Pokemon - Diamond Version
by Nintendo
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Video Game Reviews of Pokemon - Diamond Version
Customer Review: I miss Team Rocket!
Summary: 1 Stars
Team Rocket has been replaced by a new dumb criminal gang! This game is great except for that and the lame new pokemon. Customer Review: Pokemon
Summary: 4 Stars
My son was very happey at the speed of the shipment and that it was with the nintendo ds systemCustomer Review: Have You Bought This? If You Have, You've Been CONNED
Summary: 2 Stars
This game is only for people that have NEVER PLAYED pokemon before. Only then will it be a decent game. If you've played pokemon before and just bought this because of all the new pokemon that came out and the new adventure etc etc, if that was your reason then sorry to say but YOU'VE BEEN DUPPED, TRICKED, CONNED, FOOLED!!
Nintendo (game freak) sure got you. I'm not bashing their name for nothing, I'll list you all the reasons why this idea is indeed based on something.
Slap a new name on an old game. Pokemon diamond is almost the same old game as when it first came out. Being on the new DS, you would expect it to at least upgrade its graphics and utilize the DS's full potential more. The only differences are: The towns look different, pokemon attack you more, different types of pokemon, different types of people, different bad guys, more tm's and hm's.
1. POKEMON: Okay, in this game there are even more pokemons for you to find and....sometimes catch. But here's the low down if you're an analytical thinker. You see different types of pokemons right? But if you get to the basics of it, are they REALLY different or are they just the same old pokemons with a different look? Nintendo ran out of ideas for pokemons decades ago so they go into the pictorial dictionary of our earthly creatures and make a caricature of it and slap a goofy name that sometimes relate to the animals real life nature or...not..and call it a pokemon. They are so desperate to make up more pokemons that they brought in everything from dinosaurs to petshop animals to mystical creatures like dragons. Its to the point where its almost ridiculous to look at.
Pokemon in this game seem to attack you a lot more, probably also based on ur abilities. Playing this game would drive you completely NUTS if you didn't carry a lot of REPELS, which seems to be the only real thing that works to repel those obnoxious wild pokemons. Sometimes you can take 2 steps and get attacked. Think about it, you're trying to solve a clue to get your way out of a cave and you get randomly attacked every 2-10 steps that you take. Just take a minute out of ur day and think of that for a second and see how you'll feel. Buy some insurance for your DS because I almost broke mines.
I know cheating is bad but this game literally begs you to buy an ACTION REPLAY or other cheat device. Why? Because through half of the game they keep having you encounter the same small variety of pokemons. Catch'em all they say? How can you if 90% of the DIFFERENT types of pokemons almost throughout the game belong to a trainer?!?! You can set up your team however you want, but that's really limiting when you can only catch a handful of pokemon, especially old pokemon from the first game, even through half way in the game?! What is really fun is to be able to raise a pokemon throughout the game. Why would I want to find a legendary pokemon at lvl 50 when I'm practically done with the game?
What I really really hate is how nintendo gives you a lot of pokemon like machop, gasley, abra in the beginning. They're nice but they can only evolve to their final form by trading. That is sort of hard, I'm 22 and I don't feel comfortable walking up to a little kid and be like "hey do you want to trade pokemons with me?" this is when a cop arrests me and I become a sex offender. I'm not crazy enough to play this online either.
2. DS Utilization: Okay, the DS has a much better graphics engine on it, so why not use it? Pokemon Diamond could have easily been done on the regular gameboy. Use of the stylus? It's okay but nothing extraordinary. Sometimes its almost more convinient just using the buttons. Don't expect a lot of interaction using the stylus, its very badly incorporated into the game, to the bare minimum almost.
Graphics remain pretty much 2D. For those of you that say DON'T FIX WHAT'S NOT BROKEN, that's the kind of attitude that makes you sink lower back to the caveman era. Don't fix it, IMPROVE IT.
3. MISSIONS and PLOTS: SAME O SAME O. Old game with a new name indeed. Missions are basically the same, start in a town, objective to be the best, go beat gym leaders, beat the elite four, then battle tower etc afterwards.
The bad guys are back, only difference is their name. Everything is EXACTLY THE SAME. Same with your rival. If you were starting to get sick of pokemon emerald....this is almost the exact version so pick one and keep it.
4. Battling System: EXACTLY THE FREAKEN SAME. NINTENDO, if you were going ot make the exact game and change it a little bit to trick a bunch of kids to buying your game and making you a lot of money, at least make the pokemon's moves look a lot cooler. The moves have a little more graphics in them but HARDLY anything worth mentioning.
THIS IS WHY I THINK IF YOU BOUGHT THIS GAME AND YOU'VE PLAYED POKEMON BEFORE, YOU'VE BEEN RIPPED OFF REAL BAD. WHAT NINTENDO IS DOING IS WHAT THE MOVIE INDUSTRY HAS BEEN DOING FOR A LONG TIME AS WELL. ADD A LITTLE STUFF, ADD A LITTLE SUSPENSE ON THE RELEASE, SLAP ON A NEW NAME AND BOOM, GULLIBLE HUMANS EATING YOUR TRASH.
Get a flashcart everyone! You can put all your games on a memory card and play it on ur ds. Saves you lots of money!
This is the only thing I can think of now but I'm pretty sure there's more complaints to be said. Oh yeah, you can't trade in your pokemon from your other pokemon games until much later when its almost useless.
