WrenchNinja
Member
So I'm not the biggest fan of Gen IV but I've been wanting to go through all of the Pokemon games in the series. I've gone through Red, White, and my next stop is Platinum.
First of all, with the good. The Sinnoh games did a lot for the gameplay of the series, starting with the biggest change, the physical/special split. Back in the older games, only certain types of Pokemon used the Attack stat like Normal and Flying types while other Pokemon like Water and Fire types used the special stat. This didn't make a lot of sense for some Pokemon, cause some of the leaned more heavily toward their special stat but were stuck with movepools that made use of their Attack stat, and vice versa. Gen IV changed everything, now all types can use the attack and special stat and which stat they use depends on what kind of move it is. If it's something like a contact move, like tackle, of course it would use the attack stat. But if it's something like a distance move, like Water Gun, it uses the special stat. It gets more complicated with some moves but that is the general gist of things, and it's a big deal for the series going forward.
Sinnoh itself is an awesome and entertaining region. Sinnoh is mountainous, revolving around a mountain range called and specific mountain, Mt. Coronet. It splits the region in half and you'll passing through and over the mountain constantly. There's also how the environment decidedly colder (mostly apparent in the visual of Platinum), where everyone is wearing winter clothing, you can see snow around the environment, and some of the northern routes are packed with hard to cross snow. The Sinnoh region gives a real sense of adventure with you trekking across the land. This goes along with the gym leader order (at least in Diamond and Pearl), where you won't be able to fight the ghost type gym leader Fantina in Hearthome City which is the city you'll be heading toward right after the 2nd Gym. You'll be circling around through the Eastern parts of the region exploring the bustling Veilstone City and marshes of Pastoria Town.
There's also a lot of great new Pokemon introduced with this generation that have stood the test of time and are still viable in the competitive scene, like Garchomp, the Sinnoh Region's stand out powerhouse as well as Lucario, who has become an important Pokemon not only in its own franchise, but even other series like Smash Bros. There's also a bunch of old Pokemon that got new evolutions to make them more viable, like Weavile the evolved form of Sneasel, Gliscor the evolved form of Gligar, Roserade, evolved form of Roselia, etc. A bunch of new baby Pokemon were also added to make Pokemon evolutionary lines more complete (and cute!) like Bonsly, Mime Jr. and Munchlax.
Another cool thing about these games, is if you have an original DS or DS Lite, you can insert one of the GBA games in the GBA slot, and you'll be able to catch certain Pokemon from those games in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. It's really ingenious, and something I wish they also kept for Black and White. On top of this, you're able to transfer Pokemon from those games, so you still get forward compatibility. Gen 3 don't get abandoned just because of move to a new platform.
Platinum added a Battle Frontier like Emerald did for Ruby/Sapphire. Instead of 7 facilities, there are 5. But they are just as challenging. It's a nice bunch of post game content in an already packed to the brim game. Some of the Frontier brains make future appearances, like Caitlin who becomes an Elite 4 member in gen 5. In this game she's a silent little kid.
Anyway, I'd be remiss to talk about the bad. There's a couple of bad points. These games are really freaking slow. Like abysmally slow. For some reason the movement, animation, framerate, everything is slower than the gen 3 games. It makes it extremely frustrating to play these games after playing through the very fast paced Black and White, or the not as fast but still way faster X and Y. The visuals aren't that hot either, Game Freak, in a bold move decided to add 3d models to these games, and they just look really dull and ugly at times. On top of all this, they added some really stupid gameplay elements, like the honey trees. These trees are all over Sinnoh, and are the only place you can get certain Pokemon. One specific tree will give a rare Pokemon, but it's all down to luck which one that is. And you need a specific consumable item for this called honey that you have to slather on the tree, and on top of that you have to wait 8 hours for the Pokemon to appear, and even on top of that if you don't check the tree within the same day as you slathered honey, the tree resets and no Pokemon for you. It's really stupid gameplay element. Another bad thing about these games is the Pokemon distribution. There's a lot of new Pokemon in these games, but you'll be seeing way more old ones than new for a while. In Diamond and Pearl, you were limited to 150 Pokemon before the National dex is acquired. Those 150 Pokemon don't even include all of the new Pokemon introduced, which is extra dumb. Platinum, rectified this, but not by much. Also, in Diamond and Pearl, you only had one available Fire type Pokemon, freaking Ponyta/Rapidash if you didn't pick the fire starter. Platinum fixed this by adding Houndour, Magmar, and Flareon. But still, that sucks. One more dumb thing these games do is handling how you migrate Pokemon from the gen 3 games. You can only send 6 at a time, you can't do it until you get the National Dex, you have to go to this building and play a stupid minigame where you have to run around this area with a bunch of habitats, not sure which one the Pokemon will be in and recapture said Pokemon with Park Balls, which are essentially 100% capture rate which makes it extra dumb. And the kicker is you can only do this once a day. WHY!?!
