Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

About

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are the 2021 Nintendo Switch remakes of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, the fourth generation of Pokémon games. Upon release in mid-November 2021, some aspects divided fans of the series, such as the Chibi art style and some quality of life improvements that some felt made the games too easy.

History

On February 26th, 2021, after years of speculation and memes about potential Gen IV remakes (see: Sinnoh Confirmed), The Pokémon Company announced Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, faithful remakes of the 2006 Pokémon titles Diamond and Pearl. The games were developed by ILCA, making them the first Pokémon titles not developed by Game Freak.

Over the following several months, new trailers revealed some of the remakes' tweaks to the original games, such as Pokémon following the player, an updated "Grand Underground" feature, an updated Poffin-creation mini-game, and a post-game area where players could catch legendary Pokémon from throughout the franchise (examples shown below).^[1] The games were released on November 19th, 2021.

Reception

The games received middling reviews upon release, receiving a score of 74/100 on Metacritic.^[2] More positive reviewers contended that because Diamond and Pearl were great games, the nearly 1:1 remakes are already better games than some recent Pokémon titles. Gaming Bolt^[3] wrote, "Sinnoh is an adventure, and a great map and setting, and that Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl bring it over as is without trying to, for example, recreate it in Sword and Shield‘s 3D style or as a Wild Area, works to these games’ benefit."

More negative critics were less enamored with the 1:1 remake conceit of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and took particular issue with the fact that the games made "EXP. Share" a mandatory feature. EXP. Share is a feature that lets every Pokémon in a player's party receive experience points, even if they didn't participate in the battle. In previous Pokémon titles, this could be toggled on and off, but in general, players looking for a more challenging experience would keep the feature off. Digital Trends^[4] wrote, "My Pokémon were consistently 10 to 15 levels above any of my opponents’ monsters, and I could take down most of them in one shot. That was without any grinding… For much of the game, I couldn’t lose if I wanted to."

Online Presence

The games generated online discussion in the months leading up to their release, as well as discussion about the games in the weeks after. On October 13th, 2021, gaming outlets first reported the games would feature non-toggleable EXP. Share, dividing the fanbase between players who thought it was a good addition and those who felt it made an already-easy game too easy.

A week before the games' release, news of a day-one patch of the game raised concerns among fans, particularly as the patch added the game's opening and ending credits.

The games were released with some highly exploitable glitches, allowing players to potentially walk through walls and beat the game in about 15 minutes. Professional Pokémon player and YouTuber SmallAnt demonstrated how to "beat" the game in 15 minutes by exploiting glitches that allowed him to walk through the entire map and get to the end credits without battling a trainer or wild Pokémon, gaining over 1.5 million views (shown below). As of December 6th, 2021, it is believed the glitches have been patched out.^[6]

After the remakes were announced, a subreddit was created for the games, with /r/PokémonBDSP^[5] gaining over 39,000 subscribers in roughly 10 months.

Chibi Dawn

Chibi Dawn, also referred to as Baby Dawn and Smol Dawn, refers to a series of memes about a Chibi style of playable character Dawn and other characters in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl. Following the release of the trailer for the games in late February 2021, Chibi Dawn gained popularity as the subject of memes and fan art.

Search Interest

External References