Pokémon Brilliant Diamond And Shining Pearl

But we can compare the general visual quality imo

They're both children's computer games being sold to grown men to distract us from the intolerable injustice of the world around us as part of the grand capitalist spectacle of bread and circuses, so at the end of the day, what else matters?

Um excuse me it's not a children's computer game it's an interactive electronic art experience

I think I'm Team Buska - in playing it I think it's totally fine as a remake and not a crushing disappointment like many people are making it out to be, and if I were playing this as a ten year old I'd be having a grand old time too.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Um excuse me it's not a children's computer game it's an interactive electronic art experience

Unusually for me, I've spent most of my time playing on the big screen. Playing it in handheld this morning, it does feel to me like it was designed mainly with handheld mode in mind - it looks really rather pretty on the small screen. Been having fun mooching around in the Grand Underground too, which is something I couldn't say about the originals.

Just beat the fourth gym now, and I’ve settled on a team that’ll eventually evolve into Empoleon, Roserade, Ursaring, Medicham, Houndoom and Altaria. I’ve never used any of these Pokemon in any mainline game before, so it’s helping to keep things fresh and different for me.

There’s a lot of this that I don’t remember well, and occasional parts that completely escaped my memory at some point over the last fifteen years. There’s been pleasant surprises – that soundtrack is superb! – but the trainer fights and random encounters are just a pain in the arse. Outside of gyms and the Grand Underground, I’m at least ten levels higher than everything I came across, and sometimes closer to twenty. That’s without grinding too, those days of needing to do that are long past.

There’s no satisfaction from any of the battles, and there hasn’t been for ages. Were the original Diamond and Pearl games always this unbalanced?

I'm a good way ahead of the level cap too*. Having played the originals almost to death, I believe this is down to the mandatory EXP Share. I only have my starter as my definitive team member at the moment (almost at the third gym), as I keep using the remaining slots in my team to grind evolutions for my Pokédex.

And is it just me, or is this game really rather pretty in handheld mode? It's a night and day difference between handheld and TV.

*I am one of these maniacs though who grinds for fun. Mainly for evolutions as previously stated.

I was hoping for more challenge than SwSh but it's not here. Let's Go seemed tougher, I lost a few battles, was it harder or is it just because it was my first Pokemon game?

Would say because first Pokemon as Let's Go seemed to be aimed to be eaiser than normal, which are pretty easy compared to other JRPG's.

I'm probably going to experience this one vicariously through Buska's streams - the art style and my general lack of interest in Generation IV has meant I've not had much desire in picking these up.

As for the comments about the lack of challenge in battles, that's almost certainly going to be linked to the forced XP share, right? I found setting the battling style to Set instead of Switch helped a bit in Sw/Sh to up the sense of difficulty. They're never going to be hard games though being RPGs aimed at younger kids.

Pokémon will never be hard after your first game because you understand types and how to level a team.

I like trying to make Pokémon games harder for myself by having whatever the hell I want in my team, and it's still easy. I just play these games for the fun of progression though, not for any potential challenge as such.

Forgot how much of a dearth of fire types there are in the middle gens, though. Strange when gym two literally recommends them when you speak to the guy at the entrance. Nothing a good flying attack won't sort, though.

Buskalilly wrote:

Pokémon will never be hard after your first game because you understand types and how to level a team.

Not hard as your first game either now it tells you which type moves are effective to use and your whole team levels up

Difficulty is weird in JRPGs. In theory you can grind until any given fight becomes easy, or you can do what I do and constantly shuffle the team so it's harder than it should be. I feel like the ideal difficulty level for a Pokémon game is that if you fight all the trainers you end up being five levels lower than the gym leader - oh, and the trainers having decent AI, natch.

Set should be the default style of play for everyone IMHO.

Set is silly IMHO, as I look at it as hey this person have used a fire Mon, I better use my Water Mon and being tactical which is why Switch is better.

I think you might have misunderstood how Set work Mas.  You can still switch: you just don't get a free switch when you KO an opponent's Pokémon.  It's an advantage you don't have in the Pokémon Stadia or the various battle facilities, or indeed in player vs. player games; so it feels a bit odd to have it in the single-player mode, as the default at least rather than as an accessibility option.  I guess that's the whole 'RPG aimed at younger kids' thing Jay mentioned.

My 6-year-old beat the second gym yesterday, he hasn't lost a battle yet

"Set" is technically more balanced but in reality it just slows the game down without making it actually harder

I can't stick to artificial handicaps. I will take a path of less resistance if it's there, even if I would enjoy the game more if it wasn't. (Forza is a great example of how this can spoil a game imo)

Isn't there at least one old Pokemon game with a difficulty setting?

I know that opponents in Sw/Sh DLC have higher-level Pokemon if you've beaten the main game. Would be a simple way to offer a hard mode.

I've come close to losing a couple of battles, but I'm gonna blame that on me trying to talk to Twitch the whole time.

neil wrote:

Isn't there at least one old Pokemon game with a difficulty setting?

Black 2 and White 2, I think, but you only unlock it at the end?

I've never used 'Set' ever, and I only understood what it did reading Balla's explanation there.

Might have to give that a go with my eventual playthrough of Brilliant Diamond. (Am I the only one who picked Shining Pearl this time round?)

I got Pearl

Set is the standard in multiplayer battling and it makes sense for "fairness" because once a Pokemon is knocked out, you can get onto a roll and plough through a whole team if you're given all those free switches.
That being said, this is my first time on Set. I don't particularly care about difficulty in my Pokemon experience, but I figured slightly spicier battles will be better on stream.

Among my friends and family, it feels like everyone picked Pearl!
I still have a Diamond DS Cartridge, so I went for Pearl on Switch.

Just become the Champion, and I'd say don't worry about lack of challenge.

I’m not that far behind masofdas. It might get harder still, but I think the lack of challenge is something to be mindful of. There’s something to be said about BDSP being quite pleasant and easy-going - and those are admirable qualities for a game to have – but I think’s too extreme with this. It doesn’t ruin the game, but it spoils my enjoyment of it a bit. There’s no happiness to be had from taking down your thousandth Team Galactic Bronzor with a single Houndoom Flamethrower.

I think I could have reached this point in the game with just Medicham and Houndoom to be fair. Between those four Dark, Fire, Fighting and Psychic types they’ve got an answer for just about everything.