Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl - Release 19th Nov 2021

Iirc Newmoon Island wasn't actually acknowledged on the map until you got the Member Card and went there via the old residence in Canalave.
Oh, sure, I just thought it was interesting that it was essentially de-confirmed by the artwork.

Though things are actually less straightforward than I thought. It turns out there's two versions of the DP map, one of which has Fullmoon Island and the other of which explicitly doesn't. Fullmoon also doesn't show up in the Platinum map or in what is apparently an anime shot? So the fact that it's in the BDSP pictures is actually somewhat interesting. In some cases, I think it's because they put the logo over that section of the sea, and removed the island(s) to not clutter the area, so I'm curious as to whether its continued absence was intentional or if it was just a case of artists being given the wrong reference documents. I think in the last few generations they've been a little more intentional about hiding or obscuring spoiler areas rather than acting like they don't exist at all, but the status of New- and Fullmoon Island isn't exactly the kind of thing they would probably be holding meetings over. So who knows!

It's presumably possible that Newmoon Island can appear in the game, simply as a nightmare or hallucination leaving no physical traces. The Harbor Inn is still there, after all. It would be nice if they shifted some event-exclusives to be in-game like they did with Deoxys, but that's likely just wishful thinking.

On that topic, though, I wonder how they'll be doing the Regis. It doesn't look like the Regirock cavern is on Route 228, so presumably they're not going the Platinum route, but does that mean you'd have to transfer the trio from Bank to get Gigas? Are Regieleki and Regidrago going to be written into the lore?
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Oh, sure, I just thought it was interesting that it was essentially de-confirmed by the artwork.

Though things are actually less straightforward than I thought. It turns out there's two versions of the DP map, one of which has Fullmoon Island and the other of which explicitly doesn't. Fullmoon also doesn't show up in the Platinum map or in what is apparently an anime shot? So the fact that it's in the BDSP pictures is actually somewhat interesting. In some cases, I think it's because they put the logo over that section of the sea, and removed the island(s) to not clutter the area, so I'm curious as to whether its continued absence was intentional or if it was just a case of artists being given the wrong reference documents. I think in the last few generations they've been a little more intentional about hiding or obscuring spoiler areas rather than acting like they don't exist at all, but the status of New- and Fullmoon Island isn't exactly the kind of thing they would probably be holding meetings over. So who knows!

It's presumably possible that Newmoon Island can appear in the game, simply as a nightmare or hallucination leaving no physical traces. The Harbor Inn is still there, after all. It would be nice if they shifted some event-exclusives to be in-game like they did with Deoxys, but that's likely just wishful thinking.

On that topic, though, I wonder how they'll be doing the Regis. It doesn't look like the Regirock cavern is on Route 228, so presumably they're not going the Platinum route, but does that mean you'd have to transfer the trio from Bank to get Gigas? Are Regieleki and Regidrago going to be written into the lore?
Either that or you will have to use HOME to transfer the Regis from Sword and Shield if you have them from Crown Tundra I imagine.
 
This looks promising. I genuinely want this game to surpass Platinum, it would mark a great return to form for the franchise in my book.

The dex was a big concern of mine but it looks like that might be alleviated. Regardless of how they do it, expanding the original DP dex is a big plus. I'm not even looking for a faithful Platinum dex rendition, just a more expansive dex than the original.

One concern I still have that I believe hasn't yet been addressed is the Exp. Share. I seriously hope it's a toggle like in Gens 6 & 7. Part of Gen 4's appeal was its great level of challenge and difficulty, albeit maybe too much at times. Unfortunately I think the SwSh Exp. Share would dull that difficulty almost entirely. Here's hoping they handle that well, but otherwise this looks great.
 
This could get me back into playing the newer games they just need to let me send everyone of my old mons in and have at least the 493 from D/P era in it. (I would prefer every mon but gen 1-4 is core to me)
 
One concern I still have that I believe hasn't yet been addressed is the Exp. Share. I seriously hope it's a toggle like in Gens 6 & 7. Part of Gen 4's appeal was its great level of challenge and difficulty, albeit maybe too much at times. Unfortunately I think the SwSh Exp. Share would dull that difficulty almost entirely. Here's hoping they handle that well, but otherwise this looks great.
I'd not put my money on it.

