  But there’s no way for your Pokémon, the vectors for the mechanics, to become part of the actual  plot. Before the big plot twist you press Super Effective attacks; after the big plot twist you  press Super Effective attacks

. Your party doesn’t even change – or else it does which is even worse. I think a counterexample would help clarify my point. Imagine this plot in a more traditional  RPG. Your party would be full of members, each with their own character arc that could feed  into the overall themes. The cleric is a priest who’s studied the ancient myths and legends.  Later, you recruit a Team Galactic scientist. They both antagonise one another and get into  fights about their opposing viewpoints on a number of

subjects. One views culture and tradition  as an essential part of a person’s identity, the other believes that ideas should be discarded  if they don’t work any more. One believes Dialga to be a God or a spirit, the other sees it as  a scientific phenomenon. Through them, we get a clearer picture of the conflict between tradition  and progress, or science and myth if you prefer, that the game seems to be aiming for. Their  dialogue always feels relevant because it directly involves members of

your party. Character growth  could result in new moves or techniques; mechanics and narrative complementing each other perfectly.  By the end, the two share a mutual respect, and through their relationship the player is left with  the feeling that maybe it’s possible to reconcile these two perspectives. And then they kiss. Characters are needed to challenge the ideas put forward, to define the boundaries of the  game’s themes. Pokémon just doesn’t have that luxury. The party that engages with t

he mechanics  are essentially your pets, and the characters that appear in the story have nothing to do with  the gameplay unless you are fighting them. So, in recent games, the NPCs have had to  do a lot of legwork to bridge that gap, to expand on the themes and tie them back into the  capturing and battling mechanics. And we’ve seen what happens then: text box city, baby. Your  character is silent, meaning the protagonist can never be an active force in the story unless  something needs kicked

in. Often the story feels vicarious as a result; you’re experiencing other  characters’ struggles and arcs from the outside in. And NPCs stop everything to waffle at you  every chance they get, interrupting rather than enhancing the more effective story being told  through the game. I’m not saying this can’t be done well, just that I understand why it’s a  struggle to write characters in a Pokémon game. The alternative that Brilliant Diamond plumps for  is to undersell its themes. I’ve criticis

ed Cyrus a lot here, but addressing any of these points  would involve giving him a lot more screentime, and a lot more text boxes! Considering how we all  seem to feel about that, maybe it’s better this way after all. Sinnoh manages to impart a feeling  and atmosphere that later games haven’t, maybe because it doesn’t stop to explain it to you. As you can tell, Sinnoh’s mythology represents an irreversible tipping point for  the scale of the series. I mean, here’s a primordial God recreating th

e entire  universe. I’ve criticised this kind of escalation in the series before. But in the context of this  game specifically I’m a lot happier with it. Pokémon Diamond and Pearl took a lot of cues from  the story of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. I hesitate to call it a “retread,” I think there’s a lot of  details that distinguish it, but the similarities are undeniable. Here’s a brief recap: the player  is given a Pokémon by a Professor and tasked with filling in a Pokédex; they encounter a vill

ainous  team attempting to steal important goods around the first Gym; further run-ins over the course of  the game reveal the villains’ plans to awaken a legendary Pokémon and harness its power; the  legendary Pokémon awakening has disastrous consequences; the player battles the team’s leader  and then the legendary Pokémon between the seventh and eighth Gyms; the player then goes on to  defeat the Pokémon League and become Champion. So to distinguish itself, Diamond and  Pearl escalates. Groud

on and Kyogre were climate-based threats; their power endangers the  ecosystem. Dialga and Palkia are cosmic threats; their power endangers reality itself. It’s a  huge step up – the highest possible stakes we can conceive of. The strength of a sequel is  being able to forego introductions and dive deeper into thematic content; less time spent  establishing a tone or a mood means more time fleshing out the ideas. Dive too deep, though, and  you risk taking the initial appeal for granted. Four ga

mes in and Pokémon’s main narrative is  only tangentially about Pokémon. It’s instead focused on a small handful of specific Pokémon  and their thematic associations – time, space, gods and creation myths. It’s still tied back  to the core systems of catching, battling, and resource management by virtue of the fact  that the legendary Pokémon are still Pokémon, but it means the climax of the game doesn’t seem  all that relevant to the premise of the series. In short, it’s easy to see this as the

moment  Pokémon jumped the Sharpedo; the moment the series had exhausted interest in its basic appeal  and had moved onto stunts to generate attention. But I don’t think this escalation was  unconsidered. The game doesn’t just dump gods of space and time on you at the very  end. Mythology is present throughout the game: woven into the script, the level design, and even  the Pokémon themselves. Even the location of the final battle has mythological influences. Dialga  and Palkia seem to be based

at least somewhat on the Shinto creation myth – the deities Izanami no  Mikoto and Izanagi no Mikoto, who erected a great pillar at the centre of the mythical island of  Onogoro Jima using the Spear of Heaven. A Pillar created using a Spear – Spear Pillar. So even  though Dialga and Palkia are the most incredible escalation on paper, it doesn’t feel sudden or  incongruous when you’re playing through the game. But the story is a lot more complicated as  a result. It’s inherently more ambitious a

nd abstract than the games that came before it;  it requires more legwork to justify and more investment to understand. Your suspension  of disbelief is pulled taut; if you’re less interested in Pokémon, this might be the thing  that relegates it to the dustbin in your head. Manifesting myths complicates our understanding  of both the world and Pokémon as creatures. It's asking us to hold in regard these deities both as  mythological creators, and as physical phenomena modern science is trying t

o understand and  control. There’s room for plausible deniability about the true nature of these Gods in the Pokédex  and dialogue, but there’s no getting around the fact that Dialga literally creates a new universe  at the climax! What is that if not a God? I said last time that I preferred it when  Pokémon were only said to be creator gods, and I stick by that. Personally, I think keeping  legendary Pokémon’s status as mythological rather than literal is a stronger worldbuilding  proposition.

Pokémon is and always has been about humanity vs. nature, and seeing how people  shared stories to make sense of the world around them really contributes to its depth and history.  Not to mention, Dialga’s status as a creator god is undermined somewhat when you capture it and  stuff it into a tiny little ball, or when battle your pal and find out they’ve got one too. But while it’s a stronger worldbuilding proposition, having Dialga’s power just be a  story told between people is not necessarily

a stronger storytelling proposition. Because  legendary Pokémon are already stories being told between people – as we established earlier,  Pokémon is fictional. Scrutinise the series for all worldbuilding abberations and you risk losing  the basic childhood fantasy of keeping a powerful monster in your pocket. Some Pokémon are described  as destroying mountains, causing volcanoes to erupt, levelling cities, creating black holes,  kidnapping children. So far as I know they don’t actually do thi

s, at least in the games, but  how tedious would it be if the Pokédex had to walk back every claim it made? How anticlimactic  would it be if Cyrus’ plotting came to nothing because Dialga appeared and everyone realised,  “oh, this guy’s shit actually, nevermind.” If we become too pedantic about the rules of this  world, we also limit it. Like I said earlier: we shouldn’t have rules for creativity; the second  we know what Pokémon can and cannot do or can and cannot be is the second imagination

dies, it’s the  second this series becomes bland and homogenous. That having been said, I really do like the  Pokédex entries for these kinds of Pokémon. Dialga’s Dex entry strikes a perfect balance.  It reads: “[i]t has the power to control time. It appears in Sinnoh-region myths as an  ancient deity.” That language is some absolute masterclass world-building; it’s so specific.  Two statements, side-by-side, that are very terse and objective – these are both facts about  Dialga – but they both

say so much more. Sure, it can control time, and that is remarkable  enough on its own. But is it a universe-creating time deity? We’ll never know, because nobody in  the Pokémon world can say for certain either. With Team Galactic defeated and Dialga  captured, the road to Sunyshore City is finally open. This fella’s been blocking  the road since the first time we came through Hotel Grand Lake, before the fourth Gym. It’s a sunny beach Route, there’s rich kids and Sailors and Tubers and cabins,

all that, but I  will forever and always associate Route 222 with the moment Pokémon was ruined for me. This was  the Route I was on when my friend first told me about Effort Values, or EVs. I didn’t believe  him at first – honestly, I didn’t really want to believe him, I didn’t want to believe that  I’d spent the entire game raising my Pokémon wrong. But no, of course, he was right, and I  never looked at this series the same way again. If you don’t know what I’m talking  about, here’s a brief

rundown. Each Pokémon has an array of stats and options  that affect them in subtle ways. These make each Pokémon unique. Slight fluctuations in these  values will result in a Pokémon’s stats being slightly different, even if they’re of the same  species and at the same level. So no two Pokémon will be identical without precise co-ordination. Manipulating these stats allows a player to “customise” their Pokémon: to confer on  them variable strengths and weaknesses, and in some cases adopt diffe

rent strategies. Natures, Abilities, and EVs are all great. They unquestionably enrich the game, allowing a player  to consider each of their Pokémon more deeply. Without them, all of a Pokémon’s strengths and  weaknesses would be determined by its species; decided for the player before they  even catch it. The game would become more rigid and knowable, with less scope for  unique builds, surprises, and predictions. By allowing a player to tweak their  Pokémon’s proficiency and specialty, the ga

me massively increases its  strategic depth. It encourages you to really focus on your Pokémon’s strengths  and weaknesses, to come up with strategies, to pay attention to it in a way that could forge  a greater fondness for that Pokémon. Building a Pokémon is more fun and more satisfying than just  slapping moves and stats on it wherever they fit. I don’t even mean a “meta” build necessarily –  whatever “meta” is in-game – if anything it’s even more fun to try out something goofy! I think  it’s

more satisfying because you’ve spent time and effort really engaging with your Pokémon! But my knowledge of these mechanics – born of sincere enthusiasm for the series!  – has, if anything, made my play experience worse. Natures confer inherent  strengths and weaknesses to your Pokémon. Each Nature comes with a 10% increase to one stat  and a 10% reduction in another. An Adamant Nature, for example, means your Pokémon has 10% more  Attack and 10% less Special Attack. You see how that balances o

ut. If you want to build  your Pokémon to be more physically offensive, you’d give it an Adamant Nature; if you  want to build it to be physically defensive, you’d consider an Impish or a Bold Nature instead.  It’s a brilliant system; with each upside comes a downside that forces you to think more deeply. The problem is, these Natures aren’t chosen by the player; they’re generated alongside the Pokémon.  If, as a random example, you were given a Lucario you planned to use as a Special Attacker,

it  would be a real scunner if it had a Brave Nature, wouldn’t it; lowering its Speed but raising the  physical Attack stat it’s never going to use? If you’re stuck with that… hard cheese. The items  that change these stats are difficult to come by. Abilities are passive effects that allow  a Pokémon the chance to distinguish itself from the competition. Even a mediocre Pokémon  can carve out a niche with the right Ability. As a simple example, you might remember Vice  Vespa has the Technician A

bility to boost the power of Bullet Punch. Without this power boost,  Scizor would either have to choose between a less powerful Bullet Punch or a more sluggish speed.  So if your Scizor has the Swarm Ability instead, you may choose to build it more defensively;  bringing it to low health to power up its Bug-type attacks. And that’s just a simple “numbers-go-up”  example; some of these Abilities get pretty wacky! So these Abilities make the Pokémon more distinct.  Not only can an Ability charact

erise a Pokémon by introducing a mechanical impact to its morphology,  but it can encourage a player to invest in that context. They ask players to learn and understand  each creature. Coming up with a strategy that takes advantage of your favourite Pokémon’s  unique skills is very rewarding; in some cases, understanding a Pokémon’s unique ability can be  what makes it a favourite in the first place! But, again, these Abilities are generated  alongside the Pokémon. And I feel like some Abilities

are just plain better than others. Take  Scizor: with Swarm it can be brought to low health to power up moves of a niche offensive type;  with Technician it just gives you a concussion at 90 miles an hour. I haven’t done the legwork  on this, admittedly, but I’m fairly confident Technician is the better Ability. If your Scyther  has Swarm, or, hell, even if your Scyther has Technician and you want Swarm… hard cheese. The  items that change its Ability are difficult to come by. Where have we hea

rd that before? There is a solution to all this, of course. If Natures and Abilities (and genders, if  relevant) are chosen when a Pokémon is generated, the answer is to simply generate Pokémon  until you get the one you want! Run around in the grass or hatch more Eggs until you  get the right combination of Nature, Ability, and gender! Which, of course, makes catching  Pokémon a lot more tedious than it used to be. Let me paint you a monochrome picture of  catching Pokémon in Generation I. You

find the Pokémon you want to catch, and you catch  it. It doesn’t get more immediate or satisfying. Success or failure are a very clear binary. Catching Pokémon now is a lot more fiddly. Can I see its Ability? If yes, I’ll have  to make sure it’s the one I want; If no, I’ll need to catch it and find out. I’ll also have  to check its Nature is acceptable – you don’t want to end up with an Adamant Nature on a Gengar,  after all! But with 25 Natures to choose from, the definition of “acceptable” is

changing all  the time. Unless you land on the perfect Nature, you’re always balancing standards with patience.  There’s been a few times I’ve just taken a Nature I’m not happy with because I simply can’t be  bothered re-rolling the dice – look at Bandage! And keep in mind I’m considering this  in aggregate; I have to consider Nature and Ability and perhaps even gender all at  once! Landing a decent Pokémon can feel not so much like rolling a dice but rolling 3. So: to re-stress, I like these s

ystems a lot. But you see how they’re also  making my play experience worse. Effort Values have different problems. Unlike Natures and Abilities, EVs aren’t set from the moment a Pokémon is generated; they’re instead  developed over the course of your training. Think of them as “stat experience.” Without going  too far into the numbers and mechanics, the more you fight certain kinds of Pokémon, the  more your Pokémon grow in corresponding stats. For example, Gyarados has a high Attack stat,  so

defeating a Gyarados raises every Pokémon in your party’s Attack. With me so far? There’s an overall cap to EVs. You can balance your distribution however you like,  but you can, at most, raise 2 stats to their maximum. So you have to think carefully  about how you want to distribute your EVs; which stats you want your Pokémon to excel  in, and which you want to leave weaker. Again, basic example, if I want Bandage to hit as hard  and fast as possible, I’d pour everything into Special Attack and

Speed. If I wanted it to be  more survivable instead, I’d pour some points into Defence. It’s a thoughtful limitation, again  encouraging deeper engagement with the Pokémon. But you already see the problem, right? If I  fight a Gyarados with Bandage in my party – like this! – those EVs are wasted. Thankfully  there are ways to revert them, but even so, what am I supposed to do here? I know this is,  for lack of a better word, wrong, but there’s no reasonable way to do anything about it! I have

a few major issues with this. One: it’s really poor contextually. I don’t  understand how defeating your opponent transfers its strengths to your Pokémon. The Vitamins  that also raise EVs make a lot more sense to me. The poor context feeds into problem number 2: poor  communication. The system is not intuitive, and it’s never made clear the relationship between the  opponents you fight and the “Base Stats” on your Pokémon’s stat page. It’s even more difficult to  gauge how much impact your EVs

have on your stats. You would have to do a lot of experimentation  to figure out how the mechanic actually works. Third: EVs mean a freshly-caught Pokémon  is weaker both in level and, independently, in stats. Pokémon already have a number that is  supposed to enumerate their strength – that being, of course, their level. If their level is  up to par and they’re still underperforming, a lot of players are just going to assume  that Pokémon is a bit crap. I wonder if this contributes in some smal

l way to the phenomenon  of players sticking with their starter throughout the entire game. The modern Exp. Share helps  with this problem, of course, distributing EVs to your entire team for every Pokémon defeated,  but there are probably less extreme solutions. Fourth: the decisions to be made are often  obvious. Nowadays, it’s kind of an expectation that every Pokémon will have available  at least one powerful STAB running off its stronger attacking stat. STAB, or Same-Type  Attack Bonus, mea

ns that a move is stronger if used by a Pokémon of the same type. In the earlier  Generations, when moves were split into Physical or Special based on type, players would have to  choose between sub-optimal solutions. Gyarados, for example, had to give up on STAB Water moves to  take full advantage of its dizzying Attack stat. Mixing in Hydro Pump or Surf would maybe have it  investing something in Special Attack instead. When moves were split into Physical or Special  based on move rather than

type in Generation IV, Dragon-types dominated the next couple of games  so hard the series had to introduce a whole new type to slow their roll. You no longer have to  decide if STAB or coverage justifies a Special Attack investment on Gyarados; just use a Physical  Water move instead. The Physical/Special split was unquestionably the right choice, mind  you, just that it also resulted in linear decisionmaking that maybe doesn’t encourage  players to build their Pokémon their way. It doesn’t all

ow the EV system to really shine. The big problem, though, is that the system is so discouragingly tedious. To make sure  your EVs are where you want them, you have to fight dozens if not hundreds of Pokémon, or  grind money to buy plenty of Vitamins – 26 per stat at $9,800 a pop means at least $254,800 per  Pokémon. If you’d like a more nuanced stat spread, if you’re not trying to max out certain stats, you  have to manually keep a tally of how many Pokémon you’ve fought or Vitamins you’ve fed

them. The  graph on their status page doesn’t give you any concrete information. And that tedium combined  with the lack of information makes it impossible to tinker in the way the system enables! If  you didn’t hit a damage threshold you wanted, was that because your EVs are poorly distributed  or was it something else? If it was the EVs, can you really be bothered fixing them?  Like, I’m getting bored explaining this, let alone doing it. It’s a huge stumbling block  for a game that is otherwis

e so good at keeping battles about context rather than stats. Now, of course, you don’t have to care about any of this if you just want to get through  the single-player; it is not going to matter. But again, my problem is not that I don’t like  these systems… it’s that I do like these systems! They enrich the game tremendously,  but they also make my play experience worse! They’re often cryptic, usually complicated,  and always tedious. Their advantages are lost not only on the players that don

