Yeah, the "somehow" was a poor choice of words. I didn't mean that it was unexpected for the graphics to be better, just that I can't quite put my finger on what they did to make the NPCs look better.
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Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl - Release 19th Nov 2021
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Boy did I choose the wrong day to be away from the Internet.
Also, I'm gonna make a prediction now which will probably end up being horribly wrong... I'm fully expecting Darkrai to be available via regular gameplay ala Deoxys in ORAS. GF has slowly been making older mythicals available through ordinary means (we've now got Keldeo, Celebi, and Deoxys obtainable without events) and Darkrai fits more naturally into regular gameplay - they could extend the sequence of events in Canalave so that once you've captured Cresselia you get access to the Harbour Inn.
The same could apply to Shaymin, but I think Darkrai is the more likely of the two to receive this treatment. They're keeping Manaphy event-exclusive so it's probable that Shaymin will remain so as well. Gen IV does have five mythicals, after all, and Arceus is almost certainly going to be available regularly in Legends.
If you mean the water bit I'm fairly sure that'll be blocked off by rocks like it was in the originals and it just looks like that in the map. But the water to the east of the route below is curious because in the originals it was just a dead end.
Well the gates are there, so it's not missing. I'm guessing that it might be remodelled (I really hope they keep the Platinum redesign) or there's something new in there they don't want to show us. Or they just ran out of space on the map because it's a pretty huge space and Celestic Town is right above it.
Wow, Tanned Dawn and Blonde Lucas are two things I never knew I needed and... now I'm genuinely undecided over which to pick.Oh I missed this earlier
BDSP will let you pick skin tone. I just kind of assumed they wouldn't. ORAS and iirc Let's Go didn't allow it. So that's fun.
Also, I'm gonna make a prediction now which will probably end up being horribly wrong... I'm fully expecting Darkrai to be available via regular gameplay ala Deoxys in ORAS. GF has slowly been making older mythicals available through ordinary means (we've now got Keldeo, Celebi, and Deoxys obtainable without events) and Darkrai fits more naturally into regular gameplay - they could extend the sequence of events in Canalave so that once you've captured Cresselia you get access to the Harbour Inn.
The same could apply to Shaymin, but I think Darkrai is the more likely of the two to receive this treatment. They're keeping Manaphy event-exclusive so it's probable that Shaymin will remain so as well. Gen IV does have five mythicals, after all, and Arceus is almost certainly going to be available regularly in Legends.
This is wild speculation, but judging by the fact that gen 2 VC had the old Celebi event made public for everyone in the game, it wouldn't surprise me if all of the previous gen 4 events (potentially, even the unreleased Arceus one, albeith less likely since he... kinda got his own game) will be available in some form in the remakes.
Expecially as this doesnt look (so far) to be a case of gen 3 remakes, aka "different timeline and different events", but more on the line of FRLG and HGSS, mostly faithful remake with QoL and updates from new generations.
Maybe the Black Belt will want to bring a Pokemon that isn't in the game to follow him, or something like a Totem Pokemon. Since he says Gyarados and Steelix, maybe he wants both of them to follow him at the same time.
It was a post-game area with a bunch of different battle facilities with different gimmicks.
it was present in Emerald (7 facilities on a big landmass), Platinum (5 facilities in a smaller theme park) and HGSS (a copy paste of Platinum's).
A lot of people see it as the "real" end game & enjoy its challenge and are disappointed/mad when it doesn't return. Things reached fever pitch with ORAS, which not only didn't have Emerald's Battle Frontier or an approximation of it, but specifically teased it as a thing that is in the process of being made.
Basically as R_N said, it's a battle-focused set of facilities that showed up at the endgame of Emerald, Platinum, and HGSS.
The thing about the Frontier is that it's not just a cool challenge, but it's very, very replayable.
Unlike say, the Delta Episode in ORAS, which was cool and appreciated, but had a defined end, the Frontier had 2 goals, Silver/No Color and Gold/Colored symbols.
Both of these were streak-based and you had to defeat the Frontier Brains for these. But you could also keep the streak going after that and it'd keep getting harder and harder.
The appeal lies on the strong battling core mechanics with a little twist on them.