If both Let's Go and SwSh are to go by, exp share will be permanent and on by default. "On the fly" PC is also a very likely possibility.

However, the trailer also hinted that the enemy might have different pokemon (the first Gym leader is shown to have Rollout on his Geodude, but he didn't in the original), so there's possibility of a improved difficulty curve.
 
I'd not put my money on it.

If both Let's Go and SwSh are to go by, exp share will be permanent and on by default. "On the fly" PC is also a very likely possibility.

However, the trailer also hinted that the enemy might have different pokemon (the first Gym leader is shown to have Rollout on his Geodude, but he didn't in the original), so there's possibility of a improved difficulty curve.
It would be difficult to salvage the difficulty if Exp. Share is mandatory to be honest. It's not like Platinum's Gyms were lacking optimized move sets (see Fantina's Mismagius).

I really, really hope they make it a toggle, maybe hoping against hope. With the dex issue resolved, this and the Battle Frontier are the only two concerns I have left.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
It would be difficult to salvage the difficulty if Exp. Share is mandatory to be honest. It's not like Platinum's Gyms were lacking optimized move sets (see Fantina's Mismagius).

I really, really hope they make it a toggle, maybe hoping against hope. With the dex issue resolved, this and the Battle Frontier are the only two concerns I have left.
Im sure if perma-xp is on they'll rescale the teams to accomodate, I'd prefer a toggle but it's not like they're not gonna do anything to teams should it be permanent. Also bad news on the second thing
 
If someone is seriously thinking about the Battle Frontier coming back they need to seriously improve their knowledge on Game Freak's. Games will be fun, but don't expect the Frontier.
 
I did not watch the livestream of the Presents today, it started just when I quit working. While I could have gone home a little earlier so I could have watched it, I decided to not do that. Also, 28 minutes is a bit too long for my tastes. I just watched the trailers afterwards, read about stuff on Serebii and the official site, as well as read through all replies in this thread.

On a side note, I wonder what happened to releasing things like trailers and regular news without a Presents/Direct? Feels like they have been doing that a lot less lately, especially for these games and L:A.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on several things that were shown today:

- It feels like graphics look better than in previous trailers, which is great.
- They show many familiar areas in the new graphical style, which is neat.
- Following Pokémon… meh. Unpopular opinion as usual, but I really don’t like this feature. I hope it can be turned off. Since that was the case in the SS DLC, I believe it will be possible here as well.
- Ball capsules and stickers are neat. I hope they are a bit more convenient to use here compared to the originals where I barely used them because I found them so inconvenient to use there.
- The Union Room exists for connectivity. It feels like a bit of a step back compared to more recent multiplayer gadgets. I find the original Union Room to be very clunky compared to modern stuff like the C-Gear, PSS, Festival Plaza or the Y-Comm. That said, they can of course improve it to make it better, and I hope they do so. I wonder why it needs a patch to be used. Though it could just be a day 1 update/patch as someone mentioned earlier. And there are separate local and online rooms, the online one needs NSO which isn’t very surprising.
- The games have character customization, which is awesome! One of the few things I really wish had been in OR/AS. And you can choose your skin color at the beginning of the game as well, great. It also seems like you can choose your hair color. Dawn looks so weird with blonde hair lol. It seems like the style shop replaces the Game Corner in Veilstone. Speaking of which, I am not surprised that the Game Corner is gone.
- Super Contests return. I am not a huge fan of how they worked in the originals (in fact, they are my least favorite minigame in the series), so I really hope BD/SP improve upon them and make them more fun. They look a bit more different at least. And you now use Ball Capsule stickers for decoration? Unexpected. It also seems impossible to max out all stats like you could in OR/AS because the “sheen” is shown here.
- The Underground seems to have been upgraded as well. Being able to meet wild Pokémon in certain areas is really cool. It varies depending on your Secret Base (and the statues, it seems). I wonder how that will work in full detail. It also seems like Munchlax is one of the Pokémon you can meet in the Underground, which is great as that means it will hopefully not be mythological like in the originals.
- The map looks neat. It seems like it confirms the Battle Zone is in the base games and not gone or just available as DLC later on, which was one of my fears, so this is great! Most places look the same as before, though it seems like Newmoon Island is missing (and it appears that Fullmoon Island has taken its place?) as well as Seabreak Path & Flower Paradise. I wonder if those will be available later somehow, through DLC or events. Spear Pillar is not visible either, but I guess they just want to hide it. And as someone pointed out, Pal Park looks different. Notably, it has caves. I wonder what they will contain? And what will Pal Park itself be used for?
- No Battle Frontier, just the Battle Tower. Unpopular opinion perhaps, but I am okay with this. On one condition: that this Tower isn’t nerfed into oblivion like the S/S Tower. Hopefully it is back to the standard challenge this time around. That said, I wonder how it will be. Will it have regular and super lines like the Subway/Maison/Tree? Or will it just have the super lines from the start like the S/S Tower? Will it have a Multi line? Will you be able to save battle videos? Will you be able to battle as many trainers as you want or in sets of 7 like the originals? What rewards will there be for beating the Tower? I guess we will find out eventually. If it doesn’t keep all the changes that the more modern Battle Facilities have added, it will feel like another step back, sadly.
- One other thing I thought about was if they might add the full Frontier as DLC later on? Not sure if it will happen, but it was something I thought about.
- Are HMs in the games? I personally hope not, I would prefer a Poké Ride or something similar.
- There are no overworld encounters in the main region, which is sad to see as I really liked those and I definitely prefer them over random encouters. They seem to be in the Underground though, which is cool.
- Team Galactic seems to be mostly the same as in the originals, which I am okay with.
- Glaceon, Leafeon, Yanmega, Togekiss… they showed a lot more Pokémon which were only in the Platinum Dex in the originals, further confirming that they will be using the Platinum Dex as a base, and that is great! But will those from the Platinum Dex only be available through the Underground? If so, then that’s a bit negative.
- One image of Bidoof showed it with its National Dex number, does that mean the games will have a National Dex? Or maybe a “National Dex” with the first 493 Pokémon? It seems like most/all Pokémon from Gen 1-4 will be in the games, but what about Gen 5-8? Will any of them be in the games? I personally hope so. I don’t think we have seen any of them so far, correct me if I’m wrong.
- The Underground map looks cool, much more varied which is neat.
- It seems like the Underground is the main area where you meet Pokémon outside of the regional dex, and that’s okay for me.
- I wonder if they will release an update for S/S and add the currently missing Pokémon that will be available in BD/SP. I also wonder if you will be able to trade/interact between S/S and BD/SP. The latter will get Home combability in 2022, so that’s at least something.
- Some Pokémon learn new moves, and it seems like some moves that were removed in S/S will return, such as Return (lololol). Will Hidden Power be back as well? I personally hope not as I never liked that move, I always found it too stupid and broken. I hope they will give Unown something else instead. Or make Hidden Power exclusive to Unown, or something.
- It says that more content will be added later. What does this mean? DLC like in S/S? If so, that could be great. I really liked the DLC for S/S and I think it can be really great if they do it for more games as well.
- I like how you get a Manaphy gift for getting the games early, it follows with previous games also having gifts early on. It means that if I end up getting SP, I should get it early so I can get the Manaphy.

Overall, I really liked the trailer and how much info was revealed today. My hype/interest for SP is considerably higher now compared to how it has been since the games were first announced. That said, I am still not sold on getting SP. Sad as it is to say. First, there’s the fact that I have played the original Sinnoh games so much that a faithful remake just isn’t super appealing to me. Plus, I still find them (or at least Platinum) to be playable and enjoyable by modern standards to the point that there’s no direct need for me to get SP, I can just stick with Platinum.