’t know about  them – I sure as hell wasn’t paying attention to fluctuations on the stat screen when I was  a kid – but to everybody, even the enthusiasts, doing a casual playthrough. Unless you’re  willing to catch the same Pokémon over and over and over to get the perfect combination  of Nature and Ability; unless you’re willing to fight at least 126 specific Pokémon per team  member to tweak your EVs, or else grind cash to afford all the Vitamins; unless you’re willing to  make the game a cho

re; you can’t engage with these systems except on a very rudimentary level. Making these systems so prohibitive means players cannot engage with them casually.  Or, in other words, they’re just not fun. And that makes people more rigid and less  experimental. You don’t want to waste your time coming up with a kooky new strategy if it’s going  to take hours to even get to see if it works! And that makes players complacent. Many  of us aren’t thinking for ourselves, experimenting with these excell

ent mechanics  and coming up with unique playstyles. We’re instead reading guides and copying established  strategies if we’re bothering at all. It’s a huge waste of a really interesting system. And of course, there’s another stat I haven’t mentioned. Individual Values, or IVs – that’s  right, there’s more! – are a hidden value that randomly increases each stat from  0 to 31 when the Pokémon is generated. I didn’t include IVs because, unlike the  other systems, fundamentally I just don’t like th

em. They have all the min-maxing  tedium of EVs, but with absolutely none of the decisionmaking. Because, unless you’re  doing a specific competitive build, you want IVs to be the highest they can be. That’s all.  There’s no flexibility or tradeoffs like there are with EVs; you just want bigger numbers. The narrative this is supposed to create is that all Pokémon are individuals with their own  qualities; their own strengths and weaknesses. You, the trainer, have to pay attention and take  the t

ime to help them realise their potential. But there are huge flaws in practice. Giblets  actually has 0 Attack IVs – the worst they can be. But even if I leaned into this, a Physical  Garchomp is potentially so much stronger than a Special Garchomp. He is, basically, just  worse at being a Garchomp. Taking that to its logical extreme, imagine you and your friend  both caught the same Pokémon. Both are identical, except yours has 0 IVs across the board, and your  friend’s has perfect IVs across t

he board. Your friend’s Pokémon, then, is objectively better.  There’s no workaround or alternative strategy, it’s just stronger. If you notice this difference  at all you’re just going to be made keenly aware of your Pokémon’s shortcomings, what with  your bastard pal rubbing it in your face. So rather than make each Pokémon special, IVs  just make them disposable. I’m not encouraged to overcome its flaws or tap its hidden potential  – it’s just a shortcoming I can’t fix. The system is a failur

e on two levels. Either the player  doesn’t notice these minute differences, in which case these stat fluctuations  aren’t creating their intended narrative; or they do and they realise just how disposable  their Pokémon is. The mechanical narrative, in the latter case, is honestly kind of sinister.  Rather than the story of two partners working together to overcome their flaws and realise  their potential, it becomes the story of the sire of a rigorous breeding programme undergoing  strict trai

ning to become the Kwisatz Spinarak. The common problem with all these systems –  and a common problem with games in general, honestly – is that understanding  the systems erodes the fantasy. Become too familiar with a game’s mechanics  and you’re no longer engaged in the drama; you “see the Matrix” and everything  is reduced to values and stats. But that problem is by no means unavoidable!  There are surely alternatives that are less obtuse and indulge the fantasy better! Simplicity and  transp

arency founded in strong context can enhance both the narrative and mechanical enjoyment! Of course, iterative quality of life changes have improved these systems a lot. Pokémon makes these improvements at a glacial pace, but Gen VIII is finally in a place  where you can change almost everything about a Pokémon after it’s been caught. Mints change  Natures; Capsules and Patches change Abilities; EVs can be changed even at level 100; and  Hyper Training can max out IVs. The game will even show yo

u your Pokémon’s EVs and IVs  now. With enough time and energy, you can bring out any Pokémon’s full potential. Great stuff. Of course, this stuff is all post-game and still gated heavily – you have to put in an insane  grind after you’ve already finished the game to avail yourself of these items. I think  it may actually be faster in some cases to breed for Nature and Ability than it is to  save up enough fake fake money for Mints. And that practically makes the whole endeavour  pointless. Once

again, with feeling: I like these systems (well, except IVs), I want to engage with  them, but the time investment is so prohibitive that I don’t! This isn’t fixing that issue, it’s  just pushing the tedium into the post-game! It is stronger by virtue of the fact you can improve by  battling with your favourite Pokémon, but… well, we’ll find out when we get there, eh? The game already has a better way of making Pokémon unique: incidental details. The Ball you catch it in, its Original Trainer,

the location it was caught in, its habits,  its nickname: all of these tell a little narrative and help contribute to the idea that  your Pokémon is an individual. Furthermore they don’t confer any objective benefits. I think the proposition of being able to change these is more complicated. If you can change  absoutely everything about your Pokémon then they feel fake, like toys for your amusement. I think  context is important. I have no issue being unable to change its Original Trainer, its l

ocation, or  its personality quirks. All of these feel like history, immutable fact. One sober little detail  I really appreciate is using a Mint doesn’t change a Pokémon’s Nature itself but its corresponding  stats. It still likes the same flavours it did before and everything; you’re not overwriting  its personality. Of course that encapsulates the problems with the way Pokémon handles this  stuff all by itself, but I love that it’s trying. I’m more mixed on nicknames and Poké Balls.  You’re u

nable to change the nickname of traded Pokémon in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl,  presumably because you couldn’t in the original games either. Pokémon Sword and Shield actually  changed this for the first time in the series: the player is allowed to change a traded Pokémon’s  nickname… once. Frankly I have no idea what they were going for with this, it neither allows the  player to change their Pokémon’s name however they like nor preserves the Original Trainer’s intent.  Either way, it i

sn’t in Brilliant Diamond so it’s not really that relevant, but I do still think  you ought to be able to just change the nickname however you please, if for no other reason  than to prevent the possibility of griefing. I think if anyone was going to be offended  by you changing a nickname, they wouldn’t have traded it away in the first place. Poké Balls are also unable to be changed. You may have noticed this and maybe it even  bugged you: most of my Pokémon are nice and uniform in their tidy r

ed Poké Balls, but Kipz  is stuck in a Quick Ball, which I think is a poor fit – a lightning motif on a Ground-type  Pokémon. I’d like it on some level if it were a holdover from its Original Trainer – you can  practically see the scenario in your mind’s eye, coming across a Mudkip in the Grand Underground  and just chucking a Quick Ball rather than risk fainting it. But there’s a slight problem: I’m the  Original Trainer. Kipz is a descendant of the one I got in that Wonder Trade. There wasn’t

any Quick  Ball showdown… I just bred it. Again, any quibbles I may have had about preserving storytelling are  quashed by sheer convenience. I’d much prefer to just be able to choose which Ball I keep it in,  especially if they’re going to have Poké Balls that do a big pump when you throw them. You can customise the inside of your Poké Ball though, with Stickers. Now, look, I don’t think this is a must-have feature going forward or anything like that; I  think it’s a bit weird that we get to cu

stomise the inside of the Ball but not the outside.  But I kind of love this. Your Pokémon really feel unique when they’re accompanied by a custom  made light show. That’s how you distinguish your Pokémon from your pal’s: not through some obscure  little detail hidden away in the stat screen, but through a personalised visual flourish. Many of Sunyshore City’s roads are made of solar panels, suspended in the air to make  maximum use of the squashed and uneven terrain. It’s a really cool bit of c

ontext! Strong  grounding allows it to have a fantasy flair without becoming completely unhinged. I feel  like there should be a pillar here supporting this bit at the bottom left though? That’s  it, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve found the nit-pickiest comment in an eleven-hour video!  Thank you, thank you so much for coming. Sunyshore Gym is the first Gym in the game  where you’re ahead of Barry. You’ve finally overtaken him, which makes sense both for  your rivalry and for Volkner’s backstory. S

o the story goes that Volkner, the toughest  Gym leader in Sinnoh, is listless because of a lack of worthwhile challengers. His  friend, Flint, encourages you to track him down and challenge him to fire him back up. The pacing at this stage is strained to the point of almost breaking. Defeating Team Galactic  and battling God at the peak of the region was the narrative’s big climax. With that done,  the game is now scrambling to build towards the actual finale basically from scratch. There are 

tons of hurried references to the Pokémon League: Flint is a member of the Elite Four; the  League can be seen through binoculars at the top of the lighthouse; and Volkner decides  if he can defeat you he’ll challenge the Elite Four himself. It’s effective at refocusing you on  your new goal, but it’s not particularly elegant. Volkner has become infamous locally for  tinkering with the Gym in his boredom – his latest experiment being the cause of  that whole power cut in the first place. He’s do

ne a bang-up job to be fair, decent  wee puzzle. Themed well and with good pacing – it gives you pause for thought  without being a massive interruption. I mentioned earlier how important theming was  in the Gyms, to help give us an idea of the characters and their affinity. Part of the credit  has to go to the story, but I feel Sunyshore Gym gets it right. The giant gears and platforms are  so over the top, so extra, you get the feeling that Volkner throws himself into everything he  decides to

do. You get the impression of him as restless and driven, but also feeling kind of  trapped, like a tiger in a cage – appropriate, considering his ace! This is an advantage of  the Gyms essentially being theme park rides: their exaggerations can offer insight into the  Gym Leaders and their character. They use every part of the Bouffalant, and that efficiency  is needed to convey the Gym Leaders’ character with such little screentime. It’s just a shame  that so many of Sinnoh Gyms aren’t as wel

l done. As for the battle? Fuck you Volkner,  I have four STAB Earthquakes! Remember, I wasn’t planning on using Swampert  or Mamoswine going in! I don’t know why I’m taking such an apologetic tone, it doesn’t really  matter, as Sinnoh’s emblematic flaw swings all the way back around into improving the game. Volkner  doesn't actually use many Electric types as there are only a small handful in Sinnoh. It’s a real  blessing in disguise of the limited ‘Dex – bosses have the chance to use Pokémon a

nd moves that  can cover for their weaknesses. I thought I could just use Razor Leaf on this Octillery –  of course, I was forgetting about Aurora Beam. That’s the problem with mono-type trainers,  right? It’s not even a difficulty issue, it’s a fun issue – it’s not that fun to select  the correct move once and then just tap A until the fight is over. It’s not that fun to fight  the region’s tiny pool of three or four, say, Ghost Pokémon back-to-back-to-back. Pokémon is  turn-based; it’s not a g

ame of reactions, it’s all about making decisions! If those decisions  are extremely obvious, then all you’re really doing is pressing the correct button over and  over like history’s most lucrative Skinner Box. So essentially one of this game's big problems  fixes another of its big problems. Of course you can have your cake and eat it, I'm not saying this  is ideal, but it’s a happy coincidence isn’t it? While we’re here, I just want to  talk for a moment about poor Luxray. I mentioned last ti

me that, on my first  playthrough of a game, I always ended up with a Pokémon that I loved that became a bit of  a dead weight by the end. When I said that, the Pokémon I was thinking of specifically was Luxray. Look, nobody’s more gutted than me, I love Shinx, he’s just a wee lad wearing his trousers, but  despite an impressive 120 Attack in his final form, he doesn’t learn many Electric moves that  take advantage of it. Remember when I said it’s all but a guarantee a Pokémon has a decent  STAB

option running off its better attacking stat? Not poor Luxray. He learns Wild Charge at  level 80, which is 90 Power and causes recoil, and that’s his best option. The next option  down is like… Spark. His speed isn’t that great either. Now that I’m thinking about it  actually I’m just describing Electivire here, aren’t I? Finally got the chance to use the poor  bugger and I see why you wouldn’t. Great coverage, great Attack, but 75 Power just isn’t enough! Jasmine, Johto’s Steel-type Gym Leade

r, can be found at the north of Sunyshore City. This  was yet another hint about the then-upcoming Johto remakes that were all over the place in  Diamond and Pearl – they’re the inciting incident for the entire game, even! She’ll  give you the final HM: Waterfall. With that, we have all the HMs, so it’s time for the last  little Sinnoh roundup before Victory Road. I think allowing players to explore old  areas with new items is valuable. It creates a sense of permanence and continuity  to the wo

rld: these Routes are Routes, rather than disposable levels. It gives them  a little more depth: you aren’t going to see everything your first time through. Best case  scenario, it can be pretty cathartic returning to an old area and finally being able to explore a  bit of the level that was tantalising you earlier. But it’s a tricky business. Leaving aside  the problems with areas like Oreburgh Gate, backtracking is inherently less interesting  than exploring new areas because, obviously, you’v

e already seen most of what there is  to see! You know what to expect and have proven you can overcome the challenges there. I think the trick is wasting as little time as possible in getting to the new and interesting  stuff. I’m less fed up exploring the waterfall on Route 208, for example, because I only need  to wade through one patch of grass to reach it. Exploring the Waterfall on the 4th floor of Mt.  Coronet is much more of a slog because you have to scale this mountain that you’ve alrea

dy conquered.  The uphill struggle just doesn’t have the same resonance when you already know you can do it; the  level doesn’t have any mystery when you already know what to expect. It only makes it more of a  slap in the face when you find a single tiny room and then have to make your way back down again. The player can minimise wasted time using Repels. The new Exp. system makes fighting weaker  Pokémon less valuable than it was before, so it’s even more worth your while  to use Repels when b

acktracking. The pacing would be unbearable without them. Repels have a weird pricing quirk, in that the Super Repel is the best bang for your buck.  Super Repels cost $500 and work for 200 steps; Max Repels cost $700 and work for 250 steps. That  works out to $2.5 a step vs. the Max Repels’ $2.8 a step. It may have been worth your while in the  past, as Max Repels would reduce time spent in the menu. But now the game prompts you to use  another immediately. So, you know. Maybe it’s meant to be

this way? I’m not even  sure if this counts as criticism, it’s like halfway between criticism and trivia. Unfortunately there’s no way to stop the game wasting your time when using an HM.  You strike a pose and a Bibarel flashes across the screen before you use the move. Thankfully it only does this once per room for each HM, but it still manages to drag  the pace down in Routes and caves with a lot of water. Route 223 has you jumping  on and off Bibarel every few seconds. Victory Road illustrat

es another problem  with backtracking in Brilliant Diamond: the top-down perspective. Its winding level design is constantly doubling back through the entrance  chamber. It’s fairly straightforward, but has the impression of non-linearity. As you go through,  you’re constantly given access to new ledges and areas you couldn’t access from the entrance. The novelty is stifled by seeing the chamber from the same flat top-down view. There’s no  mystery to the later areas as you can already see what’

s up on the ledges from below,  and it’s difficult to distinguish areas you’ve already been to from ones you haven’t. I don’t think it’s poorly designed or anything! It’s more interesting as it is than just being  a straight line. I’m just trying to illustrate a point about the difficulties of reusing areas.  I think the very fact that the camera’s top-down means the designers need to do more work to  distinguish new areas and keep backtracking from becoming boring. You can imagine that  this le

vel would be a lot more interesting with a dynamic camera. The upper floors would  retain a bit of mystery; reaching them would give you a bird’s-eye view of the level; and the  two would be more distinct for that difference. Game difficulty has become a  contentious topic recently. It’s, funnily enough, difficult to discuss  difficulty in games because it’s so subjective. A challenge that’s impossible for one player may  be trivial for another. A newcomer might offer an honest appraisal of an a

verage person’s experience  while also misunderstanding some of the mechanics; an expert player may get those details right but  fail to reflect the experience of your average joe. Mechanics that frustrate casual players  may shine after hundreds of hours of investment; mechanics that smooth out a first playthrough  may frustrate experienced players by holding them back. It’s a slippery bastard of a  topic: no sooner do you have a handle on it than it slides out your grasp again. I say all this

because I feel like I did a poor job covering the topic last time. I  criticised Omega Ruby for being too easy, or, more specificially, for it being “too easy to make the  game too easy.” Nice line, but it doesn’t really approach the mechanics holistically. If you’re  knowledgeable enough to feel the game is too easy, you’re probably also knowledgeable enough to  remedy that problem by turning off the Exp. Share, changing the Battle Style from Shift to Set, or  limiting your levels or team membe

rs. Personally I don’t find it enjoyable to supervise my  own play like that, but this is a heavily customisable series that should be accessible  to kids: whatever argument I made that didn’t acknowledge these options is deeply flawed. Viewed  a certain way, the fact it was so easy to adjust the difficulty in Omega Ruby speaks volumes  about the strength of the game’s mechanics. These criticisms of my approach  are valid. And yet, I have to say, I had a better time with Brilliant Diamond  becau

se I felt the default difficulty was a lot better tuned. I wouldn’t say I had a tough  time, but I found myself engaged throughout. That’s the important point here, for me:  engagement. The discussion around difficulty often becomes defensive because it so often  becomes a pissing contest, as if being better at Pokémon is an inherent measure of a person’s  worth. I’m interested in difficulty only insofar as it makes the game more or less interesting. Difficulty is an indelible factor in the play

er’s enjoyment of any game. If a game is too easy  it can become boring and repetitive; if it’s too hard it can become frustrating and offputting.  Of course, what will be “too easy” or “too hard” will vary from person to person as we’ve covered.  We’re coming up on Sinnoh’s Elite Four, one of the most infamous difficulty spikes in the entire  series. And while I’m sure there are Pokémon Masters who find them trivial, most of my school  friends gave up right here in the originals. I consider tha

t just as big a criticism as my  finding Omega Ruby too easy. In a lot of ways, it’s the same criticism: the difficulty is so  poorly tuned it hampers the player’s enjoyment. A smoother difficulty curve would help engage  people of all skill levels. This is where much of the series fails. It establishes a trivial  level of difficulty as a baseline, and spikes hard at the end. So either a player will go on  autopilot for most of the game or they’ll hit a brick wall before the end. Both are dissat

isfying  play experiences stemming from the same problem. That problem is a lack of mechanical progression.  Super Effective moves are introduced early – as they should be! – but the game never moves on  from them, instead reinforcing the importance of that mechanic one specific type at a time. The  game, as a result, doesn’t take full advantage of this excellent mechanic. I mean, the whole reason  the type system is interesting in the first place is because you can mix and match! What isn’t  in

teresting is clicking “Super Effective” while the opponent throws Pokémon with a critical  weakness into the meat grinder. Additionally, by not moving past the entry-level tutorials, the  game also doesn’t encourage the player to engage with any of the other excellent mechanics. If the  game was peppered with tougher challenges – tanky Pokémon holding Leftovers, Swords Dance  sweepers, or damage-mitigating Berries, for example – it would be both more involving  in the moment and better prepare y

ou for the Pokémon League’s challenges. It would be tougher,  sure, but not because I think you should have to be a hardcore giga gamer to enjoy Pokémon! Kids  should still absolutely be able to get through it! It’s because, in creating solutions to these  problems, you’re thinking more deeply about the mechanics. The Focus Sash tutorial from Sword  and Shield is a solid example. Not difficult, but overcoming it adds that strategy to the  player’s repertoire. That could allow the game to cash in

on it later. Or, let’s say you  face a Reflect/Light Screen Mr. Mime earlier. Overcoming it would probably demand you understand  those moves and that strategy. You might even be inspired to try it out for yourself. I mean, I  wouldn’t use Mr. Mime personally, but, you know. Challenge runs represent a solution to these  issues. Experienced players establish their own rules, such as permanently boxing fainted  Pokémon, not using items during battle, and never cresting the levels of the next boss

’  most powerful Pokémon. Dipping my toe into these kinds of challenges has been rejuvenating, I  like them! The reason I don’t think they’re an ideal solution is challenge runs demand a player  supervise their own play rather than the game. A player must commit to a set of rules that won’t  be enforced externally; they must choose to make the game more difficult for its own sake. In other  words, that’s not the way the game was designed; that’s not the way most players are going to  experience

the game. Sure, people like me can do a challenge run and probably have a better time! But  if the game isn’t observing those rules, casual and first-time players won’t either, and they’ll  probably experience some potholes and speedbumps as a result. A well-designed difficulty curve  can instead challenge a player to improve without being too taxing, and I think that would be ideal. Ultimately, though, if I had to choose between Pokémon being too easy and too hard, I’d go with  too easy any day

of the week. Because if the game were too hard, it would stifle creativity. If  the player is forced to make optimal choices to have a chance of succeeding, there’s no point  in even giving them a choice to begin with, undermining the entire point of Pokémon’s  mechanics in the first place. Sure, hypothetically I might get a bit bored, but I can  either do a challenge run or go and play any of the other dozens of games vying for my attention. Thankfully the difficulty in Brilliant Diamond is su

pervised really well by the new Exp. System. I want to take you through a brief history lesson here to try and explain this.  In the first 4 generations of Pokémon, Exp. was linear. Pokémon would gain a set  value for every KO, determined by the enemy Pokémon’s species and level. I found this made  it difficult to maintain a team of 6. I’m pretty meticulous about combing the map, and I always  found myself lagging behind on recent replays. I often wished I’d used a team of 4 or 5 instead.  I’d s

ay it’s practically mandatory in Gen II. Gen V changed the experience formula. The  game essentially balanced itself, adapting to different playstyles by making a slight change to  experience calculation. It basically “normalises” the experience. Draw too far away from or fall  too far behind the median and you “snap” back. You gain more experience the weaker you are and less  the stronger you are compared to your opponent. If you’re struggling, the game gives you a boost, and  if you’re tearing

ahead, the game slows you down. This was a great change, I think, discouraging  a player from soloing the game with a single overlevelled starter, and making it easier to  keep a team of six on par with the opponents. If you think about it in raw numbers, you’re  leaving Exp. on the table not switching in weaker Pokémon. Why make 50 Exp. when you could make…  70 Exp? I’m not about to min-max it of course, but you see the principle. It’s a very elegant  solution, a brilliant little bit of contro

l. But it came with its own problems. Experience  gain was dictated now more than ever by the game’s level curve. Even evolving certain Pokémon  into their final stage was difficult considering how high some of the requirements were. It’d be  tricky enough to get a Mienfoo to level 50 before the Pokémon League even before experience  was lowered with every level you gained. The Exp. Share in Gen VI seemed to be a  second pass at addressing these issues. Now, the experience you earned was simply

multiplied;  every Pokémon in your party gains experience even if they don’t fight. It’s a far less elegant  solution, in my eyes, but it is functional: it was easier than ever to maintain a team of 6  Pokémon – or even more! Every single Pokémon in your party would get Experience for every single  battle. Combined with the experience multiplying benefits of Pokémon Amie, it was possible, if  not easy, to crest level 50 by the sixth or seventh Gym. Of course, “easier than ever” was  the operativ

e phrase there, as it overshot the mark by quite some distance. The Gen VI games  are quite infamously the easiest in the series. Gen VII basically combined the two, and that’s  the solution the series has been happy sticking with since. It makes it easier than ever to  experiment and diversify. And like I say, broadly, I think it’s successful. I haven’t really had a  huge issue with Pokémon’s difficulty in a while! I still don’t think the Exp. Share or  the Box Link are healthy for the series.

