Pokémon Diamond & Pearl

this is a complicated and personal game for me. It was the first game I ever played on my first personal handheld console, and I only got to play it for so long until I lost my cartridge. Fast forward ten years and my fried sold his old copy to me for $40, just for me to replay it and rediscover that not everything was as awesome as I had remembered.

The problem with D/P is not just one thing. It's many separate small issues and annoyances that end up snowballing every time I play the game.

Firstly, it's clear that the designers of the game didn't really know how to incorporate the bottom screen, and so it was only used during battles or for the gimmicky Poketch. This becomes apparent when contrasted with Heart Gold and Soul Silver, where the bottom screen becomes much more useful for managing your party and items. The result is a game with neutered management options that slows things down.

The next issue I have is with the games pacing. The battle system is so slow, with long pauses whenever a Pokemon attacks, and the health bar taking forever to drain. Playing the battles with animations on is a nightmare and a waste of time. I was shocked as a kid watching Gen 3 Pokemon battles, where the health bar would almost instantly drain after an attack. True, this is a small detail, but it adds up and can make battles really annoying, and grinding a pain in the ass.

Aside from all of the nitpicks, what did I enjoy. Well, this is still a Pokemon game with all of the things that made me a fan of the series as a kid. But D/P feels really held back.

The idea that Platinum is that much better than Pokemon Diamond and Pearl is ridiculous. Is Platinum better? Yes. But I'm sore about it. Diamond and Pearl were my first Pokemon games, and I am definitely biased, sue me. But Pokemon Platinum is not a better game than say Pokemon Black and White 2.

I feel like having Pokemon Platinum as the better game is a disservice to really how big of a jump there was from the previous generation of Pokemon.

I don't think it was a bad thing to have specific Pokemon in one version and specific Pokemon in another. You had to work for that Pokedex.

Some of the bullshit people pull with "OH the story of Platinum was better", "OH I creamed my pants as a 12 year old watching Spirit Pilar", "DID YOU SEE THE 3D? WOOOOOAAAAAH", "OH the new Pokemon forms were AWESOME" (rotom looked so fucking stupid, total precursor to terrible designs later), "OH the surf speed is faster" (bruh, it's not like you're fast forwarding in an emulator), "OH the snow... so DARK". Like, Seriously?

Anyways, yes there was a battle frontier added, yes there were new sprites, yes there were more fire types and more Pokemon here and there. Don't talk to me about it...

I got into the Pokemon series late. I was 16, and it was 2009. Pokémon Platinum Version [ポケットモンスター プラチナ] was already out, and every single person said it was the better game. On paper, this checks out. The expanded Pokedex alone makes Platinum look far more attractive at a distance than Diamond and Pearl.
For ten years, I did not question the idea that Platinum was the only way to play the Sinnoh games. In 2019, however, I played Diamond for the first time, and realised that, as usual, I am a hopeless contrarian. Diamond and Pearl are the games I am going to play from now on, whenever I get the urge to return to Sinnoh. (which still won't be as often as Kanto, Johto, or Hoenn)
(I really should have expected this when I realised I like Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire [ポケットモンスター ルビー・サファイア] better than Pokémon Emerald Version [ポケットモンスター エメラルド])

Aside from Pokémon Sun & Moon [ポケットモンスター サン・ムーン], I have always said and will always say that the evil team is the absolute worst part of any Pokemon game. Platinum expanded the Team Galactic plot, adding more of Game Freak's trademark bad dialogue. Platinum features an all-new character named Looker who appears solely to talk too much. Diamond and Pearl has roughly the same plot as Platinum, but they don't beat you over the head with it.
The worst addition Platinum made was the distortion world. It's an annoying "LOOK AT WHAT THE DS CAN DO" dungeon, placed right after the other annoying dungeon, Mt. Coronet. Diamond and Pearl thankfully don't have that, because getting lost in Mt. Coronet is bad enough.

It's not all sunshine and roses, though. The surfing speed is abysmal, and the encounter rate in caves is frustrating. I'd still take it over Platinum's shit any day.
This game did make me absolutely loathe Medicham, though.

Diamond/Pearl fails to meaningfully expand things a second time. While the second screen gives greater interaction with the world, and the more spiritually minded setting helps it stand out some, the fundamental gameplay remains pretty much unchanged. What's more, this may be one of the easiest games in the series, whose strategy requires only attrition for the most part. Spectrobes would come out at around the same time and show that Pokemon is still king, but only by default, with the general Nintendo flair. Otherwise, a game this long is hard to justify without sufficient evolution.