What's the first subject that comes to your mind when you think
of Diamonds and Pearls? The actual gems? Steven Universe? Well to me, this will
probably make me sound like a nerd (I am one.), the most iconic use of Diamonds
and Pearls (Other then Knits and purls) would probably be Pokemon Diamond and
Pearl.
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl would be the first games in the fourth
generation of the Pokemon franchise releasing back in 2007 making this the 10th
anniversary of those very games! To be more exact this game actually originally
released in Japan back on September 28th 2006 (Funny enough the Japanese 10th
anniversary was on the day I launched ZAK Entertainment... probably should've
made that my first blog.) but us in America got to experience this game when it
released on April the 22nd 2007. Due to this anniversary I've dug this old gem
back out!
At the time of this release I was a pre-teen about to jump into
his life of being a teenager, it was coming towards the end of Generation 3 of
Pokemon and that time specifically was a huge Pokemon craze for me. Most people
will tell you that PokeMania happened during Generation 1 go through to
generation 2 and while I've been an ever loving fan of the franchise since that
time but the last year or two of Generation
3 leading into the release of Diamond and Pearl was probably the most
impactful. Pokemon had been teasing Diamond and Pearl a lot earlier then they
teased other generations so games like Pokemon XD: Gales of Darkness had hints
and they even based the 3rd Generation 3 movie on a Diamond and Pearl Pokemon,
Lucario. Closing more in on the release date Pokemon Ranger had released with
its Generation 4 Manaphy teases as well as the "Pokemon Ranger and The
Temple of the Sea" movie which introduced more Generation 4 Pokemon such
as Buizel. The hype was definitely real coming into the release and I, being
the Pokemon nerd I was (Am) was grasping at the bits of any information I could
find. Yeah I guess I had a journalism streak in me even back then, see another reason
why I should of blogged years ago. Luckily for me the end of 2006 leading into
2007 was actually my first steps into the World Wide Web so information wasn't
so scarce. I could go so much more in depth on my experience before the release
but that will have to wait until later on this year for my My Life as a Pokemon
Trainer: Generation 4 (I have to do 2 and 3 first.)
Does anyone remember this? Right on the release of Diamond and
Pearl here in America Nintendo and Pokemon hosted a launch party to celebrate
the release and hosted it on pokemon.com for the world to see. It
seems this webcast has been buried in time and I can't find anything about it
anymore but I clearly remember sitting on my bed using my very first Laptop
watching the launch party for hours. They had a special presentation of the new
Diamond and Pearl anime series as well as some gameplay such as live battles.
While I was already dead set on getting the game this presentation sold me and
I remember bugging my parents to get me the game for my birthday a month later.
I went with Pokemon Diamond simply because of Dialga, I'm not
sure why but Dialga's design has always been one of my favorites. I've put
hundreds almost a thousand hours (I'm pretty sure I maxed out the clock at
999.99 hours) into this game over the past 10 years and while all my Pokemon
from this game are now in my newer games such as XY and Omega Ruby I'm still
getting hours out of this game by doing a restart. I figured hey it's the 10th anniversary
why not relive the game and dive back into the snowy region of Sinnoh. It's
crazy to think it's been 10 years as we celebrated the 20th anniversary of
Pokemon as a whole last year.
Pokemon Diamond introduced 100 new Pokemon as well as bringing
back some old favorites and even added evolutions to old favorites such as
Eevee, Electabuzz and Magmar. Out of these new Pokemon came the traditional new
starter Pokemon, Turtwig, Chimchar and Piplup. I was always sold on one
specific starter Pokemon way before I ever got ahold of this game, Turtwig.
Yeah I'm not sure what it was about that turtle but I fell in love instantly
and I can say he's my second favorite starter Pokemon next to Cyndaquil. (And
Pikachu... If he counts, he does right?)
You start your journey in the town of Twinleaf watching a
television broadcast of some explorers in the nearby Lake Variety as they
search for the mysterious Red Gyradose. (Was this a reference to Heart Gold and
Soul Silver which came out two years later? I always thought it was, Game Freak
is pretty good at hinting towards the next game.) Inspired by this newscast you
crave to get out into the world and search for this rare Pokemon yourself. Your
eagerness is interrupted by a boy who equals in eagerness, Barry your rival.
Well I mean you can name him whatever you want but regardless you both set out
to Lake Variety yourselves in search for this Red Gyradose. To your surprise at
the lake you find nothing, other then a flock of Starleys who aren't so happy.
Finding a suitcase lying around you discover three Pokeballs and decide to grab
one to defend yourselves. Yeah apparently Professor Rowan left this suitcase
behind... Is he related to Professor Birch? Because they both have a tendency
to leave their luggage behind. After apologizing to the Professor you get to
keep your Pokemon of choice, with Pokedex in hand you set out on a wonderful
journey that involves Space and Time itself. (And bad dudes with really bad
haircuts.)
On my new playthrough I decided to actually pick Piplup instead
of Turtwig, I've never used Piplup on either Diamond or my Platinum version so
I figured let's give Piplup some love on this playthrough, I mean i've always
loved Piplup just never used him much except for the one my sister, who had Pearl
version alongside me, gave me. For those interested here's my current team!
I currently have two badges and I'm in Team Galactic's first
hideout in Eterna City... Oh yeah Team Galactic. These are the enemies you'll
face in this game.
Complete weirdos from head to toe but despite this they have
some pretty awesome music.
