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Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Speculation/Discussion Thread!

What I am worrying now is: it will be 1-1 remake. -> no mega or dynamax. and probably gen 4 national dex only.

which mean no pokemon from gen 5 - 8 at all.
I was thinking same thing, I was hoping Megas personally, but maybe if it is 1:1 remake that they’ll at least let us bring some mons over to swsh like the starters etc since if all we get are gen4 dex it’ll be disappointing, I’m getting diamond either way just for nostalgia but I only see myself playing long enough for the story and probably sticking to gen8 for few more years
 
I'm actually pretty excited for these remakes. Yeah it's chibi, but honestly, Sword/Shield looked pretty awful aside from pokemon/character design, so it's not like you have to play a pokemon game for the visuals.

I don't care about dynamax/gigantamax so I really won't mind if these are faithful remakes and those mechanics won't be into it. I do hope it'll borrow the elements from Platinum though like HG/SS did with Crystal's story elements or at least something like the Delta Episode in OR/AS. Wouldn't mind seeing an upgrade for Palkia/Dialga either (origin formes for those as well?) but I'm not really expecting them getting new formes or anything.

But yeah, looking forward to returning to Sinnoh.
 

OwensJB

Well-Known Member
I was thinking same thing, I was hoping Megas personally, but maybe if it is 1:1 remake that they’ll at least let us bring some mons over to swsh like the starters etc since if all we get are gen4 dex it’ll be disappointing, I’m getting diamond either way just for nostalgia but I only see myself playing long enough for the story and probably sticking to gen8 for few more years
There was like no way that these games were going to have megas though. Why would Nintendo revive a dead game feature that had nothing to do with the original Sinnoh games? At most they would find some way to add Dynamax stuff.

Unless you skipped the second half of the entire direct, BDSP isn't being developed by GF.
Oh gee thanks for picking apart the most arbitrary part of my post. :rolleyes: My point stands that these remakes feel like a rush job to me.
 

MrJechgo

Well-Known Member
I fail to see why there are so many complaints about the graphics, when there were visual problems with Let's Go and Sword & Shield. They upscaled the DS graphics into 3D, similar to Link's Awakening, but for the latter, it worked surprisingly well. Sure, it wasn't on the same level as A Link between Worlds, but it was a great faithful remake, and the extra controls were a blessing :)

Let's Go was critisized for the "battle" system being like Go, and BDSP now uses Let's Go trainer battle's inferface. Yes, the overworld is chibi, but Sinnoh was bigger than Kanto, so they couldn't just use Let's Go's design without taking more time. Legends is basically what people want for an open-world Pokémon game, but let's face it, it doesn't look as lively and condensed as a regular Pokémon game, so they could push the graphics in exchange.

My concern here is the connectivity between BDSP, Let's Go and SwSh. I'd like to know if GameFreaks would just "bite the bullet" and make everything compatible, including adding the missing Gen 4 Pokémon in SwSh.
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
I fail to see why there are so many complaints about the graphics, when there were visual problems with Let's Go and Sword & Shield. They upscaled the DS graphics into 3D, similar to Link's Awakening, but for the latter, it worked surprisingly well. Sure, it wasn't on the same level as A Link between Worlds, but it was a great faithful remake, and the extra controls were a blessing :)
Because it's quite a step back to just see hundreds of the same pixelated tree arranged in lines compared to how say, Alola looked, varied and vibrant instead of like someone held Ctrl+V a bit too long. It was acceptable back in the days as the old handhelds didn't support much resolution at all and storage space was a lot tighter, but standards aren't the same as back then anymore. And this looks quite a lot worse than either Let's Go or Sword and Shield. The battling graphics look good, but the overworld just isn't up to par with what even the 3DS games delivered.

Compare how the forest looks in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl here with how a forest looks in Lush Jungle from the Alola games, keeping in mind that the Alola games run on an older console.

CI3K4Pf.jpg

41.jpg
 
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MrJechgo

Well-Known Member
Because it's quite a step back to just see hundreds of the same pixelated tree arranged in lines compared to how say, Alola looked. It was acceptable back in the days as the old handhelds didn't support much resolution at all and storage space was a lot tighter, but standards aren't the same as back then anymore. And this looks quite a lot worse than either Let's Go or Sword and Shield. The battling graphics look good, but the overworld just isn't up to par with what even the 3DS games delivered.

