Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl

After playing Pokémon Legends Arceus I felt my love for the franchise reignited. I looked at my gaming shelf and remembered I had actually snagged the physical double pack of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. I opened that sucker up and pulled out Brilliant Diamond as I played the original back in the day, sorry Shining Pearl.

Outside of my immediate catch of the greatest shiny of all time, BIDOOF, within the first 5 encounters I had, I found the cute looking remake extremely flat.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. I knew this was nearly a 1:1 remake, but I was still bored. I did finish though, for posterity. 

If you’ve played a classic Pokémon game you know exactly what to expect here. The graphics were very cute; I did enjoy the chibi style. The music was nicely redone. There was a new addition to the game, called the Underground. It added a the game’s only new mechanic that I can recall. You could go underneath the surface to find a huge labyrinth of rooms that would allow you to catch a wider variety of species than you’d find wandering the grasses or caves of the surface. You could also mine for mineral shards, although I wasn’t terribly sure what they were for.

I think Pokémon just needs to continue evolving itself to keep this long time lover of the franchise’s interest. I believe Legend Arceus is a step in the right direction and I look forward to Violet and Scarlet.