A Long Critique of Pokémon Bugged Diamond & Shipped Early Pearl 

So glad this project is finally done after two months... The reception to the video so far has been incredible, so I'll be sure to do a final essay in this new era of Pokemon on the Switch saga with Legends Arceus, and then I'll take a break from Pokemon stuff for a while, haha Anyway, as this project used WAY more material than RU-vid will allow to fit in one of their descriptions, you can find full credit to all other creators work I used in this video down below, organized by order of first appearance. Also I've been getting a lot of comments asking me what game is being shown on screen at a lot of different points in the video, so I've also decided to include a list of all the games I featured in this video (excluding Pokemon games, most of which is credited under the footage section here anyway if it was taken from other channels) 🎮Featured Games (Mostly trailer footage or generic gameplay, and in mostly order of first appearance) _____________________ The Legend of Zelda - Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time 3D, Twilight Princess HD, Wind Waker HD, Link Between Worlds The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim Grand Theft Auto V Assassin's Creed Unity Super Mario 3D All-Stars Fire Emblem Heroes Dead by Daylight Assassin's Creed Rogue Tales of Arise Metroid Dread Anthem Fire Emblem Fates WatchDogs Legion Dark Deity Breath of the Wild Breath of the Wild Sequel Elden Ring Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Bayonetta 3 Cyberpunk 2077 Xenoblade Chronicles X Assassin's Creed Rebel Collection Fallout 76 Planet Coaster Minecraft Xenoblade Chronicles Astral Chain Grand Theft Auto Trilogy - The Definitive Edition Call of Duty Vanguard Battlefield 2042 eFootball 2022 _____________________ 🎵Music _____________________ Chapter 1 - Pokémon Remake History, Before Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl's Release The World Revolving - Deltarune - The Second Narrator - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ha2wi_2yw2g.html Lorekeeper Zinnia - Pokémon ΩRαS - sheddy - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lncQp7_JVoA.html Steam Gardens - Super Mario Odyssey - Catorstrax - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UskfxEEamNI.html Song of Storms - The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time - Catorstrax - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zQWXBjcQXNo.html Trailer Theme - The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild Sequel - Melandru - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yPVL8NFKIdM.html Kalos Power Plant/Pokéball Factory - Pokémon XY - sheddy - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rCoUfj4nbBg.html Chapter 2 - The Hidden Scheme Lusamine - Pokémon SM - GlitchxCity - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TZFKjOOrkro.html Field of Hopes and Dreams - Deltarune - The Second Narrator - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6P7RF-9RmC8.html Theme X - Xenoblade Chronicles X - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-O59iwBYDYcw.html Main Theme "Generations" - Assassin's Creed - Tobias Alexander Ratka - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aliVgvU0NPE.html Radio Tower Takeover - Pokémon GSC - GlitchxCity - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_RroRGis9iU.html Chapter 3 - Gameplay Temporal Tower - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers - Kamex - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zqhn1muwVoA.html Appa YipYip - ATLA - Simon Groß - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-n2WXAiOYVgU.html Eternatus Phase 3 - Pokémon SwSh - Catorstrax -ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vVPyZL8zmGI.html Cynthia - Pokémon DPPt - sheddy - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oW7HbBOK9M4.html Planet Wisp - Sonic Colors - Kamex - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9LwpUxP0sow.html Route 201 - Pokémon DPPt - GlitchxCity, Helynt - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0JSWn1DFB4w.html Temporal Tower - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers - insaneintherainmusic - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UsZJGFcrL70.html Tellur Town Autumn 'Descension' - Pokkén Tournament - sheddy - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZE_n4gynVvs.html Kansas - Rise of the Shield Hero - Danski Beats - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-F89GGQdSYSQ.html On The Beach Of Dreams - Chrono Cross - Tymedust - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-INmZHQGiTgM.html Big Bang! - Mario & Luigi Paper Jam - Gamliel Zafrana - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IFBpk2YIQEw.html The World Revolving - Deltarune - Emdasche - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yAcSsQsCft0.html Sky Tower - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team - sheddy -ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-L_UaA2pYhxA.html Chapter 4 - Visuals & Aesthetics Route 111 - Pokémon RSE - GlitchxCity - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VN8s1qVA0Hg.html Through The Sea Of Time - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers - sheddy - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-V9kvxPlMwN0.html Two Flamingos - Planet Zoo - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tBuESq_j4Y0.html Route 228 - Pokémon DPPt - insaneintherainmusic - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YcYTHbOEeJ8.html Chapter 5 - Soundtrack Eterna City (Night) - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3__2aimLCWY.html Route 203 (Day) - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-quWTInLGAp8.html Route 209 (Night) - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZIvBThPi7PA.html Cynthia - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZAPgS67wB2A.html Cynthia - Pokémon DPPt - Super Smash Bros. for Wii U - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mwgttSopGsM.html Cynthia - Pokémon DPPt - Pokémon Masters - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TM0GSSRRjuQ.html Zinnia - Pokémon ΩRαS - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GIn8_Q27WFY.html Zinnia - Pokémon ΩRαS - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QYP0-a9OswA.html Zinnia - Pokémon ΩRαS - Pokémon Masters - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rXfevEVVDpU.html The End Lies Ahead - Xenoblade Chronicles - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EsUECsnteP0.html The End Lies Ahead - Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SLW7hAaGCGo.html Gym Leader - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-d71sFre_Qzo.html Route 210 (Day) - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DDeQOs7e5hw.html Ramanas Park - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-l_Ps0eY0mvU.html Minor Legendary - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-d5yhuayWHnY.html Major Legendary - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-L45VWRoMA5w.html Ending Theme - Pokémon BDSP - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jIKw6UfZ79M.html Chapter 6 - Story The Shackled Wolves (Rain) - Fire Emblem Three Houses - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zRz3gZ2tJ9c.html A Dark Fall - Fire Emblem Fates - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ACzIBgn4Lx4.html Gladion - Pokémon SM - Mewmore - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ag-JaJ0x5VM.html Gladion - Pokémon SM - GlitchxCity - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yb3y2nkt6ek.html Chapter 7 - Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl Ending Theme - Pokémon DPPt - sentsinkanteun - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vA8hEnM9dhE.html Through The Sea Of Time - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers - Unnamed Remixer - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zQ25_ZJCJVg.html Don't Ever Forget - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers - Unnamed Remixer - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jCY0Ov7lu4A.html Lake - Pokémon DPPt - sentsinkanteun - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pT7y_3obCH4.html _____________________ 📋Footage _____________________ Chapter 1 Pokémon FRLG Sevii Islands - Empolo18 - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-M2SDXaa1eu8.html Pokémon HGSS Pokeathlon - terrotim - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JesJtxYhNiU.html Pokémon HGSS Battle Frontier - Mixeli - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-amukVCyh4V8.html Pokémon HGSS Wifi Plaza - TheJolteonMaster - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ysYGoagXIEM.html Pokémon ΩRαS Zinnia Battle - Pokeli - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--APem8K5ICc.html Pokémon Emerald Battle Frontier - FrostBytez Gaming Experience - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-B8YwTRD0pDU.html Fire Emblem Heroes Summoning - GuardianE - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-p-R9SxIVgow.html Chapter 3 H I G H Q U A L I T Y A N I M A T I O N S - DistantKingdom - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ty5lUK-EM-A.html Lumiose City Style Guide - MunchingOrange - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DyW3fH1_o5A.html Pokémon SM All Clothes - ProsafiaGaming - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MVX2WQcA7Mg.html the wild area is crazy... - Miyui - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LH0HouaMEC0.html Dialga Pushed Away - fubuki158 - twitter.com/fubuki158/status/1461972775283740672?s=21 BDSP HGSS Scale Meme - PkmnLegendArceus - twitter.com/PkmLegendArceus/status/1458200680557076491?s=20 Legendary Pokemon Following - Nintendo Unity - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pFCFjoCOQkQ.html Giratina - HeroVoltsy - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TIsjEmMvVBQ.html Shadow Giratina - HeroVoltsy - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UHVYwfG6u1w.html Secret Bases - Solesif - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1h8CMtWO9B4.html Abandoned Storage Units - MrBeast - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KEVpKoY85CI.html Capture The Flag - chuggaaconroy - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FeJ0aDA_AGM.html Pokémon Contests - Lumiose Trainer Zac - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Rznmd1DG9Qc.html Pokémon SM Gen 5 Walking Animations - KazoWAR - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-apJWOUVX8U4.html FRLG & RB Version Differences - CandyEvie - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-O9ARp5RYPgc.html BDSP Bridge Teleport - Lewtwo - twitter.com/Lewchube/status/1461836182690713600?s=20 BDSP Speedrun - Werster - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NkiRNzmEz2o.html Snowpoint Softlock - DistantKingdom - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nwSXo9LH3nQ.html Amity Square Glitchyness - pkmncast - twitter.com/pkmncast/status/1462150087619096582?s=20 Underground A Too Fast Softlock - Nikirol - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nS7FdFrFyfc.html Crash From A Too Fast - BlowfishGun - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KEsdWVEOvtQ.html Berry Blue Screen of Death - Obliterex - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UHprpF4bLsU.html Chapter 4 Diamond/Pearl Gym Battles - Mixeli - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hO2XjS7qBqU.html Chapter 6 Diamond/Pearl Adventures Manga (Volumes 1-6) Online - www.mangaowl.net/single/3997 (Shots of volumes 7-8 are pictures I had to take of the actual volumes on my shelf, so I also apologize my fingers are in a few of the shots as I had to hold the pages open) The Plan - Pokémon BW - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Mds1-c2MGkI.html Pokémon SM Gladion Encounters & Battles - Zephiel810 - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DKDjxktIDu8.html Pokémon USUM Obtaining Type: Null - SacredAlmighty - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xj6dhD5_qLg.html Fan Made BDSP Trailer - millenniumloops - twitter.com/millenniumloops/status/1369428475535388688?s=20 Chapter 7 Pokémon Platinum Wifi Plaza - SeaSlug - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WMfcSGzjsjc.html _____________________