I wonder about the dex situation in this game. I don't mean the "what we have available" situation but like, the literal Pokedex.
It really feels like, just like in the originals, just about every Pokemon from gens 1-4 will be available...and personally I think it'd be a little strange to not have a dex with them in it. Gen 7 didn't have it, but in terms of "pokemon available in-game" there is a potential difference in number that would flip it from "annoying" to "weirdly lacking", especially if it's quite easy to get pokemon outside of the sinnoh dex throughout the game.
And if they decide to have a "National" Dex, I wonder if they'd try to make the starters and legends available as well? Since it'd be awkward to have the mode but no way to fill in those blanks.
Alternatively maybe they could have a "Great underground" dex. Helps excise the stuff they don't want in the game and gives a greater urge to explore the underground.
If they do that I expect the Sinnoh Dex to add Cresselia, Heatran, Regigigas, Phione, Shaymin, Darkrai & Arceus just because it'd be weird for Sinnoh's suite of legends to have no visible dex entries whatsoever (& honestly they should've been in the sinnoh dex to begin with!).
It really feels like, just like in the originals, just about every Pokemon from gens 1-4 will be available...and personally I think it'd be a little strange to not have a dex with them in it. Gen 7 didn't have it, but in terms of "pokemon available in-game" there is a potential difference in number that would flip it from "annoying" to "weirdly lacking", especially if it's quite easy to get pokemon outside of the sinnoh dex throughout the game.
And if they decide to have a "National" Dex, I wonder if they'd try to make the starters and legends available as well? Since it'd be awkward to have the mode but no way to fill in those blanks.
Alternatively maybe they could have a "Great underground" dex. Helps excise the stuff they don't want in the game and gives a greater urge to explore the underground.
If they do that I expect the Sinnoh Dex to add Cresselia, Heatran, Regigigas, Phione, Shaymin, Darkrai & Arceus just because it'd be weird for Sinnoh's suite of legends to have no visible dex entries whatsoever (& honestly they should've been in the sinnoh dex to begin with!).
I'm still mad they applied this horrible desaturation filter and nuked the vibrant colors of the first screenshot.Overall, this trailer gave me a very positive impression. I don't know what I was expecting, but what I feared as a worst case scenario was a one-to-one conversion of the original games into HD graphics. This, luckily, seems not to be the case. The Grand Underground, at least, is definite proof that they have been allowed to go outside the scope of the originals, and now I believe there is a good reason to play this instead of replaying the originals. That was something I felt to be lacking with LGPE, so it is good to see it addressed here. My worst fears have definitely been vanquished.
Another thing I noticed, I'm not sure if it is the camera or the models, but the overworld NPCs look better somehow. In the first trailer, I got the impression that the camera was too top-down, so that only the top of NPC heads were visible. In these trailers, either the camera has been lowered a little, or the models slightly tilted away from the camera, but at any rate I feel like more of their body is visible now. You're not just looking at a hat with some limbs poking out underneath.
I think the models were changed slightly too. Of course the pictures I used on page 2 have been subject to link rot already, but Serebii has a few pictures from the first trailer. Notable among them is this one:
Compare to this one:
It looks like the character's legs have been made bigger, and you can see more of them than earlier. The arms are also resting further out from the body. The hat is still very prominent in the look of the character, but it doesn't feel like it's hiding the rest of the model anymore. This is also noticeable with other overworld NPCs, but I don't have screenshots from the previous trailer available right now. That being said, some of the Underground shots in the trailer are still noticeably hat-heavy. Then again, those are cramped spaces where it makes sense for the camera to be positioned directly above the player - in the big caves, you see the character at a lower angle again.
The chibi look is also growing on me. I realized that the buildings and environment feels quite chibi as well. Look at the screenshot above, for instance, with the houses in Twinleaf Town barely being large enough to qualify as sheds. The overworld has caves with big, round, door-like openings, bridges spanning ravines without bending (and without railings), the Canalave canal is perhaps five meters wide, the furniture of houses looks all out of wack ... honestly, realistic characters would fit this overworld really poorly. Might as well make it all look doll-like, then like a toy set.
Other than that, I like what I see. Ball seals changing to stickers feels like a better translation, honestly. If you're putting seals on the ball, it sounds like it can't be opened. I've never heard the word "seals" be used in the same way as "stickers". As a kid, I wondered if the Seal Case had anything to do with blobby creatures swimming in the ocean.