Compare how the forest looks in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl here with how a forest looks in Lush Jungle from the Alola games, keeping in mind that the Alola games run on an older console.
It's just a different art style, it's not worst.

They recreated the look and feel of the DS games, what's wrong with that?
 

Lord Godwin

The Lord of Darkness
So do you think the New Mythical will appear in BDSP or in Legend?
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
It's just a different art style, it's not worst.

They recreated the look and feel of the DS games, what's wrong with that?
Of course it's subjective. But if it looks the same as the DS games, then what point is there in these new games aside from being able to connect to HOME (and probably be a bit cheaper than what gen 4 Sinnoh games go for nowadays)? And at least for me, I'd actually want more immersion. I would have loved to have a free camera and the routes rearranged a bit to look more natural. I would have loved to actually experience the scale of Mt Coronet in 3D, or actually see pretty arrangements of flowers in Floaroma town instead of the same flower sprite copied a couple dozen times, locked in an unnatural grid and in-game characters having to tell me that actually, in-universe, it looks pretty. Show me how pretty it is. Who cares if the treeline or tall grass is still the exact same number of tiles as back then? Let it flow more naturally than what was possible on the DS, like how Alola did it. I don't want it to look like how it did back then, because I don't think that was a good look. It was acceptable at its time because of hardware limitations, but just because it once was, is no reason for it to stay that way. Remakes should improve upon the old, otherwise they might as well just port it as a virtual console and be done with it, like they did with the first two generations on the 3DS. And for me, dozens of the same sprite copy-pasted in a gridlock is not immersive, it makes it immediately obvious at the first glance that it's all artificial.

Is it a bit whining about graphics in a franchise that never had the best graphics or had them as vital for the gameplay? Yes, it is. But it's also the only thing we really know about Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl so far, aside from them being DP remakes, and first impressions matter.
 
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Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
I get the graphics issues people have but I’m more concerned with how much of Platinum they’ll keep. ORAS had a lot of Emerald content missing and most of it was missing and a lot of it was simple changes (they seriously couldn’t have given Wattson a Manectric?) and I’d hate that. The blonde NPC in Floroama and Porygon Z give me hope but I’ll wait to see.

There was like no way that these games were going to have megas though. Why would Nintendo revive a dead game feature that had nothing to do with the original Sinnoh games?
Just like how Let’s Go didn’t have Megas, right? Also Megas are far from dead. They appear in almost every recent form of media in the franchise: the anime, Masters, Go, Mystery Dungeon: DX, Pokken. They’re clearly keeping it in mind when creating games. There’s also this quote from Masuda from around SM’s release:
Each time we make a new game, we think of particular theme and of particular elements that would work well with that game. This time we have our Z-moves [but] if a game comes up in future that we think [Mega Evolutions] would work really well with, certainly we'll look into it… But for the minute we don't have any particular plans.


Not saying Megas are more or less likely. Just saying they’re not far from GameFreak’s consideration.
 

WalesNote

Well-Known Member
I was taken back by the graphic style and it being just like the originals.

Was thinking it would be like Sword/Shield, or even better like Legends is. But no. At first I thought, yeah i'm not so sure. But I think I will still get them one way or the other.

Remaking Platinum would be so much better. Really getting tired of these two version things, but oh well.
Question is: what are they keeping from Platinum, and what are they getting rid of? The pokedex? Battle Frontier?
 

Wulava

danger chili pepper
Staff member
Moderator
For reference, here are some of the notable new additions to Platinum:

- Expanded Dex
- Distortion World
- Battle Frontier
- Charon
- Looker
- Battleground
- Resort Area Villa
- Giratina Origin Forme
- Shaymin Sky Forme
- Rotom Forms

Aside from aesthetic changes to the region, altered storyline and mechanics, there really isn't much. If I see Looker, then there's a bit of hope.
 

Aduro

Mt.BtlMaster
Is it a bit whining about graphics in a franchise that never had the best graphics or had them as vital for the gameplay? Yes, it is. But it's also the only thing we really know about Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl so far, aside from them being DP remakes, and first impressions matter.
Yeah, graphics is the only new thing they've actually offered us. You'd think they'd put their best feet forward, and allude to any new selling points early on. Like they did with soaring and new megas in the first ORAS trailers.

