A Gem! (Pokémon: Diamond (DS))

Member Name: heekeer

Product:	Pokémon: Diamond (DS)
Date:	23/08/09 (4 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: New Pokemon to catch, Poketch, Contests are better, better graphics, great music

Disadvantages: Very similar storyline to previous titles.

Pokemon Diamond is a role playing game for the Nintendo DS.

Pokemon Diamond brings you to a whole new region, the land of Sinnoh you begin as a new Pokemon Trainer who is given a Pokemon after saving Professor Rowan. Your Pokemon journey then begins and you can journey all around the land collecting the Sinnoh Gym badges and eventually battle the legendary Elite Four trainers. The game also introduces new villains to the series Team Galactic who have a unique evil plot of their own which I won't spoil as it's the only new bit of story in the game!

If you have played a Pokemon game in the past, be it the original Red or Blue to the later Ruby and Sapphire for the Gameboy Advance this story will be pretty familiar to you!

The region of Sinnoh has 100 more Pokemon for you to find and capture for yourself which brings the total number of Pokemon now available to almost 500! They have also brought back the day and night features of Gold and Silver but expanded upon it with more times of day available, each time of day brings out new Pokemon so you will need to be playing all day to catch 'em all! The Pokemon contests have also been expanded upon with an extra stage where you use the touchscreen to perform moves with your Pokemon and place items on them to make them look nice and wow the judges!

You are also given a Poketch which is basically a mini computer type thing that takes up the lower screen when you are wondering around which you can use to do things like a coin toss, use a calculator, view your clock and so on.

Pokemon battles are the same as usual you can participate in standard battles which are one on one Pokemon brawls to double battles which is two versus two. Each Pokemon you have can learn up to four different moves at any time. You can now also select attacks with the stylus though you may want to just use the buttons as they work just fine too.As you train your Pokemon they will gain levels and may evolve to powerful new forms!

Graphics have been slightly improved with buildings and some objects now being rendered in 3D, Pokemon battles and characters are still all 2D however. The music is all new and very catchy.

If you are a Pokemon fan with a DS then grab this game and go on another Pokemon journey!

Summary: An excellent Pokemon title.