Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Versions

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Versions
[[File:File:Diamond-us.jpgFile:Pearl-us.jpg|250px]] Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Versions' boxart, featuring Dialga and Palkia.
Basic info
Platform:	Nintendo DS
Category:	RPG
Players:	2-4 players simultaneous
Connectivity:	None
Developer:	Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK Inc.
Publisher:	Nintendo/The Pokémon Company
Part of:	{{{gen_series}}}
Ratings
CERO:	N/A
ESRB:	Everyone
ACB:	N/A
OFLC:	N/A
PEGI:	N/A
GRAC:	N/A
GSRR:	N/A
Release dates
Japan:	Sept 28, 2006
North America:	April 22, 2007
Australia:	June 21, 2007
Europe:	July 27, 2007
South Korea:	N/A
Hong Kong:	N/A
Taiwan:	N/A
Websites
Japanese:	ポケットモンスター ダイヤモンド・パール
English:	US Pokémon DP Site

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 in North America on April 22, 2007. They take place in the region of Sinnoh and the player's starting area is Twinleaf Town.

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 Lake Verity with him to see if there are any similar Pokémon living in 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. The professor's assistant, who is the alternate-gender player character from the player, takes the remaining starter. 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 Sandgem 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, Cyrus. When the power of Dialga or Palkia (depending on the version) begins to overwhelm Sinnoh, Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf 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 seeing all 150 Pokémon in the Sinnoh Dex. 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 24-hour period per GBA cartridge, and the player will have to re-capture such transferred Pokémon in Pal Park located at the end of Route 221 before transferring from another GBA game. Pokémon knowing any of the Generation III HM moves (Cut, Fly, Surf, Strength, Flash, Rock Smash, Waterfall, and Dive) cannot be transferred, therefore, it is necessary to go to the Move Deleter in Fuchsia City or Lilycove City to remove them before transfer.
• 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.
• Using the GBA game as a dongle instead, it becomes possible to capture Pokémon in the wild in Sinnoh that do not natively appear, though this may only happen after the National Dex is obtained.
• The DS's native support for Wi-Fi is employed, allowing players to trade, battle and communicate using "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.
• Diamond and Pearl also feature connectivity to Pokémon Ranger. By completing a special mission in Ranger, a Manaphy Egg can be sent from Ranger to Diamond or Pearl, where it can be hatched into the legendary Pokémon, Manaphy.

Features

The day-night system first appearing in Pokémon Gold and Silver returns, with the same three time periods, but better transitioning between them. 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 like the others, and he allows the player and his or her rival to keep the starter Pokémon they used against attacking wild Pokémon at the beginning of the game.

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

Main article: Pokémon Super Contest

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, berry-flavored muffins called Poffin are made. This is done in Hearthome City, though not within the contest hall, instead it is done at the Poffin House, which is near the Pokémon Center in Hearthome. Using the DS's touchscreen, players must stir the Poffin as directed by arrows that appear.

The first round of the contests themselves is similar to the first round in Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, but instead of relying solely on contest stats, Pokémon must be dressed up using accessories with the stylus within a time limit. Each particular contest will require different accessories, and higher ranks may require more to be put on the Pokémon.

The second round is a dancing round, using buttons on the touch screen to either perform a dance that the others will find hard to mimic (if the player's Pokémon is 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 appeals round in Generation III, and the main, and indeed, only, difference is that there are three judges. A Pokémon will get more points if it is the only Pokémon to perform for a particular judge, less if another one appeals for that judge and so on. The crowd system is still in place, but this time, each judge has a different meter, making it both potentially risky and potentially rewarding to appeal to a judge that all of the other Pokémon are appealing to.

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 Roark (Rock), Gardenia (Grass), Maylene (Fighting), Crasher Wake (Water), Fantina (Ghost), Byron (Steel), Candice (Ice) and Volkner (Electric).

Elite Four

The new Elite Four is located at the Pokémon League. The Elite trainers are Aaron (Bug), Bertha (Ground), Flint (Fire) and Lucian (Psychic); the Champion is Cynthia, who has Pokémon of mixed types.

