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

Plague von Karma

Banned deucer.
I'm apprehensive. The graphics are incredibly strange and I find them to be reminiscent of Link's Awakening, but the graphics don't matter to me as much as the gameplay, and I'm worried about that in particular. Other than some incredibly small things that will no doubt be overanalyzed as we wait for more information, we basically have no idea what's being brought over from Diamond/Pearl and what's being brought over from Platinum. If the minds behind this project have more than two collective brain cells then we'll get the Platinum Pokédex and speed, but I'm concerned about things like the full Battle Frontier and overall challenge.
Agreed. I don't blame anyone for being apprehensive, especially with the current state of the franchise. All we know is it's a "faithful" remake, which implies that they're keeping to the original story at minimum...but with the inconsistencies and Pokemon Track Record™ in mind, what happens outside of that could be anything.
 
On the topic of Gliscor, if the remakes keep the TM/TR list from SWSH, it will no longer have roost since it only got it via TM and move tutor in previous generations. It would be nowhere near as potent as it was before.
 
On the topic of Gliscor, if the remakes keep the TM/TR list from SWSH, it will no longer have roost since it only got it via TM and move tutor in previous generations. It would be nowhere near as potent as it was before.
Which raises the question, where would TRs fit?

Sinnoh is obviously not going to have Raids and Watts.

I believe this game won't be directly compatible with SwSh, especially since Dynamax got axed (bless).

However, two-way integration from Home could be possible.

It's likely that we'll return to just TMs on this one.
 
Press Releases should always be taken with a grain of salt. The big broad buzzwords used there are typical corpo speak, so unless it’s something specific (the mention of recent features added, like every other remake so far) you really shouldn’t read into it too hard. There’s no reason to believe this won’t go exactly like every other remake so far, no matter how much a corporate press release throws around words like “faithful!! Nostalgic!!!!” which could be said for every remake so far.
 
Without any particular shenenigans, they can just go back at being tutors.
They could do the FRLG method for berries and have them be avalible in invisible tiles that you could check every certain amount of steps to see if berries are there. :psysly:
For the record DP made all of the Gen 1-4 Pokemon available in some form in at least the post game. The following Gen 5 onwards Pokemon are still absent from Gen 8 currently:

  • Unova starters (We know Oshawott is in Legends)
  • Patrat Line
  • Elemental monkeys
  • Blitzle line
  • Sewaddle line
  • Ducklett line
  • Deerling line
  • Alomomola
  • Tynamo line
  • Meloetta
  • Kalos starters
  • Scatterbug line
  • Litleo line
  • Flabebe line
  • Furfrou
  • Hoopa
  • Pikipek line
  • Yungoos line
  • Crabrawler line
  • Oricorio
  • Minior
  • Komala
  • Bruxish
Those are the big question marks as to where and how they will appear in Gen 8, if at all, and whether BDSP will include them or Legends will have them in some form.
Adding on this, all the missing Pokémon from SwSh ( exception of mythicals ) from Gens 1-4 could be caught in DP through some method. Since keeping the PokeRadar, Swarms, and a replacement for the dongle feature would be required to keep the games true to the original. Even the post game had tons of old Pokémon in the areas. Perfect opportunity to patch in the missing Pokémon fin SwSh.

Speaking on Pokedexes, I wonder if there will be expansion? Since none of the Sinnoh Pokémon got evolutions, this leaves only Sylveon and Mr. Rime as the ones to add, though the latter is tied to a regional variant. I guess that brings up whether or not regional variants will be in the game.

And while not new Pokémon, the Sinnoh Dex is notorious at not including all their Pokémon in the regional Dex, even with Platinum. This could be a perfect opportunity to patch it up.

And lastly, while not new Pokémon, I wonder if they will add the new Regis? It’s safe to assume that Regigigas will be available in these games, and the original Regis were obtainable in Platinum could also be obtained in locations which share the same locations in Galar.

And then there’s the mythical Pokémon. Manaphy was completely an add on for Ranger, but since that’s dead, I guess the best way is a free giveaway after a certain point like Virtual console Celebi. Same applies to Darkrai, Shaymin, and Arceus. This remake is the perfect opportunity to distribute the flute. Come on, let I happen.
Press Releases should always be taken with a grain of salt. The big broad buzzwords used there are typical corpo speak, so unless it’s something specific (the mention of recent features added, like every other remake so far) you really shouldn’t read into it too hard. There’s no reason to believe this won’t go exactly like every other remake so far, no matter how much a corporate press release throws around words like “faithful!! Nostalgic!!!!” which could be said for every remake so far.
Adding on to this, they claimed that Let’s Go was going to replicate Yellow perfectly but it still had things like Mega Evolution and new additions like Red, Green, and Blue. I think we’re worrying too much and we’ve seen evidence in-game that shows Platinum as had an influence on the game so I don’t believe it will be a carbon copy.
 

