BDSP Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl General Discussion

[Norzan]

It was evidently a conscious decision to have DP's Regional Dex the way it was.

Conscious decisions can be later considered mistakes. Just because you didn't considered it when you first did it doesn't meant you won't consider it later.

The fact Gamefreak changed it means they considered it a mistake, or else they wouldn't have changed it.

 

[Boss1708]

Conscious decisions can be later considered mistakes. Just because you didn't considered it when you first did it doesn't meant you won't consider it later.

The fact Gamefreak changed it means they considered it a mistake, or else they wouldn't have changed it.

You're obviously not understanding what I meant by "mistake" here. It wasn't an "oversight", is what I mean.

 

[Almonds]

I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but it would have been nice for characters to get new outfits. In HGSS and ORAS the majority of NPCs got new outfits. It might just be aesthetics, but it is always fascinating to see updated designs to characters.

 

[EmCeeChupi the Undying]

While we are discussing our likes and dislike about BDSP, let me share my favorite parts of this game:
Pichu is available early, Smol overworld models, and National dex is easy to obtain (just requires seeing every Sinnoh dex mon first)
And my least favorite parts:
E4 difficulty, Houndoom not learning Dark Pulse by level-up (wtf), single-use TMs, only Gen 1-4 mons, DP dex used, version exclusives exist

 

[Boss1708]

I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but it would have been nice for characters to get new outfits. In HGSS and ORAS the majority of NPCs got new outfits. It might just be aesthetics, but it is always fascinating to see updated designs to characters.

That's true, but it's also a double-edged sword. Many of the new redesigns in ORAS were a downgrade, for example (imo).

My point is, sometimes the conservative approach of not giving characters redesigns can be better. Both situations are subjective though.

 

[Norzan]

In a game with customization and also giving the player the option between the old design and the new design, i don't think there's any excuse to not have a redesign.

The problem with ORAS and why it was a hard pill to swallow the new redesigns for Brendan and May is the fact that the game had no character customization.

 

[Boss1708]

You can't customize the gym leaders at your will, like you can customize the PC, so it's an entirely different situation.

If they redesigned the major NPCs and we didn't like the redesigns, we would've been stuck with them regardless.

Personally, I would've liked to see some NPC redesigns in BDSP, but after what ORAS did with some of them, I'm almost glad BDSP were more conservative in this regard.

 

[Bolt Strike]

the new pokemon were only there because they were otherwise unobtainable in gen 3. there was no real reason to bring them back, especially since they were all in the postgame.

More Pokemon is always a good thing. It's more Pokemon to find, catch, and raise, that can only make the game better. And the game was slightly light on Pokemon relative to its generation (there were less than BW2 and XY, and only a handful more than the 4th gen games and BW), it could've used at least a few dozen more Pokemon (and really it needed a Dex expansion besides the handful of cross gen evos they bothered to add in because the Hoenn Dex had the same issues as the DP Sinnoh Dex, but that's more something ORAS should've done for the first time than something that they didn't carry over from Emerald).

other than the battle frontier, i don't recall any new areas tbh. might be because i've only done 1 or 2 playthroughs of this game;

There weren't a lot of big, significant new areas (there never is in a third version), but there were a few areas here and there. There was Mirage Tower, which is where you now got the fossils instead of randomly in the desert. Then post game you could go to Desert Underpass to find the other one (also Ditto was there). You could catch Groudon and Kyogre in Terra and Marine Caves which was a wandering cave that you had to explore the region for. Then there was also the Safari Zone expansion which let you explore more of the Safari Zone and catch extra Johto Pokemon.

i've always preferred RS because Emerald made the story needlessly complex.

Nah, Emerald's made more sense because it split the two teams into event that made more sense. It never really made sense for Team Aqua to blow up a volcano. It never really made sense for Team Magma to have a base on the coast. It never really made sense for Groudon to be sitting in a cavern at the bottom of the ocean. Emerald straightened all of that out.

i don't remember what match call does

It's an upgrade over Trainer's Eyes that allows you to call trainers like the Pokegear Phone. That by itself isn't totally necessary (and kind of annoying), but there was also one other thing it allowed you to do that the Trainer's Eyes didn't do, it also allowed you to rematch gym leaders. Gym leader rematches with National Dex Pokemon is something that was sorely missing in this game.

 

[Norzan]

You can't customize the gym leaders at your will

You can if the game gives the option. Plenty of games do this for NPCs.

