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Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Versions

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are the first true Pokémon RPG games for the Nintendo DS. The games were released in Japan on September 28, 2006, and will be released in North America on April 22, 2007. They take place in the region of Sinnoh and the player's starting area will be Twinleaf Town. All of the names used for the towns, people, items, and Pokémon of the region are tentative at this point in time, and may be changed before the North American release.

Plot

At the start, the player sees a newscast about a sighting of a red Gyarados. They then head to their rival's house and go to Trust Lake with him to try to see it. Once there, a Starly attacks. Nearby is a briefcase containing three Pokémon that the two choose from to fight off the Flying-type. As is always the case, the rival takes the Pokémon that weakens the player's choice. After the Starly is defeated, the two return to Twinleaf Town with Professor Rowan's briefcase. Back in Twinleaf Town the player's mother gives him or her running shoes and then the player leaves for Masago Town to return the briefcase. After meeting Professor Rowan, he gives the player the Pokémon they chose to keep and a Pokédex.

During the course of the game, there are many conflicts with the evil Team Galactic and their leader, Akagi. When the power of Dialga or Palkia (depending on the version) begins to overwhelm Sinnoh, Yuxie, Emrit and Agnome must be summoned and the player must catch or defeat the Legendary.

Connectivity

• Diamond and Pearl are compatible with the Game Boy Advance Pokémon RPGs after completing a task within the game. The GBA cartridge is inserted into the GBA slot of the Nintendo DS, while Diamond or Pearl is in its DS card slot to upload Pokémon.
• Pokémon uploads are restricted to six per day per GBA cartridge, and the player will have to re-capture such transferred Pokémon in a park before transferring from another GBA game.
• The player cannot transfer any of the Pokémon back to the GBA cartridge once they are transferred to their Diamond/Pearl copy; the transfer is permanent.
• The DS's native support for Wi-Fi is employed, allowing players to trade, battle and communicate through "voice chat" online.
• Diamond and Pearl feature Wi-Fi connectivity to Pokémon Battle Revolution, much as their predecessors connected to the Nintendo 64 and GameCube.
• Diamond and Pearl feature a global trading system, which allows trainers to search for any Pokémon they want. The global trading system will then go through a multitude of trades with other trainers in order to get the desired Pokémon.

Features

The day-night system first appearing in Pokémon Gold and Silver returns, now with five time periods: morning, day, evening, night, and late night. A new multifunction device called the Pokétch, short for Pokémon Watch, is also introduced. The regional Professor's name is Professor Rowan, after a tree, and he gives the player a choice of one of three Pokémon to start their journey with, as the others did.

A new battle system is used for Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. In this new battle system, attacks are declared either physical or special by how the attack itself operates, i.e. whether the attack touches the enemy or not, instead of the attack type, as was previously the case. For example, Thunderpunch is now physical and Hyper Beam turns into special. This has been highly controversial with fans of the series, as it is considered to be "wasting" some strong Pokémon from previous generations, such as Blaziken and Sceptile, while other fans of the series hail this change as "more realistic".

Though it was reported that the games would feature Dark/Psychic/Fighting starters, this has been debunked. The games retain the starters in the type trio of previous generations, Grass/Fire/Water, this time being Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup, respectively.

Contests

In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, a significant amount of changes have been made to the Pokémon contests, now known as Super Contests. Instead of making Pokéblocks with berries, you make Pofin, also known by fans as Pokébread. To make this, you stir the mixture in the direction the screen suggests, going faster or slower depending on which contest stat you wish to raise. Then, you feed it to the Pokémon as usual.

The first round is similar to the first round in Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, but instead of relying solely on you Pofin or Pokéblock stats, you must dress up your Pokémon with the stylus within a time limit, using different dress-ups depending on the style of contest. Depending on the rank of the contest, you have to decorate your Pokémon with more ornaments.

The second is a dancing round, using buttons on the touch screen to either perform a dance that the others will find hard to mimic (If you're the main dancer) or to copy the lead Pokémon's dance moves. Each Pokémon gets a turn at being the leader, and the leader must try to dance in time with the music, and so, obviously, so do the background dancers.

The third round is very similar to the third round in RSE, and the main, and indeed, only, difference is that there are three judges. You get more points if you are the only Pokémon to peform to that judge, less if another one appeals for that judge and so on. The "(Pokémon) got the crowd going!" system is still in place, but each judge has a seperate meter for that, meaning it could be an advantage to appeal for a judge everyone else is appealing for. However, it could be risky as well.

Gyms and Elite Four

New Gyms

As is always the case, there are eight new Pokémon Gyms in Sinnoh, each with their own type affiliation. The new Gym Leaders are Hyōta (Rock), Natane (Grass), Sumomo (Fighting), Maxi (Water), Melissa (Ghost), Tōgan (Steel), Suzuna (Ice) and Denji (Electric).

Elite Four

The new Elite Four is located at Foento City. The Elite trainers are Ryō (Bug), Kikuno (Ground), Ōba (Fire) and Goyō (Psychic); the Champion is Shirona.

New Pokémon

See List of Pokémon by Sinnoh Dex number and List of Pokémon by National Dex number

As the first Generation IV games, Diamond and Pearl were the first sightings of 107 new Pokémon, bringing the total amount to 493.

The new Pokémon began being unveiled in 2004, with the release of Destiny Deoxys in Japan, where Munchlax was revealed.

Fourth-generation Pokémon continued being unveiled in 2005, with the Japanese release of Lucario and the Mystery of Mew. The movie featured Lucario, Bonsly, Mime Jr. and Weavile.

2006 was crunch time for the Fourth Generation. The ninth movie, Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea, featured Manaphy, Mantyke, Buizel and Chatot, and Dialga and Palkia were soon confirmed to be on the two games' boxart. On September 27, all 107 of the new Pokémon's menu icons were revealed on Filb.de.

During the week that followed the games' Japanese release, Serebii.net featured a "Discovery Trench" that revealed the names and stats of many of the previously-unknown Pokémon to the general public.

Version exclusives

Information

• First Diamond, Pearl information revealed - Bulbanews

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