Because at this point, we’re not dealing  with quality of life improvements; the two don’t represent an uncomplicated positive  change. They are a fundamental change to the experience of playing Pokémon. The Exp. Share  allows you to level an entire team at once, more than tripling experience gained; the Box  Link allows you access to all of your Pokémon anywhere anytime (except in Gyms). With the  rubberbanding experience, it’s possible to keep a much larger number of team members in rotation. 

If a Pokémon falls behind, their levels can be normalised just by keeping them in your party  for a while. The principles of team management are exactly the same as they were in the older  games; they just happen on a much larger scale. It’s not my preference, as we’ll see, but  I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that these changes have had a positive impact on a  lot of players’ experiences. I know a lot of casual players had trouble raising teams  in earlier generations; let’s be fair, it was

quite tedious at the start when you had  to keep switching a Pokémon in and out for it to get experience at all. But I’ve not seen anyone  these days that doesn’t keep a full complement of Pokémon on them at all times. In that way it’s  a resounding success; I can see why the series is so happy to keep the Exp. Share around, if  it means players are actually building teams. Levelling up an entire team at once sands  away friction that existed in Pokémon’s innate mechanics. The games always had a

huge number of  choices, but those choices were limited by the levelling up system. Each new Pokémon you caught  was a new time investment. Assuming you weren’t interested in grinding, that meant you had to  make tougher calls about which Pokémon to catch. The reason I don’t like the Exp. Share or the  Box Link is this: I don’t consider that friction between levelling and teambuilding a criticism; I  consider it essential. Because it is only through the combination of choice and investment that

a  player’s choices become meaningful. Pokémon aren’t real, of course, so meaning has to be foisted onto  them by the player. But the series’ fundamental narrative, of a trainer and their Pokémon working  together to realise each other’s potential, is told entirely through the mechanics. Every  triumph, every failure, every close call, every frustrating crit or hilarious miss, is  another stitch in the tapestry of this fantasy. The old mechanics chart the game-long struggle to  improve: every l

evel has to be fought for tooth and nail. Remember having to switch a newly-caught  Pokémon out so it could share experience? Remember the satisfaction of finally seeing it take on a  Pokémon by itself? So even while the snobs and English lit students are clucking their tongues  and turning their noses up at the story for being cliché ridden dog water, we’re still invested  because we know that’s not the real story. The real story is that swell of pride you get when  you enter the Hall of Fame f

or the first time: not because we think the Pokémon are real,  but because we’re so invested in the drama that the mechanics have created. With the Exp.  Share, that narrative is less potent. The less time a Pokémon has to be part of the mechanical  drama, the fewer chances the player has to create meaning. Any character is going to suffer if they  aren’t given enough screen time. Just ask Cyrus. The mechanics suffer beyond just narratively. If  you’re happy to think of Pokémon as a resource man

agement game, then the Pokémon themselves  are your primary resource. Access to too many resources through the Box Link means less  management is necessary; your choices become less demanding and thus less satisfying to get right.  The game acknowledges this problem in Gyms but it’s a persistent problem everywhere else too. Of course, that leaves us with a repeat of the valid feedback from last time doesn’t it?  “Well, Seumidh, if you don’t like these systems, why not just not use them?” The  an

swer is, of course, because I have to! It’s not my fault this time, I swear! The player is now unable to turn the Exp. Share off. I’ve nothing insightful to offer here:  that’s absolutely the wrong move. Even if I was fine with the default difficulty, there  absolutely should be the option to change it. Overall I do think the difficulty in  Brilliant Diamond is in a much better place than Omega Ruby. It’s right that it  skews easier, but I never found it braindead. Perhaps that’s because I chang

ed my playstyle;  mainly I think it’s because of the rubberbanding experience. As we’ve established, though,  difficulty is of secondary importance to the ultimate goal which is engagement. The  Box Link and the Exp. Share streamline the game to the point of creating a less engaging  mechanical narrative. Without that narrative, Pokémon is a much weaker game. And with  fewer options to tweak that difficulty, a lot of players are going to have a less  engaging experience. I can’t see the hardcore

players revisiting these games very often. With all eight Gym Badges, we finally reach the cathedral at the top of the  waterfall that houses the Pokémon League. It’s a bit more dramatic than I’d’ve expected,  personally, but man, it’s a cool scene. The iconography of an edifice towering over the sheer  cliffs and waterfall makes it clear this is the climax. We’ve struggled hard to reach these  heights – now it’s time to fight for the peak. I said last time you’d expect the Pokémon League  to a

ttract crowds of spectators and fans. I released that video in 2017. The Gyms in Let’s Go  Pikachu and Eevee in 2018 had an audience, and the entire story in Sword and Shield in 2019 was about  the Pokémon League as a spectator sport. I have to ask: did someone watch my video? No, almost  certainly not, but it’s nice to think we were on the same wavelength, even if just on that obscure  point. It’s not really relevant to Brilliant Diamond, of course, it’s the same as in the  originals. Look, I j

ust thought it was cool, okay? As always, a staff member will block access  to the Elite Four before he’s checked your badges. Back in Pokémon Red and Blue, the path to  Indigo Plateau was located next to Viridian City, the second settlement. The checks were in place  to ensure the player had completed the Gyms first. It’s felt a little unnecessary in most cases  since; the Pokémon League is located at the end of the game, and there are already progress  checks through the level design. It’s imp

ossible to sequence break, basically. There’s no need to  ensure the player has the Beacon Badge: they can’t climb the waterfall to get here without it. Still,  I don’t think this fella’s here for mechanical reasons but for context: the game doesn’t take  its level design so literally that any of the NPCs could use the waterfall as an excuse. Besides, it  congratulates the player on making it this far, affords them an opportunity to reflect on their  journey to this point, and gives the Elite Fo

ur some gravitas by implying that you have to be  something special to be allowed to even face them. Speaking of which, you can also polish  your badges using the touch screen like in the originals. Despite the fact that  I’m reduced to the ignominy of recording my Switch through my phone camera, I’m really  glad they kept this pointless little feature around. You can even play a little tune on them. Barry’s challenge at the entrance gives Giblets and Bandage a last bit of exercise. You can’t  u

se the Box Link during the Elite Four challenge, so I have to leave these two behind. The Elite Four presents a unique opportunity to push some of the mechanics  further, which also gives us the opportunity to talk about them in-depth. Short disclaimer before we begin: I’m talking about the in-game application of the  mechanics rather than Battle Tower or competitive. If you’re still willing to put up with me  describing the game in such utilitarian terms, the Pokémon League is the perfect final

challenge  as it presents the most sustained and therefore the most intense segment of resource management.  The Elite Four are made up of, as you may expect, 5 trainers, with 26 Pokémon between them, all  progressively growing in levels and boasting the most cunning strategies you’ve seen yet. You could argue it’s the game’s only segment of sustained resource management. You have to  defeat all five members without reprieve – you can’t leave, and nor do you have access to  the Box or free heal

ing between fights. It is almost unique in that regard: in  pretty much every other situation, so long as you aren’t on the battle screen, the  Pokémon Centre is only a couple of minutes away. Here, you’re encouraged to carefully consider your  approach. All of your salves and strategies have to be brought in with you, and every move  comes with permanent consequences. Taking damage or even letting a Pokémon faint is not  necessarily a mistake if it allows for some other advantage in the fight.

But here, you  have to think ahead: how often can you afford to make that trade? How many Revives did  you bring in with you? Nothing else in the game presents quite the same problems. Even your  most powerful move won’t get through 26 Pokémon without some kind of PP restoration; especially  as many of those Pokémon will likely resist it. This is where type matchups really shine. Landing a Super Effective attack is satisfying, of course, but I really, really like  resistances and immunities. The

re are few other games that allow you to select the  target of your opponent’s attack. Making good use of resistances and immunities allows you  to minimise incoming damage, minimising cost and easing the pressure on your resources. In  most cases it will also give you the chance to retailiate with a Super Effective attack. The impact of these big meaty moves is immediate. Land a Super Effective hit or use a move like  Swords Dance and you aren’t giving yourself a minor buff that’s difficult to

distinguish;  you’re doubling your damage. A huge strength of Pokémon’s battle system is that the effects  of your decisions are keenly felt. You are never dealing with damage sponge bosses where you’ve  no idea if you’re even hurting them at all; a single Super Effective hit can wipe a  Pokémon clean out. It’s really satisfying to predict correctly when the stakes are so high.  It makes the impact of your decisions absolute. Some Pokémon can have two types, which grants  them quadruple strength

s and weaknesses. This is a great idea; different combinations of types  can inherently make a Pokémon better or worse. I don’t think it’s worth getting too hung up on  the balancing to be honest – they’re never going to manage to balance it and the game’s more  fun lop-sided I think, it gives each Pokémon more extreme characteristics to hang your hat  on. But it is a bit of a shame some Pokémon are completely scunnered by their typing. Types like  Water/Ground or Bug/Steel are incredible, givin

g the Pokémon only a single key weakness; types like  Bug/Flying or Grass/Psychic, on the other hand, can make some Pokémon a write-off before they’ve  even gotten started. Just ask poor Aurorus. While strengths and weaknesses are often related,  there are slight differences between offensive and defensive type matchups. Certain types can  have an offensive advantage over other types, but not a defensive advantage. Fire resists  Fairy, but returns hits neutrally; Electric deals Super Effective d

amage to Water, but Water  deals neutral damage to Electric. While Pokémon gain bonuses for using moves of the same type,  they aren’t restricted to those types exclusively. You can switch in a Grass-type on a Ground user,  but if that Pokémon has Ice Fang, for example, you’re in trouble. The type system is often  viewed as very simple, but while it’s easy to pick up and play – say it with me now – it’s got  a lot to master. It results in a wide spectrum of possibilities that complicate predicti

ons. The major strength of that system is it keeps it real. I complained about stats like EVs taking  you out of the fantasy and asking you to think about your Pokémon as an array of numbers.  But I never reduce the battles to numbers. I’m instead thinking of the battle in terms  of the context presented: I’m thinking that my mudskipper should have an advantage over my  opponent’s fire horse; I’m thinking that using Earthquake on a Digging Pokémon should deal more  damage. That’s the fantasy of

playing Pokémon; that’s the game I fell in love with. The Elite Four sees the system put to better use than in other locations. Because  there are four type experts in a row (to say nothing of Cynthia), and because the game doesn’t  tell you what type they use before you go in, it’s a lot more difficult to organise a  one-size-fits-all counter ahead of time. Your strategies can’t be as specific until you’ve gone  through at least part of the run. You’re instead challenged to prepare for the gaun

tlet based  on a broader understanding of the mechanics. The Elite Four, again probably due to Sinnoh’s  slightly limited pool of Pokémon, actually have more variety on their teams than many of the  Gym leaders. Aaron uses Drapion – a Dark/Poison type that nevertheless sticks to the Bug (or  technically arachnid) theme. Flint’s team is based around heat rather than Fire specifically. Steelix  is tempered underground by heat and pressure; Drifblim is a hot air balloon. A lot of people  have criti

cised this, another victim of Sinnoh’s limited pool of Pokémon, but I feel it makes for  a more varied and interesting battle while still sticking to a theme. Although I don’t really  see how Lopunny’s supposed to be hot, it—ohh. As great as it is, even here I don’t think the  game quite takes full advantage of its types; the system would pair excellently with more  non-linearity. If the Elite Four could be fought in any order (as they can in Gens V-VII),  a player could decide where to start ba

sed on their own team’s strengths and weaknesses. I mentioned there about Earthquake dealing more damage to digging Pokémon. If you  didn’t know, yeah, that’s an actual mechanic! Specific combos further reward  a player for taking the context seriously. Earthquake deals double damage to an  underground Pokémon; Hurricane can catch Pokémon in the air. Solarbeam skips  its charge-up turn in harsh sunlight; Thunder and Hurricane gain perfect accuracy in the  rain. I don’t need to explain why; you a

ll get it. I’ve heard the complaint that these strategies are  somewhat obtuse as, again, the game doesn’t even hint at their existence. I don’t think they’re the  most egregious example of Pokémon not explaining itself, but I get it! Again, let’s be honest:  did you discover the Thunder/Rain interaction yourself or did you learn about it online?  You’d have to do some fairly rigorous testing to rule out good luck. I don’t think it’s a big  problem, but nevertheless, an NPC or Tips sign could nu

dge the player into experimenting with  these mechanics for themselves. As it is, again, this lack of info results in a lot of players  reading guides rather than exploring the game. There are further details worth  reconsidering. The UI is left wanting. Pokémon’s dedication to context over numbers  during the battles is admirable, but sometimes this comes at the cost of clarity. The game hides  a lot of useful information. Sword and Shield gave the player access to an information screen,  showi

ng details about Pokémon’s buffs and debuffs, the duration of weather, conditions like  confusion, lingering move effects like Taunt, and more details besides. It’s a great addition,  disambiguating some aspects of battling. As a kid, I ignored some incredibly powerful status  moves because I didn’t quite get what they did. I can imagine this screen would have gone  some way to remedying that problem. It's a huge convenience and something that I feel should  just be a staple going forward, but i

t is, unfortunately, absent from Brilliant Diamond. Held items are a genius little mechanic unfortunately undernourished. I love the idea of them; rather than Pokémon’s “equipment” being armor  and accessories that generically increase stats, they instead have more specific uses. Leftovers  give passive health regen ideal for bulky Pokémon; Life Orb boosts power at the cost of health, ideal  for glass cannons that can’t take a hit anyway. Choice items boost stats by a lot but lock you  into a si

ngle move every time you switch in; Focus Sash enables strategies on frail Pokémon. Berries  can mitigate Super Effective damage, covering a key weakness on a linchpin Pokémon, or drastically  boost stats at low health for the ultimate risk/reward tradeoff. All of these choices are  informed by context. When choosing which item to use, I’m thinking about my strategy rather than  comparing numbers and stats. That’s brilliant. Unfortunately few of these interesting options  are available before th

e post-game. The vast majority of the items available are instead items  like Charcoal or Mystic Water, that just confer a flat 20% boost to their respective types. Fine  as an introductory piece, but not particularly exciting. The player isn’t allowed to diversify  their playstyle or test out interesting combos in the safer single-player arena. Abilities  like Guts are so much less rich strategically without the Flame Orb to activate it consistently.  Would that be overpowered? Sure, maybe, but

it’d be another meaningful and expressive option.  But none of these excellent systems are made available before the very, very end of the game,  and I think the game is less enjoyable for it. The Elite Four are a different matter  entirely. The first time a new player is likely to see these items put to effective  use is when they’re getting slapped around by them at the end of the game. It feels a bit rich  when your access to these items is so limited. It also must be noted that Brilliant Di

amond drops  a lot of items introduced since the originals, the Heavy-Duty Boots and Eviolite for example,  which is, again, just a flat negative. Fewer items means less variety and less choice. It’s  impossible not to be disappointed by this. I’d lastly like to touch on the topic of  critical hits. I’m still not convinced by them. Correspondence on my last video, as well as  my own learning in the intervening years, has brought me around on their advantages. First  and foremost, a perfectly con

sistent game is not necessarily the most fun game. Luck adds an air of  exciting unpredictability. That unpredictability prevents the game from becoming “solved,” from  players being able to plan out exactly how the next few moves will go ahead of time - this is  why moves have damage ranges too. It’s not very romantic if you’re in control of the entire game  – if anything it's even more exciting to respond to an upset you weren’t expecting. There was also  a really interesting video from 2016 P

okémon World Champion and YouTuber WolfeyVGC, in which he  expounds the advantages of critical hits in competitive play. They encourage offence, making  for a more exciting game, and, crucially, a more exciting viewing experience. A critical hit can  shatter a defensive player’s buffs, and besides, the more you attack, the higher the likelihood of  you getting a crit. I was enchanted by this latter observation – this is the difference between  an expert and a more casual player like myself. But

then, I think that’s probably the  issue here, isn’t it? My comfort zone is firmly in the single-player, where I’m not  having to think so many turns ahead. Sure, maybe this is just my lack of skill talking,  but for me, in single-player, there are still a number of frustrating cons. In the rare event  of a stalemate, fishing for crits feels tedious and desperate. You’re not making any meaningful  decisions, you’re not outthinking the computer or mentally working your way around this challenge, 

you’re just battering away at them. Otherwise, crits so rare that relying on them doesn’t feel  like you took a calculated risk. Playing around them often leaves me feeling like I’m making bad  decisions the game sometimes happens to reward; otherwise, I feel like I’m making good decisions  the game sometimes happens to punish. While that can be kind of hilarious sometimes,  overall there are a lot of frustrations. Because an exceptional piece of bad luck can upset  the battle and allow the com

puter to destroy you in a way that feels unfair. Unlike in multiplayer,  that frustration isn’t potentially equalled by the commensurate exultation from the other player: in  this case, the human experience is all negative. You can account for this possibility, of course  – many people let me know that playing Nuzlockes well means taking crits into account every  step of the way. That’s an impressive feat, but a very clinical way to play. Players  that strive for statistical perfection are obvio

