Game Reviews
Review: Pokemon Platinum
By Sean Booker April 13, 2009 - 12:00
Studios: Game Freak
Publisher(s): Nintendo
Rating: E
Genre: Role Playing Game
Platform: Nintendo DS
Players: 1 (1-4 in Pokémon Battles, 1-20 in Wi-Fi Plaza)
Pokémon Platinum
continues the long running Pokémon video game franchise with an interesting story, hours of play time
and a huge diversity of ways to play. The story is always changing and adds new
elements and side quests to take on before players finally reach the end. This
causes the length of the game to increase more and more. All newcomers to the
series will find themselves with a wonderful game; however, veterans may find
it too similar to some of the past versions (especially Pokémon Diamond and Pearl).
The game starts you off in your home town as a soon to be
trainer in the Sinnoh region of the Pokémon
universe. You get to choose a gender and name and after a few events unfold,
you get your first Pokémon. Pokémon are pet-like creatures that you will
collect and use to battle against rival trainers. From there you are asked to
travel the world searching for new Pokémon and taking on new challenges. As you
continue your journey you will encounter new enemies, friendly allies and loads
of ways to enjoy yourself in Sinnoh.
Your main task is to take on a total of eight gym leaders in
order to earn badges that will grant you access to the Elite Four – the final
challenge of the game. In order to take on the gym leaders, you must first
train your Pokémon, so that they will become stronger, as well as catch new Pokémon. Traveling through any uncultivated area, such as a forest, field or even
a desert, will set up random encounters with wild Pokémon. From here you must
try and either beat them to earn more experiences points or weaken them enough
to throw a pokéball and catch them. As your team expands and becomes stronger,
you will be able to take on the harder challenges and increase the amount of options accessible to you through the game.
Along with fighting your way through all the gyms and stray
trainers who wish to take you on in the game, you also have several other
choices of gameplay. The two more significant ones are Pokémon contests and the
Underground area, but, apart from these two, there is also a new online multiplayer
mode exclusive to Pokémon Platinum.
Pokémon contests have you select one of your Pokémon to go
through a talent show like game in order to win ribbons. In each contest you
will have to dress up your Pokémon, which requires selecting specific
accessories that relate to the specified theme. You will have to make your Pokémon
dance, which translates to a very basic
rhythm game and, last, you’ll have to
show off your Pokémon’s battling moves. This last stage is probably the most
engaging since every move has a certain after-effect that will occur, like altering the next rounds placements or even earning extra points. Pokémon
contests can also be done through multiplayer, against your friends.
The Underground area is another fun way to spend time with
your single player game or your friends, in multiplayer. Once you receive the Explorer’s Kit in-game, you can
head into what is essentially an underground maze that can be accessed almost
anywhere in the Sinnoh region. In the Underground area, you can partake in treasure hunting
mini-games along with building a secret base. Secret bases allow you to create
a room and decorate it however you wish. When playing with friends, you will be
able to see them in the underground maze as well, and from there you can
interact with their character. One of the fun things to do is to try and steal
your friends ‘Flag’ from their secret base and bring it to your own – almost
like a ‘capture the flag’ style of game. To increase the difficulty of this
game, players can set traps on the ground that will activate when stepped on.
These traps can vary from sending someone on a track all the way west until
hitting a wall or even covering their DS screen with bubbles that they must pop
with their stylus.
The online mode is called the Wi-Fi Plaza and it is a new
addition to Pokémon Platinum that can
only be accessed if you have a wireless Internet connection. In the Plaza you can
move around a room with other online players. However,
your only option when trying to interact with them is asking pre-staged
questions like “What’s popular?” This causes the tasks of “talking” to people
to become quite dull and pointless. You can also play a couple mini-games in
here that involve using the stylus in certain ways. Playing these games well
will upgrade your Tap Toy, an item you receive when first entering the room. The
Tap Toy is an object shown on the bottom screen that, when tapped, will play a
noise.
As these games do add a great deal of play time to your
game, they also reveal Pokémon Platinum’s
biggest downfall: it’s the same as the past Pokémon
games. When comparing the game to either Pokémon
Diamond or Pearl it essentially the exact same game. You do the same
challenges and task and travel all the same routes on your journey to the end.
This aspect is also very similar to every single Pokémon game in the main franchise. However, Pokémon Platinum does add a few new aspects to it that try and make
it worth playing despite you owning Pokémon
Diamond/Pearl or not. These additions are mainly some new trainers to face
and a few new key characters to interact with throughout the game. The biggest
addition is a plot change with the game’s main story arc in which you encounter
the games three most legendary Pokémon. It may end up being an overlying change
but it doesn’t come up enough and affect the rest of the game to be different
enough. Though these aren’t necessarily bad additions, they are, in no way, worth
playing through the game if you own either Pokémon
Diamond or Pearl.
The graphics in Pokémon
Platinum are great for the DS. It stays with the 2D side scrolling aspect
but still looks great on the handheld. Though it does look identical to the
landscapes and character models from Pokémon
Diamond and Pearl. However, there are several minor differences added to Pokémon Platinum. The majority of these
additions are some of the Pokémon stances are now different and some of the
characters now wear different clothing. Overall, the graphics haven’t changed
much but they still look great.
The sound in Pokémon
Platinum, like the graphics, remains the same
as in the past couple Pokémon games on
the DS. This is another one of Pokémon
Platinum’s disappointments as there wasn’t really anything new in the way
the game sounded. It even used some of the sounds that the Game Boy Pokémon games had. It would have at least been
nice to hear some new music and sound effects when playing what could be your
fifth or sixth Pokémon game.
Though Pokémon
Platinum has some major flaws if you’ve been with the series since the
beginning, it’s still an incredibly fun game that can be enjoyed by all. If you
are a new comer to the franchise or never got around to picking up either Pokémon Diamond or Pearl, now is your
time to get in on the action. With all the different gameplay modes and secrets
to unlock, you will be playing for 100+ hours before you complete everything.
And if you try and catch all the overall 580 Pokémon, that will add that much
more replay value. Overall Pokémon
Platinum does what we’ve come to expect from the series, a great handheld
gaming experience, it’s just a shame that there weren't enough new features to
recommend it to everyone.
When it comes to my verdict, I place it under both Buy It and Forget It. I only put it as Forget It for the people very familiar with either Pokémon Diamond or Pearl. They won’t
feel the game has enough in it to play through the same story again. However, I
place it in the Buy It category for anyone who may have passed on playing those
two. It’s a great experience that is different enough from the other Pokémon games, just not the first two DS
titles.