Or the first HGSS trailer. They showed off the pokewalker, pokeathalon, and walking pokemon.

Call me paranoid. But I suspect that if DPPt had anything other than graphics to show us, they would have shown us something else. ICLA is a animation company, not a company that has actually made a video game before. And the website for the new games alludes to making the games simpler.

These remakes include easy-to-understand, player-friendly conveniences of the modern Pokémon series, plus up-close-and-personal Pokémon battle scenes.



Anyone who didn't like LGPE should have some alarm bells ringing after reading that. Especially since, as an older pokemon fan, Gen IV re-makes were my main hope for Game Freak offering something more enjoyable for me and in-depth than SwSh.


I feel like if BDSP had all the returning features unique to Gen IV, things like the underground, the distortion world storyline; or even mons that weren't in the platinum dex. If they had any new formes, pokemon or features, they would have told us up-front. They haven't even shown us the interface for battles, so we don't know if there will even be held items and abilities.

To me this reeks more of LGPE more than it reminds me of HGSS and ORAS.
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
I'm not convinced yet that there's no new content here, it's far too early yet, normally they wouldn't even announce remakes this early in the year, but I do agree it was a bad call to not show anything new at all. They don't have to put all their cards on the table, but at least something new.
 

Manbis

Well-Known Member
Well right now it is jut a visual remaster ( not even worth calling remake) and not even a good one at that. It quite clearly breaks the schema of these past remakes who all added the new pokemon and the new mechanics from the current gen. After thinking about it, its quite evil of nintendo to group these remasters into the same category as the previous remakes.
 

Autobot N

Well-Known Member
For reference, here are some of the notable new additions to Platinum:

- Expanded Dex
- Distortion World
- Battle Frontier
- Charon
- Looker
- Battleground
- Resort Area Villa
- Giratina Origin Forme
- Shaymin Sky Forme
- Rotom Forms

Aside from aesthetic changes to the region, altered storyline and mechanics, there really isn't much. If I see Looker, then there's a bit of hope.
If I had to guess, aside from the forms, we'll get the expanded Dex, the Distortion World (as part of a postgame storyline), Charon, and Looker.

Now what would be awesome (but probably won't happen) is if they changed the story slightly so that when you get to Spear Pillar, instead of fighting Palkia there, Giratina appears and drags it and Cyrus into the Distortion World, and then it continues like Platinum did except you have to catch Palkia in order to fight Giratina and escape.
 

Nutter t.KK

can Mega Evolve!
I mean how faithful can it be when there's no dual screen?, genuinely curious about how they're gonna approach that. If it weren't for them being so 'faithful' then I'd just assume they'd just change those features to be more in line with swsh but as it is now....

Quite simply remove the bottom screen features. Most of the time, you had the Pokétech, which offered minor info about the current state of the game. https://www.serebii.net/diamondpearl/poketch.shtml (I spent most of my time on Your Party or Berry checker views.) So outside of that It was mostly used in Battles and Mini-games. In battle, it was very much like the 3DS games did it, and I'd expect a SwSh like interface for BDSP. As for the Minigames/remaining uses? Until Contents and the underground returns, those minigames have little reason to present. The good news is that Berry Patches are still present, which doesn't eliminate Poffins and Contests yet.

I'm not convinced yet that there's no new content here, it's far too early yet, normally they wouldn't even announce remakes this early in the year, but I do agree it was a bad call to not show anything new at all. They don't have to put all their cards on the table, but at least something new.
Indeed, I said before, as far as I could tell this is a near 1 to 1 Remake, more so than FireRed/LeafGreen was to Red/Blue/Green.

Does Sturdy still has the buff from Gen 5, so that It's impossible to 1 hit KO anyone with that ability? I don't remember battling Geodudes in Gen 7 and 8.. But Oh boy, that will make it slower going through MT Coronet. (Which you need to do at least 3 times in DPPt.) https://www.serebii.net/abilitydex/sturdy.shtml
 

Mr.Munchlax

Great Ball Rank Trainer
I fail to see why there are so many complaints about the graphics, when there were visual problems with Let's Go and Sword & Shield. They upscaled the DS graphics into 3D, similar to Link's Awakening, but for the latter, it worked surprisingly well. Sure, it wasn't on the same level as A Link between Worlds, but it was a great faithful remake, and the extra controls were a blessing :)

Let's Go was critisized for the "battle" system being like Go, and BDSP now uses Let's Go trainer battle's inferface. Yes, the overworld is chibi, but Sinnoh was bigger than Kanto, so they couldn't just use Let's Go's design without taking more time. Legends is basically what people want for an open-world Pokémon game, but let's face it, it doesn't look as lively and condensed as a regular Pokémon game, so they could push the graphics in exchange.

