First of all, “pivotal” is synonymous with neither “good” nor “bad.” When I say that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Diamond & Pearl are the most pivotal games in the series’ history, I am not speaking to their merits or lack thereof - instead, I am sp♍eaking to a rather curious quality that these polarising and provocative games uniquely possess.
This quality is, obviously, qualitative, meaning that it is not necessarily quantifiable or distillable into a single point. On the contrary, the entire makeup of Diamond & Pearl is wonderfully weird and weirdly wonderful. On the day these bold and beloved games turn 15, let’s take a stab at discussing why all of the conditions above can be simultaneously true, contradict﷽ory, and worth reflecting on in 2021.
I was ten years old when I embarked on my first adventure across Gen 4’s wintery Sinnoh region. Ten is arguably the most impressionable age a person can be when it comes to Pokemon - the game you play at ten is probably the one you boot up with prior knowledge of the series while also being the one that immediately predates the inevitable “too cool for Pokemon” period that comes with discovering video games exist outside of Nintendo.
This is a testament to why Diamond & Pearl are pivotal as per my own personal experience with P༒okemon, although I don’t believe that contributes to any sort of bias. If you look back on these games now and are actually willing to engage with both what they accomplished and failed to accomplish, their position in Pokemon history becomes alarmingly clear. They are, for better and worse, the beginning of the end and start of a new begin🍎ning. The reason I’m writing this piece is to attempt to articulate what that actually means.
First off, the good: Diamond & Pearl implemented arguably the most important change to ever hit mainline Pokemon 🌊by introducing the Physical/Special split that still defines how combat works today. Prior to this, Physical and Special designations for moves were assigned to types instead of specific t🌃echniques - for example, a Psychic-type Pokemon with a monstrous Attack stat was essentially useless due to its inability to capitalise on that, whereas Ghost Pokemon with high Special Attack couldn’t make proper use of moves like Shadow Ball. Gen 4 revamped all of this by catering to Physical and Special builds, while also enabling tankier ‘mons to make use of either Defense or Special Defense. This might seem like standard stuff now in 2021, although it wasn’t until 2006 that it actually took effect in the series.
Diamond & Pearl were also the last ever Pokemon games to make it to launch without leaks, meaning the joy of seeing a new Pokemon for the first time during your own personal adventure largely died after Gen 4. Nowadays, it’s ♍almost impossible to go into new games without having at least some idea of what to expect. It’s easy to blame the lack of enthusiasm towards each generation’s proprietary ‘mons on being an unrepentant genwunner, although it arguably has a lot more to do with eschewing experimentation for what you already know purely based on the fact that there was rarely any sort of surprise when you met a new Pokemon in Unova, Kalos, Alola, or Galar. It’s possible that this can still be reversed - maybe we’ll actually reach Gen 9 before seeing 80 percent of the 100 or so new ‘mons♑ it adds to the series, although given the prevalence of leaks in modern gaming, it’s wishful thinking at best and completely ill-informed optimism at worst.
Sinnoh itself is also the most unique Pokemon region we’ve ever seen, being based on the snowy Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido and boasting its own distinct environmental quirks. In contrast, Kanto was based on Kanto, Johto was based on Kansai, Hoenn was based on Kyushu, Unova was based on New York City, Kalos was based on France, Alola was based on Hawaii, and Galar was based on the UK. In some ways, the non-Japanese-inspired regions are unique in their own right, although none of them have an aesthetic as singular as that of Sinnoh. From Lake Verity to Mt. Coronet, to Snowpoint Temple and the Great Marsh, for everything Gen 4 lacks in metropolitan spectacl🤡e, it more than makes up for with magnificent natural vistas.
All of these points mark distinct pivots in how Pokemon games are defined, although Gen 4 also fumbled the ball in other ways. While Gen 5 still holds the record for the most new Pokemon introduced in a single entry of the series at 156, Pokemon has suffered from diminishing returns since, and Gen 5’s whopping ‘mon count has been relentlessly criticised over the years for including plenty of designs that were wid𝕴ely seen as uninspired. Gen 4, on the other hand, saw the introduction of 107 new Pokemon, the majority of whom are still beloved to this day. Gens 6, 7, and 8 hold the record for least, second-least, and third-least new designs with 72, 88, and 91, respectively. While it’s true that Gen 5 obviously falls between Gens 4 and 6 in chronological order, it stands as unequivocal proof that quantity will never manage to supersede quality in a Pokemon game - a lesson evidently learned in the wake of Gen 4 and advent of Gen 6.
Diamond & Pearl also saw Pokemon’s turn to convoluted narratives and overly important Legendaries. The former was built upon in Gen 5 specifically and is, for some reason, held in high esteem by a lot of fans today - in my piece about how Temtem is a catch-’em-up for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:p🦂eople wღho want a Pokemon game for adults, I argue why Gen 5’s ostensibly self-serious narrative is paradoxically pretty juvenile in execution. The latter, meanwhile, is a good idea that has resulted in a trainwreck that is still exploding today. There’s a certain kind of intrigue and mystery to early series Legendary and Mythical Pokemon like Lugia, Rayquaza, Mew, and Celebi that just doesn’t quite match up to the overbearing and difficult-to-believe significance of Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina, all of whom look pretty damn moronic. Even at ten years old, I didn’t have ‘ghost slug with wings and chest teeth’ on my bingo card for what a L🦩egendary Pokemon ought to look like.
With all of this said, it’s fascinating to consider Gen 4’s upcoming resurgence with Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl later this year. Diamond & Pearl were never the best or worse Pokemon games - if anything, they’re fairly middling, which explains their nature as polarising and uniquely pivotal titles in the series at large. They introduced the most important change to Pokemon battling of all time, signalled the end of going into Pokemon games with no idea of what to expect, and experimented with what a Pokemon region could look like. On the contrary, they were the beginning of the end for abundance in proprietary regional ‘mons and instigated a negative shift towards worse storytelling and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:boring Legendaries, all of which have still impinged on the series right up to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sword & Shield.
And there you have it: 15 years on, Diamond & Pearl remain, for better and worse, the most pivotal games mainline Pokemon has ever seen. I thinkജ, once the Gen 4 remakes launch th⭕is November, people all over the world will finally be able to acknowledge that and, hopefully, see the rest of a series in a different light because of it.
