4th Gen A year later... does it still hold up?

[Kayke™]

A year has passed since Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl's original release in the US; however, do you feel that the game held up to previous generations in all aspects? Including: Competitive Battling, Single Player, Lasting Appeal, etc. If you preferred previous Pokemon games, be sure to give descriptive reasons -- not just "Pearl sux'd lawl." I'm creating this thread for simple feedback, and to potentially raise up some fun ideas that could be included in future Pokemon games.

Personally, I felt Diamond and Pearl to have the weakest single player aspect of all Pokemon games. It wasn't challenging, Team Galactic are totally nub, and I blew through it faster than ever. [Even with the game's total lack of a sense of direction.] Though, it has lasted me quite a while, from collecting legendaries to pwning lives on WiFi. Coming from a competitive battler, I can easily say 4th gen is by far the best for battle and strategy... but is it still fun?

 

[Rux]

It depends on the perspective you're coming from. If your a single player heavy type person and enjoy an RPG with a good plot and interesting twists than 4th Gen Pokemon probably isn't for you. On the other hand, if you're a more competitive type person and prefer strategy and live competition over NPC's then 4th Gen Pokemon is definitely where you want to be.

You can speculate over whether the old versions are better because of single player story lines but it really doesn't hold much water when the 4th Gen features online battle...how can you compete with that?

All in all, I like the 4th Gen better because its focused more on the online game play rather than the single player. Heck, it even has better graphics.

 

[Jack Surge]

Um, well, minus G/S/C, this had the longest story, so I enjoyed that. The E4 wasn't as challenging as Kanto's, but they still had nice teams that couldn't really be walled by anything, making the battles fun. There was plenty of stuff to do after becoming champion, like the entire Battle Zone, numerous legendaries to catch, a National Dex to complete, contests to win, the underground to excavate, and the Battle Tower to challenge.

Do to my huge obsession with the game, and having an entire summer to play it after it was released in April, I've already finished most of the stuff in-game. I've completed the dex, done nearly everything to do in the underground, and trained over three boxes of pokemon to lv 100, over a third of them EV trained. (About one box of the lv 100s were migrated though.)

Now all that's really left are contests (boring as crap), the Battle Tower (full of hax, but I'm getting there) and competitive battling. I can breed, EV train, and all that stuff, but I've pretty much run out of things to do for in-game purposes.

So I think for the average player, D/P still is as strong now as it was at it's release, but I've put in 300 something hours on Diamond and about 150 on Pearl, and I find them a tad boring when I'm not working on a new team or battling over wifi.

 

[LethalTexture]

I would agree with the ease aspect of it, but you have to remember that you are getting older. As your mind develops, you fins things that are aimed at younger children, such as these games, to get easier. Does D/P seem alot easier than R/B/Y? 'Course it does, becuase you were younger then and weren't able to think as in depth. That is why they are aimed at children: they find it more difficult than we teens would.

I make the same comparison to Zelda games. People always complain that the newer one have gotten easier. It's the same principle as my previous paragraph.

 

[Trainer Trance]

Well... really my main complaint with the game is that after you've played it to the point where you're actually able to get Pokémon worth having, the main story is over.

I think it was just Nintendo's way of whoring out their wifi functions of the game, and that the actual single-player aspect of the game was very much put on the back burner because they were more excited about the online features.

Honestly, as much as I do love the online part of the game, I think I'd very much rather have a traditional Pokémon game with a storyline and such that's worth having, and more features, like an in-game level indicator, which can tell what level your Pokémon are on so that it can up the trainers in the game and give you a bit more of a challenge when you want to go around battling trainers again.

Just things that I had expected when I got the game that weren't delivered really irked me; we had this sort of thing last gen in the improvements, why would you take it out when making a new game!?

So really... No. Diamond and Pearl, as awesome as they were, don't stand well to me because I feel like while they added things in (...the same good features that were around in the freaking Game Boy Color games in the last good gen of Pokémon...) they also dumbed down a heavy portion of the games, hoping that the online features would save them in the long run.


I would've liked to had Pokémon I liked with me the whole game through, VS having something that I only moderately liked with me.

 

[Rux]

I would agree with the ease aspect of it, but you have to remember that you are getting older. As your mind develops, you fins things that are aimed at younger children, such as these games, to get easier. Does D/P seem alot easier than R/B/Y? 'Course it does, becuase you were younger then and weren't able to think as in depth. That is why they are aimed at children: they find it more difficult than we teens would.

I make the same comparison to Zelda games. People always complain that the newer one have gotten easier. It's the same principle as my previous paragraph.

I agree with this statement.
Which brings me to a certain point. I believe that what was aimed for in the 4th Gen games was a dimmed down single player mode to appeal to younger children while the Online Battle and Strategic Competitive Online Battles is aimed at the older audience who have been around the track a few times and know what they're doing and are tired of the repetitive Gym + Team Rocket + Gym + Team Rocket + Elite Four + Legendary + Finish Pokedex = Finished game style which has proven to be very addicting so they have something to do after the game is complete. This also opens the market up to Nintendo even more-so by appealing to the expanding crave for online gaming.

 

[Kayke™]

For being moreso geared towards children, the game's sense of direction totally threw me off sometimes. Such as the gap between the 7th and 8th gyms, and the part where you need to find Cynthia to remove the Psyducks from that one path... and numerous other occasions.

I do wish that the game featured online battles with totally random people, much like PBR had to offer as well. Those were my two biggest gripes.

The only time I ever enjoyed the single player portion of the game was after I beat it and collected all the legendaries... especially the sequence when you're paired with Buck and need to catch Heatran. [Which is the only "good" part when you're forced to be paired with someone in my opinion, seeing as his Pokemon could actually hold up.]