Fun fact: It was recently found out that all the back-end code for these games was literally just copy-pasted from Diamond and Pearl!

It’s so strange how they went all in on “faithful remakes” including the minuscule dex size and missing other platinum content. But, they added in completely new mechanics like affection rng and permanent exp share.

I remember seeing people trying to defend the pre-patch soundtrack when we were all worried it was real. This is the problem I have with fans just excusing poor work.

my theory is that ilca thought they were hired to do outsourcing work and then had it dropped on them that they had to make a full game so thats why only the caves look good

Just remember before you start defending the graphics in this game: Even Stardew valley mixes more than one tree model to convey a forest. And that was made by one guy... five years ago... as an homage to an older game than the original DPP.

No joke. I bought the game, started it, went through the into cutscene and talk with my mom, opened the door to start my grand journey in the sinnoh region, and then my game immediately crashed… before twin leaf town even loaded in. Best first impression

What they did to contests is a slap in the face to anyone who played the originals. This is what annoys me more than anything else in these games. Contests weren't my favourite thing ever back in the day but they were still kinda fun and I appreciated having it as something different to do. But this? You can tell they didn't care at all.

My favorite glitch was my murkrow turning a solid vaporwave-purple color after leaving the underground in Oreburgh city. It stayed that way until the game just fully crashed.

I kinda wished they hadn't made this and instead poured those resources into legend of Arceus. Pokémon for a long while is just way too overworked and frantic. They need to really concentrate their vision and resources into one massive project and make it the best it can be.

I think i discovered the golden rule to a remake: If you prefer to play the remake instead of the original, its a good remake. If its the other way around, then you did something very wrong.

I never bought these games but holy crap, I didn't know the amount of anti-consumer BS they did. Yet people will still keep rewarding them for it.

My brother was extremely excited for a potential gen 4 remake, and when it actually was announced he cried. He was so happy. And then we saw how the game looked. We kept telling ourselves oh it probably won’t be as bad as we think it’ll be fine. Then the game came out, and no words can describe how disappointed we were. Truly a giant missed opportunity

I feel like "game footage not final" should only be viewed as a protection against lawsuits when the end game looks different from a trailer, and not as a way to say the game will be "so much prettier".

According to another RU-vidr I watched (PointCrow, I believe) BDSP was able to be modded on the very first day because they literally copied and pasted a VERY large chunk of code straight from the old games. They didn't even bother to fix the fishing rod, which was patched in the complementary game by adding a *singular coma*.

I didn’t actually know what they did to contests until this video and man, that just killed my soul.

1:14:00 Those black bars are basically small seams in the models. Basically when the game goes to render, instead of the game drawing both of the models, it ends up drawing the seam between them for that pixel. leading to it looking black. Typically people who know what they're doing know how to fix it. And this bug almost 100% tells me this game was made in Unity since it always has that problem

I feel such an absurd amount of empathetic pain for anyone who considered the 4th gen games *their* games nostalgia-wise. Cause man. What an injustice. Platinum was right there for a perfect template.

"Fallout 76, that game shipped physically, except you open up the case and it's just a cardboard disc with a download code." How is it that after all this time I still manage to learn new terrible stuff they did with that game?

As much as I enjoyed the game, there is no denying that BDSP was a low effort project capitalising on nostalgia. Thank you for your deep analysis.

If literally any other game series did even HALF this shit, they would rightfully be berated into oblivion But for some reason, purely because "Pokemon", it gets a pass Blue was the first video game I ever played in my entire life. It is an absolute travesty to see it in the state that it is

1:11:18 In some cases, you have even less selection. Embargo, Heal Block, Me First aren't in the remakes of the game they were intorduced in. VESPIQUEN CAN'T LEARN HEAL ORDER, one of her signature moves, in the remake of the generation that INTRODUCED HER

I'm not sure if it's exactly a well known thing, but some of the animations don't loop properly. Specifically trainer animations at the end of battles and the animations for pokemon in the menus. They all stop for a frame before looping again, it's barely noticeable sometimes, but you can tell if you look hard enough.

Psyduck’s dead stare during the contest said it all smh

One thing that absolutely infuriates me is how these games are handling the mystery gift/Mythical Pokemon events. At first, it seems like they're honoring the original theme of releasing these special items to trigger events. But... what I hate is the restrictive aspect. It's repeating the exact problem that the original Mystery Gifts/Mythical Events had. It's restricting new players from experiencing these events in the future. One example: I'm a full time college student, so I was so busy that by the time I remembered the Shaymin event, it was already the next month and the event was gone. So... no Shaymin event for me. And next month was Darkrai. The Darkrai event could ONLY be done in the month of April. If you downloaded the ticket and then forgot to got back because life and work got in the way... well, F-you, you gotta wait another year. And these games are around for a long time, so new players who get the game in holiday 2022 and so on, means those certain events are locked out for the future generations of players. Like, one good example done right is hunting the Regis in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and the remakes. No time lock, no limited time event. You're given a puzzle, and it's up to you to figure it out. It gives you a sense of mystery and fun, and an incredibly satisfying feeling when you solve it and confront the Regis. So, either they should have incorporated the Mystery Gift events into the main game or kept the Mystery Gift Wi-fi links up in perpetuity. Like how the 3DS virtual release of Crystal included the GX Ball event pre-programmed. And the fact that they incorporated certain events like the famous Azure Flute for completing certain accomplishments in Let's Go Arceus, which requires no time lock, shows that they could think of that.

The distortion world was entirely designed to be a technical showcase. Back then, seeing the player character leaving the 2d plane that is the ground and walking up on walls and on the ceiling was absolutely stunning. It's the exact same vibe that Castelia City and BW's victory road gave, being the first pokemon locations to feature non-rectangular areas. They were also the first games to allow players to physically run around most of the region together and be able to see each other, via infrared connection. Same as soaring in ORAS, the first and only game where you can see the entire region from above all at once, and without a boring town map. Same as X and Y, the first fully 3D pokemon games, with routes that weren't made up of square tiles and organized lines of tree barricades. Of course nowadays, the distortion world isn't impressive or even really that unique anymore. Tons of space games like mario galaxy and Outer Wilds have the player walking on walls and ceilings. Tons of games have zero g moment. Tons of games include environments that shift and change around the player. Tons of games have 3D environments. So if a remake of gen 4 were to be made, then they'd have to give the distortion world a MASSIVE glow up for it to even compare to the spectacles of modern games. But of course, we didn't get that, and we probably never will... I just hope they never make a gen 5 remake...

