Pokemon Diamond

Any gamer should have heard of Pokemon. It’s a huge name in the Gaming series, up there with the big names such s Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong. It even has a place in the Super Smash series. Pokemon has been around for years, the main series being developed for the Gameboy and Gameboy Advanced with a few other games on the side for other consoles.

So why is it so popular? Mainly because it’s a great and original idea, everyone loves the idea of being able to run around in a world where animals are monsters called Pokemon who they can capture and become friends with then use to fight for them. It’s possibly the most popular game series in the world.. As for the Anime not being popular even though it’s the same idea, the Anime was just done badly. There is no build up to anything that happens. 

In the Anime, Suddenly the Gym caught on fire!! But that’s no problem. Go Squirtle! Suddenly team rocket turned up in rubber suits and grabbed Pickachu and took off in their Balloon. But that’s no problem either. No, Ash doesn’t even need to run after them, he just sends out Pidgeotto and saves the day. Yes.. The Anime was terrible but the reason the games are so popular is because it’s much more exciting getting to use Squirtle to put out fires than it is to watch him do it.. 

As for the games in general, please back me up but they’ve gotten better every year. It started off with Pokemon Blue/Red which was awesome as the first game. I really, really liked it, I caught every single Pokemon, levelled all my Pokemon to 100… This game had hours of Game time and I made the most of it… Even when my Pokemon Blue game went through the wash, it still worked. ;D 

Then Pokemon Yellow came out. At first it seemed odd that the same game was being released for a third time, but Pokemon Yellow was an ingenious game including Pickachu and Jessy and James making it seem most like the Anime. It was a great game for any fans of the Anime (There is fans of the Anime?…)

Then it was Pokemon Gold/Silver, New Pokemon, New Safari Zone, SuddoWoodo instead of Snorlax – That was cool, Night and day transitions which worked perfectly and Shiny Pokemon.. Pokemon Gold was a great game, especially adding colour to the Pokemon series. Then Pokemon Crystal, my favourite game in the series added the Legendary dogs.

Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire added Berries, Secret Hideouts, Berry Machines, Watering cans, Rain/Weather, furniture stores, Puzzles like the one including Braille and two teams making a great storyline. These games really improved the Pokemon series..

Then my Pokemon fandom started to die on the release of Leaf Green and Ruby Red.. The same game re-released in colour with very few, very tiny additions to the game? There was no point in Leaf Green and Ruby Red.

So that’s up to where the Pokemon series got, then came Pokemon for the DS. This was a big thing. All sorts of games had been ported to the DS and in 3D with great gameplay! Zelda, Mario, Metroids.. So moving another big name like Pokemon to the DS was very exciting. Oh, how I can’t wait to see what kind of features they’ve added to make it worth having on the DS!

Huh? Wait did I buy the right game? Pokemon on the DS… This is.. It’s just like normal? Yep, Pokemon on the DS pretty much sums it up, it’s not Pokemon FOR the DS, it’s Pokemon ON the DS. It’s just like playing Leaf Green on the DS.. There is nothing new about it.. No 3D graphics, no extra buttons or features.. It’s just another Pokemon game, it may as well have been released for the GBA.

So firstly, I’ll talk about the graphics.. They are exactly the same as Leaf Green. I mean, sure, it’s still Pokemon, I wasn’t really expecting awesome 3D graphics, but improved Graphics at least. Without comparing the graphics, the only obvious difference is that in Battles the foes pokemon is smaller. What difference does the make to the game? Does it make it harder to hit? No… Does it make it look better? No…

Even when you talk to people on the Game, something should happen like their head comes up in detail while you talk to them, take Fire Emblem for example… But no… Not Pokemon… It’s still just a text box. They’ve really done nothing more for the graphics than they ever have done. There is certain parts of the game where the graphics are improved, like at the Valley Windworks area the Windmills are 3D.. But the entire game should be like this, not just some stupid windmill. 

Overall, I don’t have much to say about the graphics… They’re exactly the same as the graphics on other Pokemon games. Nothing exciting, nothing new. I don’t really have much to point out on them than just that you’ll recogonise them as no different to the GBA games. Not even the Map is different, it is starting to seem like all the maps are just made using a random map generator, although I don’t believe that, I think there is more effort than that but not much effort. The graphics could be much, much better.

Moving on to what I want totalk about, Gameplay. Until you make it to Jubilife City, there is no DS features. The touch screen just has a picture of a Pokeball on it.. Gameplay is exactly the same as the other pokemon games. Now that is just sad. This is the DS, it has a Microphone, a touch screen and two extra buttons, yet Pokemon Diamond didn’t even make use of the two extra buttons. No, all it did was use X instead of Start and Y instead of Select.

Once you make it to Jubilife city you get given a PokeApp thing which becomes your touch screen – YES! A DS FEATURE! THIS IS WHAT I WANTED! POKEMON DIAMOND IS GREAT! Oh wait… No… The touch screen does nothing. On one App it is a watch which shows the time your DS is set to, on one app it shows how many steps you’ve taken, on one app it shows your Pokemon and their cries and.. Basically it’s just useless. It doesn’t even look good. It’s supposed to look like a computer screen so Nintendo purposely made it Pixelly and Green. Wait… What age is Pokemon meant to be based in? A green L.E.D screen with pixels to show content?… Not even watches are built like that now days… So why?

Also, it’s not really a touch screen feature.. All you do when you touch it is press on a Red Button to switch apps. Not cool or fun at all. I mean, come on… This is the DS. Imagine what is possible with it, in battles to do a tail whip a tail should come up on the touch screen and you have to slide your stylus across the screen to flick it, to do a bubble attack you have to draw as many circles on the screen as fast as you can in a short period of time for higher damage/more bubbles, to do bullet seed you should be able to slide seeds flying across the touch screen towards your foe…

To do a gust you should have to blow into the Microphone.. Really now, what is this? We’re still just selecting attacks and watching it happen for us? THIS IS THE DS! As for the buttons I mentioned earlier, They could have given Select and Start a purpose, for example, allowing you to register three different items.. But no… The buttons do nothing.

The last thing I’ll talk about is the Pokemon, I could swear there is less new Pokemon than there is old. Within the first four towns I had already seen and battled Abra, Kadabra, Magikarp, Roselia, Zubat, Geodude, Onix, Machop, Psyduck, Wurmple, Silcoon, Bautifly, Cascoon, Dustox, Murkrow, Goldeen, Meditite, Ponyta, Chansey and Pickachu. Sure, a lot of the old Pokemon are still popular, I understand that, but if we’re going to buy a new Pokemon game, make it worth our while with new Pokemon and new features please? 

Lastly, I just find the names of a lot of pokemon stupid. Bidoof? Why not just called him BigDoofus? And the Pokemon called Purugly… Yeah. I hope that’s just a joke because I actually laughed out loud when I saw it. 

Anywho, as you can probably tell, this game didn’t impress me at all.. Quite the contrary, this game is what killed my fandom for Pokemon, and I was a big fan. Heck, from when I was a kid I still have Pokemon Magazines, pokemon badges, a pokemon hat, Pokemon models, Pokemon action figures, Pokeballs, Pokedex, Pokemon Sticker Books, Pokemon hand books, Pokemon activity books, Pokemon fabric… Yeah. And now I hate Pokemon. 

I just hate how they release the same game over and over and over and over again with very minor changes, and everyone buys it again anyway.. I’m not going to do that anymore. If they release it on the DS and it hasn’t improved at all, as far as I can see they don’t plan to ever improve it but just to keep releasing. Don’t buy anymore games.