I am also burnt out on Pokémon, I have lost a fair bit of interest in the franchise and the series recently, and I really need a break from Pokémon. I have tried to take breaks I recent times, but it just doesn’t work. Something always happens which makes me start playing again. Last year, I had several breaks from Sword but I still played in the Subway in Gen 5 during February-September (and then I made long forum posts about it in November). This year, I have also had a long break from Sword, but I have been working on my own Project: In Wonder since March. Though I am currently 11/12 done with it and if I can wrap up the last phase of it within a month, then I can have at least a two month break until the release of BD/SP. So yeah, I am still unsure about getting SP, but things are at least looking much more positive compared to earlier. We’ll see what happens in the end.
 
"On the fly" PC is also a very likely possibility.
Already confirmed iirc.


the Battle Frontier are the only two concerns I have left.
Already de-confirmed, sadly. Updated Sinnoh Map only shows the Battle Tower.

Exp. Share seems to be the same problem as always. Assuming GF doesn't pull a SwSh again with an item that boosts Exp. Gain by 50% and that you can't turn off, it should be fine tho.

Regardless, modders will find a way quickly. As long as the core is good, oh boy am I going to have some fun with this...

RIP Plat Fantina tho. :psycry:
 
I wonder why it needs a patch to be used. Though it could just be a day 1 update/patch as someone mentioned earlier. And there are separate local and online rooms, the online one needs NSO which isn’t very surprising.
It's very likely just warning people of the potential of day-1 patch (or future patches). I wouldn't overthink it too much.

Even in the weird case it would be due to DLCs releases (unlikely, but let's pretend), it'd be similar to SwSh requiring to download a patch to use online features even if you don't own the DLCs, in order to not, like, crash when connecting to patched versions.
What rewards will there be for beating the Tower? I
You already know the answer to this one: BPs.

No real reason to assume anything else, the facilities have been the "main" way to get BPs for battle items for quite a while at this point :)
 
Im sure if perma-xp is on they'll rescale the teams to accomodate, I'd prefer a toggle but it's not like they're not gonna do anything to teams should it be permanent. Also bad news on the second thing
nnnnnnnn I dunnooooo

Let's go was all over the place with this (ie: Misty was lower but most of Giovanni was higher but Giovanni also had less pokemon so like ??? but also Lance was significantly lower)and SWSH definitely didn't feel balanced with it at all

Most of the new trailer looked interesting, but some of the overworld Pokemon just... do not look good next to the overworld humans.

View attachment 365871
The issue with the overworld Pokemon is they're just the models they always have, but shrunken down. So they stand out pretty hard against the....well, everything else, that was designed around the weird chibi style.

Though some will, just by virtue of their proportions, just look better than others.
 
It seems like most/all Pokémon from Gen 1-4 will be in the games, but what about Gen 5-8? Will any of them be in the games? I personally hope so. I don’t think we have seen any of them so far, correct me if I’m wrong.
I don't think we'll see Pokémon from generation 5 onwards. If you asked me a few years ago, when all the remakes where esentially improved versions of the mainline games of that gen, containing all the Pokédex and expanding on the originals, for sure, but these are the first remakes different in a lot of senses, from not being developed by GF, to having a completely different artistic style than Sword and Shield. They'll probably be almost 1:1 versions of original Diamond and Pearl. It's still strange to me, I couldn't have thought of a Fire Red and Leaf Green with just the 151 original mons, or 251 in HGSS case, os 386 in ORAS, but it is what it is and I don't think its worth it to expect anything different.
 
If someone is seriously thinking about the Battle Frontier coming back they need to seriously improve their knowledge on Game Freak's. Games will be fun, but don't expect the Frontier.
Unless I'm mistaken this game is not being made by Gamefreak. So you know. There's still hope.
 
For my short thoughts: I'm liking what I'm seeing, the games look solid. The art still looks a little shiny but overall I like it, its been growing on me. The revamped underground looks sick as hell, the old underground only really had the mining minigame going for it, so keeping that minigame and adding in actual Pokémon to catch is nice. Along those lines, they really leaned in on showing either pokemon from the Platinum dex or pokemon like Munchlax which were difficult to find in the originals so I think there's a pretty strong indication that a better dex in coming for the main game. However, not including them in the main story would be hilarious :'( .