For following Pokémon, I echo a sentiment from upthread: It's not really necessary that it's present for me to enjoy a game, but when it is present it makes things feel more immersive. It is a neat little touch. Character customization, while simplified, is good to see too. I was never good at mixing and matching, so having whole outfits composed for me is really convenient.
The lack of a Battle Frontier is of course a little bit disheartening, but at this point expectations were low for it anyway. There could still be some fun little QoL improvements at the Battle Tower, but otherwise the game seems to have enough to offer regardless. The trailer definitely left me with much better impressions and expectations than the initial announcement did. I think TPC shall have my money once again. Maybe twice too? Eh, I'll see after playing it the first time.
All they needed to do was work on the lighting...
Battle Frontier of Platinum (which is identical to HG/SS Battle Frontier) was a reimagination of III Gen Battle Frontier. In 4th, it consists of a series of enclosures (5 in this gen, 7 in Gen III Emerald), that propose a challenge in the form of custom ruled battles. Each one has different rules, being the Battle Tower the most standard (you've to achieve 49th consecutive victories, or 100 in case you want a new star added to your Trainer Card), and the others a lot different. For example, in the Battle Factory you don't use your own team, but a series of randomly selected rental Pokémon from which you choose to a maximum of 3, and after every sucessfull battle you get the option to change one of your team's member for one Pokémon in your rivals team, thus, rewarding not your own team building, but your knowledge and "puzzling" abilities, forcing you to succeed by using whatever it's given to you. You can search for Platinum Battle Frontier on Bulbapedia to see the rest in detail, but you get the idea.
The challenges themselves are serious enough, in fact, they very much force you to learn about Natures, EVs and IVs, for your chances of winning in all of them without any knowledge in team-building or any of those terms are low, but what makes them infamously rage inducing is the h4x, aka, the RNG that intervenes and will make you witness the greatest misfortunes you could ever conceive. In all fairness, each one of them is interesting and deep enough to make you put effort in learning how you should face the challenge, and, by themselves, will easily give you enough playtime, as a post-game feature, to equal several playthroughs of any Pokémon game fron beginning to end.
Seeing as you are paying a prize of 60 Dollars for a game, there's literally no justificable, nor logical reason, to not ask for a well designed Battle Frontier, for having it is only benefitial for the games, in both content and gameplay. And, to this day, there has not been, and I repeat, there has not been, a single other feature that will give you more mechanical variety, content and induced learning than a Battle Frontier in the history of the franchise. So, assumming -as it is- that development time and resources are limited, there's not a single content related feature in all of the Pokémon saga that comes even close to what a Battle Frontier can give you in terms of gameplay, so you'd ask always for it unless another possibility is proven in the future (something unprobable coming from actual Game Freak).
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The Mind Electric
Calming if you look at it right.
Honestly, while it's not gonna kill my interest in the game, I do think that not having the full Battle Frontier is a wasted opportunity. One of the big problems with the original Frontier for me is that it's a massive pain to get everything you need/want to be successful. Building a team of three Pokémon for, say, the Battle Arcade, requires you to get Pokémon with good IVs/Natures (you can RNG manipulate your way through this part but even that is convoluted), EV train them, level them up if they're not already at the level you need (usually 50, 100 if you're doing the Battle Hall), and get them good moves/items (if the items/TMs you need are locked behind a BP cost, hope you like the Battle Factory!). This is, like I've already said, a giant pain in the ass. Since then, Pokémon has introduced loads of conveniences that eliminate a lot of this problem. A remake of the Battle Frontier would give people a chance to enjoy building teams and getting streaks there without all the tedious bullshit you need to do in the originals. Big missed opportunity.
Bit late to responding to this but in the presents the theme for the Poffin making minigame was played at some point, which means there's a good chance it's actually back. I imagine it might end up being a bit like SwSh's curry cooking with the use of joysticks or the control sticks to do the stirring instead of a touch screen, but maybe they will reveal that later.
Also the Poketch not being shown isn't necessarily an indicator that it won't exist at all especially when the clowns who you need to talk to are still there and it's such an integral thing in Sinnoh.
