4th Gen Why do so few people like Diamond/Pearl?

[Palkia]

I have not played D/P in years, but I remember it being so slow a Magcargo would outspend it. In many areas such as the famous tweaking, rage glitch, the GTS being useless and the non existent amount of Fire types in the main game made D/P felt like betas in many areas. All the horrible evolutions to older Pokemon were awful too. I only like Leafeon, Glaceon, Gallade, Roserade and Magnezone. All the rest are trash.

Platinum overall was a much more refined experience than D/P, which fixed almost all the issues I had with the originals. Still runs too slow for my taste though.

 

[soopaord]

Quite simply, the game was slow, and I really didn't enjoy the game apart from a few things.

I haven't touched my Platinum or Pearl since I beat them.

 

[Grif of Hearts]

The GenIV games were quite possibly my favourite ones in the Pokemon series.

Platinum was ultimately superior to Diamond/Pearl, mostly because of the increased Pokedex... there were only two fire type lines in Diamond/Pearl, and one of them was the starter. The story in both may be considered limited, but the Pokemon games have never been known for their stories. Black and White seem to have picked up on that, thankfully.

Generally though I think that the Pokemon seemed to be unpopular. I loved many of them, but others didn't seem to.

 

[Killjoy]

I loved Platinum. Thought it had a ridiculously cool story, and all kinds of cool environments, plus neat things like the Underground.

The only problem I can think of is, because I am a little ADD, that the game is quite long. I wouldn't say slow (although I understand DP were somewhat slower) but it had a lot of content, with no noticeable dividing line like HGSS.

 

[Ammako]

The color of the grass makes me nauseous.

And THAT is why Battle Island in Platinum was like paradise :D

Spoiler:

We're talking about Diamond and Pearl specifically, not Platnium, so its speed doesn't really matter.

To be fair, Platinum was included in his post.

 

[Kanto_Johto]

To be fair, Platinum was included in his post.

Yeah, I was just generalising (talking about that set of games as a whole), which I probably shouldn't have. My bad. My point still stands for Diamond/Pearl though.

And still, the storyline of all three is surpassed by the other games in the series, IMO.

 

[Pokemon Trainer UV]

I liked 4th Gen, because it was actually my first Pokemon game (Pearl), but after playing the older games, I found some issues:

- The new Pokemon weren't horrible to me design wise, but they were definitely lacking in variety, in fact most people I know who played 4th gen pretty much have the same team minus the starter.
- I notice that 4th Gen didn't really add much new to the table.
- Less interesting characters.
- Too many HM's.
- It was pretty easy compared to the older games.
- I didn't have problems with lag or anything, but the game itself just felt slow.

Platinum was a major improvement over D/P though, in fact I kinda miss it, since I had sold it to a guy to buy another game. Later on though, I got Heart Gold.

 

[rubin]

People didn't have anything better to compare them to back in 2006/2007. Notice how as soon as B/W got released, D/P became the most "hated" generation in the fandom. It isn't some new and unknown phenomena either - the same happened in transition from gen III to gen IV (when many people claimed that RS sucks and is the worst of the series, now look how many of them are begging for a remake).

What can I say in the defence of 4th generation? As far as I remember, Diamond and Pearl were being hyped about as much as B/W was (if not more, they WERE the first DS Pokemon games after all), and the games instantly became a huge commercial hit after they were released (third best selling pair of games in the series IIRC, after RB and GS). It was the first game to feature online battling and trading, it included a physical and special split, tons of evolutions that gave old favourites a new life... and not going to lie, the games itself were a blast to play (even though the poor framerate made me want to pull my hair out sometimes).

There were of course some controversies. The tried-and-true arguments about "Pokemon not looking like Pokemon anymooooarrrrr", or the lack of Battle Frontier, or there being not enough new Pokemon that weren't evolutions or legendaries, but all in all, the games received a very positive reception. I say give it a few more years and people will remember DP as fondly as they do RBY, GSC and RSE now.

 

[Treecko]

I think it is mainly cause it's a slow game. The story seems kind of endless and I could never really get into it. I didn't like the designs much either, but they have since grown on me. People thought the designs were drastically different and many find them odd and unoriginal. Many people also think there's too much evolutions of older Pokemon and not of newer ones. Though that seems to be the same with gen 5, but genwunners/nostalgiafreaks only seem to look at Vanillite or Trubbish and assume the rest of them are stupid. Which they're not in my opinion. Gen 5 is one of the best generations when you give them a chance.

 

[M4]

It was buggy and laggy. I didn't get a chance to play it until like 2008, though.

 

[Perriechu]

I like the concept of it and the new features brought in but the sheer speed of the game put me off. It's a shame because I really enjoyed playing through it. Never again, though. :(

 

[Egg Bomb]

I think it's not so few people like D/P, it's because there's Platinum, you can get the two version mascots at once, plus a cool new mascot dragon. So people prefer Platinum.

 

[Pinta77]

In my opinion, Diamond and Pearl were not bad at all, as a matter of fact, Diamond is my second favorite and currently has all my best pokemon ever, including my level 100 mewtwo from 6th grade (from leaf green :P ) And it seems my opinion is similar to many of the others on this thread.

Regarding FrostPhoenix and SuicuneTM's replies, I don't think D/P pokemon were that bad. They weren't spectacular, but they weren't bad, and somewhat natural looking. Black/White on the other hand is full of ridiculous pokemon, and I'm discovering new ones everyday!

 

[Bourne-mouth]

I can't tell which is worse in those games, but I'm betting it's the slow FPs.

Gen IV has been sluggish, and DP is just... the perfect manifestation of it.