I hope that there is never any gen 5 remakes. They don't even need a remake and if they are made they will probably end up like these remakes.

I've never heard ANYONE else talk about the "Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventures!" manga, not just the main series "Pokemon Special". It's easily my favorite Pokemon manga series and so underrated, it's the main reason why Plusle and Minun are my favorite Pokemon (along with Pokemon Ranger). Glad to hear you mention it

I think you put more thought and effort into this video than they did with their game.

I really like the idea of friendship level making your pokemon stronger since friendship has been a big theme in basically every Pokemon game, but I think it should have been limitied to the _occasional_ critical hit or 1 HP survival. The taking no damage and status effect recoveries are silly.

The funny thing about the remakes trying to be faithful to the originals is that it fails even in that regard. You as the player can move in any direction now, which creates issues as the game was originally meant to be grid-based. Plus the perma-on exp-share affects balance so they indeed should have taken that into account or nuked the exp. share altogether. Instead they gave the Elite 4 the only real changes. So they did think of it, yet didn't apply it elsewhere. Cutscenes where characters move in 90-degree angles are even different than the original as characters wouldn't stop in place at a corner, turn, then begin moving again, they just sort of teleport-turn instantly. Which this game still has anyway as you noticed. So they didn't even implement it appropriately to try and imitate the way it was for charm or detail. Not that cutscenes are the most important things of course, but it's just another example of them not being faithful to the originals if that's what they were aiming for. Lots' more really. But the bottom line is they either didn't know what to do with them or were lazy for a cash grab. I'm leaning towards the latter.

IMO gen 7 was the last generation where Pokémon felt… special. You could get every legendary, you could get every Pokémon, the events were cool, you could have so many different battle styles - have every Pokémon on your team be able to mega evolve, have everyone hold a z-crystal, only use Pokémon with exclusive Z-moves, etc. It sucks that we probably won’t go back to something like that again.

Videos like this make me sad because they're right. Pokemon impacted my life growing up and until today so much, not just because the games were fun but also because it'd spark genuine interest in drawing, videogames and designing my own creatures. It formed a lot of my hobbies and interests and it's really fun. But nowadays, I stick to anything up to (and even including, barely) Gen6 because the more recent games are kinda gut punches. I'm currently playing Brilliant Diamond after a friend (who grew up on DP) lent me his copy and it's disheartening to see how little care went into the game beyond "these are the elements it needs to have, put them in". Did you know all the really powerful TMs originally available only in the gamecorner can be bought for cheap and unlimited in the department store, just because the gamecorner doesn't exist anymore? Yeah, that Flamethrower and Psychic TM that was meant for way later oneshots basically anything and I can have 20 of them if I want. It's stupid.

Also, can I just say as a layout artist in film and tv, did anyone else HATE the camera work in this game? It’s like the artists never opened their editors and took a look at how their cameras move on a motion path. They are so abrupt, moving as if it’s turning sharp invisible corners…when a simple ease and and ease out would have been so much more appealing. For a game that claimed to be a perfect remake…. Just keep it top down! If your cameras are going to be this rough don’t bother or else you just break the immersion.

As a Zelda fan, also a Pokémon fan, I wouldn’t excuse these “remakes”. Zelda games are honest with what they are, HD remasters, says it in the title. Wind Waker HD, Twilight Princess HD, and Skyward Sword HD, so you know what you’re getting. Every Pokémon remake has always been new twists on the originals, these weren’t diamond and pearl HD, they were brilliant diamond and shining pearl. That’s the biggest difference, LoZ does remasters, Pokémon did remakes….until now

The glitch with dialga is what happend to me in pokemon diamond on the ds when i did the darkrai void glitch. I can catch azelf and uxie for some reason. But the leaders just kinda are there. Exact same glitch but in 3d. Its kinda just a 3d version of the the game on the ds with worse contests.

"The distortion world was annoying" well that's a great reason then to include and improve upon it in a remake, is it not?

This makes me so sad... I grew up with Diamond and Pearl, and foolishly had high hopes for the remake. I was looking forward to an approach similar to ORAS at least

ORAS made me excitded for Gen 5's remakes but now I dread them because of BDSP

Something really changed with pokemon in gen 6 as it moved to 3D. You mentioned gimmicks but I think its far more than that. I'm always blown away that Gen 5 had custom animations for each pokemon, from both ends, and yet in newer titles they claim they have to remake all the models so we can't include this, but than its all imports and upscales anyway. Gen 7 felt like an attempt to recatch the magic and honestly it was solid enough enough that I enjoyed it, but gen 8 was a train wreck in almost every way it could be. The only consistent thing about pokemon anymore is waifus and music, but story, gameplay, and the overall product suffers. For a product that is guaranteed to sell, why are these games so lacking or have a story that doesn't make ANY sense? Sword and Shield sold 24 million copies, about a billion dollars in revenue, and yet look at the issues of that game. If there was every a media franchise surviving on life support from past good will its pokmeon, and I hate that it could be so much more.

