"Diamonds aren't Forever"

Are you ready for a revolution? Too bad - you won't find one here. We've had so many 'different' incarnations of the main Pokemon RPGs over the last decade and a bit, one would expect a comparison between this 4th generation outing and the original Gameboy games to be earth-shatteringingly huge. This ain't the case. This is Pokemon version 1.3, and it's pretty much the same as it always as been, plus a few additions that hardly break the mould.

Pokemon: Diamond Version offers up nine-tenths of the complete DS Pokemon package, but it should be more than enough to satisfy any gamer. Once again exclusive pokemon are what make the 2 currently available versions different. The featured pokemon in Diamond is Dialga, master of time. If you dig that, then grab this.

Visuals - 7
Sound & Music - 8
Gameplay - 7
Controls - B
Longevity - A (20-30 hour main quest)
Replayability - A (Sidequests and Battle modes galore)
Difficulty - Easy

Pokemon - 493! o.O
VERDICT - 7.0

Deja Vu
Welcome to the land of Sinnoh! Your journey to become a Pokemon Master begins right at home, and along the road to the Pokemon League Championships, you will face adversaries coming in all shapes and sizes. You'll have to do battle with flustered fishermen and jolly good-looking lasses, as well as the take down the world-threatening mega-corporation known as Team Galactica! Wait a minute.. does this all sound familiar?? If you've ever had an adventure in Kanto, Johto or Hoenn before, you're in for a 90% similar experience all over again!

Each of the previous Pokemon 'sequels' didn't change that much storyline-wise, and things remain the same in Sinnoh. You start off with a lone pokemon companion, again chosen from 1 of 3 generic types (grass, water, fire yet again). Your primary goal is to travel to each major city and lay the smackdown on each of the 8 gym leaders who think they own the place. Along the way you can also go hunting for additional wild pokemon and add them to your team of 6 noble fiends. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the concept, so I'll spare you the lecture in the forthcoming discussion.

Bigger, better, but still slightly boring battles
Random battles are the star of the show once again. The encounter rate is high, which is a good or bad thing depending on how much love you have for grinding. It is annoying early on when every 3 steps leads you into yet another long-winded battle, but you'll soon be able to stock up on a booty of items to repel the random acts of provocation.

Upon entering the battle mode it's just like how it has always been: simple 2D sprites, over-the-shoulder view, plenty of wading through text detailing each and every nuance of combat. I would've thought that Gamefreaks would have sped up the whole process by now but no, it's still as slow-paced as it always has been, and turning off the animations doesn't help much either.

Being able to select attacks and flick through your items at the touch of some jumbo panels streamlines the whole process; it has never been easier to work through the innumerable pokemon battles. No qualms here, but seeing as how movement on the field is restricted to only d-pad use, making the switch from buttons to stylus every 3 steps may prove to be more troublesome than it's worth. The transitions between the 2 distinct control methods are iffy all over the place. All of the menu screens can be manipulated using both schemes, but Gamefreaks actually managed to make the touch controls less intuitive than traditional no-touch; scrolling through endless lists by rotating a pokeball isn't very practical. In other places where touching and dragging would've worked beautifully, like when managing your pokemon boxes, these controls are strangely absent.

Too many cherries, not enough cake
It doesn't look like the developers fully realised what potential they had with 2 screens. Whilst all the action occurs up above, outside of battle the bottom screen is used to show the various functions of the new gimmicky pokemon watch, AKA the poketch. As you talk to new people you'll pick up some nifty applications that you can install into your new device. It may start out as a simple digital watch, but you'll eventually be able to view a map of the Sinnoh region, monitor your pokemon at daycare on-the-go, or even search for hidden items. There are lots of gadgets that you can upgrade your poketch with, but just like with Windows Vista, most of them are totally useless. Why have a notepad when it doesn't even save the stuff you write on it!? And there is a pedometer to show you how many virtual steps you've taken.. no, not as useful as one would be in real life.