 

[Boss1708]

You can if the game gives the option. Plenty of games do this for NPCs.

Except this has never been an option in Pokemon games.

 

[Norzan]

Except this has never been an option in Pokemon games.

Yeah, but it can be one. Just because the games previously didn't do it doesn't mean they can't do it now.

If anything, this whole franchise is missing options that far less sucessful franchises offer, even sometimes for free.

 

[Boss1708]

Yeah, but it can be one. Just because the games previously didn't do it doesn't mean they can't do it now.

If anything, this whole franchise is missing options that far less sucessful franchises offer, even sometimes for free.

Of course! But you seem to have chosen to hold BDSP accountable for something Pokemon has never done before. Lol

I would expect such an option from a new generation maybe, not a Gen 4 remake.

 

[Almonds]

That's true, but it's also a double-edged sword. Many of the new redesigns in ORAS were a downgrade, for example (imo).

My point is, sometimes the conservative approach of not giving characters redesigns can be better. Both situations are subjective though.

I was under the impression many of ORAS NPCs had well-received designs. Perhaps it may have been more vocal on places other than Bulbagarden, but characters like Steven, Wally, Courtney, Matt, and Flannery were very well received because along with their new clothing, their expressions and poses in their updated illustrations also gave strong impressions and told us about the characters' personality. Even Phoebe, who kept the same clothes and simply got a pose redesign presented more about her bright personality and how she likes to dance - and we actually see her dancing in her E4 room.

 

[Boss1708]

I was under the impression many of ORAS NPCs had well-received designs. Perhaps it may have been more vocal on places other than Bulbagarden, but characters like Steven, Wally, Courtney, Matt, and Flannery were very well received because along with their new clothing, their expressions and poses in their updated illustrations also gave strong impressions and told us about the characters' personality.

I'm not saying all the redesigns in ORAS were bad. I love ORAS Steven, Courtney and Brawly.

But what they did to Wallace was just... ugh... They ruined him completely imo. They also had no reason to make Tabitha short and chubby for no reason.

Even Phoebe, who kept the same clothes and simply got a pose redesign presented more about her bright personality and how she likes to dance - and we actually see her dancing in her E4 room.

I think BDSP actually does a lot of this? A lot of the NPCs exude personality now when they previously didn't (imo). Look at Byron, Volkner, Gardenia, etc. And especially Cyrus himself.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

More Pokemon is always a good thing. It's more Pokemon to find, catch, and raise, that can only make the game better. And the game was slightly light on Pokemon relative to its generation (there were less than BW2 and XY, and only a handful more than the 4th gen games and BW), it could've used at least a few dozen more Pokemon (and really it needed a Dex expansion besides the handful of cross gen evos they bothered to add in because the Hoenn Dex had the same issues as the DP Sinnoh Dex, but that's more something ORAS should've done for the first time than something that they didn't carry over from Emerald).

i'm not necessarily an opponent of having more pokemon in the game, but adding a bunch of pokemon that aren't available until the postgame anyway isn't going to fix any imbalance in the dex. besides, there were all those pokemon we could find on random islands when soaring.

There weren't a lot of big, significant new areas (there never is in a third version), but there were a few areas here and there. There was Mirage Tower, which is where you now got the fossils instead of randomly in the desert. Then post game you could go to Desert Underpass to find the other one (also Ditto was there). You could catch Groudon and Kyogre in Terra and Marine Caves which was a wandering cave that you had to explore the region for. Then there was also the Safari Zone expansion which let you explore more of the Safari Zone and catch extra Johto Pokemon.

ah yes, i remember the desert tower now. would've been neat. desert underpass made the choice of fossil irrelevant; not sure how i feel about that. terra and marine caves would have served no purpose as you catch the legendary in Sootopolis.

Nah, Emerald's made more sense because it split the two teams into event that made more sense. It never really made sense for Team Aqua to blow up a volcano. It never really made sense for Team Magma to have a base on the coast. It never really made sense for Groudon to be sitting in a cavern at the bottom of the ocean. Emerald straightened all of that out.

did it make sense that nobody cared that team magma awakened groudon until much later in the plot? did it make sense for team magma to attack the space center? even as a kid i felt like the attack on the space center only happened so the player wouldn't forget that team magma was also still a thing.

it's actually explained why team aqua wants to blow up the volcano. the crater will fill with rain and water pokemon can live there. it's a dumb reason, but hey, they're crazy. as for the magma base off the coast, well, where else would they store the submarine they're gonna take to reach Groudon?

