Gameplay Disappointment
Note: I'm introducing short forms in the intro so that you can get a sense of what I'm talking about later on. I feel that short = to the point, compressed.
[b]Summary[/b]
From the original RGBY (red, green, blue, yellow) Pokemon saga on the GB (Gameboy) and GBC (Gameboy Color), many say that the Pokemon RPG (Role-Playing Games) system has advanced exponentially. I do not believe this is so. RGBY looks the same as GSC (Gold, Silver, Crystal). GSC looks the same RSE (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald). It feels like nothing has changed; I am still playing with six Pokemon, four moves and a link cable. The DS Pokemon games feel the same way at heart, but both are quite eerie in the fact that they feel emulated of what Pokemon once was. This is an RSE game with tacked-on controls made for a DS; it feels as if Game Freak is porting their GBA games like a lot of other game companies port their next-gen games to the Wii just because they want money. The only difference is that the DS Pokemon games so far feel like Game Freak's reason for these games is not money; they just don't know how to do a DS Pokemon game, that is all. This series needs to be revamped for the DS, not updated to the DS. What they have improved upon and will probably keep is multiplayer interaction; no longer are you tied to a link cable. You can trade Pokemon with people across the world, and your acquired pokemon will be in the language of the original version from which it was caught. This is a very new concept and it is generous of Game Freak to provide a trading server tp which the game connects to. Everything else has stayed the same, which is good or bad depending on specified feature. All in all, I expected a lot of improvements to the Pokemon games and this, unfortunately, was not fulfilled.
[b]Gameplay:[/b]
Before I start, I need to tell you how I play. I am usually seen playing the game without enthusiasm. I hold down one directional button to move. I am not paying attention in battle sequences, I keep taping one button and doing one attack over and over again while I look at something else (like Giant Bomb, for instance). I play with the sound off. I am not really immersed in the game like I would be immersed with a first person shooter. I always play like this with any RPG, so how I play does not reflect how poor the game is; I only showed you my point of view. This review is not about how good this game is; it is about how good this game is in relation to it's predecessor. Unfortunately, I will be speaking to you as if you know all about previous Pokemon games, because I was hardcore game fan before the GBA games. I've played a little, but did not finish RSE.
As I start walking in Sinnoh, I notice that the always-pointing-north isometric view is very clever; it changes the look of the game. With that, you can actually hide behind buildings and see what is under bridges. Hiding behind buildings extends the range of freedom for your character, but the aspect is a downside since you never know whether there is a trainer or a patch of grass behind a building. It was the same way in RSE when you had to go under bridges; the bridge blocking your view of your character. If you are down to your last health point on your last Pokemon and the Pokemon Center is just a few feet away, you would not want any surprises.
Walking and running is too slow and you will find that getting somewhere is tedious compared to the GBA Pokemon games. On top of that, the top LCD screen inflicts a slight motion blur; this makes the game feel a lot slower.
The camera angles change depending on what place you go to. In the first gym, the camera angle was slickly lower to the ground to hide secret passages that you can navigate to the gym leader without
I press start and I notice that nothing comes up; figures, because the start and select buttons on the DS are hard to press and look very breakable. I use the X button to go to the menu, changing the settings so that select and start are bound to the appropriate buttons. I found that only the buttons originally on the GB are useful for any Pokemon game. I'll relate to this later.
The menu is on the top screen, with nothing important to touch yet. You would expect that DS games would have all touchable menus, but nooooo... I still have to use the D pad and buttons to navigate any menu other than the pokedex and the item menu. This shows that the DS Pokemon is basically a port of the GBA Pokemon.
I go into a battle, the battle music starts. The five-second-long battle intro plays, introducing the premiere pokemon and their trainers to the match. Like in previous games, this happens with every battle and you really wish you could skip this sequence and just get to the battle. By now, Game Freak could have answered fans' prayers.
The battle screen has everything from the previous games, except that the menus are on the touch screen. The buttons fill up the entire screen; I understand the concern of children not being very coordinated in pressing buttons, but this is overcompensation. These buttons are huge! The buttons on the bottom do not connect with what is happening on the top screen. I feel that your pokemon should be on the bottom screen, beside smaller menu buttons, with the opponent being on the top screen so as to connect the top and bottom screens. Also, this is the only place where you do get to touch something. Only in battle mode to you get a really interactive menu, which is annoying when you have to switch between the D-pad and touch screen every time a battle starts or ends. The battle menu can be navigated by D-pad, but you need to activate that function every time you start a battle by pressing any button. The battle menu looks tacked-on, and the the selection box (when navigating by D-pad) looks tacked-on on to that. The battle system is disappointing.