usly operating at a much higher level  of efficiency than I am, and that’s great, but it’s not much fun for me because, again,  it doesn’t really capture the fantasy. These cons are arguably worth the pros. I mean  it. I spent a long time going back and forth on these points so far. I’m still not 100% sure  how I feel: my issue seems to be my perspective, looking at the turn-to-turn micro-interactions  rather than keeping the bigger picture in mind. I think remedying that might be the next step

to  my improving as a player. The reason I don’t think crits are fit for purpose, though, is the way that  they disrupt your plans. I’ll spare a sentence to reiterate that they can really fuck everything  up when you’re trying to catch a Pokémon, but it can also happen in other battles  too. Look at this: a Critical Hit disrupts my plans against Flint because it puts his AI  in range to use a Full Restore. Had I not crit, this fight would have been easier for me. I understand the appeal of criti

cal hits, and I also understand their necessity: they cover  for some parts of the battle system that would otherwise be weaknesses. But I don’t think that  means they’re perfect. Often this conversation imagines two possibilities: crits exactly as they  are now, or no crits at all. There’s a lot of room between those two extremes. I’m not calling for  crits to be removed wholesale when I say this, but as they are now, I find them  more frustrating than beneficial. Pokémon handles random chance 

far better in other ways. Unlike most turn-based RPGs, there isn’t a generic  “attack” command with an associated accuracy roll. Instead, each move has its own chance to hit. As  well as being part of a move’s balancing (more powerful moves can be made more inconsistent),  the chance to hit is simple and transparent. The decision to use those moves is meaningful,  both for the first-time casual player and for the veteran competitor. If you miss 3 Focus Blasts  in a row, that is frustrating, but

it’s also the direct result of your decisions; you risked  missing for the reward of a powerful attack. And that brings us to the sudden (if rather  understated) reveal that Cynthia is the Champion. Man, I love Cynthia. I know now I’ve said  that people are going to be like, “simp, horny, down bad,” but she’s just cool. She’s got  an elegant design, the game suggests a life and her hobbies even with limited screentime, and  it’s cool to have an experienced woman taking you under her wing – stil

l not horny! My point  is, if Cynthia is supposed to be your senior, if she’s been on the same quest for Professor  Rowan that you have, it makes perfect sense for her to be the Champion. That’s where  you’re headed by the end of the game too. While she puts in scant few appearances  throughout and doesn’t do much in them, there can be no misapprehensions about her skill when  you enter the battle. Her expertise is obvious. She’s perhaps the most infamous Champion in the  entire series: her team

are rare, Sinnoh native, incredibly powerful, and expertly wielded. It  perfectly encapsulates that quintessential shōnen trope – gaining a better understanding of your  opponent through battle. Often in these cases, respecting their skill leads to respect for them  as a person which leads to a stronger connection. With Cynthia, it’s more literal: she could easily  have performed the tasks she sent you to do, but she left them to you to give you the opportunity  to grow. Evidently, her approach

paid off. Which makes the music choice a little strange,  to me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s excellent music, it’s truly iconic, both before the battle  and during, but it’s very dramatic. Frantic drums and tense strings call to mind a more  desperate, primal struggle, rather than your friend encouraging you to stand on her level. It does, however, reflect the tension of the match itself. This battle is always exciting: no  matter how prepared I think I am, Cynthia always puts up a hell of a fight

. Her Milotic is insane  – its Ability Marvel Scale doubling its Defence when it has a status condition, and it holding a  Flame Orb to ensure it gets that status without affecting any of its relevant stats. That  condition also means you can’t Poison it or send it to Sleep yourself. It even has Recover  to account for the chip damage. And of course, there’s that Garchomp – an absolute terror even  before the remakes gave it the Yache Berry, mitigating its only relevant weakness. The game wraps

up by bringing everything full circle – Professor Rowan appears to  congratulate his two students that have become Champions. I love Cynthia’s line, “you still enjoy  the enthusiasm kids bring to your research, don’t you?” It says so much about him – he started the  game as this intimidating figure, but in reality he’s just a big softie. It’s nothing amazing,  but it’s a sweet little ending – that’s not the colour of bike I chose, actually, game sucks! The Pokédex doesn’t make a lot of sense, do

es it? You’ve been sent out to fill it in, but it seems  to fill itself in once you’ve caught the Pokémon? My assumption was always that it scanned  the Pokémon and then gave you information based on that, but that doesn’t explain how it  knows about cultural or historic information, or how it knows exactly how many Pokémon are in  the region in the first place. The alternative explanation, that Rowan already has all this  information and is sending you out just to give you something to do, does

n’t account  for legendary Pokémon he'd have no way of knowing about. It’d also just be a bit rubbish. Of course, it’s a bit of sci-fi nonsense so you can make up whatever excuse you like; the first  result on a quick Google returns some technobabble about deep learning so let’s just roll with that.  In reality it’s there for mechanical purposes, a role it fulfills admirably. It fleshes out  the world and the Pokémon, and gives them an appealing collectible dimension that suckered  in every kid

in the playground back in 2000. Brilliant Diamond’s post-game mainly takes  place on an island called the Battle Zone. You can reach that island just now, but if you  want to see most of it, you have to at least have seen every Pokémon in the Sinnoh ‘dex. This was unquestionably the wrong choice; it’s a huge pacebreaker. Unless you’ve been  tediously vigilant, you’ve now got to go and fill in the blanks of this game-long checklist if  you want to play any of the fun new content. If you missed Dr

ifloon, say because you didn’t trek  back to the Valley Windworks every day or get some insultingly easy maths questions incorrect, you  may have to wait up to a week to unlock the rest of the game. I’ve no problem with Drifloon’s  obscurity in and of itself; it’d be a bit dull if all Pokémon were equally rare. I do have a  problem when most of the post-game is gated behind this obscure little secret. By the time you find  it, a lot of the momentum has probably decayed. This wasn’t a problem for

me, personally – I  tend to fight all the trainers I can find as a matter of course. That’s right, I was the  tedious bastard the whole time! But I wonder if this game is the reason I do that in the  first place. I like that you can see everything by battling all the trainers – it ties them into  the “catch ‘em all” motif as they act almost like a showcase for new Pokémon, recording them  in the ‘dex so you can catch ‘em yourself. The only Pokémon you can’t record this way  are, naturally, the

legendaries. Cynthia’s grandmother will show you Palkia so you don’t have  to trade, leaving only Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf. They can, of course, be found at each of Sinnoh’s  Lakes: Lake Verity, Lake Valor, and Lake Acuity. How beautiful is that Lake theme by the way?  I don’t have anything to say about it, it’s just sumptuous. But come on, I’m not going to do a  video like this and not at least mention it, am I? One detail I really like about these lakes is  their names, which all relate to the

Pokémon that live there. “Valor” is great courage, relating  to the Pokémon of willpower; Acuity describes precision and clarity of thought, perfect for  the Pokémon of knowledge; and “Verity” is used to describe values that are fundamentally  true, speaking to the honesty of emotion. They should have called it “Lake Cheezit,”  because Mesprit fucks off as soon as we get there. Mesprit, in this game, is what’s known as a  roaming Pokémon. These Pokémon require specialised strategies to catch. T

he first problem is that  the Pokémon will run on the first turn. You need a Pokémon with a blocking move (and ideally  a sleeping move) before you even try to track it down. The second problem is that the Pokémon  zooms all over the map. You have to chase it down, hoping all the while it doesn’t fly  into the Hail routes, or the sea routes, or waste your time by crossing Mt. Coronet. Fly  and its position randomises; try and head straight for it and it'll often swoop right past you. I’ve develo

ped a newfound passionate hatred for roaming Pokémon since the last time because  I had to catch all the legendary dogs in Pokémon Crystal. Someone in chat said I wasn’t a gamer. I really like the idea. Having Pokémon roam the map both characterises them and makes them  feel more like part of the world. But the execution – having the Pokémon change tile as you  do, randomising positions, and running away on the first turn if it can – leaves a lot to be desired.  As it is, there’s only one soluti

on if you want to get it done within the year. Getting you both on  the same route at the same time is infuratingly fiddly, and no other problem demands as specific  an answer as Mean Look or Block. Maybe there is an alternative approach, but everybody I know of  approaches it the exact same way. You use Block, and then just treat it like a regular legendary.  But approaching it that way basically removes everything unique about the encounter.  Better that than wasting your time, but you can’t h

elp but wonder: what’s the point then? I just don’t know what the idea is here. If it’s supposed to be that you’re tracking them down  across the entire region, that isn’t effectively conveyed by your map magically telling you  their exact position. That kind of fantasy would be better realised if the player had to do  some sleuthing of their own. Without that clear fantasy, all I’m really left with is the arbitrary  and frustrating mechanics. Move back and forth and back and forth, rolling the

dice over and over  again. That might be okay for you D&D nerds, but not for me – I’ve got important shagging to do. These three have a great theme, by the way, but I haven’t been able to take it seriously  since I read a comment pointing out it sounds like “someone hyperventilating into a harmonica.” Once we’ve caught the Lake Trio, Oak upgrades us to the National Pokédex. And with that, you have access to a frankly ludicrous amount of post-game content. The game  barrages you with messages her

e at the beginning, letting you know about all the cool stuff  you’ve unlocked. You can try and complete the National ‘dex, go Underground to  see the new kinds of Pokémon and items, rematch the Gym Leaders, go and see Bebe for  that Eevee (finally), go to the Battle Zone, or talk to Dawn’s sister to learn about daily  outbreaks. I used to get daily outbreaks myself, but the ointment’s clearing them up really well. The Poké Radar is the predecessor to the DexNav; using it spawns rarer Pokémon, a

nd allows you to  play a simple minigame to “improve” those Pokémon. Catching or KOing a Pokémon has a large chance  of starting a “chain,” guaranteeing the player will run into the same Pokémon over and over.  This is supposed to enhance that Pokémon with better stats, Hidden Abilities, and,  if you’re patient enough, Shinies. There’s a catch to this that goes completely  unexplained. The chances of the chain continuing are influenced by two factors: the distance  between your current position

and the rustling patch of grass, and whether or not you caught  rather than defeated the last Pokémon. You have the highest chance of continuing the  chain by using Repels, catching Pokémon, and heading to the furthest patch of grass. As with most things, the best way of feeling out the pros and cons of a system is to jump  in with both feet. After all, this isn’t A Cursory Look at Pokémon Brilliant Diamond.  Unfortunately, I found it was mostly cons. In the original Diamond and Pearl there was 

a 98% of the chain continuing if you played perfectly – a 1 in 50 chance of it dropping  after each Pokémon. In the remakes that’s down to 93% – around a 1 in 16 chance. Chains break for  absolutely no reason with frustrating frequency. I get why they have a chance to break in the first  place: if it were a guarantee it would make Shiny hunting far too easy once you knew what you were  doing. But the only way it can prevent that using the current system is by introducing a random  chance of the

system just not working. You can be punished for doing everything correctly. Another change made in the remakes is that you’re supposed to start getting perfect IVs the  higher the chain: 1 perfect IV at 20, 2 at 30, 3 at 40, and so on. So far as I understand  it, this isn’t programmed correctly: the perfect IV will only happen on those  numbers exactly rather than those numbers and above. Good luck getting a chain of 40, by  the way, you’re going to be there for a while. Having to catch everyt

hing to continue the chain  means you end up using a lot of Quick Balls. As with a lot of grinds in games, you want to  maximise efficiency, and the Quick Ball has a high chance of catching the Pokémon turn 1. That  won’t be much of a problem if you like the design, of course, but it would be nice to  have more variety in the Wonder Trade. Essentially the Radar is a lot worse than it  was back in Gen IV. That’d be bad enough in a vacuum, but this is Gen VIII: we’ve had massive  improvements on t

he system since! “Seumidh is this just another excuse for you to gripe about the  DexNav?” Yeah, okay, you got me… but am I wrong? To make sure I wasn’t missing anything about  the Radar, I committed myself to catching my next team member: a Shiny Larvitar.  This turned out to be a huge mistake. I tried Shiny hunting as intended for a good  long while, but eventually I got fed up and ended up manipulating the system. You can reset  the Radar at any point if you don't like the formation just by w

alking 50 steps to recharge  it. The Shiny odds can go all the way up to a 1 in 25 chance per Radar use at a chain of 40  and above. But the likelihood of getting that far is incredibly low. The community – and  this is great, I love this – the community has min-maxed it and found that a chain of 17 is  the optimal time to start resetting. That’s about a 1 in 500 chance per Radar use. That’s the point  where carrying on the chain is likely to take you just as long, if not longer, to find a Shiny

. Shinies use similar perfidious tactics to a lot of modern games’ monetisation practices, with  artificially coded scarcity manipulating players into plugging more money into them. With Shinies,  of course, there is the cushioning caveat that the resource they use is time rather than  money. But even that’s worth criticising. Shinies cement Pokémon’s odd relationship  with its own narrative. Unlike hidden stats, Shinies are just a cosmetic change: they don’t  affect the mechanics in any way. Ho

wever, that cosmetic change inherently has a lot of value  attached to it. Cosmetic differences in games are often defended as being inconsequential as they  don’t affect the gameplay. But that argument mistakenly assumes that humans are completely  rational actors. Through the very fact of their scarcity, Shiny Pokémon are more valuable than  non-Shiny Pokémon. They are more limited than normal Pokémon, and so there’s more prestige  associated with them and therefore a higher demand for them. B

ut that’s artificially induced:  it’s all code, there’s no reason they have to be this rare except to give them value. That value,  therefore, makes some Pokémon inherently more desirable than others. That strategy demonstrably  succeeded: people go to ridiculous lengths to get their hands on these rarities. Again, my  understanding of the series’ principles is that all Pokémon are valuable so long as you take the  time to raise them. Again, the mechanics challenge that notion. If you had the ch

oice between your  starter Pokémon and a Shiny one that was otherwise identical in every way… wouldn’t you be tempted? I don’t want to give you the impression that I think Shiny hunting is in any way wrong.  But invest enough time and enthusiasm into a game and the fantasy is eroded, leaving only the  exposed, raw code. Reach that point and tracking down Shinies becomes a question of finding the  most efficient way to manipulate the code. It’s a slightly elevated form of gambling. You churn  thr

ough thousands upon thousands of Pokémon; pulling the lever over and over until you land  on all 7s. The only difference is, in this case, the currency used is time. I didn’t stumble  across Larvitar, I decided I wanted it ahead of time and the rest was just… this. That’s not,  like, a story. It’s not romantic or interesting, to me. The only thing remarkable  about this series of events is the time investment. It’s kind of like this video! It’s kind of an inherent thing about computer games in g

eneral. There’s a balancing act in game  design between the length of the game and the effort content takes to produce; the more stuff  a game has, the less bespoke that stuff can be. Shiny Pokémon attempt to create an emotional arc  through code rather than hand-crafted stories; stumbling across a Shiny can be a huge  emotional spike, a cool story to tell, whether that be of your new favourite, or of the  one that got away. I can still tell you where and when I got my first Shiny – a Gloom on R

oute 229  in Pokémon Pearl, while I was out camping with my friend. I excitedly showed him my DS, but in the  poor lighting he couldn’t see the colour change, and he thought I was taking the piss. That  experience makes Shinies worthwhile all on its own. Besides which, like I said before, “fear  of missing out” is an inherent aspect of a series about collectible creatures. If Shinies didn’t  exist there would be something to take their place – I think the series would lose a lot of  its appeal o

therwise. I don’t think they ought to get rid of Shiny Pokémon or anything.  I just think they come with some baggage. That said, I think cosmetic  changes are a better way of making your Pokémon unique than hidden stats. The reason for this is simple: visual changes are at once more immediate and incidental. Minute  visual changes are obvious to even the most casual player – one of the earliest games children can  play is spot the difference. If you’re a kid you don’t need to scroll through 7 d

ifferent tabs  to figure out how your Staraptor is different from your pal’s, you can just look at them. At the  same time, that cosmetic change doesn’t inherently imply value; it may even be that, all other things  being equal, you prefer the non-Shiny colours! I know I certainly do for most Pokémon! The wrench in the works with Shinies, as we’ve discussed, is that all other things  aren’t equal, that their scarcity implies value. If instead every Pokémon had slight visual  changes, players wou

ld have the benefit of owning their own unique – or at least incredibly rare –  variation of a Pokémon. I don’t mean complicated model changes or anything like that – even simple  stuff like minor variations in hue and saturation, size, or expression, would go a long way. Pokémon  Stadium did something similar with tone to great effect. Perhaps your Torterra could have a dozy  expression compared to your friend’s grumpy one, distinguishing them through personality  and inviting you to imagine ho

w they act. An increase in its personal value  without increasing its objective worth. Anyway, I never actually  found that Shiny Larvitar. After a few hours of grinding away on  stream, I woke up the next morning and, against my better judgment just telling me to  move on, gave it another go. After about an hour, I was getting properly depressed – that kind of  “I’m wasting my life” frustration that really upsets me. I’d rather have been doing literally  anything else. So that’s exactly what I

did. I asked my partner to take over while I went to do  the dishes. Folks. I didn’t even make it to the kitchen. I was wearing noise-cancelling  headphones and I still heard the scream from the opposite end of the flat. So this is our… what, ninth team member? We’re going to call her Avocado.  Because she looks like a wee Avocado. There is another Shiny-hunting method in the  game, of course, but after all that, I’m sorry, I don’t have the patience to show it off. The  Diglett Bonus in the Gran

d Underground doubles the chances of you finding a Shiny from 1 in 4,096  to – oh, turns out that 1 in 4,096 chance is all I need, baby. I swear down this was right after  we got Larvitar too, what a slap in the face. After the fourth Gym, the rest of the map becomes  kind of offshoots of the main Routes. I’d be more disappointed about not getting a big new  area to explore towards the end but for the fact that Sinnoh’s post-game is insane. What do you get for getting the National Dex, ooh, a we

e certificate, maybe a Battle Tower  if you’re a needy slut? Naw mate: 6 new routes, 3 new settlements, one of the best dungeons in  the game, and a Battle Tower into the bargain. The Battle Zone is actually based on  the Russian territory of Sakhalin. Japan and Russia had been disputing the  island for years before Russia claimed it after WWII. If you’re wondering how Cyrus gets  off scot-free and ends up at the Battle Tower, maybe that explains it. Or maybe there’s just  no law against destroy

ing the universe. Show me the law that says you can’t destroy  the universe. No court would convict me. The Fight Area is home to this game’s Battle  Tower. I thought it’d be worthwhile to take a peek inside and see how things go. To its credit, it’s actually fairly easy at the beginning. You should manage to  get through at least the first few trainers before the difficulty starts setting in,  which should hopefully allow you to get some Battle Points to start buffing up your team. The problem

is, it’s a meagre 3 Battle Points for a 7-trainer streak. Sure, that increases  incrementally, but the further you get into this thing, the higher the likelihood of you  losing, whether that be because the trainers get more difficult – Tower Tycoon Palmer is  a particularly nasty difficulty spike – or just because you’re eventually going to run  into some bad luck. The only way to overcome these difficulties is to improve your team...  which you can only do by grinding out BP at the Battle Tower

. I really don't understand  how you're supposed to approach this. Still, though, there’s plenty to see and do  around the island yet. Maybe after we complete the post-game we’ll feel a bit more ready for the  Battle Tower’s challenges. Let’s wait and see! I love this, this is such an energising feeling.  An entire new island to explore at your leisure, with new Pokémon to catch, all of which  can be taken entirely at your own pace. There’s no pressing matters to attend to, it’s  just you discov

ering this new island for the fun of it. At this stage you should have your  team ready to go as well – you’re honing your strength together, rather than starting anew. Perhaps one of the reasons I love the late-game routes so much is because this is where  the management really comes into its own. When a Pokémon gets low on HP or moves,  you no longer have to scamper back to the Pokémon Centre. Instead, you can tag  them out for another teammate and press forward. That’s Pokémon at its best for

me. Brilliant Diamond leaves a lot to be desired, but it being such a faithful remake is perhaps  something of a blessing in disguise. I can honestly say I had a better time with  it than a lot of recent Pokémon games simply because it’s happy to let you play it. The series hasn’t really given you that luxury of late. I think Pokémon Moon has some  of the best level design in the series, but I’m never tempted to pick it back up again  because the bossy characters never give it room to breathe.