 

[Norzan]

did it make sense for team magma to attack the space center? even as a kid i felt like the attack on the space center only happened so the player wouldn't forget that team magma was also still a thing.

They want the rocket fuel to blow up Mt. Chimney. Because they failed the first time to do it.

as for the magma base off the coast, well, where else would they store the submarine they're gonna take to reach Groudon?

You mean that submarine they don't need because the place Groudon is in Emerald doesn't require one to reach it? Because Groudon is in Jagged Pass, a volcano area? Because having a giant lava dinosaur in a seafloor cavern doesn't make much sense in my opinion.

 

[Boss1708]

Speaking of RS vs Emerald, I think one thing I definitely prefer in RS is that Steven Stone is the current Champion, as opposed to Wallace in Emerald. For me Steven is the better Champion, and is a much more charismatic Champion than Wallace.

Emerald makes this even worse by not making Steven rematchable in the postgame. Once you defeat him in the postgame, it's over. You can never battle him again. It's my main issue with Emerald, which I otherwise consider an fantastic game.

 

[Bolt Strike]

i'm not necessarily an opponent of having more pokemon in the game, but adding a bunch of pokemon that aren't available until the postgame anyway isn't going to fix any imbalance in the dex. besides, there were all those pokemon we could find on random islands when soaring.

Yes, adding the new Pokemon to the Hoenn Dex would've been more ideal (why were there not more Ice, Ghost, and Dragon types added to the ORAS Hoenn Dex Game Freak?), but it's still something that was in Emerald that wasn't in RS, and anything would be better than nothing in this case.

desert underpass made the choice of fossil irrelevant; not sure how i feel about that.

They could've done something different with it, such as connect it to underground ruins that had Unown. Would've made more sense than shoving them on random islands that change daily.

did it make sense that nobody cared that team magma awakened groudon until much later in the plot?

Kind of, it was Groudon and Kyogre fighting that triggered the disaster in Emerald. It is a bit questionable that they didn't start noticing Groudon's Drought after it awakened, but that could be explained by it being calmer until it encountered Kyogre.

did it make sense for team magma to attack the space center? even as a kid i felt like the attack on the space center only happened so the player wouldn't forget that team magma was also still a thing.

I wouldn't have missed the Space Center encounter if they excluded that. That part didn't really add much to the plot, it's separating out the Mt. Chimney/Lilycove Hideout/Seafloor Cavern events to the appropriate team that was most beneficial to the plot.

as for the magma base off the coast, well, where else would they store the submarine they're gonna take to reach Groudon?

But then that also ties into it not making sense that Groudon is in Seafloor Cavern. Like @Norzan said, if they don't need to go to Seafloor Cavern to awaken Groudon, they don't need the submarine to get there.

 

[Baka_Marimo]

Hyper Ball? Do you play the Japanese versions, because in the US of A we have Ultra Balls?

My bad, I meant to say Ultra Ball. I keep mixing things up because it's Hyperball in German. I edited my post to avoid further confusion.

On a different note, does anyone like to do Solo Pokemon runs? Watching Jrose11's videos on Youtube inspired me to give it a shot myself. If you have a second Switch and another copy of the game you can trade over any Pokemon egg you want, hatch the Pokemon and use it as your starter. You can do local trades before even getting to the first trainer battle and as long as you trade the egg before hatching it you won't have any issues with the Pokemon disobeying your commands. I have completed two runs so far, one with Bulbasaur and another one with Charmander. The only rules I set for myself is that battle items are fordbidden (X-Attack, X-Defense etc.) and that I can't spam healing items in battle to prevent my Pokemon from fainting. One or two Full Restores are fine, if I still lose after that I'll have the extra experience for my next attempt. Here's how the runs went:

Bulbasaur: Had a relatively good time in the beginning but got really tough toward the end. Had to grind it all the way to a Level 95 Venusaur before it managed to beat the Elite Four, and even that involved a lot of luck. Flint and Lucian as the two who specialize on Venusaur's weaknesses have quite a few terrible matchups. Especially Flint's Drifblim that burns you, sets up one or two Minimizes and then Baton Passes to his superfast Infernape. And you can't take it out quickly because Venusaur doesn't learn ANYTHING that isn't resisted by Drifblim. That was just a complete nightmare. Lucian's Bronzong wasn't really a cakewalk either, though not as bad. Cynthia was a complete pushover once I lucked out a victory against Flint and Lucian.

