Why ‘Pokémon Diamond and Pearl’ Are Actually Horrible
Reading Time: 6 minutes‘Pokémon Diamond and Pearl’ are beloved entries in the series. The first games in the series to release for the Nintendo DS handheld system, an iconic story, and many new features. But is there criticism for it? Absolutely.
The Nintendo DS was an instant hit on store shelves, replacing the Game Boy Advance as the main handheld gaming system. The Game Boy Advance had a very short life as far as consoles went, either for home or the go. So short in fact, that it is the only portable console to receive only a single new generation of Pokémon games.
Of course, Nintendo was feeling some pressure, as Sony's Playstation Portable was also launching at around the same time, promising an experience as close to a home console on the go as possible. Nintendo countered with ‘Pokémon.’
And of course, those sly dogs at Game Freak had us all fooled. They had us all thinking that we were playing a good game. But in fact, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were horrible games, and I'm here to tell you why.
Here's five reasons why Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are actually awful.
Author's note: This article is meant to be tongue in cheek. I actually love all the ‘Pokémon’ games, but believe that nothing is perfect. This is a light hearted attempt at countering people who point to a specific generation with reverence above all others.
Events That Required an Extra Game
During the time of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Nintendo also published the three Pokémon Ranger games. These three games were developed by frequent Pokémon collaborators HAL Laboratories and Creatures Inc.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Ranger series. They had a nice story with personal stakes and a unique twist to the gameplay, although the controls were sometimes a pain in the neck and took a great deal of getting used to. They were also required for several of your little pocket monsters to be transferred into Diamond and Pearl. In particular, the Manaphy egg could only be acquired through an in-game event in Pokémon Ranger, but was available in all three of the Ranger games. Deoxys could be transferred from the third generation of Pokémon games, but unless you attended an in-person event during that time, it was very unlikely you had one, so the third Ranger game allowed you to acquire one. Darkrai, Shaymin, and Heatran were also only available from these games until Pokémon Platimum was released and had it's own events.
And just like other Pokémon events, it wasn't enough to just own the game. You also had to download missions into Ranger that were only available for a limited time. Catch them all indeed.
Taking Forever and a Day to Save
Anyone who remembers playing this can remember this issue. One of the greatest complaints about the game was the dreaded ‘saving a lot of data… Don't turn off the power’ text box. Heck, even the text appearing in the textbox was slow.
The game moved slower in general as animations for battle moves became more detailed and took longer to complete, but those could be overlooked as improvements if not for that darn save screen adding to how slow the game worked.
This was caused by how Pokémon data was encrypted in the fourth generation of games, particularly in your PC storage. This includes empty slots in your PC storage. This means accessing your PC and moving any of your monsters changed more data in the game and made saving much more time consuming. This was fixed in Pokémon Black and White but we'll discuss those problems when those games get their turn.
Lacking Thunder and Doesn’t Bring the Fire
I do love some of the designs in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl but it lacked type diversity. Of particular note, there was a distinct lack of Electric-type Pokémon and Fire-type Pokémon. Even in Platinum Version, they added a few of each, but not enough to resolve the severe lack of them throughout the game. Heck, the Electric gym leader and Fire elite four member had scarcely any of those types on their teams and had to settle for other Pokémon that had moves of that type.
It made the game feel unbalanced, and while it presented an interesting challenge when going up against those bosses, it still just really hindered the customizing of your team. When making a Pokémon game with only two fire Pokémon, and one of them is one of the starters, you've designed your game poorly.
This could be fixed by allowing you to bring Pokémon from previous games, but then…
Pal Park Blues
Pokémon Diamond and Pearl introduced the Pal Park, a way to transfer Pokémon from the third generation of games to the fourth. This was a great idea in concept since one thing that was missing in the Game Boy Advance series of games was an ability to transfer your monsters from the first and second generation of games.
The implementation was awful though. While it made some sense to wait until the postgame to visit the Pal Park, it wasn't entirely necessary. While the next generation similarly locked the ability to transfer Pokémon to after you've completed the main story, no other generation did so. You were just unable to register in your Pokédex until you had unlocked the National Pokédex.
For the Pal Park in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, you had to not only beat the main story of the game and become Champion, you had to have all the regional Pokémon registered in your Pokédex as seen (not necessarily caught). This unlocked the National Pokédex. From there, you had to travel to the Pal Park using the dual-slot function of the first and second DS models, transfer six of your Pokémon from any of the Game Boy Advance Pokémon games, and then play a mini game to catch them in this generation.
Further, you could only do this once a day. While that was fixed in Heart Gold and Soul Silver versions of the games, if you were strictly using Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum games, you could only transfer six Pokémon per day. If you had a complete living Pokédex in the third generation of games, it would take 65 days to transfer all those Pokémon over. And that's assuming you were only bringing over the living Pokédex, and not any other bonus monsters, such as gender differences or shiny Pokémon. That is a lot of time devoted to just making sure you have all your monsters on you.
Additionally, because this feature relied on the dual-slot function, it was completely unusable on the Nintendo DSi, which had no GBA slot, making it impossible for people who only owned that system.
Too Many Hidden Machines
Hidden Machines, colloquially called ‘HMs’ in the game series, were moves you could teach your Pokémon in the first six generations of the Pokémon franchise. I use the phrase ‘could’ generously however, as having one of the monsters know these moves is mandatory.
Essentially, they're progression blockers. You have an obstacle that prevents you from advancing in the game until you've received the HM, and you can use this HM to get past the obstacle. I touched on this when covering Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire but it goes way overboard in this game.
The best example is the Defog move. There is an area in the game where it blocks progression by having a route absolutely covered in fog. The effect of Fog greatly reduces accuracy, making encounters against wild Pokémon and trainers rather difficult, encouraging players to not return until they've learned the HM move Defog, which can dispel the fog when used outside of battle.
The big problem? There's already a progression blocker besides the fog! Right at the entrance to the route, there's a group of Pokémon that won't leave until you bring them some strong medicine. This medicine is a key item, so you can only get it at a certain point in the game. This makes Defog absolutely unnecessary.
Plus, once a Pokémon learns an HM move, that move becomes very difficult to unlearn, meaning now your monster is stuck with a move slot filled with a move that's usefulness is situational at best.
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl has eight of these moves. All of them are required to get through the story, though if you're willing to deal with accuracy problems in a few sections, you theoretically could go without defog, but it will make the game extremely tedious.
This is often why ‘HM Slaves’ become so important in this game. One ore two monsters who are only on your party to know these moves, and nothing more. But why force unnecessary limits on your party? Thankfully, they fixed at least that part in the remakes
This content reflects the personal opinions of the author. It is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and should not be substituted for impartial fact or advice in legal, political, or personal matters.
© 2023 Nigel Kirk
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