Although the key dual screens were used half-heartedly, the wireless and WiFi features are absolutely fantastic. No longer are we bound by dangling cables when wanting to challenge our peers, and even if there isn't anyone close around, a WiFi internet access point is all that is needed to do battle in a cinch. 1-on-1, 2-on-2, team-games, level handicaps, it's all there and more! To be able to play online, it is required that you have friendcodes, meaning that you can't face off with random opponents (will have to hold on for the Wii version for this I think). This is a major blow for accessibility, but hey at least our records won't be tarnished by 'accidental' disconnects. Lag is hardly a problem (I'd be surprised if it was given the slowness of it all in the first place though..) and being able to take your hard-worked team to face off with someone else's party miles away from where you are always gets my seal of approval.

Trading is probably the only element here that has seen a revolution. The GTS system is truly the best thing since sliced wholegrain bread! You send your pokemon that you're putting up for trade to a middleman bank and request one that you'd like in exchange. Now every time someone looks up for the pokemon you've deposited, and assuming that the gender and level categories match, they will be able to swap the one you wanted for it. With the enormous amount of pokefans all over the world, you will never be left empty-handed. 1 full day should be more than enough to find a successful exchange, unless you ask for an uberised rarity - in that case hold out for just a few more hours. Every trade you make gets logged onto a digital globe, and so you can track all the trainers with whom you have traded with, whether it be from Kyoto, Japan to Wellington, NZ. It's a neat little something to bring the world closer together.

Only a minor upgrade - It wasn't broke so they didn't fix it..
Getting back to the solo-play side of things, what else has been improved or added upon? Pokemon contests are back, and if you liked them before, you'll find that the ramped up interactivity via touch mini-games will make you go gaga all over again. The rest of us will probably ignore it once again. Berry planting is back as a pointless exercise as well, but at least this time you can keep good track of where the ones you've planted are located (via the poketch). Secret bases are back, but they are limited to the underground. The underground region of Sinnoh is essentially a maze where you can dig up a whole heap of items as well as play a limited wireless game where you'll have to set traps and capture the flag. Juggling between touchscreen controls and the control pad are cumbersome here, and seeing as how it isn't very captivating, you're not going to be spending much time down there unless you are a rabid pokefanatic.

Day and night cycles are back along with a new morning period, but that's just trivial. 2-on-2 battles feature more prominently now, and what was just a brief foray previously is now a little more than pure filler. The inclusion of parts where allies will pair up with you are interesting, but the AI is worse than that of a wild Magicarp at times. Graphically it looks like a GBA game with a few 3D elements and particle effects. Sound quality is pretty much equal to GBA audio, although the new tracks have a nice jazzy vibe to them and the melodies woven are just as nice as they have always been. Although Pokemon is made a huge name for itself, this game feels more than a tad low-budget. There are no FMVs, no voice acting, no major overhaul in the game engine; instead we are given just over a hundred new pokemon to see - big whoop.

As for the stuff that still rattles my nerves, I'll begin with the HMs. Once again you have to teach pokemon certain moves that can be used in the overworld to overcome obstacles like big boulders or waterfalls. Once again Gamefreaks has added in some new ones to the mix. Chances are that you will probably need 3 or 4 pokemon as 'HM-slaves' - pokemon with no other purpose than to let you surf, fly you to other places, or defog a misty area. Since you can only carry 6 pokemon with you at any one time, this means you really only have 2 or 3 proper ones to fight with!

There are nearly as many pokemon as there are sheep in NZ!
I used to be able to recite all 151 of the original pokemon gang off by heart. Now we are onto 493 and I barely know half of them. They used to be very unique, but now each one is only slightly different to the one next-door. The number of moves has expanded once again, but it isn't enough. Since the introduction of the steel and dark types a long time ago, we've had nothing new. It was an interesting move to split physical and special attacks into their own categories, as this made the corresponding attack and defense stats actually matter more, but a watergun is still a watergun. We are still limited to 4 moves per pokemon, something which I would have thought would have been expanded by now seeing that one whole screen dedicated to moves means the excuse of cramming is gone.