The rest of the game mechanics look the same. You can still team battle the same way. The emoticons are the same and you still have to chose individual words instead of individual letters when you are being asked a question by one of the scripted characters in the game. The game still gives you generic names if you don't input anything as your name with the provided touch-only keyboard on the touch screen; only it does not give you generic names in ALL CAPS, the first letter is a capital while the rest are lower-case.
[b]Multiplayer:[/b]
As you can see on your DS, you have no link cable! You can't time-capsule-trade with any GBA or GBC Pokemon games. You cannot connect a link cable from your DS to another DS (although it looks like the power connector can fit a link cable system in there). Since Game Freak makes trading and battling other real people a center-point of Pokemon games, it would make sense that A DS should be able to trade using using wifi (ad-hoc).
Well, they have done more than that, which can be surprising to a GBA gamer or usual to a gamer that has seen other DS games do the same thing. Yes, Pokemon can be traded through Game Freak's propitiatory online system without the need for friend codes. You can battle or trade with someone next to you or you can do both those things online (using friend codes. Both of you must be online to battle).
I (oddly) only find 3 things wrong with this concept. First is trading online. While trading online, you can trade with someone with another language of game and you will get that Pokemon with a pokedex entry of the original language from which it was caught. The problem with that is people might see this as another way to "catch 'em all" so they feel that in order for the game to be complete, they might have to catch all the Pokemon (probably both male and female), in all languages. Also, I'm not sure about this but the original nickname might still be on the Pokemon once you have traded it online; some three-year-old kid might get a Metapod that's named "Dick" at this moment. It shows that game rating might change during online play (or any play, for that matter). Lastly, voice chat is never going to be used because the DS headset has not gone mainstream yet. The multiplayer aspect of this game is quite solid.
[b]Singleplayer:[/b]
Game Freak do great on the single player campaign as always, but I notice that there are certain things that do not make sense or should be in the game. The fact that there is a daily limit to the amount of Pokemon you can take from your old cartage is not needed because it can always be circumvented by changing the date on your DS clock; there should have been no limit imposed at all in importing Pokemon. Also, I played Megaman starforce and I wanted to see cartage-enabled events in the Pokemon DS games. I want to be able to open up a cave, for example, when I have Pokemon Fire Red in my GBA slot. Game Freak did a really good job in terms of the single player campaign, but mechanics that cross over to this territory make the game feel that there is more to be done with the DS.
[b]Sound:[/b]
I have said this before, but let me rephrase it: this new Pokemon game still does not give me a reason to turn my volume up. The music is either new or remade to fit the acoustic style. There are no voices in the game. The fact that some of the creature's cries are recycled from as far back as the original RBG games is fine to me. I just wish Game Freak can add something new to make me want to raise the volume. Maybe some voices would be nice. I would love a music track with vocals. I really have nothing to say on this subject.
[b]Video:[/b]
There are no cutscenes in this game, and I like that. I still think the Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza cutscene back in RSE was not right. You should always be looking your character's head. End of story.
[b]Miscalanious:[/b]
Since the first Pokemon game, there has always been unskipable credits before the intro sequence. The GBC and GBA games had visually-aesthetic credits; the DS Pokemon games have gone back to text credits of the original GB games. Look, Game Freak and Nintendo, I know who you are and I do not need to know who you are. So if you're not going to make your names skipable when I press any button, you might as well make something entertaining while your names show up. On top of that, pressing start on the start screen is hardly reactive. Once I press start, the graphic on the screen has to stop before I go to the main menu; I want to play the game NOW. Not in five minutes. NOW! You're met with a menu that is on the top screen and you cannot touch it. With that, wifi turns on for a second to check something I don't know about.
[b]All in All:[/b]
Game Freak has made a new Gameboy Advance game. Yes, I said GBA game. This has tacked-on controls and most of the menus are not touchable. You have to switch between two control schemes for efficiency every time you enter a battle, and you are in battle most of the time. Moving is too slow. They have only refined the multiplayer aspect of the game, but I don't play Pokemon with other people.
This game needs a long-awaited redefinition.