All in all, gen 4 did a lot right, but they feel shackled at times just by the fact that they were early DS games. If any Pokemon games need remakes, it's these ones. But in case there aren't any, I think Platinum is okay to play, just have a lot of tolerance for the flaws.
First of all, with the good. The Sinnoh games did a lot for the gameplay of the series, starting with the biggest change, the physical/special split. Back in the older games, only certain types of Pokemon used the Attack stat like Normal and Flying types while other Pokemon like Water and Fire types used the special stat. This didn't make a lot of sense for some Pokemon, cause some of the leaned more heavily toward their special stat but were stuck with movepools that made use of their Attack stat, and vice versa. Gen IV changed everything, now all types can use the attack and special stat and which stat they use depends on what kind of move it is. If it's something like a contact move, like tackle, of course it would use the attack stat. But if it's something like a distance move, like Water Gun, it uses the special stat. It gets more complicated with some moves but that is the general gist of things, and it's a big deal for the series going forward.
Another thing great about the Sinnoh games, and this is mostly because of the move to DS is the ability to go online. Now anyone can trade and battle with anyone around the world. Now everyone can get all of the starter Pokemon, or that version exclusive you're missing. Game Freak on top of this also created the GTS, a sort of trade posting where you could send something up on the internet and ask for another Pokemon, and someone somewhere around the world would fulfill that trade and give you what you're looking for. Going online is a huge game changer for the franchise and has only made it bigger and better.
Sinnoh itself is an awesome and entertaining region. Sinnoh is mountainous, revolving around a mountain range called and specific mountain, Mt. Coronet. It splits the region in half and you'll passing through and over the mountain constantly. There's also how the environment decidedly colder (mostly apparent in the visual of Platinum), where everyone is wearing winter clothing, you can see snow around the environment, and some of the northern routes are packed with hard to cross snow. The Sinnoh region gives a real sense of adventure with you trekking across the land. This goes along with the gym leader order (at least in Diamond and Pearl), where you won't be able to fight the ghost type gym leader Fantina in Hearthome City which is the city you'll be heading toward right after the 2nd Gym. You'll be circling around through the Eastern parts of the region exploring the bustling Veilstone City and marshes of Pastoria Town.
There's also a lot of great new Pokemon introduced with this generation that have stood the test of time and are still viable in the competitive scene, like Garchomp, the Sinnoh Region's stand out powerhouse as well as Lucario, who has become an important Pokemon not only in its own franchise, but even other series like Smash Bros. There's also a bunch of old Pokemon that got new evolutions to make them more viable, like Weavile the evolved form of Sneasel, Gliscor the evolved form of Gligar, Roserade, evolved form of Roselia, etc. A bunch of new baby Pokemon were also added to make Pokemon evolutionary lines more complete (and cute!) like Bonsly, Mime Jr. and Munchlax.
Another cool thing about these games, is if you have an original DS or DS Lite, you can insert one of the GBA games in the GBA slot, and you'll be able to catch certain Pokemon from those games in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. It's really ingenious, and something I wish they also kept for Black and White. On top of this, you're able to transfer Pokemon from those games, so you still get forward compatibility. Gen 3 don't get abandoned just because of move to a new platform.
Platinum added a Battle Frontier like Emerald did for Ruby/Sapphire. Instead of 7 facilities, there are 5. But they are just as challenging. It's a nice bunch of post game content in an already packed to the brim game. Some of the Frontier brains make future appearances, like Caitlin who becomes an Elite 4 member in gen 5. In this game she's a silent little kid.