Hopefully 5th gen Pokemon finds the perfect balance between online play and single player. Or perhaps they'll finally make a darn Pokemon game for a console, instead of the stadium/colloseum crap they keep trying to pull off.

 

[FireTrainer92]

I would agree with the ease aspect of it, but you have to remember that you are getting older. As your mind develops, you fins things that are aimed at younger children, such as these games, to get easier. Does D/P seem alot easier than R/B/Y? 'Course it does, becuase you were younger then and weren't able to think as in depth. That is why they are aimed at children: they find it more difficult than we teens would.

I make the same comparison to Zelda games. People always complain that the newer one have gotten easier. It's the same principle as my previous paragraph.

I really do agree with this statement. 4th Gen felt easy to me and its because I'm older. I really noticed that when I played FrLg. RBY were hard to me when I was younger but by the time FrLg came out it was easier than RBY was.

On topic: it still holds up ut I don't play it as much as I used to but when I do start back playing it I find it very hard to put down. If I do put it down its because of the lack of things to do. I don't like contests and the BT is getting old(and the hax).

 

[carter756978]

Story mode red and blue are always going to be the best to me but pkmn diamond is the pokemon game i've played the most. Pokemon LG i played for over 130 hours but with diamond ive played it over 200 hours so im going to have to say D/P are really good i just dont have a reason for it

 

[XEL]

the show may have died, this site may be dieing, but the game still lives on! :P

 

[Sajiri]

Diamond/Pearl are probably my 3rd favourite of the games, coming after Emerald and G/S/C.
I like them in terms of strategy and competitive play, its alot more fun with wifi being able to battle and trade with someone almost whenever you want rather than having to be in the same room as somebody. I didnt really like the limited choice in pokemon though. You really dont get much to choose from until after you beat the league. I just started playing Diamond (I have pearl but since that has all my pokemon from across 4 games I didnt want to restart it) and had my friend trade me 2 eevee eggs to begin with so I had a water and grass pokemon that I liked. Apart from my starter, there's only one pokemon I've caught since I wanted to play with what I liked, a shinx, and thats what most people capture for the electric pokemon.

Im not all that fond of the region itself. I liked the hoenn region better myself (probably for the islands and various water routes, they just seemed more interesting to me) since I like doing alot of mapping. The 4th gen pokemon really dont seem that imaginative to me either. 1st and 2nd gen had the best, and there were a few 3rd gen pokemon I liked.

Unlike my silver and emerald games, after I defeated the elite 4 there wasnt really that much to hold my attention, other than training my pokemon to use on wifi on PBR. I play Emerald after the elite 4 alot, and its not an age thing, because I've beaten that game a good 5 or 6 times now since I got it and I still enjoy it. Related to the limited choice with pokemon, Emerald (I guess Silver as well but I lost my GBA so I havent played it in a really long time to remember) I was able to get a different team everytime. With these games, if I hadnt traded for the eevees I'd find myself having to go through with the same team I did in pearl, the only differences being I may have switched the buizel for a marill which I also dont like very much

 

[Hadim Sinan Pasha]

Meh - If it wasn't for the WiFi aspect, it would have been as normal as any other pokemon game. They're focusing a lot more on Platinum so I hope that the gameplay and WiFi are good, then it should be the best Gen to date.

 

[Patchy]

For me, it didn't come out 'til 27th July and I got it on the 5th of July, so it's not as old. :P

What I do is collect shinies, battle some people, and right now, I'm EV training some of my good Pokemon and shinies to use in Battle Tower. Then, I'm going to get a black trainer card,

The fun just never ends! :D

 

[Magick]

i havent been playing pokemon that long, but i love all the new features in diamond and pearl

 

[Kratos_Aurion88]

Wi-fi gaming=win. There's no end to the fun.XD

 

[west]

well i think the game storywise is horrible. I think the main character looks like that guy from saved by the bell and that the online play is great.
I loved when I had to catch giratina and then when I caught him he was like my fav. I still play like 1-2 hrs right before i sleep. i 'm trying to complete my sinnoh dex lol.

 

[Kim Do-yeon]

It is still good for me and also pokemon(dot)com is soon going to reveal how to get Darkrai.

 

[hothead]

i really like it but i go for about a month without playing it and then one night i will be real bored and go i might as well play diamond or peaerl and then i do not put it down so i really like it

 

[Archer]

I would agree with the ease aspect of it, but you have to remember that you are getting older. As your mind develops, you fins things that are aimed at younger children, such as these games, to get easier. Does D/P seem alot easier than R/B/Y? 'Course it does, becuase you were younger then and weren't able to think as in depth. That is why they are aimed at children: they find it more difficult than we teens would.

I make the same comparison to Zelda games. People always complain that the newer one have gotten easier. It's the same principle as my previous paragraph.

That is true to an extent, but as you get better, your play style changes. I, for one, have ceased to use legendaries in-game, which adds that extra level of challenge to the game. You will avoid using items where you can and spend the time training a well-mixed party, rather than having a legendary and a starter that are 20 levels above everything else. This extra effort makes the game last longer if your play style changes from: Groudon > Fire Blast > EQ > Hyper Potion > EQ > Ether > Fire Blast.

And about the Zelda games, try playing Zelda 1 or LTTP and see if you think it's experience.

 

[Kayke™]

And about the Zelda games, try playing Zelda 1 or LTTP and see if you think it's experience.

^True. Freaking. That. Besides, Miyamoto and Aonuma openly admitted to making the more recent Zelda games easier and more accessible. And I totally agree with that whole statement, Archer. I too avoided the use of legendaries as much as possible during my single player time.