Codraroll

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People that hate the chibiness yet were fine with Gen 4/5 OW sprites are hypocritical
Granted I like none of those, nor the chibi styles this and Lets Go did, but when it's noticeably built the same....
Personally if I were remaking 4 I'd base models on art for everything. Including not being tile based for map design glances at ORAS and LetsGo
but I'm no game designer, so meh
I'm pretty sure people in the industry have a fancy term for this, but I don't know it. Anyway, I think the Chibi style of character design is the sort of "shortcut" you can take when the game is limited in fidelity. You don't have enough pixels to draw a proper character, so you scale up the head because humans generally focus on the face when recognising other people. The end result looks a little unrealistic, but if the entire art style of the game is similarly unrealistic, it passes just fine. The character looks weird, but it's placed in a weird world, so it all matches. The player's imagination complements the graphics to give an impression of what it would look like in real life.

But when the style of the world is made more realistic, the chibi design starts to clash with the rest of the graphics. It becomes much more apparent that the character has such a large head, because everything else looks much more realistic. It probably has something to do with the "uncanny valley" phenomenon: the closer something is to realistic, the more you start to notice when something is "off". The design becomes out of context with the surroundings.

I also made an earlier post describing an issue faced by 3D characters that sprites get away with: Sprites tend to be drawn to look good from the perspective of the game's static camera. When a character in DP is walking across the screen, you see them directly from the side, even though the camera is angled. Take this screenshot of Snowpoint City, for instance. See the lady standing next to the crane? We're looking down on her from an angle, yet we can see her face and her chin. The sprite is angled to be parallel to the camera, rather than standing upright on the ground. The same lady appears in one of the BDSP trailers, in this screenshot here. Most of what we see of her is her hair. The 3D model isn't angled, but placed properly on the ground, so when we see her in the bird's eye view, we see the top of her head and very little else. Likewise with the Sailor to the bottom left. The original design showed his entire back. Now we only see his feet and a hand poking out underneath his hat.

The same issue applies for the main character. Instead of seeing their face and body, all we can see is the top of their head. Dawn is basically a hat with some hair dangling underneath. Same for Lucas. Here is his original sprite, walking towards the camera. You can see his face and most of his body. Here is his appearance in BDSP, with legs barely poking out underneath the head, of which you can only see the hat and the eyes. Check out the comparison:

Lucas.JPG


DP Lucas also had a big hat, but the overall design seems to be balanced much better between head and body. DP Lucas looks into the camera when he's walking down. BDSP Lucas looks straight ahead, that is, to a point below the camera. That means we can't see his mouth or his body.

They're obviously trying to recreate the proportions of the original sprites, but without the overall graphical context in which the sprites looked good, and without being able to use the perspective tricks the sprites used to show off more of the character's body, it comes across as rather uncanny. And keep in mind, "character walking down" is the best case situation we get for seeing what the character looks like. This is the most we're going to see of their face, maybe except when they're standing still.

It's all just a fancy way of saying "what worked on the small DS screen in 2006 doesn't necessarily work in 720p on a TV screen in 2021."

Isn't it just standing straight in the originals? Why did they bother with whatever this is? It just makes it look worse IMO.
It looks like they are basing it off its design in the manga:
 
The statues illusion of being both palkia and dialga only really worked in the game (mainly bc it was on a small screen and was a pretty small tile object lol), hence why the manga just decided that it was actually just a fusion of the lore. They probablu thought they wouldn't be able to replicate that on switch graphics so here we are
 
Graphical issues aside, HG/SS remakes clearly spoiled me. The whole point of remakes for me is to add new stuff to old games, I'd just play Platinum if I wanted a faithful retelling and nothing more. And unlike the previous gens, PT/HG/SS aged pretty well so hopefully there's more stuff. In particular there was no battle frontier in ORAS, if they take out the Sinnoh Frontier, I am going to be quite upset.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

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Mega Charizard (sigh...) and Mega Lucario figurines tied to Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will come some time soon.

It's too soon to presume anything, but maybe this means we'll get Mega Evolutions back in BDSP? (I do hope so, Megas are great). It's certainly a possibility.

If they do have Megas back in BDSP they better have Mega Sinnoh starters, Mega Empoleon, Infernape, and Torterra pleeeeaasse
 

Mega Charizard (sigh...) and Mega Lucario figurines tied to Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will come some time soon.

It's too soon to presume anything, but maybe this means we'll get Mega Evolutions back in BDSP? (I do hope so, Megas are great). It's certainly a possibility.

If they do have Megas back in BDSP they better have Mega Sinnoh starters, Mega Empoleon, Infernape, and Torterra pleeeeaasse
Like, I could see just using a mon from another gen if you don't have any other decent options, but Mega Garchomp exists.
 