Something that's relatively minor to hardcore players who know everything inside-out (or to those that just consult an FAQ/guide), but most welcome to the rest of us, is being able to analyse your current moveset before committing to learning a new move. Okay so it was already there in the Ruby/Sapphire arc, but the increased room for write-ups makes contemplating move changes incredibly easy. I absolutely hated the times in past games when I was suddenly called forth to teach my pokemon a new move, without knowing what it actually does and how it compares to my existing arsenal. These times are now firmly erased, and I couldn't ask for anything more here.

To infinity and beyond
Once you have been crowned champion (which doesn't take long if you've been playing the games since their birth like I have), you are free to compete in the Battle Park, engage in the numerous WiFi/wireless modes, attend to any unfinished business (legendary pokemon etc.), complete your Sinnoh pokedex and generally mess around. You can bring in your old pokemon from past GBA games, but this is time-consuming as you not only have to have earn a National pokedex, but you can then only transfer 6 pokemon at a time, and you still have to catch them all over again! It's gonna take a looooong time to get that coveted 100% here... and you'd better make sure you've got cash to spare to travel around the world to attend various pokemon events that give away limited promotional species. Or else you could just AR/shark your save; cheating is probably the only way 99.99% of us will ever reach the limits of what is available here.

As a bonus treat for those that managed to complete the more challenging sidestory, Pokemon Ranger, a manaphy egg can be transferred over to Diamond/Pearl to give you an exclusive pokemon that cannot be legitimately gotten anywhere else. Manaphy isn't that amazing though.

As I stated right at the beginning, this is Pokemon version 1.3. It's the same game but with 10 thousand calories worth of icing on top. Those of us who have grown up and moved on past the fad will play only to relive the memories, while those at the other end - the new gamers - will find this to be the most complete pokemon experience yet. But because of the massivity of it all, and because the extras are all over the place, newbies may find that there is way to much to comprehend here. 493 pokemon is a heck of a lot of pokemon; it may be better to let your kids master their vocab first! If you sit in between, then lucky you.

The best thing this 4th generation edition has to offer lies with the networking functions. This isn't actually new to Pokemon if you have been keeping up with the weird and wonderful world of the world wide web. Pokemon Netbattle was an unofficial program that allowed users to play online, with fully customisable pokemon and EVs without the hassle of building them up yourself. This made things fair, and with everything available to everyone, some of the best, most creative pokemon matches were seen here. I myself was an avid player back in 2004, during the days when 'Curselax', 'Skarmbliss' and other killer-teams were devised. Action was fast and furious and the user-interface was marvellous. Netbattle is now defunct, and Pokemon for the DS and Wii are all we've got. Great work Nintendo, honestly a big pat on the back, but it had already been handled well a few years ago, and if it weren't for 'issues' it would have still been the prime online pokemon experience.

The DS is now an even bigger money-making machine!
Pokemon has been around for a long time, and the day it dies is the day the world ends. Even though its shortcomings are clear as day to those not clouded by fanboy-ism, Diamond/Pearl still has that addictiveness that I can't seem to shrug off. Perhaps it's the tried-and-true formula of collecting lots of seemingly useful items/monsters, or maybe it's just the nostalgia kicking in. It is yet another baby-step in the right direction, but I guess if that's enough to satisfy global millions for another couple of years, Gamefreaks has once again hit the jackpot.

7.0/10 - The best handheld Pokemon game to date. That isn't saying much though..

My Score System – a score of 7 from me denotes a good, solid game. Excellence earns a higher grade, whilst 4-6 reflects a below average product; glitchy, unplayable games deserve less.

26/04/07

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/26/07