The poketch is also on the renders for Dawn & Lucas. I forgot about it until just now, but I'm now remembering everyone lamenting that it was the original single button design and not the platinum double button design.
I wonder if it got a full overhaul at this point...maybe it's its own menu option with refreshed features and such.
What I liked the most about the Battle Frontier was the sheer spectacle of it all. In Emerald, a boat took you to this mysterious island, and when you stepped off, the music began with an epic fanfare. You went through a seemingly massive reception gate full of staffers, into what can best be described as a sort of Olympic campus with several stadiums doing different events at the same time. It was a huge open area, easily dwarfing all the cities in the game. I mean, here's Lilycove City, by far the largest in Hoenn. This was the Battle Frontier. Seven facilities, each having a corner to themselves, some of them with quite nice themeing around it. There was a trophy gallery, and a shop to spend Battle Points on awesome end-game items, and several other buildings for some neat exploration rewards. There was also a cave there, and you could find a hidden Sudowoodo, just to satisfy that aspect of the gameplay too.
It was, basically, a giant reward for making it through the game. You could have fun with several different styles of battle, chase the Frontier Brains in a rush to collect Symbols, shop for high-end items and bragging rights rewards, explore to catch rare Pokémon, or just goof around taking it all in. The atmosphere was awesome too. Every NPC you met (and there were dozens) made it perfectly clear that this was the area where highly accomplished trainers gathered to test their skills in ultimate challenges. Forget the Elite Four, their empty castle in the middle of nowhere was just a prerequisite to come join this perpetual festival of Pokémon battling.
In Gen IV, the place was made more compact and scaled down a bit, but the epic atmosphere was retained. It still felt very much like a final reward for your adventure, a huge place full of stuff to do that would never run out.
I think that was what the later-gen games lacked. A place that really shouted "you've made it here, now have fun to your heart's content!". A lone Battle Tower in a far-off location with nothing to do but plain battling and shopping doesn't quite cut it.
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
The more I look and think about it, the more I'm impressed by the Grand Underground. It is by far the single most compelling thing BDSP has added thus far, and if I'm interpreting its capabilities correctly it has the chance to be a serious paradigm shift for in-game playthroughs.
One thing I'm only really beginning to grasp now is how the original Underground is pretty boring. That statement is probably sacrilege to say for some here, but out of many of the big regional features and especially compared to RSE's Secret Bases, the OG Underground was the definition of stagnant. I'm sure there's some tiny intricacies I never played enough with the mechanic to notice, but for the most part it didn't matter whether you dug in Twinleaf Town or at the Battle Zone, the sights and things to do were almost exactly the same nestled within the unchanging repetitive tunnel structure that lacked even a Geodude or Onix to break things up. The Hideaway mechanic and their environments' ties to different map regions gives the Underground a much-needed sense of progression, an incentive to check back regularly as you get farther into the game. And of course, the promise of new Pokemon to find is always a treat, especially if they allow you catch non-Platinum dex Pokemon early as the official map art and website screenshots seem to be hinting at. While there's nothing definitively proving this, I decided to compile a list of the currently seen DPPt postgame mons (not including those added to dex in Plat obvs) and compare to how they were obtained in the OG Gen 4 games
Postgame area: Oddish, Smoochum (Platinum), Slugma, Numel
Swarms: Smoochum (DP)
Poke Radar: Grimer, Sentret, Hoppip
Super Rod: Chinchou, Wailmer
Take the inclusion of explicit postgame area (e.g. Stark Mountain) mons how you will.
Even if these extra mons are gated behind League completion, there's still a lot to be excited about in regards to how this could redistribute the Platinum dex's accessibility in well-appreciated ways. From our current material I was able to spot the following:
-Munchlax being available, a way less painful method than the dreaded honey trees
-Skorupi, Croagunk and Swinub can spawn in the grassy hideaways. Since according to the map linked earlier this would be around Floaroma Town/Eterna City, this means Ice options among others can spawn shockingly early, pretty much as soon as the Explorer Kit is in your hands!