My concern here is the connectivity between BDSP, Let's Go and SwSh. I'd like to know if GameFreaks would just "bite the bullet" and make everything compatible, including adding the missing Gen 4 Pokémon in SwSh.

It's just a different art style, it's not worst.

They recreated the look and feel of the DS games, what's wrong with that?
Because everyone was expecting a reimagining rather than a faithful remake. FRLG, HGSS, & ORAS all were modernized adaptations of the original games using the engines of the current generations at the time. They were faithful to the originals while also changing aspects of the visuals or formula to match up with the current generation so it felt like a completely new experience for new & old players.

However, rather than doing the same thing with SWSH’s engine, BDSP look like they’ll be copying the original Sinnoh games down to the letter with no new content or anything. They could’ve made a fully immersive Sinnoh region using the same elements they did for Galar & the DLC. For example, reshaping Mt. Coronet based on the mountains & caves of the Crown Tundra, turning Jubilife City into a more immersive city like Wyndon & Motostoke, or giving Floraroma Town the beauty & ambiance of Ballonlea & Glimwood Tangle. At the very least they could’ve done new designs for the characters. Plus, even if they didn’t implement Megas or Dynamaxing, it would’ve been better to update the plot of the game rather than making them completely identical to the originals with no new content or anything, which seems to be the route they’re taking. I’m not as upset as most people on Twitter since these games were made by a different company & were getting Legends for the more immersive experience, but it’s still a little disappointing.

That being said, it’s not the chibi overworld that bothers me. I usually like this kind of approach since I loved the look of Link’s Awakening & I can eventually get used to this. What bothers me the most in terms of the visuals is the fact that the coloring & rendering for the in-battle models look so off-putting. The trainers specifically look less rendered than they did in Let’s Go (which you can see in stuff like Barry’s hair or Lucas & Dawn’s faces). The battle models just look like a GameCube game since they feel unfinished and unnatural. At the very least they could’ve made them look more like Dawn & Lucas in the promo art.
 
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Autobot N

Well-Known Member
Quite simply remove the bottom screen features. Most of the time, you had the Pokétech, which offered minor info about the current state of the game. https://www.serebii.net/diamondpearl/poketch.shtml (I spent most of my time on Your Party or Berry checker views.) So outside of that It was mostly used in Battles and Mini-games. In battle, it was very much like the 3DS games did it, and I'd expect a SwSh like interface for BDSP. As for the Minigames/remaining uses? Until Contents and the underground returns, those minigames have little reason to present. The good news is that Berry Patches are still present, which doesn't eliminate Poffins and Contests yet.


Indeed, I said before, as far as I could tell this is a near 1 to 1 Remake, more so than FireRed/LeafGreen was to Red/Blue/Green.

Does Sturdy still has the buff from Gen 5, so that It's impossible to 1 hit KO anyone with that ability? I don't remember battling Geodudes in Gen 7 and 8.. But Oh boy, that will make it slower going through MT Coronet. (Which you need to do at least 3 times in DPPt.) https://www.serebii.net/abilitydex/sturdy.shtml
The website says "These remakes include easy-to-understand, player-friendly conveniences of the modern Pokémon series...," so I would assume that changes like the Sturdy thing are included.
 

PsychoLogical

Black and White, Yin and Yang, Light and Dark.
Idk if it means anything (which prob doesn’t unless it kinda does) but apparently some an official merch campaign (specifically with figurines) for BDSP has been confirmed to feature Mega Lucario and Mega Charizard X.
 

TheLink

Eunie is as Eunie does.
I dig the look of these - it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but I kind of like the Link’s Awakening-esque design of of the chino-models. It’s something somewhat new as far as Pokémon is concerned while also hearkening back to the 2D era.
 
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