Be prepared to be pissed off when your pokemon that has a 165 based attack power and is 10 levels above a wild pokemon and still can't KO it with earthquake and its a normal effective move. THat's how ridiculous it is, and that pokemon has a 70 base def too...RIPP OFF!!!
Customer Review: A solid entry into the Pokemon Franchise, but it is not without its flaws.
Summary: 4 Stars
The standard formula has not been updated since the original release: catch Pokemon with Pokeballs, Battle with them, and become a Pokemon Master. Messing with that would screw over the series, and their additions to game are truly moving in the right direction, but unfortunately, this game falls flat on its face in several areas, such as the Global Trading System. But when it does succeed, the game is tremendously fun.
The core gameplay is still fun, if not repetitive; catch Pokemon, battle trainers. The re-addition of the time system, missing since its Gold/Silver debut, is also appreciated. They haven't seem to run out of new ideas for Pokemon, either: From Turtwig to Manaphy, the series has fine new additions. Annoyingly enough, Nintendo events are still clung to and it is difficult to obtain some of the rarer species. And even if it does get boring, the underground mini-game has plethora of areas to explore; you can still build your own base like in Generation 3, and it seems all the factors that made the previous games fun are in here. However, the game does not innovate enough.
For one, I would have preferred more interaction with the lower screen. Being able to choose your attacks and basic navigation with the menus using the stylus is a boon to the series. But why did they stop there? Why can't I completely use the stylus to navigate these things? And the Pokemon watch, while neat in theory, is very clunky.
But the worst aspect is the GTS and Wi-fi battles. Nintendo completely dropped the ball on this; the GTS is littered with hackers and players asking for crazy demands, like a lvl 100 Mew for a Pidgey. For trainers who want to use this function, it is largely a waste of time. And the inability to trade for Pokemon you have not seen yet is a pain. In terms of Battles, Nintendo continues to cling to their Friend Code system, which makes finding a decent battle a giant chore. While they should be praised for aiming to make it family friendly, this has made the online system inoperable.
Still, Pokemon Diamond is an enjoyable entry into the franchise. It is a solid title for the DS, but I hope they make a few more adjustments for the next round.
Customer Review: Lots of fun, but lots of annoyance
Summary: 4 Stars
The Pokemon series has always appealed to the obsessive in me. Indeed, who can resist a good chase, or the opportunity to collect literally hundreds of Pokemon. Of course, the old games pretty much required that you have a friend to play alongside you, and as I got older, it became more difficult to find people willing to devote a similar amount of effort into the game.
Now, however, with the Nintendo Wi-Fi option, all of that is a thing of the past.Now, one can trade for Pokemon around the country, or even the world. Thus, after a 6-year layoff, I decided to pick up Pokemon Diamond (which gave me an excuse to finally get the DS, which incidentally is 1000x better than the PSP that merely takes up desk space in my room). And yeah, the obsessive reared its ugly head immediately, as I then bought Pokemon Fire Red, Pokemon Sapphire and Pokemon Ranger.
But ahem, back to the game at hand. Pokemon is excellent. Although formulaic, it's always been a fantastically deep RPG experience, even without the postgame collection madness. I won't detail the plot, as it has been beaten to death in these reviews. Instead, let's move immediately to the good and bad here.
GOOD:
- Great gameplay. Yeah, the engine is a bit tired, but it still chugs along. I particularly enjoy the fact that it is easier to catch weak Pokemon in the wild with a special Pokeball.
- Good graphics. Although not the best the DS has to offer, with all the other data stored in there, they aren't bad.
- Wi-fi is nice. I have yet to experience any problems with connections or whatnot. It is annoying that some people will cheat you online (with hacked Pokemon, e.g.), but what can you do?
- National Pokedex. Come one. When they say you can now collect 493(!) different Pokemon, how can you not resist?
BAD:
- legendary pokemon. There's not much "legendary" about them anymore. I mean, there are around 13 new "legendaries" introduced in this very game. Moreover, many cannot be obtained except via Nintendo "events," most of which have yet to grace our fair shores (yeah, I know there was a Manaphy event - of course, you can get that Pokemon in other ways). This has always been an annoyance of mine, but it's particularly bad now. There are three Pokemon that simply aren't (legitimately) available at the moment, and another three which require the purchase of other games. The REAL annoyance is that there is no reason for this whatsoever - with a Wi-fi option, Nintendo could make their events available to the public at large. But whatever - Nintendo has always been annoying this way, and it won't change any time soon.
- Underground. Do I really have to mine the walls for hours to find certain fossils? Does my base really have a bunch of rocks in it that can only be moved if I find another person's base? Does anyone really have time for this? A complete dud.
- Pal-Park. Later in the game, one gets the opportunity to migrate Pokemon from older games to their pal-park. This was a great idea. Why, then, do I have to be bothered by its mechanics? Only six Pokemon can be migrated each day, and then I have to go through a "minigame" to catch them. Just let me upload them to the PC, for crying out loud!
The last two BAD remarks are somewhat nitpicky, but the first is getting outrageous. When it was only one Pokemon, it was reasonable. But Nintendo has turned their clever little satire about obsessives into a mass-marketing campaign...geared ONLY for fanboys. I'm pretty sure that we NEVER got the chance to get Mew in the GBA games, and that's annoying. Hopefully, Nintendo will use their Wi-fi to make events more public, I ain't holding my breath.
And thus, I knock the game one star.