Speaking of music I always thought that this game
had some of the best music, mostly the route and city music. I mean I love
Pokemon's music as a whole but Diamond and Pearl is one of my favorites.
These two games also go pretty deep into the lore of the Pokemon
world, introducing how the world was created (That's just an in Game Theory
though.) and while all Pokemon games have had stories this game has some of my
favorite and the Legendaries that accompany these stories such as Dialga are
favorites.
The visuals of this game are similar to previous Gameboy Advance
games in the sense of having 2D sprites but the entire environment was 3D. This
was a pretty awesome step forward and Game Freak would continue improving the
3D environments until the series went full 3D with Pokemon X and Y.
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl have turned 10 years old but are to
this day some of my favorite Pokemon games, though listing my favorites tends
to be a hard choice for me. I actually think these games have aged quite well
but I have noticed the battles tend to move a bit slowly, the responses times
in between picking moves seems to lag? I never noticed this at all as a kid,
it's no big deal (Though I hear a lot of people complaining about it.) but it's
still odd how I never noticed or maybe never payed attention.
The battles
otherwise are pretty intense at times and the champion of this game
(Spoilers... it's Cynthia.) worked me over countless times back then. At least
she had some sick music to listen to while she beat my ass. Pokemon Platinum
would fix these speed issues but also change story elements (Not in a bad way.)
to where I can't just replace it with Diamond, Platinum really is it's own
game.
Oh yeah this game brought back from Generation 3 the Pokemon
Contests, redubbed as Super Contests as well as bringing Poke Blocks back as
Poffins, which are a type of bread, kind makes more sense then PokeBlocks. This
along with the return of the Safari Zone gives this game more to do once you've
had enough battling.
Finally the most major part of this game? The Wifi. Yes these
games were the first Pokemon Games to take advantage of the Nintendo DS's wifi
capabilities. Finally we could battle trainers from all over the world simply
by adding each other to the in game pal pad. I mean at that point we all had
friends online, through Pokemon communities and it was great to finally battle
them. I enjoyed battling people online for a while but like I mentioned in my
Nintendo DS recollection blog I actually lost the ability to play on Wifi. Not
because I lost internet access but because my DS suddenly just wouldn't allow
the connection. Funnily enough it started working again in 2014 after all these
years... Then Nintendo shuts down the DS Wifi Connection servers.
One last detail I want to add that made this game awesome was the
Poketch. See with the Nintendo DS being dual screened GameFreak took full
advantage of this and added helpful apps to the touchscreen such as a clock, a
calculator (Which would of been really helpful if I did EV training back then.)
and more. Every so often you'll be able to receive new apps from the Poketch
building in Jubilife City. It's a shame these apps never made their return in
future games I really enjoyed them, they were more useful then one might think.
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were and still are great games in my
opinion, setting standards gameplay and graphic wise that would be reused in
the three Generations that came after it. Diamond and Pearl's gameplay
mechanics really felt more like polished versions of previous games despite the
slowness. Who knows what the future of Pokemon holds p though, with this 10th
anniversary and the trend of remaking games... Perhaps we have a Diamond and Pearl
remake on the way? The games still feel slightly fresh in my head but with the
recent hints in Sun and Moon I think we may be seeing some more Diamonds and
Pearls in our future. Sinnoh in the same graphics as Sun and Moon? Sign me up.
Well with that topic out the way and oh boy did I write to much
again? I'm still not sure how much I should be writing and how much I should be
excluding. I guess I'm still learning the ways of writing.
Anyway other then replaying Diamond and Pearl for old times sake we
recently took our recently turned one years old Chihuahua Alfie on his first
trip to a pet store! PetSmart to be more exact.
This little blonde dog seemed
to be full of excitement to take his first trip inside of a store like this.
Strutting his way inside the store like the high class Chihuahua he is Alfie
was immediately taken away by his surroundings. Sniffing the air full of scents
from fellow dogs he seemed curious about every little detail. Of course the
humans inside the store seemed curious too and Alfie suddenly became center of
attention, kinda makes you jealous in a way.
I neglected to take any photos of Alfie in the store so here's a recent selfie of me and a sleeping variation of Alfie.
The store had quite a few animals for sale as well which caught
our Chihuahua's attention. He seems to have taken a liken to the local turtles
but a certain animal gave Alfie the chills... Guinea Pigs. Don't ask I can't
really explain the situation myself but Alfie just did not like the looks of
those Guinea Pigs. Maybe it was the fact they were the same size as himself. A
Golden Retriever much larger then the golden Chihuahua grabbed his attention as
well. All in all Alfie really seems to enjoy social interaction, which is a
good thing as we travel often. We'll be taken him around to more public places
in the future because of this. Though if he steals anymore attention away from
me I might be concerned. (I'm kidding I'm not that egotistical.)
Well that brings us to the end of the blog for the day but before
that I'm going to bring you guys an unexpected knitting update (Yeah I'm
shoving a lot into this blog, I rather not split this stuff off for another
day.)
Remember my Shawl? It's been so long I doubt you do but after
taking a break from it to work on other projects I'm breaking it back out and
in the past two days, despite it getting quite long I've gotten thirteen rows
done on it.
Yeah I'm on a knitting roll again, getting more rows completed
then I thought I could. I'm finally running out of yarn on my first ball (I'm
using two yarn balls on this shawl.) so I'll be switching that out soon. Really
loving how this shawl is coming out so far. Don't have a free pattern to
feature today because of this being a really long blog, don't want to keep you
guys too long. I wanted to include more stuff from our day out.
That's a wrap folks!
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