Charmander: I expected the first gym to be a grindfest but to my surprise Charmander learned Dragon Breath at Level 12, which allowed it to take advantage of the terrible Special Defense all of Roark's Pokemon share. I definitely lost a time or two but thanks to a lucky Paralysis on his Cranidos it didn't take long at all to get past him. I can't actually remember how things went against Crasher Wake but I think it wasn't too terrible. You have access to the TMs in Veilstone City at that point and the overlevelling from using only one Pokemon comes in handy as well. Definitely took a few tries but not too big of a roadblock. This time Bertha was the only problematic one on the Elite Four. I had decent success against her non-Rock types but Sudowoodo and Golem were a HUGE problem. Particularly her sturdy Golem always seemed to get in a Stone Edge, which - thanks to Charizard's double weakness to Rock type moves - always resulted in a one hit KO. Even if by some miracle I made it past the Golem, Charizard was so worn down that it got taken out by Whiscash or Hippowdon. I kept trying again and again but it just seemed impossible (without another stupid bout of grinding at least).
I then took another look at Charizard's movepool and noticed it could learn Solar Beam and Sunny Day. I quickly picked up the two TMs and taught them to Charizard before my next battle against Bertha. As an added line of defense I resetted for a Charti Berry in Pastoria City (it halves the damage from Rock type moves once) and tried again. The Quagsire she leads off with easily allows you to set up a Sunny Day, and from there on the fight was over in a jiffy. A lucky miss from Golem even allowed me to keep the Berry. That really goes to show just how much the right strategy matters. Flint and Lucian were nothing compared to Bertha. Cynthia however was a different story. Unfortunately a level 69-ish Charizard was not enough to get past her. No matter what I did, her Milotic always stopped me dead in my tracks. The problem was that I had saved after overwriting Sunny Day, the TM for which you only get once, so I wouldn't be able to repeat the same strategy against Bertha. I could go neither back nor forth. And so, here is where I violated one of my own rules: I used all of the X-items I had picked up during my run, turned Charizard into a bloated steroid junky and just trampled over all of Cynthia's Pokemon. Yeah, the dilemma I was in made me bend the rules but in the end I'm not competing against anyone and doing this only for fun. And it's not like anyone is gonna point at me and yell "Cheater!!!", right? Right?

Right?

Anyway, that was how it went with Charizard. I'm currently facing Cynthia on my Squirtle run. This time, none of the Elite Four specializes on any of Blastoise's weaknesses which means that for the first time ever I made it past them in just a single run (i.e. with saving and losing inbetween but never going back to the Pokemon Center). Also, Blastoise has access to Shell Smash, one of the most broken setup moves I have ever come across, so that helped too. The worst difficulty spike so far was Gardenia. She specializes on Grass types and is an early gym leader, so you haven't got a whole lot to work with. I lost to her many, many times before finally beating her by powering up my moves with Torrent and Rain Dance. Volkner did not give me too much trouble since by the time you face him, you have access to Earthquake. However Cynthia is not possible at the Level I am (69). Her Spiritomb is not messing around and immediately starts hitting, meaning that it will take away over half my HP when I have set up just one Shell Smash. And even when Blastoise survived it once (through cheating friendship), her Lucario took me out in an instant. No idea what I would even do against Milotic, so I guess I'll go through the Elite Four once again and see what I can do with the additional levels.

I don't know, I find this challenge really fun because it makes for vastly different playthroughs and forces you to be creative to surmount everything the game throws at you. I'm certain that Blastoise will manage to beat Cynthia on its third or fourth run through the Elite Four. After that it will be Caterpie's turn, which is going to be even more challenging. If you have access to a second Switch I really recommend you to give it a try!

edit: I made it right on my next run! Spiritomb missed its attack which allowed me to set up two Shell Smashes. With its Attack, Special Attack and Speed boosted by four stages, Blastoise made short work of Cynthia's team and entered the hall of fame at only Level 72. Milotic went down in just two Earthquakes. On to Caterpie it is!

 

[charlycicero]

My point was made with the mind that Platinum content as DLC would never not be paid. Too much money to pass on with the Battle Frontier, Distortion World and the other stuff from Platinum.

More to the point is how cheap GF has become. Paid DLC for just Platinum content is a no no for me. I am a huge fan, but I also know when to draw the line.