I think Pokémon Shield has a  pretty compelling player driven infrastructure, but by the time I’d seen the credits roll I was  happy to be done with it. It felt like the game had spent its entire run dragging me from place  to place, so when it finally stopped, I had no momentum of my own; no desire to see this place  under my own power. Even though I’d argue Pokémon Shield’s Battle Tower is far, far better than  Brilliant Diamond’s bizarrely faithful and archaic rendition, I couldn’t be bothere

d even starting. These changes have crept into the remakes of older titles. If Brilliant Diamond were a more  hands-on remake like Omega Ruby, we may have had to contend with new character designs and  revised level layouts that I may not have liked as much. If areas had been cut entirely, that  would have undermined one of Sinnoh’s greatest strengths – the amount of optional content.  If characters had been redesigned, we may have lost some of their appeal. I can just imagine  Mars’ miniskirt l

osing its retro-futuristic puffiness in favour of sex appeal. The chances  of anyone cumming to Mars are a million to one, they say. If the remakes were more concerned with  accessibility than faithfulness, we may also have had to struggle through a much higher number of  tutorials. And if the characters had been given expanded roles, they’d need more text to convey  their new personality and motivation. That text can’t help but feel like an interruption, because,  as we’ve covered, no matter ho

w well-written those characters are, they can’t be relevant to  the gameplay unless they pose an obstacle. I don’t mean to slag these games off unfairly; to  be clear, I enjoyed all of them, and all of them have their good points. Just that, all things  considered, I'm actually strangely okay with the way Brilliant Diamond is. I found a lot to  like about this shameless old-school approach; it sort of reminded me why I love this series  so much in the first place. But would I have gotten the sam

e feeling had I dug out my  DS and replayed Platinum instead? Probably! It would have saved me £50 if nothing else. The quality of the original game’s design doesn’t absolve Brilliant Diamond of any shortcomings.  With some considered improvements the game could have had its cake and eaten it too. Older  Pokémon remakes justified their existence beyond playing the nostalgia card for cash.  Although that was definitely a huge factor. FireRed and LeafGreen launched to help fill  in some of Gen III

’s blanks. Pokémon had made its first leap to new hardware, and with no  way to trade Pokémon between the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance, players needed a way to go  back and catch old favourites. These Pokémon had Natures and Abilities, EVs and IVs, and  were allowed to hold items, reaching parity with Gen III’s revised mechanics; a foundation  the series has been building on ever since. HeartGold and SoulSilver are considered  the gold standard – if you’ll pardon the pun – for Pokémon remakes.

I have a lot  of misgivings about them, but still, yeah, I’d probably agree with that! Heart and soul is  right; you can feel the passion pouring out of them. They made the Johto Pokémon available for  trade with the most modern games; a lot of areas were added or restored; content from Crystal was  included in full; your Pokémon now followed you (493 sprites animated from 4 directions – fucking  hell!); and the Physical/Special split brought all the benefits to Johto it had to Sinnoh. Omega Rub

y and Alpha Sapphire released in an entirely different context. The core systems were  very similar to the originals, and, while it may have been a tall order, you could trade your  Pokémon from Ruby and Sapphire all the way to X and Y. So instead the games got kind of wacky.  They introduced new mechanics, revised levels, redesigned characters, and even told some new  stories – for better or worse. I have mixed feelings of course but in a lot of ways Omega  Ruby feels the most distinct from its

inspiration. To us long-time fans, Brilliant Diamond and  Shining Pearl feel practically superfluous. Gen IV was the Generation where Pokémon’s modern  mechanics were finalised; for the first time, the remakes are using the same mechanics as  the originals. The map is the same; the story is practically identical. The changes that have  been made are monkey paw wishes: the Underground has more extrinsic value, so it loses a lot of its  mindless appeal; Contests are made more accessible by reduci

ng them to a simplistic rhythm minigame. In the context of the series overall, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl’s roster  is disapointing. Diamond and Pearl included 493 Pokémon out of a possible 493 – 100%. If  you traded an obscure Pokémon across from the Game Boy Advance, it was a guarantee that it  would still be available. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl include 493 Pokémon out  of a possible 898 – almost half the Pokédex is inaccessible even if you already own them. We’ve already go

ne over how misplaced the outrage was. Nevertheless, it paints a bleak picture  for Brilliant Diamond’s relevance. Previous remakes were expansive, adding new Pokémon to the  roster, allowing you to use new favourites in old games. Brilliant Diamond is restrictive, locking  out the new Pokémon. It’s not as bad as it seems with context applied – FireRed and LeafGreen  were similarly stingy before the post-game, and the Grand Underground gives you access to far  more Pokémon than in the originals.

Nevertheless, broadly speaking, the game is using the same  mechanics and the same roster of Pokémon. It would have to do a lot of work to make itself  relevant in the face of these shortcomings. What makes this borderline insulting, though, is  that the game retains a lot of problems fixed in Pokémon Platinum. It made a staggering number of  improvements. Adding 60 Pokémon to the Pokédex; making Cyrus more charismatic; giving us a more  satisfying climax; reflecting Sinnoh’s colder climate thr

oughout the adventure; and, relevantly,  distinguishing towns and cities with unique aesthetics. These changes were made throughout the  game, but it’s especially pronounced in the Battle Zone. Unique buildings, palm trees replacing the  regular tree sprites, and a more saturated colour scheme cemented the Battle Zone’s identity as  a unique, distinct area. And that’s not even mentioning the Battle Frontier. Almost none of  these improvements made it into Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, rel

eased 12 years later. While Platinum is undoubtedly the stronger game in my mind, I actually think Diamond and Pearl  were better in some ways. A lot of the series’ worst habits started here in Platinum. Diamond  and Pearl’s scant few examples of non-linearity are stamped out. The game instead funnels you  from place to place with overwrought dialogue; the kind of “no player left behind” approach  that has made the series a nightmare for any player looking to engage with it at their  own pace. I

, like all good-hearted children, love funny meme man and Tenth Doctor cosplayer  Looker… but he adds almost literally nothing to the story. Even at its worst it’s not as  bad as any of the games that came afterwards, but nevertheless a lot of the series’ more  annoying weeds have their roots here in Platinum. These misgivings acknowledged, Pokémon  Platinum makes playing the remakes more frustrating because it so often is better.  It so often presents workable alternatives to Diamond and Pearl’

s design flaws that the  remakes just ignore. Modern amenities aside, I think Platinum is the stronger game. Some of these retentions just feel stubborn. The Pokémon Centre still has a top floor and a PC,  even though the player can access both from the menu. Rather than take advantage of the expanded  roster of Pokémon appearing the Grand Underground, trainers still use their original Diamond and  Pearl teams. The game even preserves obscure little details that basically nobody’s going to  noti

ce: Sticky Hold doesn’t increase your chances of landing a bite while fishing, even though that  was a programming oversight when it was in the original games. At this point I wouldn’t have been  surprised if BDSP had kept the battle speed too. If the entire game were super dedicated  to Diamond and Pearl I could at least see the appeal of preserving the original  experience as much as possible. But the number of sweeping changes to the aesthetics  and systems render that point moot anyway. All

of this before we even get into my  misgivings with the practice of remaking games in general. Honestly, regardless of  quality, I just don’t like remakes very much. See, for me, at the risk of sounding like a  wanker, games are art. And like all art, they are made under particular limitations. Those could  be budgetary, those could be time related, or those could be technological. To me, the original  game will always be more valuable than its remake because the art, the mechanics, the level de

sign,  the music, the story, was all created towards a singular goal. Not necessarily a lofty goal,  “make a Pokémon game on the DS,” but a singular goal all the same. Pokémon Diamond and Pearl took  advantage of the DS’s unique features and worked around its limitations, it introduced themes  and characters to tell its story, it succeeded and failed on its own merits. Simply put, it’s  uniquely its own thing: made at a particular point in time by a talented team of developers.  It’s always goin

g to have that intrinsic value. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl’s value comes  from being modern re-interpretations of these older games. But they’re going to lose that value  going forward, if they ever had it. They were never really keeping up with “modern” standards in  2021. But even if they were graphical powerhouses, they’d quickly lose their shine. Like I say, all  art is abstract. The old graphics are abstract, and the new graphics are abstract too. All we’re  really doing by redoing

the graphics to modern standards is kicking that can down the road. Even  if this game looked spectacular, it would still end up looking dated in 5-10 years. What do we do  then? Remake it again? Constantly play catch-up, go back and re-release Diamond and Pearl every  decade or so, making sure it keeps up with modern standards? Do it again and again and again until  it’s “perfect?” Why not revisit Kanto again? We still haven’t gotten that Red and Green remake  with the Physical/Special split a

nd regular catching mechanics, after all! Han shot first  – no, Greedo shot first, no, they shot at the same time! Maclunkey! How depressing. What would  be the point in us talking about the themes and characterisation if they can just change any  time? Even with an almost identical script, we’ve already seen changes to this story: Cyrus’  relationship with Team Galactic is established from his very first appearance in the remakes. Of course, games face unique challenges other media don’t. From

what I understand, it’s  very rarely “that easy” to port or emulate games on modern hardware. Even a small change in  hardware can have unpredictable and potentially catastrophic results. Play the original games  on a 3DS and you have to choose between an ugly blown-up picture or an awkward blank space around  the edges of the screen. And that’s on hardware that’s almost 1:1 with the original DS! Now we  also have to account for changes to the interface: how do we preserve the originals on a con

sole  with a single screen? Not like this, ideally, but that’s just it, there is no good answer.  How do we account for stuff like Chatot, whose signature move required the use of the DS’s  microphone? All of this before we even contend with anything under the hood – I’m not going  to try and explain it to you because I don’t understand it myself. What I do understand  is it’s a hundred times more complicated to port an old game onto new hardware than any of us  imagine it being. Maybe remaking

the game is truly the only practical option. But even if it is, I  still can’t square away in my own head the idea that the original developers’ work is routinely  “painted over” rather than preserved. I mean, none of the original developers are even credited  in this game. That doesn’t seem right to me. Of course, again, I’m sure the financial reward  doesn’t hurt either. Announce a remake and reap the hype, not to mention charge full price  for it when it’s out. Nintendo are very good at culti

vating an air of prestige. When  they do deign to re-release a game, it’s an event. I mean, hell, I bought it, didn’t I? I’m not saying any of this to be a killjoy. Believe me, I get it, it’s a bit insufferable.  Count yourselves lucky, I have to deal with this infernal monologue 24/7. Rhetorical misgivings  aside, I had fun with these games. I invariably do with remakes of games I like! That said,  and with the difficulties of game preservation restated for emphasis, I’d probably have been  hap

pier if the original Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum were re-released on the Switch instead.  It’d get a much heartier recommendation from me… even if it were a much shorter video as a result. The Survival Area is 5 buildings in the middle of nowhere. I guess that’s why it’s the “Survival  Area,” but it’s still a little conspicuous. Part of the disappointment, I think, is just  expectations. If you see this area on the map and are expecting a cool sprawling town filled  with tough survivors, you’re

not really going to get that here. Instead you’ve got what  seems to be a Pokémon Retirement Village. The other problem, I think, is conceptual space. Creating towns and cities in games is a tricky balancing act. In terms of space, even from your  character’s perspective, Sinnoh is really small. It would take less time for my character to cross  Sinnoh end-to-end than it would for me to cross even the smallest village. What makes it feel  large is the content and pacing. Even if they don't expe

rience a literal journey, allowing the  player to experience an emotional journey is what leaves the game feeling larger than it actually  is. I consider this a very good thing. Think of it this way: if a novel detailed every single moment  of the journey - every step the characters took, every time they ate and slept, all the irrelevant  information between important scenes, you'd think it was horribly paced. That or The Lord of the  Rings. Narratives are all about abstraction, that’s why I’ve

used that word so much,  and I consider games to be the same way. Settlements in these games need to have enough  depth to create the illusion of these being real places that people live, while also being  small enough not to be disruptive. Some cities in the series have been too big for their own  good; they just end up being pacebreakers. The Survival Area has the opposite problem:  there isn’t enough going on to solidify the idea that these people actually live here. When I say settlements “n

eed to have enough content,” incidentally, I don’t necessarily mean  sheer scale. You could level the same criticism at Twinleaf Town, but I feel its small size served an  important function: focusing the introduction. If Twinleaf Town were a huge sprawling city there’d  be a lot more to get distracted by. Instead it feels more believable because it has a little more  depth. It’s the setting for the introduction: you spend your first few minutes with the game getting  to know the important chara

cters that live there and the story that unfolds as a result of their  interactions. When I think back on Twinleaf Town, I think of three or four important characters  and events. The Survival Area, by contrast, doesn’t have much of anything going on at all.  Sure, there’s an NPC who plays a small role in the Heatran sidequest, but when I say small  I mean small. One line and he’s out of there. Between the ash falling from the sky and the Old  Lady’s Rest Stop reference, I’m getting major Route

113 flashbacks here. This is Stark Mountain,  the game’s only Fire area I alluded to earlier. Poor Barry can’t catch a break – after suffering  a defeat at the hands of Buck, now his best pal has teamed up with the smug arsehole to get  through Stark Mountain. If it’s any consolation to you Barry, I don’t like him either. He just  keeps getting in the way – I can’t fit through the narrow passageways sometimes because we keep  colliding with each other. In the 2D originals, the sprites could simp

ly pass through one  another, the flat sprites making that seem totally fine. That wouldn’t work at all in 3D,  so the models have to “shove” past one another, swopping places and getting in each  other’s way. Going from 2D to 3D, even in a game like this, isn’t a zero-sum change. The AI really seems to stumble during these later multi-battles, where there’s far more variety in  Pokémon and strategy. I got kind of complacent, deliberately making misplays because I knew I  could get away with it.

I stayed in with Kipz on a Mismagius I knew had Magical Leaf because it  refused to use it on the sensible target for some reason. Buck doesn’t come out looking much better:  his Claydol retaliates by using Extrasensory on the one Pokémon that resists it. Putting Buck to one side though, I have to say, I love Stark Mountain. It mainly takes place in an enormous, multi-layered cavern. It’s an elegant marriage  of exploration and puzzle-solving, encouraging a deeper understanding of the level des

ign. The shortcuts merit paritcular praise. Good shortcuts should allow the player to revisit  a level quickly and easily, of course, but ideally they also should avoid cheapening  the setting by drawing attention to themselves. If they’re clearly there for the player’s  convenience, this mountain stops seeming so much like a mountain and starts seeming more like  a level. Having Buck with you is simple but sound justification for why you can’t use Rock Climb  the first time through. Subsequent

visits are faster and more convenient, but the world remains  consistent and tangible. There’s no magic portal or NPC to whisk you to and from the exit. At the same time, the Rock Climb walls also enhance the complexity of the existing  level design. Your first time through they draw your attention towards places of  interest while firmly insisting you find an alternative route. The joy on repeat visits  isn’t just on cutting a path through the maze, but also discovering the additional nooks and

  crannies. The room is wide, rather than long, so a player can either make a beeline for  their destination and be done in seconds, or spend more time exploring different paths  each time they come back here. This is important as you’ll be going back and forth a few times.  You have to make your way in and out twice each: the first time to retrieve the Magma  Stone, the second time to catch Heatran. The story goes that Buck takes the Magma  Stone from the heart of the volcano, but soon learns t

hat disaster may strike as a  result and goes to return it. He’s reckless, but he’s not a bad lad really. Like with Cyrus,  though, I feel like there are a few pages missing here. There’s nothing to indicate this one house  in the Survival Area is in any way important, let alone for catching a legendary, and once Buck  exits the building, that’s his exit from the game as well. It’s so abrupt that I had to look  it up to check I hadn’t missed something. His headstrong nature feels like it’d make

for a nice  comparison with Barry, but nothing’s made of it. Before we move on, I’d like to give  a quick bit of praise to the music. The slap bass and electric guitar, along with the  march of the drums, express the harshness of the area. It's tough, but so is everyone else here:  it’s not intimidating, it’s more of an electric, frictive energy. I really like the little bridge  on the woodwind, which creates a very hot, hollow sound, perfect for the inside of a volcano. Route 228 is a perpetual

sandstorm. Like with Stark Mountain, extreme conditions  are weathered by your own mettle. Like everyone else in the Battle Zone, you’ve proven  yourself capable of handling this. Again, the music reflects this very well – it’s  brash, but it’s very upbeat, there’s lots of brass. The wild, exhilarated song is so  perfect at capturing the energy of the scene. There is one NPC here who gets on my tits, though. “Who cares about levels and stats?” Me, as it turns out! I’d bloody like not to, but th

at’s just  not the game this is! You can’t tell me the stats don’t matter when we’re about to hit a point  where they demonstrably do! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not actually mad; I understand why the  series is the way it is. Just don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, man, come on. One thing I really like about the Battle Zone in general is how it distinguishes  itself from mainland Sinnoh. Ideally of course the Platinum graphics would  drive this point home, but there’s still the distinc

t feeling this is a different place  entirely. That comes from the Pokémon selection. Pokémon really are wonderful and underappreciated  storytelling tools. You’ll notice that the majority of the Pokémon the trainers use are not  in the Sinnoh ‘dex: in their place are a lot of Pokémon from the first three Generations. I love  this decision. It leaves you with the impression that this place really is a smörgåsbord of  trainers at the peak of their skill from all over the world. There’s even a guy

on Route 226  who will offer you Pokémon and ‘dex entries in foreign languages. It also makes a nice change  of pace from the Pokémon you’ve been seeing up until this point: even if you’re an older player  who’s seen these Pokémon before, seeing them again in this new context is a nice twinge of nostalgia.  For new players, this must border on overwhelming, realising just how many new Pokémon are  now available. That’s a cool feeling! The only thing of note in the Resort Area is the  Ribbon Syn

dicate. If it were Platinum there’d be tons of things to talk about, but it’s not, so. Imagine the Syndicate as a toffee-nosed up-market country club. To become an exclusive member  you need 10 different Ribbons. Doing this without trading essentially demands that you  talk to Julia in Sunyshore City once a day, which is tedious. Ribbons are supposed to function  like “achievements,” or “cheevos” if you’re a cool guy that only eats Flamin’ Hot Doritos,  giving your Pokémon another touch of histo

ry by documenting their accomplishments. Beating  the Elite Four, or reaching maximum friendship, are some of those tasks deserving of a Ribbon.  Talking to an NPC every day of the week, on the other hand, is not, in my opinion. Anyway this place leaves a bad taste in my mouth, it seems very elitist, very, “keep the riff-raff  out,” they’re a bunch of Tories! All you really get access to once you’re in here are really  expensive Ribbons and better massages. Maybe one day I’ll grind out the Gentl

emen and Madams on  Route 212 to get these, or maybe I’ll do literally anything else with my time. I think raising a ton  of money is probably worthy of an achievement, and isn’t this a great way to characterise and  contextualise that? I don’t like these guys, but that’s only because they’re so  evocative! As for the better massages, they're good for quickly growing closer with new  Pokémon. After all, you've probably already proven you can do it to gain access to this place. Friendship and aff

ection have been amalgamated into a single stat since Let’s Go Pikachu  and Eevee. What at first seems like a sensible bit of streamlining introduces  some complications to certain playstyles. First of all, yes, friendship and affection were  two discrete stats. I’m not going to go into every detail about their differences, but suffice it  to say there was a huge overlap in context. I don’t quite understand how you could have maxed  out friendship with absolutely no affection. Both were on shaky

grounds mechanically too. With  the removal of the moves Return and Frustration, high friendship affected very little about the  play experience; without its associated minigames, affection was in danger of becoming obsolete. So  the series simply fused the two together. High friendship now also confers the benefits of high  affection: Pokémon will perform better in battle, potentially toughing out fatal damage,  curing themselves of status conditions, having higher evasion, and so on. I don’t

really mind these effects in a game as solid, difficulty-wise, as Brilliant Diamond.  They’re weighing the scales a little, not tipping them over. The added layer of camaraderie feels  worth it to me. But while they’re not disastrous, I’m not completely convinced about their  benefits. While the narrative it presents encourages you to form stronger bonds with  your Pokémon, it also introduces another layer of unpredictability. The overlapping effects  cast a pretty wide net at maximum friendship

