Pokemon Pearl Version

"The best in an already superb series"

It's hard to believe it, but the Pokemon series is over 10 years old. Granted it's only been in America for 9 of those years, but it seems like only yesterday that I first began questing through the land of Kanto (though I didn't know that's what it was called at the time) with my trusty Bulbasaur by my side. Some people claim the series hasn't really changed in that time, but that's not at all true. First came Gold and Silver, introducing 100 new Pokemon and greatly refining the gameplay of Red and Blue. Next came Ruby and Sapphire, which completely revamped almost everything about the first two games. Now Diamond and Pearl refine those changes made last generation. And unlike the GBA editions, which were easily the worst in the series, the new DS entries into the series are arguably the best Pokemon games to date.

GAMEPLAY 10/10

While the series has evolved a lot since the original Game Boy games, the core gameplay remains the same. You catch Pokemon, train them, and fight other trainers and their Pokemon. This is as solid as ever. The three Pokemon you can choose to start with are the best designed since the original games. All of the new Pokemon, in fact, are very well designed. All 113 of them. That makes 493 total. The enemy intelligence has been boosted, so your battles are harder than they've ever been. This doesn't mean the game is impossible, but you might find yourself having to level up against wild Pokemon for a while before a particularly tough gym leader.

One of the biggest changes made in the game is the separation of attacks into two categories: physical and special. Physical attacks do damage based on the Pokemon's Attack stat, while special attacks use the Special Attack stat. How this is different is attacks that would have been special in the past, like Thunder Punch, now use the Attack stat. It's a subtle change, but a very important one.

Of course, there's also the addition of the touch screen. Besides being used to control the menus in battle, the touch screen is used for a new feature called the “Poketch.” The Poketch is almost like a Swiss Army knife of features, ranging from the very helpful to the amusing to the completely useless. The useful features include two separate maps, one where you can mark important locations and one where you can see the locations of grown berries; a sort of Daycare Center viewer, very useful for breeding Pokemon later on; and a feature that lets you see how much your Pokemon like you. There are the fun features like a coin toss and roulette wheel, and then there are the features that don' even make sense, like this thing where you rub it and the pattern changes or something. Ultimately the Poketch is an interesting addition, though I have to wonder if they couldn't have figured out a more useful use of the touch screen.

Like I mentioned before, Diamond and Pearl are sort of a refinement of Ruby and Sapphire. A lot of things that, to me at least, felt clumsy or just plain wrong about the GBA games have been fixed here. For example, there seem to be less useless HM's in this game. Flash has finally been eliminated as an HM, though it's replaced with the almost as useless Defog, and nonsense like Whirlpool or Dive are gone. The Poke Blocks, which never really made sense to me, are replaced with Poffins, which fortunately are not required in the Safari Zone.

The little touches and refinements could last for pages, but suffice to say that everything comes together to make this the most refined and polished Pokemon game to date. Everything Pokemon fans have come to know and love about the series is here, as well as so much more.

CONTROLS 7/10

It's Pokemon. What could they do to mess up the controls for Pokemon? Surprisingly, a lot. Well, they didn't mess up the controls exactly, but the game just doesn't control as well as it could. For one, there are 8 buttons on the DS. This game only uses about half of them. It would have been nice to use some of those other buttons to give us another set key item or something like that. The touch screen also could have been put to better use. It's used for several helpful things, like a much more useful Itemfinder, but it would have been nice to have a feature like switching Pokemon positions in your party outside of the menu with the touch screen. Box navigation on the PC still has a long way to go, too. Luckily, they gave us the ability to move Pokemon around inside the boxes without withdrawing them and depositing them in another box, but controlling the PC still just doesn't feel as smooth as it could. All in all, the controls are probably the weakest part of the game. That being said, it's not that the controls are bad, it's just that they could have been better. You can do everything you need to easily enough, but it seems it could've been even easier.

