Earlier today various outlets reported on what they saw from a hands-off preview of the imminent remakes Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl. While a lot of what was covered we already knew from early promotional materials and through inference, we now have confirmation of a few specific details. Thanks go out to Serebii for compiling the info.
For starters let’s cover one of the more controversial changes – the Exp. Share. In the original Diamond & Pearl it was a held item and only applied to a single Pokémon in your party, but eventually it became a toggleable key item and recently, as of the Let’s Go! entries, it has been impossible to turn off. This change applies to the remakes, meaning all of your Pokémon will get experience from every battle.
On a more positive note, thanks to Eurogamer we have confirmation that more Fire-Types will be available early on. The original games were notorious for having few Fire-Type Pokémon for most of the game – namely the Chimchar and Ponyta families. Thankfully it sounds like you won’t have to wait to unlock the National Dex this time around as the new Hideaways feature will let you encounter a wider range of the type much earlier. In Eurogamer’s example they cite seeing the player encounter a Houndoom when their Pokémon were at level 23.
One aspect of the game thatt is retained from the originals, however, is TM’s being limited-use items. In recent generations they were changed to be infinite use, much like HM’s used to be.
In terms of smaller but welcome changes, Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl will include toggleable auto-saving, Type-Effectiveness shown in battle, and the ability to transfer Pokémon to and from your box while exploring, negating the need for the standard PC box, though it appears to still be available at PokéCenters.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl launch for the Nintendo Switch on November 19th, 2021.
Written by Tom Brown
Whether it’s an exciting new entry in a series long established or a weird experiment meant only for the dedicated, Tom is eager to report on it. Rest assured, if Nintendo ever announces Elite Beat Agents 2, he’ll be there.