, making it more difficult to plan and execute a  strategy. I planned to sacrifice Kipz during the Cynthia battle for a safe switch – it held on  with 1HP, meaning another turn spent in a fight it had no chance of winning. I’m not really sure  how to feel about that. They also have knock-on effects with certain mechanics. Imagine trying  to use a Guts strategy when your Pokémon keeps curing themselves of their status; imagine using  a Counter/Mirror Coat strategy when your Pokémon keep dodging t

he moves. These problems aren’t  enough to make the system a complete failure. It's pretty exciting when your Pokémon comes  in clutch at a difficult moment, giving you another water cooler story to share that increases  affection for these little cartoon animals. But these problems are worth considering nonetheless. And, uh, that’s it. The final Route in the game, and the highest numbered Route in the entire  Pokémon series. Which is a blessing, honestly, I was really running out of stuff to sa

y! The Battle Zone is essentially one big loop; you can tackle this in entirely the other direction  if you want! I love that, more of that please. We’re coming back into the Fight Area, and  to Battle Park. So, after our excursion around the island, do we feel any stronger? Any  fitter? Any more prepared for the Battle Tower? No, of course not. What do you mean Numel  has Bright Powder?? Why does it have Bright Powder?? Right, okay, we’ll come back later! Sinnoh’s theming justfies the huge numb

er of legendaries in the region. Turn off that  Autosave: it’s time for the legendary roundup. How nice is it they gave you  the option to turn that off, though? In a lot of ways I think these “extracurricular”  legendaries – the ones not part of the main story – do a better job feeling… well, legendary. That’s  entirely down to their mechanical context. They’re a mystery rather than an inevitability. Play  far enough into the game and you’re guaranteed to encounter Dialga or Palkia – and it’s n

ot like  their designs are a big surprise, is it? The same can’t be said of Cresselia. It’s not like you  have to decipher ancient Sanskrit or anything, but there’s a world of difference between  investigating Canalave because you want to and investigating Canalave because you were told to. First on the list is Rotom, who technically isn’t a legendary. It’s an odd wee beast, this one. Despite being locked to the post-game, it’s encountered  at level 15, and has a catch rate of 60 – you’ve got ov

er a 1 in 10 chance of getting it  just chucking a Poké Ball at full health. It’s worthwhile, though, just because it acts as a  little bit of payoff to the Old Chateau. Not much, not overexplaining the mystery or anything  like that, but a single thing gets solved after all this time and you’re just going  to have to content yourself with that. What I don’t like is how you find and unlock  Rotom’s alternate forms. If you figured this out for yourself you’ll have to tell me how: you’re  supposed

to use the Secret Key on this specific wall in the Galactic Eterna Building. This used  to be an event item; the game would literally tell you to consult a website as you got it. But  there are absolutely no clues in this version, so far as I’m aware: you just have to know. Spiritomb isn’t a legendary either – boy, this is going well – but it’s probably the  toughest Pokémon in the whole game to track down. You get the Odd Keystone on Route 208 – or in  Twinleaf Town, right here? What a strange

secret, I kind of love it! You can also dig more up from  the Underground if you’re lucky. Slot the Odd Keystone into the well on Route 209, and do one  more small thing, and you can find Spiritomb. That “one more small thing” is a joke, of course:  you have to find and talk to 32 unique NPCs in the Underground. Each one of these NPCs has  a preferred location where they’ll show up, but it’s not guaranteed: sometimes they’ll  appear, sometimes they won’t, and frustratingly, sometimes they’ll ap

pear somewhere they  shouldn’t. I recommend keeping a checklist. It’s an incredible grind; random and unrelated  busywork that just exists to stop you getting Spiritomb without your soul withering away. This grind existed in the original game too, but in a different form. Rather than talking  to 32 NPCs, you had to talk to 32 other players Underground. These didn’t have to be unique  players either – once we figured out what to do, me and my friend spent a good half hour just  disconnecting and

reconnecting over and over. The frustrating thing is, with all the online  features, if it had just been the same in the remakes it would have actually been fine!  This series really just doesn’t seem to want you having Spiritomb without a huge chore. One of Spiritomb’s selling points was its Ghost/Dark typing, which, before the introduction  of Fairy, meant it couldn’t be hit for Super Effective damage. Reflecting its spiritual  nature, it’s associated with the number 108, which is considered a

sacred number in Dharmic  religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. Many Buddhist rosaries are made up of 108 beads; 108  is said to be the number of positive, neutral, or painful sensations multiplied by the senses  we experience them with, and so on. I’m the wrong person to ask about how well these inspirations  track onto Spiritomb, unfortunately, but I like how dedicated they are to the bit. It’s formed  from 108 spirits, its Sinnoh ‘dex number is 108, its defensive stats are both 108, it weigh

s  108kg, and – I missed this cheeky wee reference last time – it can be found in Sea Mauville in  Omega Ruby which is, of course, on Route 108. Cresselia is part of Canalave’s  mythology, which centres around dreams. A child has fallen into a deep, nightmarish  sleep thanks to a sinister influence, and only Cresselia’s Lunar Feather can cure  him. I love this kind of thing. It’s much easier for me to make sense of these stakes  – this is a local legend, and instead of the whole world being at s

take, it’s a kid. Unfortunately Cresselia ruins it by being an absolute bastard. A roaming Pokémon with  a catch rate of 3, a health restoration move, and Safeguard to prevent status. Fuck sake. The  only small blessings are that Moonlight only has 5PP, and it literally cannot do anything to  Bronzong in retaliation. It took me forever. As a series carries on over multiple decades,  unless it is meticulously future-proofed, it starts to buckle under the  weight of unforseen issues. Ramanas Park

embodies one such issue for Pokémon. Legendaries are stuck in an awkward place. Mechanically each game wants to include as many as  possible, both to allow new players to catch up, and to give the player more stuff to do.  But doing so cheapens them contextually. The challenge of catching a legendary creates  a mechanical climax during the battle itself, but to really feel legendary, they also have  to leave an impact on the world around them. This is where Dialga and Palkia have a  big advantag

e – they’ve left deep marks throughout your adventure. But even Pokémon  like Cresselia enhance, and are enhanced by, Sinnoh’s mythology. No matter how iconic Mewtwo,  or Rayquaza, or the legendary beasts are, they don’t feel legendary when they’re bundled together  in a Pokémon catching theme park. Ramanas Park is essentially a ball capsule machine for legendary  Pokémon. They feel tamed, they feel knowable as a result. I understand why this is: the game  can’t dedicate time and resources to fl

eshing out every Pokémon adequately. But even with that  acknowledged and sympathies extended, this setup still robs them of a lot of their mystique. Catching them is made more exhausting by the method used to unlock them. You have to go  Underground to dig up Mysterious Shards, which can be exchanged for the slates you need to access  the legendaries. I don’t know how long it took me to get the Shards I needed, I seem to have stopped  counting, but I have it in my notes here that it took me 4 h

ours to get enough Shards to do half of  them. The problem with this is simple: it’s much more exciting to look for rare Pokémon than it is  to spend an hour hunting for 2/3rds of a chance at one. The tedium could have been ameliorated  if you could dig them up throughout the game, but you can’t. They only become available  in the post-game. If, for whatever reason, you dedicate yourself to doing all this, here’s  a tip: the best way to find Shards in the walls is to chip away the tiles like thi

s – each three  tiles apart. That way, you can see all the 3x3 items at once, then decide what you're going for. If you fail to catch a Pokémon, you have to go and scrape together enough Shards to replace  the Slate. I kind of like this in principle; it’s trying to make it so you can’t just bash  your head off it. You have limited opportunities, so you have decide which Pokémon you want first.  If you fail, you have to go back Underground to hunt for Shards – it's not a hard wall, you don’t  los

e your opportunity forever, but it’s an actual punishment. Or at least, it’s supposed to be. You  can just save and bash your head off it anyway; getting the Shards is such a pain in the arse  that if you couldn't, if you had to stick to the terms the game seems to be establishing,  I think it'd be the bigger issue. I cannot imagine anybody sticking to the letter of the  law here in good faith – Ramanas Park is torture. Thankfully the catching itself  is just as strong as ever. Collecting Pokémo

n is incredibly addictive, and  the tension of the ball shaking still has me on the edge of my seat every time: it’s one of  my favourite developments. Each wobble is its own individual check; the game doesn’t know  ahead of time whether or not you’re going to catch the Pokémon, it is truly random. I know  writers tend to hate the “you couldn’t make it up” cliché but that overlooks the excitement of  an emergent experience that is truly unscripted. The type system marries itself well to catching

  Pokémon too – you can modulate your damage by choosing either regular or Not Very Effective  moves. There’s an astonishing amount of synergy between Pokémon’s core systems. It demands  grace under pressure – you walking a delicate tightrope while it’s trying to knock you out. Each Poké Ball excels in a different area. The range isn’t great – Quick Balls and Timer Balls  seem maybe a little too useful compared to a lot of other options, for example. That’s maybe a  contributing factor in why pe

ople are so fed up of Quick Balls – the fact is, they’re just that  good. Timer Balls used to climb to a 4x catch multiplier over 40 turns. They now reach that  same amount in 10 – even 4 turns into the battle, they're still outperforming Ultra Balls. I’m  not even necessarily sure it’s a bad thing to have a best option, but it doesn’t matter  either way; those kinds of minor teething issues don’t invalidate how good the Poké Balls  are in general. Even if they aren’t balanced at all I’d like to

see even more kinds introduced! I had a difficult time figuring out how I felt about Critical Captures. Logically I thought  they were just a nice boon, but in practice I found them unaccountably frustrating. Finally I  can back that stance up with cold hard numbers. Critical Captures supposedly raise the likelihood  of capturing a Pokémon; the Ball only performs a single chance check rather than four. The problem  is, even at the highest possible likelihood of getting one, they’re so rare that

your chances  of catching a Pokémon with a Critical Capture is actually lower than getting them with a regular  throw. I’ve had a fair number of times when I’ve gotten a Critical Capture and the Pokémon’s ended  up escaping anyway. It’s a fleeting frustration, but it’s a frustration nonetheless. Does that make  them worthless? Not at all! The game is stronger with this system than without as it introduces the  possibility of a clutch save or unique scenario, another water-cooler moment. Again,

we’re not  logical creatures, and random chance can really help spice things up. Critical Captures aren’t  interfering with anything else, either, so overall I’m really happy with them, I like them. Now that we’re Champion, we’re finally allowed access to Snowpoint Temple and all the  rare Pokémon inside. Like, uh, Graveler. And Golbat. Candice, are you taking the piss? At the bottom of the temple slumbers Regigigas. And once again, the Titans end up being  the best legendaries in the game for m

e. Now, obviously I know what to do to awaken it,  I’ve been playing these games for years and am trying to pace a video. But more than likely,  your first time through, Regigigas will create three separate moments of intrigue. The outside  of the temple comes complete with one ruined pillar – removing one of the dotted designs as  if to censor it. If you know about the Regis, this will set your imagination ablaze. Once  you defeat the League, more than likely you’ll come back here and find the

sleeping Regigigas  before you can awaken it – tantalisingly close, but yet so far. “A body of rock. A body of ice.  A body of steel. When gather the three Pokémon, the king shall appear.” Led by this clue, you come  back here with the three Titans in your party, and finally awaken Regigigas. This is the kind of  mystery that I love about the legendaries. They build intrigue in and around existing areas, imply  things about the people that lived here before us. Even now, Regigigas guards a myste

ry: the symbols  on the pillars outside don’t match the patterns for any of the known Regis. What does that mean?  Is that just how people wrote? If it is, does that mean the Pokémon were man-made? If not, does it  imply there are more Regis yet to be discovered? Unfortunately Regigigas’ Slow Start Ability  make it a bit of a tragedy in battle. It’s one of the strongest Pokémon ever stat-wise,  but it gets its Attack and Speed halved the first five turns it’s in battle. Good luck keeping  it on-

screen until then. I like the narrative of it waking up sluggishly from a long sleep, it’s  just unfortunate it also means it’s a bit naff. Appearing off of Route 214 is Sendoff Spring,  the legendary “fourth lake” of Sinnoh. If the name and the music didn’t give it  away, the metaphysical nature of this lake is made apparent by the Pokémon selection. A  lot of them are spiritual – Chimecho, Haunter, Bronzong. This spring is our link to another world  – implied through theming to be the afterlif

e. Turnback Cave is a randomly generated maze – you  need to find 3 pillars before going through 30 rooms or you’re deposited outside and have to  start again. The symmetry of the rooms’ designs gives them a kind of eerie quality, like there’s  a direction here you can’t quite comprehend. Whether through sheer luck or good balancing I got  through first try with relatively little stress. At the deepest point of the cave stands  Giratina, completing Sinnoh’s creation trio. Giratina’s theming is c

omplex and difficult  to understand. The original concept behind the Pokémon included such high-concept ideas as  “matter, antimatter, and Einstein’s theory of relativity.” Antimatter, to give an explanation  I don’t quite understand myself, is like a “negative,” an “opposite” that exists for every  particle in existence. For every electron (with a negative charge), there is a corresponding  positron (which has the same mass but a positive charge). If the two meet, they annihilate each  other. G

iratina’s lore supports the comparison. It is, “[a] Pokémon that is said to live in a  world on the reverse side of ours.” It is implied to be a byproduct of the universe’s creation,  rather than something created deliberately. This literal explanation of Giratina’s origins  doesn’t quite account for its spiritual component, though. The second part of that ‘dex entry reads,  “[i]t appears in an ancient cemetery.” It is surrounded by death. Another part of its original  concept was the more spiri

tual vision of Sakasa Fuji, or a reversed Mt. Fuji – the reflection  of the mountain on the lake. In Masuda’s words: “[t]he mountain exists on the lake through human  eyes, but it’s only a reflection and doesn’t exist.” This inherent, deliberate contradiction  is difficult to get your head around. Giratina is also the only one of its trio not to have a  gemstone associated with it – or maybe it does. The “Gira” in its name, or “jira” could possibly  come from Girasol Opal, a kind of white quartz

that often displays ghostly looking crystals on  the inside called “phantoms.” Maybe it’s more like “gyre,” “Gyre-atina,” like The Widening Gyre  – yeah, okay, let’s maybe nip that, I’m not going to hit you with the Yeats this far into the video. But it is interesting though, right? If Giratina is associated with death, and it’s implied  to be a byproduct of the universe’s creation, doesn’t that kind of assume intention? That  the universe was created for life—yeah, okay. Again, the scientific

and the spiritual are  competing here. There’s even another layer of theming to this trio of Dialga, Palkia, and  Giratina that you may have missed: their Steel, Water, and Ghost types perhaps reflecting the  solid, liquid, gas states of matter. In that case, “gas,” a physical scientific phenomenon, is being  represented by perhaps the most spiritual type. This may be a problem born of us considering  the scientific and the spiritual to be such inherently different disciplines. Or maybe I’m  not

giving the game enough credit; maybe this is a clever device to avoid concrete explanation.  There’s a lot of information to work with, but none of it is conclusive, and I think  that makes Giratina a lot more interesting. I wish the visuals in Brilliant Diamond did a  better job reflecting its majesty and mystery though. It’s a tiny wee thing, standing  barely taller than your chibi character, and the flat lighting and generic  cave graphics don’t flatter it either. Far more dramatic is the le

vel 100 Giratina  you can fight in Ramanas Park afterwards. It appears as a shadow, in its Origin Form it  only adopts when in its native dimension. Unquestionably the biggest casualty of the  decision to not include any Platinum content, the Distortion World was an incredibly cool area  that helped clarify some of the themes Giratina was broaching. Disappointing as its absence is,  I understand the game not finding a place for it, to be honest. It would involve completely  rewriting the climax

at least. This is a nice tribute at least, to show that the game  still embraces the idea. If nothing else it makes for a far more dramatic backdrop for  your battle with such an important Pokémon. You can’t catch this version of Giratina,  but defeating it grants you the Griseous Orb, allowing you to change Giratina’s form at  will. It’s a cool little boss – having you fight one overwhelmingly powerful Pokémon without  attempting to catch it is a pretty cool setup. Dawn’s family clue you into t

he swarms  of Pokémon appearing around Sinnoh. Dawn gets absolutely bammed up by them  though. Poor lassie! These outbreaks encourage you to come back and play daily. I found some cool Pokémon – Spoink on Route 214, Electrike in Valley Windworks, Lickitung in Lake  Valor. But man… I wish they didn’t look and feel so awful. I understand that the tall grass  is itself abstract, but it still feels so, so fake to have Pokémon pop in and out in  great numbers with minimal animation. That sensation is

only confirmed when you realise it’s  entirely cosmetic – running into a Pokémon sees it disappear right in front of you. Despite  what you may think going by the visuals, the game is still running on the regular  random encounter mechanics. It’s a disaster. I got a Beldum swarm on Route 228 today,  so I went off to right the wrongs of Omega Ruby and get myself a Metagross. Beldum is an absolute bastard of a boy to catch – a ridiculously low catch rate of 3 puts  it on par with most of the lege