Regarding the story of platinum, there's more that could have been exploited in a possible rewriting of the story especially when it comes to the Team Galactic, it's very possible to see some personality out of the commanders of Team Galactic but in Platinum only: Mars is very much the most devoted out of them all in post game she's the only one that gets angry at the player for trying to stop Cyrus's plans, actually she's the only one who gets worreid when Cyrus gets trapped in the distortion space and she's so emotionally affected by his disparition that when we find them in the post game side quest she's the first one to jump at us for answers and when all the fighting is done she quits the team to find him, followed closely by Jupiter who's sole reason to be there was because Cyrus was apparently "the only interesting thing in the galaxy team" and thinking about her next ventures making it clear she had no real reason for being a Galactic member and finally Saturn who ends up being the one who was all that time trying to understand Cyrus plans and the methods he went about them not understanding why he diddn't care that the player would try to prevent them from successing but when you meet him in the Galactic HQ after the league he admits that he knew from the beginning Cyrus ideals were wrong but he was motivated to follow Cyrus to understand his way of seeing things and he also has ideas on how to seem more genuine in this plan to reshape the world in a way that's beneficial for all. You can learn about Cyrus himself if you visit Sunnyshore city, you'll learn there was a kid that was very proficient with machinery that one day just vanished, the one thing of note being that he was always alone working on machines and not many people actually knew him and if you visit one of the house on the roads in the battle zone (a bit random i know) you can find an old man that presents himself as the grand parent of Cyrus, lamenting that the kid was always under pressure to have a perfect record to the point where he isolated himself from the world by working on machines. He feels guilty because he wished he had took the kid with him before cutting ties with the parents. Cyrus himself can be observed to gain a Crowbat through evolution of his Golbat betraying the facade that he shows of an emotionless man except it's fully possible to explain it that he was simply getting happier because his plans to creating his on world was getting closer and closer to fruition so his mood would improve as well. One last thing of note that is interesting for the pokemon lore imo, behind Cyrus in his HQ there's a computer that contains the data they acquired from studying the legendaries of the region and their myths and it's interesting to note that it mentions that pokeballs don't allow a deity to use the full extent of their power or at least it can't allow them to which is why they go out of their way to create the red chain. I understand this is a lot of subtext that's left to the player to find on their own but when you start piecing things together and the picture gets larger it really become a more coherent story where you understand that Galactic team really was just a tool for Cyrus to complete his plans and with PLA showing us that the Galactic team thing is a family buiseness of sorts they could have had something going but oh well

My jaw dropped when I heard that day one soundtrack comparison. Quite possibly the worst MIDI-slap I've ever seen from a AAA company's game.

i will never forgive game freak for finally doing DP remakes but offloading it on another dev and botching it in every way possible. it’s a miracle Legends actually turned out good.

He spittin, but he sounds like he’s holding back tears 247

To think long time pokemon fans had been dreaming of a gen 4 remake for years... and this is what they got. Incredible. Please never make a remake of generation 5, Gamefreak.

No one ever mentions that Barry's animations were the same as every other trainer but should have been sped up and hyper, as that was his main defining trait I'm these games.

I love buying physically. I love collecting. Seeing the way the industry is going, it's honestly very scary. I'm a minor so trying to get my hands on micro SD cards or additional storage is extremely hard lol. It's a nightmare. I always get annoyed when I buy a physical switch game and then I have to archive 85 different things to even play it. :(

It saddens me to realize that we are in a video game dark age and have been in it for a while now. In the past I could go to the store IRL, buy a game and begin playing it, and if I ever wanted to return 10-20 years later but for some odd reason sold it or lost it, I can just find another copy and start playing it. Now I'm disheartened for my future brethren who won't have that luxury when the online stores go down and they won't be able to play the games of this era without having to pirate game patches. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the ability for developers to patch buggy features but how is it going to effect the future nostalgia players when the internet and online services shut down.

I never thought I would say this... But damn I think I judged ORAS too harshly

This game feels like such an insult to gen 4 fans. It literally fails at what pretty much every remake did before it to the point where Platinum (a game from 2008) has more content than this abomination.

Honestly the most laughable part is that BDSP is somehow even worse than RED and BLUE in the glitches department (especially in its launch state). With the original gen 1 games most of the most notable glitches were so out of the way in terms of normal gameplay that you had to actively look for them or is ludicrously rare to encounter. BDSP has a literal soft lock that players could accidently find themselves and a void glitch that completely blows the original glitch in DPP out of the water with how easy it is to trigger.

Was the midi ost for all copies? Because I got this game day one and never had the issues before the patch

I think more egregious than ANYTHING else about BDSP’s development was that the entire game was handled by ILCA, a company that when founded didn’t even do video games, instead of GameFreak. They also had less than two dozen programmers for the game (not entire dev staff but one of the most important subsets).

The Xenoblade X data packs contain uncompressed versions of basically every texture in the game, which is a hell of a lot of textures when you take into account how big the game's map is and how many different entities there are. It's also important to note that it was divided into 4 packs, so if you couldn't or didn't want to commit to the full 10 GB download, you could pick and choose what was most important to you. And the reason they did any of this wasn't any sort of time or cost-saving measure on their end - a Wii U disc can't contain more than 25 GB. Massively compressing the game's textures was the only way they could do a physical release at all.

I honestly can’t comprehend why they ditched mega evolutions. I get it constricted team composition, but it was the coolest gimmick by far. Z moves were just alright and dynamax is pretty lame.

I hadn’t played either BD or SP and I’m heartbroken to see what they did to contests. As a kid I loved the grind to become the best at EVERYTHING a Pokémon trainer could be. I wasn’t gonna just save the world and be the champion I was gonna be the top trainer in every contest category too. I’m pretty sure I grinded for contests way more than I ever did for the gym challenges or for the plot.