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

Game	Exclusives
Diamond	Seel, Dewgong, Scyther, Murkrow, Scizor, Larvitar, Pupitar, Tyranitar, Poochyena, Mightyena, Aron, Lairon, Aggron, Kecleon, Cranidos, Rampardos, Honchkrow, Stunky, Skuntank, Dialga
Pearl	Slowpoke, Slowbro, Pinsir, Slowking, Misdreavus, Houndour, Houndoom, Stantler, Spheal, Sealeo, Walrein, Bagon, Shelgon, Salamence, Shieldon, Bastiodon, Mismagius, Glameow, Purugly, Palkia

Nintendo Event exclusives

The following Pokémon are available only after obtaining certain items at a Nintendo sponsored event. As of this time, the only event to have been announced is one for Darkrai in Japan, which coincides with the theatrical release of Dialga vs. Palkia vs. Darkrai on July 14.

Darkrai, Shaymin, Arceus

Reception

According to Famitsu, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl sold 1,586,360 units in the four days after its release. On December 27, 2006, it was announced that the two games combined became the first Nintendo DS games to hit five million units shipped. Additionally, in the fortnight ending December 31, 2006, the number of units sold passed four million, according to Famitsu, the first Nintendo DS game to do so.

Sales of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl in Japan exceeded the five million mark in the 29th week of sales (April 9 - 15, 2007). In the United States, over 533,000 pre-orders were taken before release, and one million copies were sold within five days. By the end of April 2007, the US release of Pokémon Diamond had sold approximately 1.045 million copies, and Pokémon Pearl had sold approximately 712 thousand copies.

Japanese sales

Source: Enterbrain via ファミ通　ゲームソフト販売本数ランキング TOP30

	Week ending	Units sold	Total units sold
1	October 1, 2006	1,575,266	1,575,266
2	October 8, 2006	466,273	2,041,539
3	October 15, 2006	275,494	2,317,033
4	October 22, 2006	231,979	2,549,012
5	October 29, 2006	203,214	2,752,226
6	November 5, 2006	183,048	2,935,294
7	November 12, 2006	124,738	3,060,032
8	November 19, 2006	101,133	3,161,145
9	November 26, 2006	110,946	3,272,091
10	December 3, 2006	100,215	3,372,306
11	December 10, 2006	151,036	3,523,342
12	December 17, 2006	225,228	3,748,570
13	N/A
14	December 31, 2006	554,245	4,302,815
15	January 7, 2007	214,274	4,517,089
16	January 14, 2007	58,725	4,575,814
17	January 21, 2007	49,050	4,624,864
18	January 28, 2007	48,783	4,673,647
19	February 4, 2007	45,467	4,719,114
20	February 11, 2007	43,947	4,763,061
21	February 18, 2007	39,553	4,802,614
22	February 25, 2007	33,444	4,836,058
23	March 4, 2007	33,470	4,869,528
24	March 11, 2007	28,774	4,898,302
25	March 18, 2007	24,119	4,922,421
26	March 25, 2007	27,440	4,949,861
27	April 1, 2007	24,641	4,974,502
28	April 8, 2007	22,012	4,996,514
29	April 15, 2007	18,874	5,015,388
30	April 22, 2007	20,342	5,035,730
31	N/A
32	May 6, 2007	61,040	5,096,770

Trivia

• Pokémon Diamond and Pearl contain many references to Internet memes and chatspeak. One of the main translators, Douglas Dinsdale, is a member of the Something Awful Forums, hence all the net lingo. There are also multiple references to the Something Awful website and community scattered throughout the game, such as one Pokémon trainer announcing "My Pokémon is Fight!". "Noob" is also used several times, "Owned" is said by a Galactic grunt and Buck, and ROFL is available as a speech option. Perhaps incidentally, Twinleaf Town shares its Japanese name with that of the original *chan imageboard, 2chan.
• Diamond and Pearl are also the first main series Pokémon games to not have their cartridges colored, unlike previous games, and the first games in which the lab of the region's Pokémon professor is not in the player's hometown.
• The Sinnoh region's starters are the first starter Pokémon which all gain a second type through evolution.
• Diamond and Pearl are the first games where it is safe to trade between English and Japanese versions. An example is this is shown by the fact that Japanese Pokémon from the GTS do not harm foreign language versions, and in fact, several actually add their own foreign Pokédex entry when traded.
• The leaders and Elite Four of Sinnoh don't always use Pokémon of their specialist Type, mainly focusing on the use of attacks that are their specialist type.
• Diamond and Pearl are the first Pokémon games that have some cave entrances facing East and West, such as Victory Road in Sinnoh. Previous generations have always had their entrances facing South, such as Victory Road in Kanto. There have yet been any cave entrances facing North.

See also

• Bulbanews: First Diamond, Pearl information revealed

External links

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