With all things considered, the Grand Underground is at worst a gateway to some exciting new ways to use the already insanely robust Platinum dex, and at best it could be an effective DOUBLING of the main game roster (Platinum had 439 Pokemon obtainable in total, and some of the missing mons were the bizarrely omitted DP version exclusives). And this is on top of the original Underground's attractions, which themselves may very well be freshened up and revitalized. This change has singlehandedly ensured that when this game comes out and the inevitable Platinum VS BDSP debates begin it'll have an immense niche, possibly matching or even above any individual change ORAS made.
One thing I'm only really beginning to grasp now is how the original Underground is pretty boring. That statement is probably sacrilege to say for some here, but out of many of the big regional features and especially compared to RSE's Secret Bases, the OG Underground was the definition of stagnant. I'm sure there's some tiny intricacies I never played enough with the mechanic to notice, but for the most part it didn't matter whether you dug in Twinleaf Town or at the Battle Zone, the sights and things to do were almost exactly the same nestled within the unchanging repetitive tunnel structure that lacked even a Geodude or Onix to break things up. The Hideaway mechanic and their environments' ties to different map regions gives the Underground a much-needed sense of progression, an incentive to check back regularly as you get farther into the game. And of course, the promise of new Pokemon to find is always a treat, especially if they allow you catch non-Platinum dex Pokemon early as the official map art and website screenshots seem to be hinting at. While there's nothing definitively proving this, I decided to compile a list of the currently seen DPPt postgame mons (not including those added to dex in Plat obvs) and compare to how they were obtained in the OG Gen 4 games
Postgame area: Oddish, Smoochum (Platinum), Slugma, Numel
Swarms: Smoochum (DP)
Poke Radar: Grimer, Sentret, Hoppip
Super Rod: Chinchou, Wailmer
Take the inclusion of explicit postgame area (e.g. Stark Mountain) mons how you will.
Even if these extra mons are gated behind League completion, there's still a lot to be excited about in regards to how this could redistribute the Platinum dex's accessibility in well-appreciated ways. From our current material I was able to spot the following:
-Munchlax being available, a way less painful method than the dreaded honey trees
-Skorupi, Croagunk and Swinub can spawn in the grassy hideaways. Since according to the map linked earlier this would be around Floaroma Town/Eterna City, this means Ice options among others can spawn shockingly early, pretty much as soon as the Explorer Kit is in your hands!
With all things considered, the Grand Underground is at worst a gateway to some exciting new ways to use the already insanely robust Platinum dex, and at best it could be an effective DOUBLING of the main game roster (Platinum had 439 Pokemon obtainable in total, and some of the missing mons were the bizarrely omitted DP version exclusives). And this is on top of the original Underground's attractions, which themselves may very well be freshened up and revitalized. This change has singlehandedly ensured that when this game comes out and the inevitable Platinum VS BDSP debates begin it'll have an immense niche, possibly matching or even above any individual change ORAS made.
While it doesn't change the possibility of an early Swinub, I don't think that skorupi and croagunk are in the "grass" section of the underground. I'm pretty sure they're in the east "swamp/Poison" area instead. So they won't be availible that much earlier than normal, but having an alternative to the awkwardness of the DP safari zone is still going to be nice.
Hopefully the statue mechanic that changes what Pokémon that will appears in the Hideaways won’t be too convoluted to be worthwhile.
An early-game or at least mid-game Swinub will be very nice for those who wishes to have an Ice-type without having to be at late-game!
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
Yeah I'm looking over the footage again and that's def the grassy swamp, oopsy at the misindentification. Midgame Swinub's still a substantial improvement tho, as u said
The map has them in segregated areas, with all the ice areas being in the northern half of the map....
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
You know, I don’t mind too much that the competitve scene will stay in sw/sh. I actually would like to see them add more content to the game. Like side quests that involve the gym leaders, but that’s probably not gonna happen. I wonder where gen 9 will go from here.
Yeah I definitely think (hope) that Darkrai and Shaymin will be included through ingame events which will either be similar to Deoxys (postgame) or just something like a perma wifi mystery gift for the games, making them much easier to obtain than previously. And I will definitely be pre-ordering for the Manaphy bonus. As I’ve said before, I much prefer this method of obtaining Mythicals (in-game events) rather than direct event distributions. Quite excited for these remakes, though as I’ve recently been replaying BotW, I’m even more excited for Legends.