"Catch 'em all... Again... and again."

Ok, let's start off with a short explaining. I like Pokemon. I HAVE liked it since I was six, and my friend told me to get Red Version. Have had at least 1 of each generation. So, I am not anti-Pokemon. But I am also not pro-Pokemon and will not loyally overrate anything the game makers shoot out of their rear. (that includes Pokemon Snap... Ugh.) And with that said...

Graphics: 2/5
Crap. Utter.... Crap. The sprites are STILL 2d, and both the main characters look like rehashes from Fire Red and Leaf green. The animations in-battle from Emerald are back, which for a GBA, would be nice, but come on, Game Freak. This is the DS. Final Fantasy 3 managed to pull off 3-d battles, with 4 or more characters per side. Come on, guys! How much money do you have to not spend on graphical prowess??

Among the "cool" new graphically-based features is the Morning/Day/Midday/Night feature, which changes the screen colour depending on the time. I really, REALLY do not see the point of Midday. The Pokemon you see in Midday are exactly the same as regular day. I'm guessing this is supposed to make the game more "realistic". Because this game is so realistic. (Because abusing small animals, forcing them to duke it out to the death, is exactly how it is in real life. Yeah, right).

But the worst is yet to come. When you enter a building, or go to a certain mountain (name left out for spoilers), it resizes. It zooms in and distorts the characters whenever you enter a building, and the mountain is just horrid. You are basically given a "ceiling's eye view" of the below area, and your character is squished up so much it's scary.

One saving grace for the graphics? The attack animations. They are mostly incredible. Tackle, scratch, and the like are still just "collision" bumps and red lines, but attacks like Gyro Ball are fully 3-d and very impressive. The special moves for the Legendary Pokemon are very detailed as well. Moving on...

Music and sounds: 4/5
To make up for lack of memorable musics in the past games, Nintendo gives us an awesome soundtrack for the latest installment. No longer am I annoyed at the trainer theme, and therefore almost annoyed at the whole battle. The battle themes, especially the trainer and Galactic Admin themes are really... good. Which I would never say for another Pokemon game series.

The Pokemon themselves still have their annoying, screechy, bleepy-riffic cries. But some of them sound actually good, especially the newer pokemon. Floatzel and Heatran are my favourites in that area.
Along with good battle musics, we have the area battle musics. The route's themes are still unremarkable, but not horrid. A few of the towns have very nice music as well. Still waiting for voice acting....

DS-ey stuff: 3/5
You have your standard Touchy-feely stuff, but it's not anything noteworthy. I just think they could have put... more. There are a few nice features, such as making "poffin" (D/P equivalent of Pokeblocks, if you've played Ruby or Sapphire), but everytime I do that, my arm hurts, which takes away the whole contest value.

When outside of battles and minigames, your touch screen becomes the less-than-amazing Poketch. Do not ask me how to pronounce that word. With almost 25 worthless features, you're not gonna pay much attention to it halfway into the game.

There's also a minigame called The Underground. It. Is. BORING. If you're playing solo, you should skip this altogether. If you can. Sadly, you are almost required to go down to obtain evolution stones, and fossils that you can turn into otherwise unobtainable pokemon. Monotonous, unrewarding "digging". But it's not all bad. If you have a friend, you can play a "capture the flag" esque game, with traps, obstacles, and... that's about it. You cannot save the unsaveable, even with multiplayer...

And then you have the GTS. This stands for Global Trading Station.
While it was a good concept, it is too flawed to be anything near perfect. Any "good" trades are eaten alive by players, and you will be stuck with completely ridiculous offers. Not to mention having to explain to people why your Palkia is nicknamed "omglolsuxr", with "poop" for an original trainer name.... It's not pretty.

The ONLY reason I'm giving this a 3 instead of a 2? Wi-Fi voice chat. That's right. Now you don't have to be in the same room to cuss out the person kicking your butt in a battle. This works for trading too. Definite plus. But don't worry, to save you from the countless child-hungry adults out there, you are allowed to turn voice chatting off.

Gameplay: 5/5
If you liked the first series, then liked the second series, then liked the third series... Well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. People who play sequels only for new features are gonna be a tad disappointed.

I however, still love the old train your critters base to this game. The options of gameplay are astounding, and with almost 500 pokemon, there's gonna be a very wide range of team options. Even if you're not one of those nerds that has to "ev" train their poor animals to death, training regularly for casual play can still have its own rewards. The satisfaction of reaching level 100 without cheating is worth it.

Post-game treats you to a sub-quest filled island, not the least of which is the challenging Battle Tower. Some kids may find the Battle Tower to be a bit hard, actually, but older players will enjoy the challenge and exciting battles.

If you remember the Double Battles from Ruby and Sapphire, yep, they return. But so much better. At certain points, you are actually teamed up with a computer controlled character, who helps you in battle. It's pretty neat.

The encounter rate is perfect. Not too high, not too low. Although fighting wild pokemon for anything other than catching them is pointless, the game gives us an option to skip past the battles in the form of the "repel" item.
The Elite Four, which has sadly diminished in difficulty the past few games is actually... TOUGH. Not even in the original Pokemon Red did I actually have to go back and retrain my pokemon before I could even beat the first member. Even "uber" (Pokefan term for high statted pokemon) abusers are gonna find challenge, as there are pokemon specifically suited to knock a insufficiently trained Dialga and Palkia down. The champion is a fierce battle, and very mentally rewarding in it's own right.

Wi-Fi battles bring back the old friendly competition that has been missing since the older days, when most people grew bored of pokemon games. Now that you don't need to be near a person to fight them, it opens many more roads of challenge.

Overall: 8/10
The music is awesome. The gameplay is awesome. The graphics are... less than awesome, but only nerds play for graphics, and it doesn't subtract a whole bunch.
Wi-Fi alone is worth it, but with an additionally good main game, I heartily suggest picking up a copy if you can.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/11/07