GRAPHICS 8/10

Of course, it's to be expected that Diamond and Pearl are the best looking Pokemon games to date, and though that's not saying an awful lot, they really do look very good. For the first time in the series, the games use 3D environments, which really add a lot of depth to the graphics (see? that was sort of a pun). The character sprites are more detailed, and the whole world just feels more alive. The colors are much brighter and bolder, too. In battle, everything looks better. The Pokemon portraits are better drawn and animated, and the battle animations are getting pretty impressive. The use of two screens helps out a lot in the battle graphics. With all the menus moved to the bottom screen, the entire top screen is used to show the action, giving more room for the battle to unfold.

SOUND 9/10

The soundtracks to the first two generations of Pokemon ranged from “pretty good” to “superb.” The GBA games managed to take a step backwards in that aspect. The composition, while not bad, just didn't produce any memorable tracks. The instrumentation, however, just didn't work at all. It tried to pull off some sort of pseudo-orchestral effect, which Golden Sun proved the GBA was fully capable of, but that success was not replicated in Pokemon. This time around, both of those problems are fixed. The instrumentation really works this time, and the tunes are much catchier. There aren't as many great tracks as there were in Red and Blue, but it's still a solid soundtrack.

The sound effects also continue to get better. The new Pokemon cries are very good. Almost too good, in fact. They can sometimes make the older Pokemon sound just plain silly. You can actually almost tell what generation the Pokemon are from just by listening to its cry.

STORY 7/10

I said the controls were the weakest part of the game, didn't I? Well, the story isn't exactly superb either. Once again, it's not at all a bad story, but it's just nothing impressive. But unlike with the controls, the story doesn't exactly leave you wanting more. The Pokemon games have never really relied on their stories. The basic premise was always interesting enough to keep you going, and any other story was just icing on the cake.

The plot is pretty standard as far as the series is concerned. Of course you are trying to become the Pokemon Champion, but there are also some evil-doers afoot. This time, instead of Team Rocket, you face Team Galactic, who are actually an interesting change. Instead of trying to steal lots of Pokemon like the Rockets, they instead have some plans sinister plans for the legendary Pokemon, much like Teams Aqua and Magma.

The story actually does take a step forward in two areas that have been getting steadily worse throughout the series: your rival and the champion fight. With each generation each of these would get more and more disappointing after how wonderfully they were handled in Red and Blue. Granted they're still just getting back to the point they were at in Silver and Gold, but at least it's getting better, instead of how pretty much terribly they were in Ruby and Sapphire.

REPLAY 10/10

This is where Diamond and Pearl really shine out above all other Pokemon games, and for one simple reason: Online play. The Pokemon games have always been intended as a social game, but do to the limitations of the Game Boy hardware, it was pretty difficult to do much trading and battling in the older games. Wifi play changes all of that. There are two new ways to trade online. One involves direct trading using Friend Codes. The disadvantage of this is that you have to find Friend Codes and people to trade with, but there are many online communities devoted just to finding friends in Pokemon. The other way to trade is using the Global Trading System, or GTS. The GTS works as sort of a bulletin board for Pokemon trading. It allows you to post one of your Pokemon for trade, you just specify what Pokemon you want to trade it for, and what gender and at what level. You can also search through the Pokemon posted to try and find the Pokemon you are looking for. The disadvantage here is that you can only ask for or look for Pokemon you have seen in your Pokedex, but it is still an effective way to find a lot of Pokemon conveniently. Of course there is also simple Wireless play, so you can play with any friends in the same room easily. Wifi also allows for online battling, which I'm certain will be a community that lasts for years.

Basically, these are ridiculously long games. If you don't rush through it, the main story can last 50-60 hours. I've spent almost 200 hours in the game just trying to catch all 493 Pokemon. And if you have the patience and devotion, you could spend countless hours training elite Pokemon brawlers and fighting online. There is so much potential in this game, it's almost overwhelming.

OVERALL 10/10

Say what you will about all the spin-offs and licensed nonsense, but the main Pokemon games have always been among the best RPG's available, especially on a handheld. The refinements and polish of this entry, along with the online play, make this the best Pokemon game to date. If you're a devoted Pokemon fan, well, I probably don't need to tell you, you've probably beaten it already. If you've liked the game in the past but have lost track of the series, or if you've never played a Pokemon game, this is a perfect place to pick it up. I've put about 200 hours into the game, and I don't regret a minute of it. I'll have fond memories of this game for years to come.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/26/07