Man... I think this is gonna be the first mainline Pokemon game that I don't finish.
I love Diamond & Pearl. They are hugely nostalgic games for me (shout out to my original 300+ hour Diamond save file), but this ain't it. The graphics are actually quite nice (aside from the frequent extreme closeups on expressionless chibi faces), but the free 3D movement applied to grid-based level design is atrocious here just like it was in XY - I keep getting caught on invisible hitboxes, so the world is just unpleasant to navigate. The permanent EXP share takes all of the fun out of teambuilding - there are Pokemon on my team that I've never even used in battle because they are disgustingly overleveled, and that's even with skipping almost all trainer battles from Eterna Forest onwards. And with BDSP being based on the SwSh engine that's missing tons of moves, some Pokemon that were fun to use in the original DPPt are just kind of deadweight now due to their unbalanced movesets. The extremely confusing choice to revert TMs back into one-time use items while making HMs into both single use TMs and overworld field moves is genuinely baffling. There was also zero reason not to at least use the expanded Pokedex from Platinum as the base for BDSP - the original just unnecessarily locks out some of the most memorable Sinnoh Pokemon like Gliscor from being obtainable before the postgame. And while exploring the Underground has been made way more fun via the Pokemon dens (probably the only part of the game I legitimately praise as a unilateral improvement), they gutted the secret base decorating aspect! My cave is now full of lame, bland statues instead of being a cozy hideaway with a giant neon GTS globe as a centerpiece.
Idk man, this just...sucks. It's not fun for me. It's so faithful to a fault but clumsily so that I'd rather just play the original Diamond instead. Hopefully Legends Arceus is good.
I love Diamond & Pearl. They are hugely nostalgic games for me (shout out to my original 300+ hour Diamond save file), but this ain't it. The graphics are actually quite nice (aside from the frequent extreme closeups on expressionless chibi faces), but the free 3D movement applied to grid-based level design is atrocious here just like it was in XY - I keep getting caught on invisible hitboxes, so the world is just unpleasant to navigate. The permanent EXP share takes all of the fun out of teambuilding - there are Pokemon on my team that I've never even used in battle because they are disgustingly overleveled, and that's even with skipping almost all trainer battles from Eterna Forest onwards. And with BDSP being based on the SwSh engine that's missing tons of moves, some Pokemon that were fun to use in the original DPPt are just kind of deadweight now due to their unbalanced movesets. The extremely confusing choice to revert TMs back into one-time use items while making HMs into both single use TMs and overworld field moves is genuinely baffling. There was also zero reason not to at least use the expanded Pokedex from Platinum as the base for BDSP - the original just unnecessarily locks out some of the most memorable Sinnoh Pokemon like Gliscor from being obtainable before the postgame. And while exploring the Underground has been made way more fun via the Pokemon dens (probably the only part of the game I legitimately praise as a unilateral improvement), they gutted the secret base decorating aspect! My cave is now full of lame, bland statues instead of being a cozy hideaway with a giant neon GTS globe as a centerpiece.
Idk man, this just...sucks. It's not fun for me. It's so faithful to a fault but clumsily so that I'd rather just play the original Diamond instead. Hopefully Legends Arceus is good.