Game Freak also managed to step up their game story and writing wise. The generation 4 games immediately try to tie themselves with Generation 2 as we start hearing about the Red Gyarados from the Johto region in a newscast (in Diamond and Pearl anyway). In Platinum, you and your rival want to meet Professor Rowan and get your first Pokemon. Your rival, I'm going to call him Barry, well Barry is alright. He's a hothead always in a rush, hell he misses out on getting a Pokedex because of it. He's on a journey to prove himself, to be as strong as his dad Palmer (he's the Battle Tower's Tower Tycoon), and is constantly challenging you to prove it to himself. Eventually, when he loses to one of the Team Galactic admins after failing to rescue a legendary Pokemon, he realises he needs to be more serious. It's not the greatest arc, but it's fine. A nice touch that I'm glad that they brought back with these games is your rival's name will always show up on Gym Statues before you, echoing how Blue would constantly be ahead of Red. On your journey, you'll run into a weird sketchy guy at the lake near the starting town. This guy is Cyrus, the leader of Team Galactic, a nihilistic nutjob who want to reset the world with the legendary Pokemon of Sinnoh. Throughout the game you'll be running into these crazies, who no one really takes seriously, until they starting bombing places! I know right, hard to believe they left terrorist bombings in this. They blow up one of the lakes trying to steal one of the legendary Pokemon, and they eventually steal two others. And these three legendary Pokemon? They're part of a plan to awaken another pair of legendary Pokemon. Did I mention how there's a lot of legendary Pokemon in these games? Anyway, you'll be traveling around the region, meeting up with the Champion Cynthia (who is pretty cool), and eventually climbing up the top of Mt. Coronet for a faceoff with Cyrus. In Platinum, there's the addition of the Distortion World, a topsy turvy hellscape that gets opened up when Cyrus accidentally awakens Giratina instead of Dialga or Palkia. It's a weird puzzle based area that you go through right before facing off with Platinum's box legendary.
Anyway, I'd be remiss to talk about the bad. There's a couple of bad points. These games are really freaking slow. Like abysmally slow. For some reason the movement, animation, framerate, everything is slower than the gen 3 games. It makes it extremely frustrating to play these games after playing through the very fast paced Black and White, or the not as fast but still way faster X and Y. The visuals aren't that hot either, Game Freak, in a bold move decided to add 3d models to these games, and they just look really dull and ugly at times. On top of all this, they added some really stupid gameplay elements, like the honey trees. These trees are all over Sinnoh, and are the only place you can get certain Pokemon. One specific tree will give a rare Pokemon, but it's all down to luck which one that is. And you need a specific consumable item for this called honey that you have to slather on the tree, and on top of that you have to wait 8 hours for the Pokemon to appear, and even on top of that if you don't check the tree within the same day as you slathered honey, the tree resets and no Pokemon for you. It's really stupid gameplay element. Another bad thing about these games is the Pokemon distribution. There's a lot of new Pokemon in these games, but you'll be seeing way more old ones than new for a while. In Diamond and Pearl, you were limited to 150 Pokemon before the National dex is acquired. Those 150 Pokemon don't even include all of the new Pokemon introduced, which is extra dumb. Platinum, rectified this, but not by much. Also, in Diamond and Pearl, you only had one available Fire type Pokemon, freaking Ponyta/Rapidash if you didn't pick the fire starter. Platinum fixed this by adding Houndour, Magmar, and Flareon. But still, that sucks. One more dumb thing these games do is handling how you migrate Pokemon from the gen 3 games. You can only send 6 at a time, you can't do it until you get the National Dex, you have to go to this building and play a stupid minigame where you have to run around this area with a bunch of habitats, not sure which one the Pokemon will be in and recapture said Pokemon with Park Balls, which are essentially 100% capture rate which makes it extra dumb. And the kicker is you can only do this once a day. WHY!?!
All in all, gen 4 did a lot right, but they feel shackled at times just by the fact that they were early DS games. If any Pokemon games need remakes, it's these ones. But in case there aren't any, I think Platinum is okay to play, just have a lot of tolerance for the flaws.