25:11 A lot of the Day 1 patch could have been overwriting existing files, so this doesn't necessarily mean the game was 3.7 GB pre-patch. Regardless, a 3GB patch is nuts, especially when you consider that the Switch itself only has 32GB of internal storage unless you get a microSD card. Also, the mere idea of buying a digital 2-pack of the games is insane to me, unless you have multiple Switches in one family using the same Nintendo account, which probably isn't the case for a lot of people buying it.

After the transition to 3D, the pokemon games just feel like wasted potential. And it's the potential that keeps drawing people back in like a gravity trap

i’m so scared for gen 5. my first pokemon game at age 8, my favorite, my beloved. it will always have a special place in my heart and if they do it injustice i will cry.

The contests and underground section were the biggest kick for me, I never had the chance to play capture the flag and show my base off in the original so I was so looking forwards to being able to do it and it wasn't there.

Another thing about this game is literally everyone forgot about it right after release. No seriously, I've been looking for videos about what glitches have been patched in the newest update and I can't find anything because no one cares about these games anymore

They even botched my all time favorite Pokemon moment in the Magikarps flopping about on the blown up Lake Valor Lake Bed in BD/SP. The Magikarps flop too fast to be "Weakly Flopping About" in BD/SP compared to D/P/PT.

Someone finally has the balls to talk about how terrible these remakes are. These would be 10 times better if they just remade platinum and did not lock a bunch of the dex behind the postgame. Just that would have made this way better. But what we have is a buggy mess, and clearly rushed remakes. GameFreak should have developed this themselves.

I always got really bothered that they used really odd instrument choices in most of the event battles. Dialga/palkia had a "toy piano" sounding instrument for the opening theme, and Cynthia had what sounded like a stadium organ.

Oh, if you thought that was a bad day one patch, I take it you don't know about Pro Skater 5 - only the tutorial zone is on the disc. The day one patch was the rest of the game.

It is sad to me that in the end this is the one Chance we had for a Gen4 Remake. The start of the DS. The era which brought Pokémon further than anything before. And now it is side by side with the worst era in Pokémon possible. Back then they pushed it to the limit until BW2. The 3Ds era introduced optional easy mode and became more linear, plus they cut the postgame. While it didn't feel like they're moving forward it was a good time. Breeding was very easy and aside from the USUM cashgrab none title felt like a total disaster. Although I can understand people being dissapointed by Sun and Moon. The biggest problem on 3Ds was Pokémon Bank being the only way to transfer Pokémon. With that the monetization being number 1 priority started to take over. And nowadays they do what's nessecary. I don't wanna blame Gamefreak in particular although they don't know how to create 3D Environments by 2020 standards. But the whole way the series heads with their main games is trash. It is sad that instead doing what they could do they decide to pump the whole money into mobile games to get even more money back (btw some of the people playing gacha are addicted to stuff like this and Pokémon in particular is aimed at children. Fantastic.) When coming back to Sinnoh I will stay on the DS and recommend you to do the same. Both Diamond and Pearl have nearly the same content than the remakes minus the underground. Even the bad Pokédex is the same. And Platinum is basically a fixed version (minus DP exclusive Mons which is stupid) and on top of that if you want to transfer Pokémon from GBA to the DS you only need to have a Nintendo DS Lite. No extra cost.

I think especially now that it's is out, it's pretty blindingly obvious that PLA was the game they wanted to make and BDSP was an obligation. Which, even though PLA is amazing, is pretty devastating for the sinnoh region proper. I've seen people saying they want a gen 5 legends game too, but I'm not sure. I would love another legends game but not if the Unova remakes are as messy and empty and bare-bones as the Sinnoh ones.

Such a good video man, your hard work is greatly appreciated my boy

Great video, incredible watch, it’s so amazing that I can finally see a comprehensive video going over everything leading up to the games AND the games themselves. Usually people don’t seem to consider the fact that a good portion of the game is behind a patch that wont be available in a decade or so.. But I have to disagree on the distortion world, most people enjoy it because it’s an amazing area, and one of the first times we’d ever seen another dimension in Pokémon before, not to mention the extra Cyrus dialog, and the cool scenes of Garitina flying around in the background, and the crazy physics. Even if someone doesn’t really care for it, we have to acknowledge that this game took away the potential to see a revamped and updated distortion world, which maybe even More reason for someone who doesn’t enjoy it, like you, to find meaning and enjoyment in it. Instead they just have you find Garitina in a cave again and when you battle him he’s in a room that’s vaguely similar, even though it doesn’t make any sense since you don’t actually fully go into the distortion world. It’s bizarre.. Not even to mention they got rid of the cool distortion world event, and the lake trio intervening, just to give us back one of the legends each doing the same basic sky changing color bit.. That’s pretty meh.

"Am I weird for preferring the Distorsion Room to the Distorsion World?" Yeah, imagine the Distorsion World in modern graphics. How could you not prefer that?

Your bugged fight with Dialga is probably the most intriguing bug I’ve ever seen. It’s unbelievable that it was still left in

The names of your pokemon videos were giving me a chuckle, but this one took the cake! Shipped Early Pearl shouldn't have made me laugh but lol

Thank u for bringing up the love and nostalgia, I had forgotten, for the DP spin off manga. I bought a copy of the manga, the one with the fight with Cyrus, when I was very young. Made me LOVE weavile and piplup. Such an underrated gem. Y’all saw the panels that manga was goated

Your comments about missing content based on when you play really hit me hard. When I was a kid I did not have a lot of money and had to wait for rare game sales or events like Christmas, Birthday, etc. I remember missing events and not having access to cool pokemon that my classmates did because I did not have the game yet, and then when I eventually got it then the pokemon were gone. It was always a major bummer. I think it was worse in Pokemon Ranger Guardian Signs where you could not have entire episodes of content because they were events. I literally had no way to play those stories because I did not have the event. I think Pokemon Conquest did a better job of that by releasing passwords, so you could access them later. It is also nice that you can reset the game and not lose that content. Also, speaking of alt companies working on pokemon. I really wish game freak would take input or let Monoliftsoft make a Pokemon game. Can you imagine what kind of open-world game or amazing game that would be?