Overall, BDSP looks like a how I remember the games, and there looks like there is enough improvements to make me want to play it. Seriously though, idk what they are doing with the lighting in some shots though, why does Cyrus standing in a dark background look like he is standing next to the sun?

Oh, sure, I just thought it was interesting that it was essentially de-confirmed by the artwork.

Though things are actually less straightforward than I thought. It turns out there's two versions of the DP map, one of which has Fullmoon Island and the other of which explicitly doesn't. Fullmoon also doesn't show up in the Platinum map or in what is apparently an anime shot? So the fact that it's in the BDSP pictures is actually somewhat interesting. In some cases, I think it's because they put the logo over that section of the sea, and removed the island(s) to not clutter the area, so I'm curious as to whether its continued absence was intentional or if it was just a case of artists being given the wrong reference documents. I think in the last few generations they've been a little more intentional about hiding or obscuring spoiler areas rather than acting like they don't exist at all, but the status of New- and Fullmoon Island isn't exactly the kind of thing they would probably be holding meetings over. So who knows!

It's presumably possible that Newmoon Island can appear in the game, simply as a nightmare or hallucination leaving no physical traces. The Harbor Inn is still there, after all. It would be nice if they shifted some event-exclusives to be in-game like they did with Deoxys, but that's likely just wishful thinking.
Newmoon Island is in a weird place, as it was programmed into DP, but the event to let you actually go there was only released for Platinum. We have seen only a little bit about mythicals at this point, but from what they have shown I think it is a good bet that 3/4 will be in the game (Manaphy egg preorder + Gracidea flower person + Harbor building in Canalave City). I really hope they focus on in game distribution instead, because the original release of Darkrai for DP is insane. In America if you wanted it for DP you could get it for like a day or two at a Toys R US, a month in at gamestop or in NYC, or through a mission in pokemon ranger game which I think was time limited too.
Sorry I missed your screenshot. That's really too bad.
Not having the frontier is still weird to me, I know the reasoning for ORAS was that the Frontier was challenging and did not get much use, but idk when I was a dumb kid I enjoyed playing the other frontier facilities more. It was difficult to get a good ingame team to challenge the Tower and other facilities, but the other facilities either had gimmicks I could abuse to get some wins or it was the Factory and I did not need to worry about building a team for. The Battle Tower is just a straight challenge and if I don't want to grind for it, I'll ignore it completely. I'm glad to see that it is Sinnoh's own Battle Tower though, I'm relieved its not like ORAS.
 
nnnnnnnn I dunnooooo

Let's go was all over the place with this (ie: Misty was lower but most of Giovanni was higher but Giovanni also had less pokemon so like ??? but also Lance was significantly lower)and SWSH definitely didn't feel balanced with it at all
This is my concern too. GF doesn't have a great record with level scaling when it comes to mandatory Exp. Share. Here's hoping they've learned from the first couple rusty iterations.

Not having the frontier is still weird to me, I know the reasoning for ORAS was that the Frontier was challenging and did not get much use, but idk when I was a dumb kid I enjoyed playing the other frontier facilities more. It was difficult to get a good ingame team to challenge the Tower and other facilities, but the other facilities either had gimmicks I could abuse to get some wins or it was the Factory and I did not need to worry about building a team for. The Battle Tower is just a straight challenge and if I don't want to grind for it, I'll ignore it completely. I'm glad to see that it is Sinnoh's own Battle Tower though, I'm relieved its not like ORAS.
You can build an in-game team to get all the Silver Symbols of the Frontier, which is a nice post game challenge in and of itself. You have to breed for IVs and EV train to get the Golds though.

I'm still optimistic about this game but lack of Frontier does hold it back unfortunately. And I don't think it was unreasonable to hope for that. GF clearly listened to some criticisms of the original DP, case in point the regional dex.
 