ndaries we met, and even surpasses some like Rayquaza.  Fortunately, the only move it learns in Gen VIII is Tackle instead of Take Down – yeah,  you can imagine how much of a headache this was back when it was constantly braining itself. Beldum evolves by joining with other Beldum to create bigger and more complex supercomputer  brains – so we’re calling it Cerebeldum. Our next stop is Victory Road. One of the side  passages was blocked off before we defeated the Elite Four – it’s about time we

explored it. This side passage leads onto Route 224. I’ll be honest, I forgot about this Route earlier  when I said Route 230 was the last one, but I’m keeping the mistake in because damn,  there’s so much to see in Sinnoh! Even if you’re not its biggest fan, totally understandable, but  I hope I’ve gotten across why I like it so much. I can’t say the same for the last  of the Stat Trainers, unfortunately. Marley is… okay, what’s a polite way to say  “fucking useless?” Arcanine is an amazing par

tner in doubles. Intimidate, Snarl,  and Will-O-Wisp allow it to hamper its opponents’ attacking stats. It also has access to  powerful moves like Flare Blitz and Extreme Speed. Marley’s Arcanine, on the other hand, has Burn  Up, Howl, Leer, and Helping Hand. Howl and Leer both improve physical attacks, while its only  attacking move is Special, and can only be used once. It essentially just uses Burn Up, loses its  Fire typing, and then just sits there buffing your attack while you do all the w

ork. It means each  match takes ages, even before you factor in Sand Stream and Intimidate activating at the beginning  of every match, or Metagross taking about 5 turns to punch a Purugly. Seriously, this is some really  abysmal luck – it’s supposed to be 90% accurate! Marley isn’t even sticking to her stat any more  – she’s supposed to be focused on the Speed stat, with her Arcanine knowing Extremespeed and  Agility in the originals. I’ve no idea what this moveset is going for. At least it sti

ll  kept Helping Hand, which I feel plays off her desire to see Shaymin, the Gratitude Pokémon. Being in here with Marley is a bit fiddly, like it was with Buck, but this is  enough of an excuse to talk about bugs and glitches. Because I didn’t encounter many. There were two that I found: the clouds jumped at one point, and the Ball Capsules kept coming  loose from the Pokémon when I’d move them around in the boxes. The former barely warrants mention  and the latter was a minor inconvenience. Th

at was about it, so far as I can remember. Obviously I’m only speaking for myself, but while I don’t think the game is super polished, I  never found it unstable or anything. I’m expecting a few people to have informed me of a bug that  allowed you to move diagonally in Candice’s Gym, skipping the entire puzzle. I never noticed. Maybe  I wasn’t looking hard enough, but for me, the bugs you have to try to activate don't really influence  my opinion of a game one way or the other. It’s not even li

ke I can offer you the caveat that I  didn’t play it pre-patch; the game came through my door the day before release. Normally I wouldn’t  grass up the retailer, but it was Nintendo UK, so. I’m not saying this to challenge people that did  find the game buggy; I believe them! I’m saying this because I feel like I have to cover my own  tracks. It’s a subject I feel I have to address, rather than it being something I actually had a  lot of problems with. If you encountered a ton of glitches that h

ampered your experience,  that sucks, but that’s totally valid! I just think it would be dishonest to pretend  that your experience was also my experience. Anyway, after all that, there’s nothing even here. If you have Oak’s Letter, distributed through a limited time event, you can return here to  find Seabreak Path, a long stretch of land that allows you to catch the Mythical Pokémon  Shaymin. Unfortunately I missed my opportunity, so this entire Route lacks a destination. It’s a bit of a slap

in the face considering how the legendaries are vacuum-packed into this game.  Cresselia only gets a dinky wee island to itself, and yet here’s a cave and an entire Route  dedicated to a Pokémon barely anybody’s going to actually see. Imagine if this Route had  instead been used to build up to a cool legendary, to help create some history and context before you  tried to catch it. Instead, because Shaymin isn’t available in the base game, they spend this time  building up to a payoff that will l

ikely never come. This dead end may have been tantalising back  when the games were still active, but nowadays it’s a stark reminder that neither game – original  or remake – are ever going to be complete again. It just feels like a bit of a waste, you know? I did play in time to get a couple of Mythical Pokémon, though. Even putting aside my issues  with how they’re integrated into the world, I have a lot of problems with their execution. Because Mythical Pokémon are essentially just trophies.

They can usually only be caught after  the player has already completed the game, and are unable to be used competitively or  in the Battle Tower. They’re basically there so you can show off to your friends. For me, they don’t encourage constant participation, either. Without any new scenario  or intrigue, I’m not really interested. In a best case scenario where I’m still in a Pokémon  mood, I’ll turn the game on, download the Pokémon, catch it if I have to, and then bung it in  a box to be forg

otten for the rest of time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for them  to be gated behind real-world events again, that was a whole other nightmare. But  you know what I mean, at least then, finally getting to see this Pokémon you’d only  read about was a little bit of an event. They’ve become so routine and so easy to obtain  now, they don’t exactly feel Mythical. The only obstacle is remembering to turn the game on  one particular week. It’s not exactly riveting. If anything, these kinds of

timed exclusives  discourage me from getting back into something if I’ve been on a break. Maybe this is the  perfectionist in me ruining my life yet again, but if I poke my head back around the door and  see half a dozen event Pokémon I missed out on, I don’t feel encouraged to stick around, I feel like  I’ve missed out on too much and stop bothering. If they were made available permanently,  I could just dip in and out as I please. They also discourage me from replaying a  lot of the games I’m

fond of. You’ve seen the consequences of it in this very video,  even. I recited Shaymin’s Platinum Dex entry all the way back in Floaroma Town, but that was  second-hand information. I trust it’s correct, but I’m unable to verify it for myself. I had  Shaymin back in 2009 when it was distributed, but keeping that save file would require  I never replay one of my favourite games! I don’t know, I really like the idea of  the series having these Pokémon that are such closely guarded secrets that i

t’s not a  guarantee that every player will get them. But Mythicals aren’t the way to go about it, for me.  Once you’ve sussed them they aren’t intriguing or exciting. They just feel kind of hollow. Our first Mythical sees us return to the locked building in Canalave City. Pokémon is so good at  these creepy little vignettes – the man in the Harbour Inn inviting you to sleep before you’ve  even said a word, travelling to Newmoon Island in your dreams, and of course, you re-emerging to  find that

it’s been closed for the past 50 years. Creepy and impactful as Darkrai is, the poor  thing hasn’t half been dealt a bad hand. Okay, so its signature move is Dark Void, which has 80%  accuracy and puts both opponents to sleep at once in double battles. This incredibly powerful  move was limited by the fact that Darkrai, of course, was unavailable in competitive  formats. That didn’t stop Smeargle stealing the move during VGC2016 and going on an absolute  tear with it. So the move was nerfed in

Gen VII, not only preventing it from being used by  any Pokémon that isn’t Darkrai, solving the problem all on its own, but also lowering its  accuracy to 50%. Most Darkrai now run Hypnosis instead – the nightmare Pokémon’s exclusive sleep  move is worse than the store brand. Poor thing. This isn’t the only time that a single Pokémon  has resulted in sweeping changes to the mechanics, of course – Paralysis and Confusion were both  nerfed heavily in response to Thundurus. It maybe says something

about the series’ infrastructure  that it’s easier for them to make sweeping changes to moves and systems than it is for them to  make changes to individual Pokémon. I don’t know what it says; honestly it makes getting  Confused or Paralysed a lot less annoying, so, you know what, thanks Thundurus! The second Mythical I was in time for, just to round everything out, was God itself.  This is the other side of the coin when it comes to Mythical Pokémon: this game’s story feels  practically incompl

ete without Arceus. This is the Pokémon that all the myths have been  alluding to, after all – the Original One, the shaper of the world, the ???. Miss it  and a lot of mysteries don’t have a payoff. I love the setting, the colours and the  music here. The transparent stairway warping the perspective more and more as you climb  higher, and then the sting of Arceus’ theme kicking in. The rumble of the drums makes  it clear: this isn’t just another Pokémon, this is an unknowable, overwhelming forc

e of  nature. Imagine yawning in the face of God. We’re careening towards the endgame now. With  Battle Points to be earned it’s time to boot up Pokémon HOME and start fiddling about with  our Pokémon collection. A lot of the fanbase’s complaints seem to be funnelled through here,  and to be fair, I can see why. It’s trying, bless its wee heart, but it’s a wee bit wonky. Pokémon HOME is a Switch application; the central hub for trading all your Pokémon between games.  You can even send your fell

as from Pokémon GO. It’s overall smooth and easy to use – it’s missing  a couple of quality of life features (better sorting options would be nice) but I’m just glad  we’ll never have to use Poké Transfer again. There is a fee to use this app, but I think the  monetisation is sensible. Of course ideally it would be free, but I’m willing to take them at  face value that the fee is necessary for server space, and besides which, it’s sensible. The  free plan gives you 30 slots, and the Premium plan

gives you 6,000 slots. It’s £3 a month for  Premium, which sets off alarm bells, but I don’t feel it’s particularly problematic: it doesn’t try  to hoodwink you with a free trial or rolling fee you’re likely to forget about. It’s £3 a month  up front, so you decide whether or not that’s worth it for you and make an informed choice. What makes that fee feel a bit cheeky, though, is Dexit. The only program on the Switch that has  access to all your Pokémon is HOME: the one with the subscription f

ee. If you’ve been curating a  growing collection of Pokémon for generations, now you have to pay separately for that privilege. I  think you have every right to be annoyed by that. Again, though, maybe I’ve just been mistreated  for too long by the rest of the industry, but this doesn’t seem awful. I ended up  spending the £3 once or twice when I needed it, secure in the knowledge that, the rest of  the time, my collection was safe and sound. They don’t delete it if you stop paying or  anything

, you just lose access to them. Again: it’s not good, it’s not progress, but it’s  fine. I get why they have to do it, and it’s nowhere near as gauche as it could have been. But there are a lot of asterisks and confusing limitations besides. I don’t mean confusing  in the phony, “what were they thinking?” way, but in a way that makes it genuinely unclear  sometimes what you can and cannot do. First off, it took until May 2022 – about 7 months  after the game’s release – for Brilliant Diamond and

Shining Pearl to become compatible with  Pokémon HOME. There’s been some speculation about the delay being caused by difficulties  transferring information between Unity and the custom engine Game Freak uses for the rest of the  series, but again, that’s neither here nor there; I’ll leave them to fret about the reasons why.  All I know is, it was a bit of a frustrating wait. Even once it became available, a lot of Pokémon  were restricted – even some available across the games. Spinda and Ninca

da can’t be sent from  Pokémon HOME to Brilliant Diamond at all. Presumably this is due to some weird interactions  with the algorithm that chooses Spinda’s spots and the fact that Nincada evolves from one into  two Pokémon – the anti-cloning check might have trouble with that. Not a huge issue – it’d be much  worse if it were the other way around – but still, a weird quirk you have to know about. There’s also the matter of Pokémon Bank. If you wanted to transfer your Pokémon from  the 3DS you’d

have to pay for that service as well. It was a pittance to be absolutely fair  – something like a fiver for an entire year, but it was another program and fee to keep track  of. Juggling all these different consoles and apps, downloading updates and troubleshooting  when they inevitably encountered a problem, was a bit of a farce. Of course, that may not be  a problem for long. The recent announcement of the shuttering of the 3DS’s online services has  sounded the death knell for Pokémon Bank.

There has only ever been a hard cut-off point between  Generations II and III. When Bank goes down, there will be a cut-off between  Generations V, VI, VII, and VIII. Gen VIII is also awkwardly segmented. Like I  say, only HOME has access to everything. I can’t, for example, trade Back Garden across to  Sword and Shield. This is a problem with expectations. Pokémon established a precedent  for a linear increase in scale early on: each new game had to include every Pokémon so far,  every move so

far, and all of the new stuff. That, it seems, is no longer a guarantee. I think it’s  disappointing: that precedent was important to a lot of fans. Part of what made Shiny hunting so  worthwhile was the idea you’d be able to hold onto that Pokémon forever, trading it forward like an  old friend – or at least an heirloom. Now you are paying for a rotating slice of your collection.  It is a downgrade no matter how you look at it. Generational mechanics are another big cut. These  systems appeared

for a single game before being discarded – hence “generational,” I suppose. Mega  Evolutions, Z-Moves, and Dynamax are completely isolated to compatible games. Mega Evolutions are  particularly tragic I think. I had my misgivings with them of course, but all that design work is  now going completely to waste – not to mention the life it breathed into certain Pokémon. If you  disliked these mechanics the high turnover rate means you never need to put up with them for long.  But if any one of the

m really tickles your pickle, it’s disappointing to never see the idea  iterated or at least brought forward. Moves are a particular pain in the arse to  sort out. Pokémon can have different learnsets depending on the game, so their moves will reset  when transferred. I like this normalising effect in principle, levelling the playing field  after years’ worth of event-exclusive moves, game-exclusive Tutors, and generation-exclusive  Egg Moves. Veteran players are no longer at an objective advant

age because they happened to have  access to a particular event. It also means that powerful moves can be reined in – Toxic used to  be practically universal, but now has a far more limited distribution. But it means some movesets  feel hamstrung. There’s no way for Kipz to learn Ice Punch… but only in this game specifically.  He can learn Ice Punch in Emerald, Platinum, and even Sword and Shield, but try and bring it  back into Brilliant Diamond and the game reverts his moveset. He can learn th

e move I want, and the  move I want is programmed into the game, but for some reason I’m still not allowed to use it. The  biggest victim of this seems to be Zapdos – BDSP marked the first time in a long time it wasn’t  a force to be reckoned with competitively, having lost a lot of coverage in Heat Wave. I hope  nobody spent a lot of time getting their Hidden Power type right; that effort is completely  wasted as only Unown learns it in Gen VIII. I don’t especially miss it – getting the typing 

right was always like trying to pick a lock with a ladle – but I know a lot of Pokémon do. These limitations and omissions make the series feel more disposable; less investible  over a longer period of time. If you had been with the series for years, Shiny hunting  and curating movesets, that loyalty is no longer rewarded. New barriers are instead  erected – not maliciously, but, you know, it’s impossible to argue with a wall. Now, you – or I, let’s be real, it’s me saying this – I might argue

that these  limitations are a good thing in some ways. I think it’s interesting Brilliant Diamond  having a roster of Pokémon and items so faithful to Generation IV but with new moves  and Abilities. Recent powerhouses have been so strong they’ve muscled weaker Pokémon completely  out of contention. I said it hours ago, but a smaller roster allows weaker Pokémon to present  a greater value proposition. Expectations aside, this was always going to happen at some stage.  Pokémon is an enormous log

istical challenge as we’ve discussed; it would be impossible to  indefinitely maintain the standard set about 20 years ago. And, to be fair, they haven’t handled  it horribly. This is maybe cold comfort but it easily could have been a hundred times worse. But even if you swallow those platitudes it doesn’t solve HOME’s more frustrating quirks.  The simple fact is these limitations are confusing and frustrating for the user. On a final note: I think Gen VIII’s problems prove how important it is 

to have interplay between the games. In previous Generations, new releases  complemented each other. Competition was enriched by new options; collaboration was  made more exciting with a batch of new Pokémon to trade. In Generation VIII, the releases  compete with one another. I said there that Zapdos was no longer a force to be reckoned with  in competitive BDSP, when the truth is BDSP barely had a competitive scene at all. Why bother when  Sword and Shield’s was so much more bountiful? GAME FR

EAK’S Shigeki Morimoto can be  fought at Hotel Grand Lake, which rewards you with the Oval Charm and the DS Sounds item. It’s a cute little touch, this one, replacing the music with the original sounds. May as well leave  it on if we’re retreading familiar ground anyway. Because it’s time for the  customary rematch roundup. You can rematch regular trainers using the Vs.  Seeker, which works fine, but the recharge time is a little frustrating. Sometimes the trainers  you want to rematch just won’

t respond, meaning you need to wiggle the analogue stick around  for a couple dozen seconds before trying again. Otherwise, you can fight the Gym Leaders once a  day, and Barry and Dawn on the weekends. Which was a bit irritating, honestly – I was busy on  the Sunday, meaning I could either rush through all of this recording on Saturday, wait a week, or  ruin my Berries which I’ll be needing fairly soon. So in the spirit of rushing through things, here  are some one sentence summaries of the rem

atches to get to the stuff we actually want to talk  about. Dawn: I deserved to lose Avocado here; Roark: Bandage destroyed him; Gardenia: Vice  Vespa destroyed her; Maylene: I can’t believe we have to do this puzzle again; Wake: I mean  Crasher Wake; Fantina: this game’s too scary, turn it off; Byron: Head Smash Aggron has  literally no other moves for some reason, I wonder if that’s an AI problem; Candice:  Candice lassie win a Pokémon battle? No; and Volkner: this Avocado switch was a bit  ch

eeky, I really probably ought to have used Set mode for these battles, eh? I don’t want you  to take the tongue-in-cheek nature of this bit as me dismissing them, by the way, I had a lot of  fun in all of these matches. There’s just someone I’m more interested in talking about. He’s been  waiting practically the entire video for this bit. And that’s Barry. Barry is seen as one of the weaker rivals in the Pokémon series. I certainly  thought so, which is why I was so surprised to realise how stro

ng a character he is. He’s  surprisingly well fleshed out. His dad’s absence (and their similarities, he is his father’s son)  motivates his hurry to prove himself. He’s always one step ahead of you, charging from place to  place, crashing into stuff, and just generally making a nuisance of himself. It almost justifies  the original Diamond and Pearl’s ponderous speed, contrasting your slower approach against his. It’s annoying, but in kind of a lovable way. Chasing the Galactic Grunt out of Pas

toria  sees you interrupted by Barry. I love how chuffed he is that he didn’t crash into you as  he’s at his most disruptive. When you finally reach the Pokémon League and present your badges,  the tension crescendos and you prepare to take the plunge… and then Barry appears for one  last bout. If you found this frustrating, that was exactly the point: it’s annoying,  but it’s so, so characterful. His popping up at the most inopportune moments creates a real  antagonistic relationship between yo

u and Barry. This is the foundation of your rivalry. The  purpose of the rival is to act as a measuring stick. They’re on the same journey as you, but you  see it from the outside in. So you have to want to fight against them, you have to want to compete,  for them to fulfill their purpose. This is why the adversarial rival is so popular, the arsehole  always lording it over you and goading you into fights. But that’s not the only way to do it.  Even if Barry isn’t always better, he’s faster; he

’s always doing everything before you do, and  making a much bigger impression on everyone you both meet. You have to work to distinguish  yourself against him. That makes him a more compelling rival, particularly at the beginning. The problem is, the more victories you get under your belt, the less seriously you can take him.  Your approach is vindicated as he loses to you time and time again. He begins to fall in your  estimations long before he starts jobbing to bit-part NPCs. Sure, his loss

at Lake Acuity  sets him up to avenge himself at Spear Pillar, but the story does so little with this and his  epiphany about power that I don’t think it was worth destroying his credibility. I mean,  he loses to Jupiter and her bum face bastard farting Pokémon, it’s a bit of a red neck. Then  he climbs all the way to the top of Mt. Coronet, the peak of the region, enlists your help to  get his payback, and then leaves for no reason. From then on, there’s no friction between you,  there’s no que

stion about who’s stronger. One of you fought a primordial God; the other nipped  off for a Capri-Sun. And after his credibility is stripped away, all you’re really left with is a  very impatient but fundamentally nice guy. And, nice as being nice is, it doesn’t really  motivate you to defeat him, does it? Barry’s redemption comes in the Battle Tower,  where he puts up a much bigger fight in the Master Class Double Battles. But so, so few people  are likely to even reach them, let alone get far

enough into them to battle Barry, that they’re  never going to see this conclusion to his arc. Some prep-work went into the rematches  against the Elite Four. I decided to use the 150BP I got from using Pokémon HOME to  patch over some choice weaknesses in my team. We got Thunder Wave on Scramble, a Modest  Nature for Bandage, and finally, finally, I started paying attention and we got Seed Bomb  on Back Garden. We’ll need every advantage, because these fights are really difficult. Their difficu

lty is achieved by basically optimising each of their Pokémon, giving them  access to a bunch of items and strategies you’re unlikely to be able to match. That may seem a  little unfair, and it is, but as a post-game, optional challenge? I kind of love that.  It’s also balanced by a couple of factors: you have practically unlimited access  to items at this point, and the AI isn’t amazing – Infernape’s Focus Sash is worthless if  you're going to use a Full Restore, for example. But it’s edge-of-t

he-seat stuff that demanded I  brought all the strategies I had to the table. All of this before we even get to Cynthia: the  absolute summit of Brilliant Diamond’s in-game. My strategy was to set up using Avocado’s  Dragon Dance and hopefully snowball from there. Her Spiritomb doesn't have anything  that can catastrophically damage a Tyranitar, so I’ve got a lot of breathing room to buff  myself. That strategy worked … until we encountered her Focus Sash Close Combat Lucario.  I can’t OHKO it,

it’s part Steel so the Sandstorm doesn’t do anything, and STAB Close Combat is  4x effective on Tyranitar, so that’s a loss, that’s just a complete – oh ho ho ho ho, Avocado  you spicy minx. This is it: call this wrong and I lose all my momentum. If I attack and she uses  Extremespeed I lose; if I heal and she uses Close Combat I lose. The sweat beads. I lick my dry  lips. My finger hovers over the button. You’re mad? I’m mad! I deserved to lose  Tyranitar twice over, come on Cynthia, punish me!

