As far as releasing new RPGs go, all has been quiet on the Pokémon front during the past couple of years—too quiet. But it you put your ear the ground or slip a few words into a search engine, you can hear the developments of Nintendo’s next big Pokémon project. And its one of gargantuan proportions.
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Never failing to come up with unique, color-coded, gemstone-themed names, Nintendo announced back in 2004 the next games in the series would be Pokémon Pearl and Pokémon Diamond for the DS. Pokémon Battle Revolution has also been announced for the Wii, where Nintendo will try yet again to launch their Connectivity campaign with Wii/DS Connectivity features.
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Recalling all the Pokémon RPGs over the 10 years, the franchise has been alive and kicking. Now roll all of their features and options together, compact it all into an itsybitsy DS card, and add on even more bells and whistles. Congratulations, you now have Pokémon Pearl/Diamond (P/D). With a delicious blend of new and old aspects, this generation of Pokémon will be the granddaddy of them all.
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The adventure begins with two new heroes (a guy and a gal with the niftiest character designs I’ve seen in Pokémon lately; there is also a new rival) in a brand new land, Shin’ou. While it was rumored Pearl/Diamond would begin with a Fighting-, Dark-, or Psychic-type starter, the idea has been successfully debunked as it has been affirmed tradition will carry on with the standard Fire/Grass/Water choices.
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As is par for a new generation of Pokémon, a whole new crop of critters have been unveiled. In 2004, Nintendo began teasing fans by periodically introducing a few new creatures, ensuring trainers will see some new faces. However, other new Pokémon will look at least a little familiar, as roughly 90% of the previous Pokémon have evolved or devolved. To help trainers stay on top of these evolutionary changes (pun intended), Prof. Nanakamado (English translation forthcoming) has stepped in to guide trainers in completing their PokéDex. Pokémon appears to have maintained the usual 3-stage evolution sets.
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The PokéDex has also been the lucky recipient of a makeover, and has been revamped to resemble a Nintendo DS with two screens and a d-pad. A few tools have been added that allow a trainer to mess around with a Pokémon’s cry (think Window’s Sound Recorder) and another tool that has the trainer enter their weight and height to compare it to a Pokémon’s (so we can now effectively judge how many more Ho-Hos we can eat until we weigh as much as our Snorlax).
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The PokéWatch is another intrepid update, most likely an improved version of the PokéGear seen in Gold/Silver. The digital watch-shaped PokéWatch occupies the bottom DS screen as the player travels throughout the top one, and has a grand total of 20 functions. Collecting these watch applications throughout the game becomes a parallel miniquest to collecting Pokémon. Basic functions of PokéWatch are things like a calculator, camera, a tool that lists the Pokémon you’ve caught, view Pokémon in the Breeding Center (but don’t get any ideas), and time-telling. Time-telling is perhaps the most important feature as Pokémon yet again takes a step to becoming more real-time in an Animal Crossing-esque way. *In Gold/Silver, there were simply morning, day, and night, each of these time periods affecting what events could be triggered, or which Pokémon could be caught. Pearl/Diamond operates off the same concept, but expands on it by instating 5 time periods: morning, daytime, afternoon, evening, and night (so all of you Hobbit-types can eat all of your meals).
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The setting for Pearl/Diamond is quite a revolution for the series as well. Everything takes place in the snowy region of Shin’ou. That’s right—snowy (no more of that barren Hoenn desert junk). The elements have finally come to Pokémon. Shin’ou will also feature an expansive underground where players can establish Secret Bases as they did in Ruby/Sapphire, and play minigames to unearth fossilized Pokémon. The Underground area will also use Nintendo WiFi and DS to DS connections to play multiplayer versions of these minigames, like Flag Retrieval, which is like Secret Base capture the flag. You must steal the flag from your friend’s base, but your opponent can place obstacles like gusts of wind or boulders in your way to impede your progress. The victor of these games will win upgrades for their Base. You can also fossil-hunt with or without friends in a Minesweeper-like game where players tap the walls via DS screen in hopes of finding special items like fossils, evolution stones, and Orbs that can be cashed in for other items in the Underground. First, however, a drill must be obtained from a man somewhere in Shin’ou.
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Not too much has been confirmed about the actual plot, except that a new crime organization is on the scene, Team Galaxy (seriously, Team Rocket is so 10 years ago). Their name is consistent with the time/space theme that seems to be permeating Pearl/Diamond. The newly introduced legendary Pokémon are listed in the PokéDex as the Time PokéMon, Parukia, and the Space Pokémon, Diaruga*. As previously mentioned, there is an emphasis on the passage of time with the watch and different times of day. Perhaps this is all pointing to something that may occur in the plot; perhaps it is not.
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The battle system itself will be undergoing a major overhaul that even the Battle Director, Shigeki Morimoto admits will “dramatically” alter the way battles work**. Morimoto is referring to the change in classifying PokéMon techniques: Physical, Special, or Other. Moves will now be grouped by their effect, rather than their type. For instance, Thunderpunch was always labeled Special due to its type (it’s electric!), but will now be a Physical attack because of its description (smacking your opponent up-side the head). Hyper Beam, once a Physical attack, will now be Special for the same kind of reasoning. The Other classification refers to moves that don’t directly inflict harm, like Growl or a new move in Pearl/Diamond called Trouble Seed.
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But the battle system’s updates don’t end with just its mechanics. A whole new Pokémon battle entrance animation has been shown in a Japanese trailer.
Pokémon’s sprites have also had some alteration to better distinguish between genders. The differences between male and female are very slight, and usually depend on smaller or nonexistent physical traits in a certain gender. For example, you can see the female Wooper’s antennae is a smidgeon smaller than the male’s. Butterfree’s wings also carries similar traits.
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Pokémon’s multi-player battle mode will also hop aboard Nintendo WiFi, so you can battle across the country with a friend (provided you have their Friend Code). Nintendo is promising in-battle voice chat capabilities, so you can have all the joys of screaming, “Go, Pikachu!” at your opponent through the DS mic. How crisp this audio quality will actually be remains to be seen. Trading Pokémon via Wifi/DS Connection will also be available. And, fear not hardcore trainers, the Battle Tower is in fact back.
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The battle controls remain the same, except you can opt to use buttons or the touch-screen/stylus and on-screen buttons to choose commands.
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Another resurrection from the Gold/Silver, Ruby/Sapphire, Leaf Green/Fire Red are Pokémon Contests. However, new updates and features call for a new name, so we affix Super to the title and introduce “Super Contests!” Super Contests are a little more grueling than previous contests, and comprise of three rounds. There’s the Visual Round, where trainers select and place objects on their Pokémon with the DS stylus to ear points. In the Dance Judgment round, your Pokémon’s rhythm, balance, and coordination is pitted against others. The Pokémon Contest veterans will be most familiar with the Performance Judgment, where Pokémon use attacks to accrue points. You can also use PokéBread (Pearl/Diamond’s version of PokéBlocks) as a sort of PokéSteroid for contests and beef up certain stats/traits in order to better the likelihood of winning a Super Contest.
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Not too many changes seem to have been made to the 2D graphics, aside from some minor changes to the environment (i.e., lampposts in cities, darker/lighter atmosphere depending on the time of day), and some of the traditional Pokémon tunes returned, albeit a little jazzed up.
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Pokémon Pearl/Diamond will be released in Japan on September 28th of this year. The US will have to wait until Spring 2007 for copies to hit American shores. The Pikachu Daisuke Fan Club is already planning a special Pikachu DS Lite release, so be ready for those special edition systems.