CTNC

Doesn't know how to attack
I'm pretty sure my thoughts are echoing everyone else's when I say this, but the more I see that isn't faithful to the original games (or is more faithful to Platinum than DP) the more I get my hopes up. Every time I saw a Pokemon that wasn't in the DP dex I told myself it's not confirmed to be in the main game until I saw Houndoom in the underground. Seeing even more Pokemon available, like the Sentret pointed out earlier or Numel from the same screenshot, is a pretty interesting and welcome change. It makes sense that they expanded the Dex again because every Dex since BW2 (except ORAS) has been at least 300 Pokemon. I remember feeling like the Zigzagoon, Wingull, and sometimes Oddish lines very common almost everywhere was pretty repetitive after being spoiled by other games. (Not helped by the change of having it so later areas had only Linoone instead of Zigzagoon and Linoone.) I'm starting to hope for the full National Dex between this and Legends. Can someone crush that hope before it gets big enough to be hurt when we can't have everything in SwSh?

Now all I need to see is Gym Leaders and the Elite Four use full teams of their type, (I'm looking at the last two gyms, and yes, I'm glaring a Flint's team of all 2 Fire types on a team of 5 Pokemon.) and hopefully movesets that aren't jokes. (Not directed at anything in DP, but HG/SS having the Dark Elite Four's Gengar know Lick as its Ghost attack was way too faithful to the original games.) The first Gym having Rollout is a good but painful looking sign. (Painful as in RIP anyone using Chimchar.)


About cut moves coming back, I feel safe saying Bide is one of the moves coming back because it was Kriketot's only attack.
Hopefully the Contests haven't been dumb down
Please dumb down the contest a little! The first part was dragging 20 decorations (In Master Rank) onto your Pokemon in 60 seconds and hoping they matched the contest style! Just don't dumb it down enough that all of it can be beaten by just a Magikarp like in ORAS.
 
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I'm still optimistic about this game but lack of Frontier does hold it back unfortunately. And I don't think it was unreasonable to hope for that. GF clearly listened to some criticisms of the original DP, case in point the regional dex.
While true, it's unfortunately one of the features you could have bet to not see.
As discussed in one of the other topics, the facilities are one of the least played features of the recent games (which is why SwSh didn't really have one, outside of a quite easy Battle Tower and a DLC-added Restricted Sparring), and essentially a waste of their already limited development time.

In general you shouldn't really expect "challenging" Battle Facilities to ever come back
The first Gym having Rollout is a good but painful looking sign.
Why would it be painful though. If it's just cause the move isnt exactly great, well, consider we talking of a Rock gym and there arent really many low level Rock moves (plus Rock has the problem that tends to trash on early game pokemon, aka bug and flying types, and it's not ideal to have strong stabs for it in the very first gym).
I'd see it in opposite way, and think it's a *good* sign since they actually had a interesting thought with it (the move gets stronger with use but also locks the user into it, letting you swap in a resist and then counterattack)
 

CTNC

Doesn't know how to attack
Why would it be painful though. If it's just cause the move isnt exactly great, well, consider we talking of a Rock gym and there arent really many low level Rock moves (plus Rock has the problem that tends to trash on early game pokemon, aka bug and flying types, and it's not ideal to have strong stabs for it in the very first gym).
I'd see it in opposite way, and think it's a *good* sign since they actually had a interesting thought with it (the move gets stronger with use but also locks the user into it, letting you swap in a resist and then counterattack)
Dude, it's Rollout, Miltank's most infamous move. The move that can and will OHKO anything after a few turns even though it has "only" 30 Power. I meant painful in a good way. Can we give a preemptive moment of silence for Nuzlockers who pick Charmander Chimchar?

Edit: I could have sworn I typed Chimchar. I was even thinking Chimchar while I typed it. Well, anyone that pick Charmander deserves to lose for cheating. No moment of silence for you. :P Seriously though, Rollout made Shuckle into a offensive powerhouse in Jrose11's GS Shuckle Solo. He didn't bother with Toxic because Rollout was that devastating!
 
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