Okay, maybe that’s a wee bit horny. So after all that, after essentially rinsing all the in-game content, do I feel ready for the  Battle Park? Well, slightly, but really only because of that 150BP from Pokémon HOME. Getting  a footing in the Battle Tower demands a heroic amount of patience and good will for the game. It’s ridiculously tough; I wouldn’t describe it as a difficulty spike or even a difficulty wall.  For all intents and purposes, it may as well be a completely separate game. Pokém

on and strategies  that carried you through the single-player are useless here; previously worthless moves  and strategies become oppressively powerful. Even catching and raising a Pokémon is  completely different. To prove my point I’m going to be taking you through my experience  raising a Pokémon fit for the Battle Tower. We’re finally going to get ourselves that Vaporeon. We want an Eevee with the Egg Move Wish, which can only be obtained from its parent. So  first, we need to catch a male T

ogepi and teach it Wish. Since it’s a baby Pokémon, we then we  need to raise its friendship so it evolves. Then we need to breed Togetic with a female Pikachu  to get a male Pichu with Wish. Then we need to raise its friendship so it evolves. Now we need  to breed a female Eevee with that male Pikachu to create an Eevee with Wish. You can keep  doing that until you get the Nature you want, or simply breed that Eevee with a Bold Ditto  holding the Everstone, and there we go, a Bold Eevee with Wi

sh. I called her Slush Puppie! Next up is EV training – that’s “Effort Value,” not “Eevee training.” I’m grabbing  a standard recipe from Smogon here, both because I’m desperately unoriginal but also  to prove a point. We want 248 HP, 224 Defence, and 36 Special Defence. I understand this probably  isn’t optimal for the Battle Tower; this EV spread is meant to let Vaporeon hit key thresholds in the  Gen IV OU metagame. So, you know, this is bobbins, except that it's a pre-made spread that doesn’

t  max out any of Vaporeon’s EVs! And that allows me to show you how awkward EV training is. As  none of these numbers are maxed out, we can’t rely on the vague graph the game gives us: we have  to manually keep a tally of every EV going in. You have to maintain a constant vigil to ensure these  stats don’t go over their goal; you can’t just stick this on in the background while watching  the telly or something. Make sure you don’t get bored and skip a tally, or get distracted  when the Poké Rad

ar chain inevitably drops, and for goodness’ sake make sure you don’t catch  any random Pokémon you may run into along the way. Catching Pokémon gives you Exp, which also  means it gives you EVs, and with the Exp. Share, all of your Pokémon get them. To be fair, that  does mean I can EV train multiple Pokémon at the same time. I’d been growing EV reducing Berries  every chance I got, so I tanked Vice Vespa and Giblets full of them and am raising their stats  at the same time. I also went ahead a

nd got some of the Power Items using my Battle Points. But honestly, I needn’t have bothered with any of this. The far easier method  is to battle the toffs on Route 212, ideally with the Amulet Coin, get a ton of money,  then spend that scratch on Vitamins – each one is 10 EVs. Genuinely – it’s a lot faster,  it’s a lot easier, it’s a lot more mindless. With its Natures, EVs, and Egg Move in  place – and its IVs pretty damn good, which was a stroke of luck! – it’s time to level  up Slush Puppie

. Usually the Pokémon League is the best way to grind levels in the post-game,  but that’s not really feasible with them being so difficult. I got her to level 50 which is  standard for the Battle Tower, but there’s no way I’m getting anything to level 100 so that  means there’s no way I can sort anybody’s IVs. You can only do Hyper Training at level 100. So, for now, we have her item. I’m just giving Slush Puppie the Leftovers, it’s a standard kind  of item for a defensive Pokémon. My plan was

to have her use Wish to heal up her teammates if  necessary, or Wish and Protect to heal herself. Unfortunately the only thing that can’t be changed  about a Pokémon in Gen VIII is its Hidden Ability. The Ability Patch can change to a Hidden Ability,  but not from. That turned out to be a minor problem with Slush Puppie – I didn’t realise  she had the Hidden Ability Hydration instead of the usual Water Absorb. I worked around  it though, eventually revising her moveset to a Rain Dance/Rest setup

. So long as there was  rain, she could use Rest to heal to full without sleeping for multiple turns. I love how much  more accessible the Ability Patch has made Hidden Abilities, but I feel like if we’re this far along  it may as well be able to switch them back too. So that’s it! Again, I feel like I ought to  mention I haven’t done much criticism here: I’ve literally just described to you the process  I went through. If you found this segment boring, congratulations! That was the point. I sai

d earlier these videos afford me the opportunity to really dig into the games,  to give time and energy to the parts I wouldn’t bother with normally. While I really appreciate  that, there’s a hidden edge to that sentiment: would I really be doing this, forcing myself  to prepare for the Battle Tower, had I not dedicated myself to an “exhaustive” look? The answer is no, no I would not. Getting Slush Puppie to this point took me about  four hours. To be fair, this is all much faster and easier in

Pokémon Sword and Shield,  and I wasn’t playing particularly efficiently. But even half that time would be steep for a  single Pokémon. I had to grind for ages to be able to play the game I actually wanted to play. And it’s not like that grind was enjoyable. I don’t find tinkering with all these separate  esoteric systems fun, especially with Sinnoh’s map design. Training a Pokémon late-game involves  constant travel between Solaceon for breeding, Veilstone for TMs, and Pastoria for the Move  R

eminder. It gets exhausting fast. Despite the fact I demonstrably enjoy this series a  lot, I don’t think I’d force myself through this were I not making a video on it. Keep in  mind this was all for just one Pokémon – the other two are going in with whatever stats and  moves I can get my hands on. Don’t talk to me about Giblets’ Attack IVs, that is heartbreaking. The game does absolutely nothing to incentivise this investment. There’s no tutorial, no  encouragement, no positive feedback of any

kind to demonstrate the appeal of the Battle  Tower to a new player. Instead, all the items you could use to get started are locked away  behind a ludicrous amount of Battle Points you can only earn by doing well in the first place.  It’s a real rich-get-richer setup. And that’s to say nothing of the specialised knowledge you  need: specialised knowledge the game doesn’t provide. At the beginning, you need to make  the effort on the blind faith that you will, eventually, come to enjoy the mode.

Many  players – including me, ordinarily! – just won’t bother. It’s no wonder the battle  facilities have become such an afterthought. Pokémon’s competitive scene is  beyond the scope of this video; I was just doing Battle Tower. But I believe my  sentiments are shared by a lot of the community! Even the most dedicated competitive players  – the ones who will fly around the world to compete in Pokémon tournaments! – can’t be  bothered! So far as I understand it they basically all use “genned” Po

kémon; completely  legal Pokémon that have been hacked into the game rather than obtained legitimately.  If you think that sounds unsportsmanlike, you’re missing the point. They do it to make the  game more fair – to ensure the playing field is as level as possible. Otherwise your success would be  heavily influenced not by your skill at the game, but by how much time you had to tweak this array  of stats. You can argue that’s part of the game, and you’d be objectively correct, but it’s  a part

that isn’t satisfying, interesting, or fun to the majority of players, it seems. I can understand the series not wanting to lean into these systems, but its prevaricating has  made committing to this section a bit of a farce. A huge part of Pokémon’s target audience is  children; its core fantasy is growing with your favourite Pokémon, becoming friends with them. A  competitive mindset, on the other hand, demands more cynical decisionmaking. That can create  new favourites to be fair. But if the

series put that front and centre, it would probably be  offputting to a huge number of players. That risk is inherent to some extent, but Pokémon also  has a more specific problem. It’s made these two aspects – the fantasy, and high-level play –  mutually exclusive. As we discussed on Route 222, by expressing each Pokémon’s unique qualities  through stats, the game attributes worth: some Pokémon’s unique qualities make them  better or worse than others. Therefore, you cannot improve your Pokémo

n while maintaining  a child-friendly fantasy; you have to make cynical and sometimes cruel decisions to play the game  at its highest level. You have to start a bizarre eugenics pipeline, or force-feed your Pokémon  drugs to change almost everything about them. The game can’t be proud of its competitive  potential because it runs in opposition to its entire remit. So instead the  game sequesters these systems away, trusting that the hardcore audience will root  them out for themselves. Many, of

course, do! But it leaves little room to engage with these  mechanics on a more casual basis. There’s clearly interest in it, as evidenced by all the funny  Pokémon Showdown videos, but there seems to be little interest in getting to that point in-game. Of course, you may argue that sweating about the stats like this isn’t really necessary,  especially when you’re going up against the AI. Pokémon’s type system diminishes the  need for min-maxing, after all. But you still need to take every adva

ntage available. You need as much consistency as possible in the Battle Tower. A single “round” has  you fight 7 trainers in a row, each with 3 Pokémon apiece. There are so many fights that  bad luck becomes guaranteed – any possibility, no matter how slim, becomes a certainty over  a sufficient stretch of time. In those cases, you want every advantage in your corner. Many Pokémon explicitly exploit random chance. I ran into a Weezing with Will-O-Wisp,  Double Team, and Substitute, designed to w

hittle you down as you whiff hits over and over. If you  have a move like Aerial Ace or get some good luck, the fight is already over. Otherwise, you just  have to cross your fingers: not exactly what you want to be doing 20 matches in. Part of the problem here is the Battle Tower’s ridiculously harsh punishments. 3-on-3 fights mean one false move, bad matchup, or bit of bad luck, and you lose a third of your  team. Lose all three and you’re kicked right back to square one. I don’t mean you have

to fight all  7 trainers again, or get knocked down a rung, that would be fine: I mean you start the entire thing  from scratch. Back to fighting first-form Pokémon; back to earning 3BP for defeating 7 trainers.  It's unbelievably cruel. Imagine if that was how Elo worked. You lose one game against Kasparov  and you’re back to the after-school chess club. It makes losing genuinely stressful. Those  down-to-the-wire decisions or skin-of-your-teeth escapes lose all their romance when they mean a 

Sisyphean climb to reclaim your progress. Take this moment, for example: I made the mistake of  underestimating Froslass’ Speed stat and I lost both Boarealis and Giblets as a result. That’s a  learning moment, for me – Froslass is incredibly fast, now I know. But I can’t put that knowledge  into practice in future until I crawl my way back out of the little leagues, unless of course  Slush Puppie can pull something out of the bag. You don’t always get so lucky. On top of that  you’ve also got

to contend with Tower Tycoon Palmer, who represents not just one but two  pretty severe difficulty spikes. We haven’t even unlocked Master Rank, where you can really  start generating BP. If you’re good enough. But of course, you probably don’t have the BP to  be good enough to reach it, let alone compete! On top of all this, there’s the fact that  switching out a Pokémon involves another few hours of prepwork. I tried using Scramble a few  times, but decided her patented para-flinch combo wasn’

t consistent enough to get the results  I wanted. I would have loved to have tried a Yanmega instead – I’ve always wanted to use  Yanmega but never had the occasion. But the idea of spending another couple of hours getting one,  making sure it had the right Nature and Ability, getting the proper moves (either through  breeding or tracking down the limited TMs), making sure it had no weird IVs like Giblets… all  this shit, from scratch, again. I couldn’t do it. After about 20 hours of this,  I wa

s ready to pack it in. Every loss, whether that be from inexperience,  a bad roll of the dice, or both, came with a demoralising and time-consuming punishment.  Learning about one of my team’s shortcomings and switching Pokémon came with another  few hours of prepwork. And I wasn’t earning anywhere near enough BP to correct some of my  Pokémon’s flaws. It may well be that I was just playing poorly! But discovering where I was  going wrong and learning to play better was a miserable experience. T

he gap between recognising  a problem and organising a response is enormous. I genuinely don’t know how the hell  you’re supposed to pull this off. Although, of course… we do know one way. Pokémon is, of course, a social game. If Pokémon HOME gives you more Points, I’ll  just import my whole back catalogue. If Sword and Shield’s systems are really that much more  convenient, I’ll just ask my partner for some help. They even traded me over a Shiny Yanmega  from Legends: Arceus: meet Damsel! Her a

nd Aplomb got us to our first Master Rank victory! Don’t  ask me how they get so many Shinies, by the way, it’s legitimately frightening. I was worried  this might be going against the spirit of an Exhaustive Look at Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, but  any Look at Pokémon that doesn’t acknowledge the social features can’t really be called Exhaustive. And I’m glad I did. Because after all this work, I finally got to experience the  battle system at full strength. If you want to know why I’m so frustr

ated with  the Battle Tower, if you want to know why I go on and on about hidden stats, if you want  to know why I nitpick every little thing: this is why. I had so much fun. The  systems are so good. All of its flaws are backgrounded; all of its strengths emphasised! I got a Doubles team together and went on a tear through Master Rank. You guys were right, this has  made a Doubles convert of me. Although technically this is a Multi Battle which gives you a huge  advantage as you can focus down

a side to make it a 2v1 – but that’s not the point, the point is  I loved it. I was rewarded with huge chunks of BP and items, letting me train my Pokémon for myself.  Master Rank doesn’t reset progress completely on a loss – you have a couple of chances  before being knocked down a rung! Honestly, I started planning new teams even after  all this – I would love to use Venusaur on a Sun team! I finally saw the end of Barry’s  arc! I think it’s lovely, a really satisfying conclusion for your riva

l – see what you think! This is what I’d love to see more of in these games. Not because it’s difficult – if anything I  think it should be more accessible – but because Pokémon, at its best, is really, really fun. So, having conducted this elongated look at Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, what have we  learned? Well, nothing conclusive: I wasn’t really driving towards a singular point here. I hesitate to say Brilliant Diamond is emblematic of the problems the series faces. I think it’s  more a bypro

duct of the problems it faces. Generation VIII has been a transitional period  for Pokémon. It’s seen the series struggle to adjust to new hardware and audience expectations.  It’s had to make an enormous hardware leap in a single stride while continuing to expand.  The release schedule on the Switch has been exhausting – practically annual releases since  2018, even in the midst of a global pandemic. From that perspective, I think it’s remarkable  the games have been as good as they are. And ye

s, I feel the same way about Brilliant Diamond and  Shining Pearl. The brilliance of Sinnoh’s design and atmosphere shines even through modest  visuals. The expanded Pokémon selection improves replayability, and the Switch makes  social features more accessible than ever. But those improvements feel like the bare  minimum. Many of the game’s qualities lie in the strength of the original design; many  of its shortcomings lie in the changes and adaptations. Longtime fans had special cause for  dis

appointment because we’d already seen a version of these games many consider definitive. Even  conceding all the positives, there’s no getting around the Copperajah in the room. I played  a better version of these games back in 2009. And it’s not like Pokémon has ever been perfect  even then. Brilliant Diamond inherits a lot of shortcomings. Drama necessary to convey the game’s  themes feels disruptive; information about moves and stats is obscured by a kaleidoscope of hidden  values; and the se

ries still hasn’t found a way to package digestible tutorials about its nuances. I don’t think I need to prove that I have criticisms at this point. Unless for some reason  you’ve skipped to that sentence specifically, in which case: I have a lot of criticisms.  The hardcore fans seem to be with me on that, even if we disagree on some of the details.  But I haven’t found the conversation about those problems particularly helpful or  pleasant. It’s been downright nasty at times. I’m not going to

point fingers or name names,  so you’ll have to take my word for this, but I’ve seen a lot of misdirected hostility from the  fanbase: ad hominem attacks that mischaracterise developers as lazy or malicious. Now I can’t  tell you what goes on behind the scenes, but I’d wager one hundred of His Majesty’s finest  quid that nobody’s deliberately making the games worse. If you’re disappointed by recent releases,  that isn’t necessarily a moral outrage. You should be allowed to vocalise your disappoi

ntment, and  it should also inform your purchasing habits going forward. But criticism should not be a way  for us to avenge ourselves upon the developers. Their crime, such as it is, is making a  game we didn’t like as much as we wanted. I don’t mean to lecture you; I get it. There’s a big difference between my mentality now and my mentality five years ago that I  think has softened my stance on the series. I’ve stopped waiting on that “ultimate” Pokémon  game. I’m happy to take the series as i

t comes; new releases are no longer competing with the  ideal Pokémon game I’ve got in my head. I went into Pokémon Brilliant Diamond with tempered  expectations and enjoyed my time with it. I’m admitting, in a roundabout sort of  a way, that this video is not the best critical approach. A lot of my criticisms are  petty; little things seem a lot bigger when you look too closely. Major flaws are given as much  time as minor nit-picks. You’re bombarded with so much information it’s impossible to

retain it  all. And videos of this length take so bloody long to make the series has often moved on in  the intervening time. Generation IX is now out and I can think of at least one criticism that’s  now outdated. This is almost certainly the last “Exhaustive Look” video I make. Still though, I had fun. Making it has given me the opportunity to  organise and articulate my thoughts anew. And, flaws acknowledged, I’m left with a newfound  appreciation for Diamond and Pearl, their remakes, and the

series as a whole. It’s not the same  kind of appreciation I had back in the day, of course, but then I’m a very different person  than I was in 2007. I think the only way I could possibly enjoy Sinnoh on the same level I did  back then is if I could somehow go back in time.