Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Reviews
Represents the absence of many years of meaningful evolution.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are comfortably nostalgic, with just enough modern tweaks to smooth over the rough edges.
Nintendo, Game Freak, and The Pokemon Company have made some odd decisions with pricing their products lately. Unfortunately, for many fans, these remakes were a bad omen that these trends will continue. The series has been criticized as being stagnate, and even going backward with things like Dexit. New and casual players likely won’t notice or care that the quality of the games has gone down with the last couple of releases. However, longtime fans are feeling increasingly disappointed, and Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have done nothing to assuage that.
There are some much-needed quality of life improvements, and the games are well polished and run really smoothly on the Switch. It’s hard to see newer fans finding much to appreciate here, but those that have fond memories of the original Diamond and Pearl will have a lot to love about Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
A controversial remake, which does not entirely manage to shake off the engorgements of the past.
Review in Italian | Read full review
There remains about Pokémon Brilliant Diamond the glint of something far gone, and there is something warmly reassuring about the place.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are remakes of good games, with some excellent quality of life changes. But Nintendo has applied those changes inconsistently throughout.
Its new features may not be truly revolutionary, and it may still have its fair share of repetitive and time-consuming moments, but it’s a faithful take on a well-loved game, and should certainly keep players busy until Pokémon Legends: Arceus arrives in January.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl play it safe, faithfully remaking two classic DS games -- at times to a fault.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are remakes that stick a lot to the original works, which turns out to be their worst mistake.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have their flaws and are not particularly ambitious remakes, but they’re somehow still fun. I don’t regret the 25 hours I spent with the main story of Brilliant Diamond, and there is enough post-game content to keep me interested for a while longer.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remake the original Diamond and Pearl for the Nintendo Switch. They're still lengthy, fun Pokemon adventures, but not much has been added, and even the remade graphics are showing their age.
Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl bring Generation IV to Switch, warts and all - along with a new set of strengths and weaknesses.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl are extremely faithful remakes that provide a great entry point to the Sinnoh region for new players and a trip down memory lane for established fans, but a lack of new features or content will leave some players wanting more.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl show that not all remakes are worth playing if you have the originals on hand.
In the end, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl are remakes which are bound to pass without impact. They do a fine job at bringing the fourth generation of Pokémon into a new era, but fall short when it comes to being the definitive version of Sinnoh. It's fine that it's a faithful recreation, but I wish ILCA had gone the extra mile by daring to add things we saw in Platinum. After all, it's not a good thing that a remake leave us yearning for things that a 2009 game did.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
These remakes are totally serviceable and a very good time for any Pokémon fan out there. There is however a nagging sense that more perhaps could have been done, especially for fully priced releases. The Pokémon franchise is big, the company behind these games makes millions off of these and yet there is a feeling time and time again that we're not getting the full AAA experience that such selling numbers should warrant, and this is seen very plainly in how technically dated these games look, even if artistically speaking they are still super cute. We are pleased with these remakes for sure, they're jolly good fun... but we're not impressed and this has to change in the future for the franchise!
When those bugs end up being the best way to prepare for the aforementioned battle tower and make up for the lack of QOL features, that’s even more silly, and sadly, does ultimately lead to these remakes not feeling nearly as Shining as they could have been, despite the amount of love and polish in other areas of the game that’ll definitely make these my preferred method of replaying Sinnoh for years to come. Still, I couldn’t help but also wish these just got the extra polish they desperately needed.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl do a very good job at fulfilling their primary mission: to bring the fourth generation of Pokémon to the contemporary age. They should have gone further, though, as the lack of creative freedom and clinging to the original formulae happen at the expense of adding new elements. This is not to say that this effort is not a great addition to the Nintendo Switch catalogue, far from that - what made the original games fantastic is still here and there are indeed improvements to some of the original mechanics, but the approach followed was perhaps a tad too conservative for what's expected of a Pokémon remake.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Without fondness for the original games, you might find Shining Pearl and Brilliant Diamond less than compelling. With it, though? You’ll be fine as long as your expectations are in check. They’re faithful remakes!