Mega Charizard (sigh...) and Mega Lucario figurines tied to Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will come some time soon.

It's too soon to presume anything, but maybe this means we'll get Mega Evolutions back in BDSP? (I do hope so, Megas are great). It's certainly a possibility.

If they do have Megas back in BDSP they better have Mega Sinnoh starters, Mega Empoleon, Infernape, and Torterra pleeeeaasse
Reads like a "Source: My Ass" situation.

Just looked at the Takara Tomy website, no word on upcoming things. The Kotobukiya stuff has Cynthia and Garchomp (Note: Not Mega Chomp) and then May and Torchic, both of which obviously have nothing to do with DP.

To add in Megas, there would need to be some Story bending (like ORAS did) and the remakes already confirm that the Story is a 1:1 remake, so not happening.

Megas are a relatively safe and popular guess, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was nothing but clickbait. Neither Legends nor BDSP show any signs of Megas being present, so I'm not counting on them.
 
Yeh, we're in the typical territory where """leakers""" will throw anything that sounds cool/controversial and remotely believable in order to gain free views / shares.

I suggest to commit to "false until proven true" until TPCI actually gives us more informations.
Which is, likely for some months.
 
To add in Megas, there would need to be some Story bending (like ORAS did) and the remakes already confirm that the Story is a 1:1 remake, so not happening.
Sun and Moon Battle Tree: Everyone and their grandma have access to keystones. Mega Stones are easy enough to obtain to supply for sale. Considering Let's Go had Mega Evolution too, story lore can easily be thrown out the window.
 
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Sun and Moon Battle Tree: Everyone and their grandma have access to keystones. Mega Stones are easy enough to supply for sale. Considering Let's Go had Mega Evolution too, story lore can easily be thrown out the window.
...
Yeah, but gen 7 was a mistake. :psysly:

Realistically tho, only reason they were featured was because GF was still on the "Everyone is here" phase and they got pushed all the way to some BP Prize junk so people could focus on the real gimmick, JoJo Posing Nukes.

With both Z-Moves and D-Max obviously nuked, they'd immediately jump on the gimmick bait and reveal Megas instantly if it was a thing.
 
Y'know... I think this might be why I'm having a hard time getting excited for this (even if Legends wasn't around to overshadow it). It's not really exciting and wow-inducing to see them remake Gen 4, it was an inevitability that was always coming -- and even now our main hopes and discussions orbit around whether or not they'll still have everything the original did. They'd have to have shown something really cool or interesting or new about it to wow me with that, but all they showed really was the artstyle and a few random earlygame clips.

This isn't really a knock against the games themselves, it's just... I'm finding it hard to get excited when they might as well have just tweeted that they're happening, and "Sinnoh Confirmed" at this point is something we've been tapping our watches and going "is it here yet?" for a while now that the inevitable answer of yes elicits very little from me other than "cool".

Just really need to see more, I guess. That's the theme here for me
Yeah I guess it's all relative. I wasn't ever one of those people in the first place, but I think there have been enough recent examples for there to be considerably fewer people who decide they're definitely buying a game based off of trailers. For my standards, I was more likely than not to buy one of the remakes just because it would be a gen 8 game with all* the Pokemon obtainable on it and I haven't gotten a game for like 5 years. When I heard about the Link's Awakening remake, I hoped that the 4th gen remakes would similarly keep it simple graphically and focus more on gameplay, so the trailer was at least in line with that and didn't make me less interested in getting a game.

All the discussion leading up to and including the release of Sword and Shield kind of got flattened into "the games are alright, but some hardcore fans wanted a Breath of the Wild-caliber game and threw a fit when they didn't get their way" and talking about being sufficiently wowed by the trailer (which is not even the actual trailer but the first in a series of tiny drips of content formulated to increase hype levels over the next 8 months) doesn't really do much besides revive those circular arguments. I don't need to be completely wowed to get a Pokemon game, and since I care little about flashy graphics and a negative amount about how challenging it is to get through the story mode, what isn't explicitly stated in the trailer but can be inferred (more Pokemon, the whole game will be released at once rather than a $60 beta with $30 DLC) at least makes it seem likely to clear the low bar set by Sword and Shield.
 
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Megas returning would make me EXTREMELY happy and actually get me back into Pokémon multiplayer... but I won't my hold my breath on this being true.

Then again, there -is- precedent of a simplified remake on the Switch inexplicably having Megas with little explanation; and Megas in general being featured in everything not being made by Game Freak... and if these reveals are supposed to be about appeasing fans and listening to them and making them happy, I guess bringing back Megas would fall under that. So I guess it's not too out of the question, actually? Still, I'll wait on more concrete information.
 

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