POKEMON DIAMOND/PEARL REVIEW
Developer: Nintendo
Publishers: Nintendo, Game Freak
Genre:Action-Adventure
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone for Fantasy Violence
Console: DS
Released Date: April 22nd, 2007
You know the game Super Smash Bros. Brawl? Well, do you know the Stage Spear Pillar? Do you know the characters Pikachu, Lucario, and Jigglypuff? They all originated from Pokemon, and Spear Pillar is in this game. You know when Dialga and Palkia appear on the stage? They also appear in the same place in these games, Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl.
So what is Pokemon, you may ask? Pokemon is short for
Pocket Monsters.
Story-line:
The story starts out like any old Pokemon game: You start out in a small town, with your rival, who is sometimes your best friend. This game, it's both. You walk to the lkae, where you get some pokemon, when a pack of Starly attack you. You get to pick from three choices of pokemon: Turtwig, a dinosaur-ish which is a grass type, Chimchar, a chimp-like fire type, and Piplup, a penguin-like water type. But, personally, I think they could've done better with the story. The story is too much like any other pokemon game: you go through the game, collecting eight gym badges, defeating Team Galactic, and becoming the Pokemon champion. 3/5
Gameplay:
There are 17 different pokemon types in all: Normal, Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, and Steel. I could go over Super-effective, Hardly-effective, not-effective, and normally-effective, but that would take to long, and that would kind of be boring. You go around adding these pokemon to your party through wild grass, using pokeballs. There are 493 pokemon in all for you to evolve, trade, and catch. Some pokeballs are for certain types or situations. And only certain pokemon appear in one or the other version.
You may also put pokemon in contests. There are 5 different types of contests, and 4 ranks. The 5 types are: Cool, Beauty, Cute, Tough, and Smart. The 4 ranks are: Normal, Great, Ultra, and Master, just like pokeball ranks. There are three parts to a contest: Visual, where you dress up a pokemon, dancing, where you follow three pokemon's steps ahead of you, and then you perform for them to perform. Then there's the acting, where you use your pokemon moves to appeal for the judges. If the move you use matches the contest type, the voltage of the judges go up, and you win 5 more hearts for the side judges, 8 for the middle one. You may also do contests with friends.
There is also something else you could do: The Underground. Here in the Underground, you may play with 7 other friends in setting traps, digging for treasure, and stealing flags from each other's secret base: 1 Flag= Bronze flag, 3 Flags=Silver flag, 10=Gold, and 50= Platinum. Gameplay? An easy 5/5.
Sound:
You know the music route 209 in Brawl? Well, the same music is from route 209 in this game. I love it. The wild grass encouter music makes it sound great. Music is a 4/5.
Graphics:
The graphics in this game for pokemon are sprited, which I could expect. But the people outside the battle scenes are still 2-D, which kind of disappointed me. I hope they consider that. But the buildings and fountains were 3D, so that's ok. Overall, graphics are a 3/5.
Overall:
I have to say, overall, pokemon is a great all-around game, but it could use a better story. I mean, the story's repetitive, but there are some new features, making it better. Overall, out of a 10, I give it an 8.5/10.
Linear Mode