This game selling 6 million copies for the amount of issues it has just means TPC can produce/outsource a game that does the bare minimum for maximum profits. Fans who dislike this need to not only voice dissatisfaction but straight up not buy the game. Why buy something you know you aren't going to be satisfied with?

In the gameplay section you missed a great opportunity to talk about how speedrunners were able to warp to the credits in like 10-20 minutes.

In regards to chapter 2. People don’t always have internet. I have a friend in India who doesn’t have a strong connection and sometimes she’s just in an outage for days at a time but she loves Pokémon. She thought her game was broken. I told her to turn her switch internet on. And maybe the patch would fix it. She was upset by that because the May 2021 patch for Sword took 5 months to download. After 3 months she finally got her game updated and started it over. She was like “okay. It’s better now”. She’s got enough internet to WhatsApp everyday and her phone’s data is about the same. She has all her music downloaded to tell you how bad it is. She lives in a more rural area in south India. They don’t account for this. I also don’t think this is pokemon’s fault. I think it’s ilca’s fault.

The idea of the faithful remakes falls apart the moment you consider Fairy type anyways. That alone makes it so you'll need to rebalance every trainer in the game or the game, so you might as well aim to go for the definitive experience. ORAS' main campaign was also broken because of this, so they had that game as a stepping stone to learn from. I kinda wish these remakes were the 2022 fall titles instead and that Scarlet moved over to 2023. Arceus was enough to carry 2022... But at the same time, they would have totally released Arceus with 2 months less of development.

I can't believe they produced a fake bad remake so we wouldn't figure out legends Arceus was the real remake the whole time.

Another comment on oras problems. Undoing the teams of gym leaders on emerald, as well as undoing the plot fixes of emerald concerning the teams. However, oras did do a lot of plot changes better. They almost had it perfect, but not.

This is pretty funny to watch after playing SV. BDSP showed the Pokémon company they don’t need to polish games anymore. People will not only buy the games, they’ll defend them from any legitimate criticism

I feel so bad for Gen 4 fans. I know plenty who are happy with the remaster, but I also know plenty who were expecting something like HGSS or ORAS or at least Platinum and they just…didn’t. I’m a Gen 2 fan, and I was OVERJOYED with HGSS. It had everything I wanted in a remake. And when SWSH came out, I was excited to maybe sometime get Johto in 3D. But honestly, if this is the way remakes go, I’ll just stick with HGSS.

Contests turning into a rhythm mini-game would be fine if 1: it wasn't boring, and 2: this remake was done like previous ones rather than supposedly being "faithful".

I was sooo excited for the secret bases. My sister and I would play capture the flag at our secret bases for hours. Its some of the best memories I have with the game. To see what they did with it made me completely stop playing the remake altogether. Just an empty room that you can only put statues in. Ugh

Zinnias theme sounds like something from kingdom hearts. I'm glad it gets the love it deserved.

When they first announced this game, the whole thing reeked of being a cheap, dishonest cash grab. It felt more like a scam than an actual game. And from everything I’ve seen and heard about this game, I was right to feel that way. And that’s just sad. Pokémon has always been one of *those* games for me and millions of others; it was an escape from all the shitty things that were constantly happening in life. To see it reach this state where the games are cheap and low effort is so disheartening. Even with Arceus Legends, despite having fun when not being forced to read and watch 2 hours worth of cutscenes, it still feels cheap and hastily done. Game Freak continues to think they can push out terrible content for maximum profit on brand loyalty alone, and they’ve been right to think that way. We *need* to stop jumping on every single release because, otherwise, they’re going to keep pulling this crap on fans

Ah, don't compare the models to mobile app stuff! Pokémon Masters actually has some good looking models, and the animations aren't too bad!

Wow! I'm impressed with how much I'm learning about the game industry from this. Sad that it's so scummy, but fascinating to learn about.

I think it is pretty telling that a mobile gatcha game has a way better version remix of the same track

Before people talk about him experiencing a ton of glitches because he didn't have the day 1 patch I must point out that most of if not all of these glitches still happen even with the day 1 patch.

Great review! Entertaining, informative and well written! It was a pleasure to watch! I wouldn't mind seeing more reviews like this from you about other Pokémon games, even the older ones.

The distortion room is bad for the same reason that the Battle Tower is bad. Or the secret bases... It's a missed opportunity to have the Distortion World be something more than a "complex" hallway.

