The Catholic Game Nerd

Want my review of Pokemon Diamond for the Nintendo DS?  Of course you do.  C'mon, man. 

I am not an early adapter, so I only recently purchased Pokemon Diamond for my DS.  I would have reviewed this game much earlier if someone had been kind enough to give me the game for review or at least allow me to demo the game closer to its release date.  Sour grapes aside.  Let's talk about the game.

Have you ever played a Pokemon game?  No?  Have you lived in a cave for the past 10 years?  I'm dating myself a little bit, but I've been playing Pokemon video games for a while now.  In fact, I played Pokemon Blue on my Game Boy at the hospital while my wife was in labor.  Now, before you freak out, let me explain the circumstances.  She was scheduled for an induction, because the baby decided to be way late, and the doctor wanted to be sure baby and mommy were alright.  At any rate, we knew it would be a long process.  My wife got crosswords and books, and I bought a Game Boy and a couple of games, including Pokemon Blue.  I even bought a Pikachu for the baby.  I liked the Pokemon series, and I still do, excepting the weird spin offs.  

The basic premise is that you are a Pokemon trainer, whose job it is to find, and collect as many different species of Pokemon as you can.  Along the way, you train your Pokemon and increase their abilities and skills.  The game has adventure elements and quests, laid out similar to the Zelda series.  There is plenty of collection activity for all you people who love getting as many gold coins, magical stars, or whatever else your various games tell you to collect.  And fighting with other Pokemon and Pokemon trainers is fun too.  

Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl for the DS are basically the same game.  There are some differences in the Pokemon you find, but the handy WiFi connection will allow you to trade and obtain the differing characters over the good ol' internet.  Hooray!  

How does it play on the DS?  It plays fun, that's how.  You use the directional buttons (d pad) to move around (duh) and can use the touchscreen for various functions when moving about.  When it comes to your menus, you can use the touchscreen or the buttons.  Using the touchscreen in battle is basically selection, but I like having all my options laid out in front of me.  No scrolling to select what to do.  Menus branch in and out easily.  

I've had the game all of two weeks now, and I've been playing about 10 hours total (the game keeps track of your play time).  Taking my time to find all the hidden goodies and talk to all the people (how else am I going to gain Pokemon supremacy?) is a lot of fun.  You can interact with almost everything you see.  I'm also taking the time to level up all my Pokemon so they will be the best Pokemon they can be.  Wow, I must be an awesome trainer.

Is the game worth $40?  Nope.  But I doubt most games are worth their retail price.  I paid $30 for mine and I don't regret it.  It will take me a long time to unlock all the secrets, find all the Pokemon, and beat up on trainers until I am bored.  This game has great replay because of the length of the game, and the various ways to interact with other trainers online via the Nintendo wifi.  Plenty of side quests also lengthen the game and increase it's value.  No wonder Pokemon games, even used and generations old, still fetch large sums of money.  This is a very good series that I recommend to any gamer. 

I'll rate Pokemon Diamond for the Nintendo DS five Munchlax out of five.

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 7:05 am and is filed under Catholic Game Nerd Review, Nintendo DS Games, catholic video game reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.