I have not had an opportunity to comb through the comments section to see if anyone has offered clarification for this, but I'd like to point out something that contributes to the discussion of difficulty and the intended audience. My observations have led me to the conclusion that the game was designed with veterans in mind, specifically fans of the originals who have commit large swathes of the original games to memory. - It is comparable to the DS remake of Final Fantasy 4, which employs many predatory "Ha! Gotcha!" moments with basically every boss in the game, preying upon working knowledge of the SNES experience to have former bosses behave differently in radical ways. In BDSP, the Trainers you face do not suddenly start using competitive - or super grimy strats - until you hit the Elite 4; they are doing this as early as Roark's gym. Roark's Cranidos comes equipped with Headbutt, a confirmed Jolly Nature, and potentially a perfect 31 IVs in that Speed stat. Why? To try and flinch-lock you, regardless of the Starter you chose. In Gardenia's Gym, one the Trainers gave her Turtwig Iron Tail...for some reason, but the one I want to highlight is the Trainer whose Budew uses Rest and Sleep Talk. Like, it's the second Gym and you're pulling Rest Talk? Game, please. The other Gym Leaders only escalate from here, like Maylene using her Meditite for Light Screen, and it's holding a Light Clay for the 3-Turn extension. - A few more examples, just to sell the idea. Mars' first encounter in the Valley Windworks does see the use of Fake Out from her Purugly, even in the originals. In BDSP, however, they upgraded her AI so that, after her Zubat lands Supersonic, she will switch to Purugly, potentially for free if you hit yourself since we're back to the 66% chance of self-damage, and then she'll pop Fake Out to steal another turn from you. What about Jupiter? In the originals, her Skuntank had Night Slash, which is pretty threatening since it's STAB and can crit; for BDSP? They gave it Acid Spray to lower your Special Defense along with friggin' Flamethrower. Second Gym badge and we are getting hit with Flamethrower. Her Zubat also attempts to **Toxic** Stall using Mean Look and Poison Fang, while healing through wimpy Absorb and fishing for no-damage turns with Supersonic. This would have been made more apparent if Zubat wasn't so easy to dispatch, and if it had kept Giga Drain like it did in the originals, but you get the idea. The difficulty curve admittedly does not last too long; for me it really was just the first stretch, but one other thing I want to point out is how the innate EXP All brought with it a nerf to EXP yields. In...I think basically every mainline game before this, Trainer Pokemon would yield a higher amount of base experience compared to wild Pokemon of the same level, which made Sun/Moon and SwSh notably easier since they also had innate EXP All. SuMo is somewhat balanced in that filling the dex and constantly switching your team around is heavily encouraged; if you ignore the dex, your team might be underprepared for challenges to come since the EXP you get from that is quite substantial. - I don't understand why this is so difficult for the devs. They already made the perfect leveling curve system for the franchise when they created Gen 5, only to abandon it after B2W2. ORAS is the closest we've gotten to that system since and I don't have faith that we'll ever see it again. Fantastic video, by the way; keep it up.

I feel like those who grew up of Gen IV were robbed of a genuinely good remake. Thankfully Legends Arceus seems to be a genuinely good game and a step forward. (A friend of mine with a modded switch who DESPISES BDSP who was a gen IV guy really liked Arceus) I'm a Gen III guy so I'll just play Platinum again, but dang... I feel sorry for those who wanted to relive Diamond and Pearl.

It truly is just baffling how badly these had released and how much of it people were determined to just....ignore or defend. Pokemon as a series has always had missteps and improved at a snail's pace generally but once they went 3D, and even further onto the Switch, it seemed whatever fire the team once had for developing the games was replaced with them joining the ranks of Fifa and CoD where they just want to pump out crappy games yearly, banking on their good name for sales. Which....sadly has worked. No matter how bad the recent pokemon games have gotten the team still ends up getting greedier, screwing up things it had done well in the past, and just....not caring yet the game still sell explosively well. They can be as incompetent as they want and people don't care or defend it so they have no reason to improve.

If I hear vertical slices one more time

I'm a bit over an hour through this video, and it's convinced me to play platinum instead of the remakes. platinum looks so pretty in comparison. I'd take pretty pixel art over buggy + poorly designed 3d art.

Those cheap a**holes. F*ck it. Let the piracy overtake this. I bet fans have much deeper respect for the original product.

I want to talk more about the internal flag thing for BD/SP. It was actually standard for the series to use an internal flag to differentiate between versions since the very beginning... sort of. A flag can be used at compile time to tell the game to build different code depending on the state of the flag. This is super useful if creating two games where the core of the experience is the same but select bits are different. For games like Pokemon Red/Blue, this is a perfect setup to allow variation of Wild Pokemon, in-game trades, etc. without managing two completely disparate codebases that have to be updated in tandem. The slip-up with BD/SP is that this internal flag was not used to decide the difference between two versions at compile time, but AT RUNTIME! In Red/Blue, the existence of such a flag isn't really detectable in the final built code since this code doesn't actually contain the flag and is instead dictated by it, but having this flag in the final built code of BD/SP to be simply flipped from 0 to 1 makes both games accessible with only very minor hacking. It's baffling to me that this was handled in such a way as it'd certainly get found out-and quickly-in today's world.

2:12:44 This was one of my main complaints too. They very much treated HMs like a massive inconvenience with absolutely no respect to how they were previously incorporated into the route designs and exploration. While yes, HM slaves sucked, those items rewarded you for being prepared while also giving you a reason to revisit those areas later on. Now, it's just press A or don't... I guess? A lot of shortcuts also straight up don't make sense anymore. In DP, again, if you were prepared, you were rewarded sometimes rewarded with a shortcut. In this game, there is just no reason not to use them since you always have all HMs on hand. So, why bother having/keeping an alternate route in the first place? Worst yet, HM blocks still feel like a pain to go through. You don't have an HM slave on you this time, but they still *really* want you to watch Bidoof cut down that tree every single time. They knew HMs were inconvenient, but didn't bother to remove ALL the inconvenient parts? Why? At this point, why not remove them completely? They still waste your time and don't add anything to the exploration anymore.