The last third version Pokémon game release was all the way back in 2008 with Platinum during generation 4. Since then Pokémon games have been confined to merely having two versions with occasional sequels like Black/White 2 and Ultra Sun/Moon. During the time span since platinum, multiple old generation remakes have appeared, with Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire and Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl being the two major remakes. Both of these remakes are based on the initial releases of the generation 3 and 4 games, rather than the third versions earlier.
While I understand that people miss the extra content that the third versions of Emerald and Platinum provided for those generations, it’s short sighted to simply write off ORAS and BDSP as being downgrades from aforementioned third versions.
The third versions essentially obsoleted the initial releases of the games as they came out. They featured more or less the exact same content, but with more. I’d like to note that this is a radical oversimplification of the scenario, the initial versions such as Ruby and Sapphire did have some stand alone unique content that was cut/altered for the third version release, such as contest halls being one of the more major changes. But with this being said, playing the initial versions over the third version always felt to me as if you were sacrificing a lot to gain just a little bit of unique content.
This is where ORAS and BDSP come in. These remakes feature entirely updated stats/typing/moves/generational mechanics, on top of the drastic visual overhaul. These remakes let you play the initial releases of generation 3 and 4 games and seeing the unique content the stand alone versions had, while providing a plethora of changes from the third versions that are stuck with the original graphics and gameplay of the generation they were released in. I’d like to emphasize that despite the connotation of “stuck” traditionally being a negative trait, in this instance I think it makes them unique time capsules of the previous generations with their own mechanics and feel to enjoy.
All of this is to say that if ORAS and BDSP were instead based on Emerald and Platinum, the initial releases of Emerald and Platinum would still hold a lot of merit for the traits inherited due to the time and generation they were releases within. However it would make the initial releases feel even more divorced and forgotten. If Emerald and Gamma Emerald existed, playing generation 3 Ruby and Sapphire would feel even more obsoleted and forgotten. Emerald alone would be the representative of generation 3. ORAS instead brings the concept of Ruby and Sapphire back to the forefront, rather than being entirely pushed aside by Emerald.
Maybe this doesn’t matter to others, and other people would really prefer to just see the Battle Frontiers in these remakes. However if I wanted to play the Battle Frontier or other exclusive content from those third version games, I can simply play those old third version games. These remakes are the only reason I would’ve considered playing an initial version game from these generations.
This operates on the assumption that I’m considering Ruby and Sapphire to not be obsolete by nature of me playing ORAS, rather than the proper generation 3 releases. But I do think this is fair, because these initial releases represent a concept to me, and it’s the concept that’s kept alive with the remakes.
In Sapphire you battle Team Aqua and face off against Kyogre. The unique story beats make Sapphire different from Ruby, with Emerald homogenizing them into a single amorphous blob. Emerald is the game I’d rather play over initial RS, but I appreciate the concept of RS being kept alive in ORAS, game releases I would play in tandem with Emerald, not have replacing Emerald.
Now let's come to the source of my recent musings, I played through Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Platinum recently. With over 150 hours being clocked in Brilliant Diamond, and I found it to overall be an extremely enjoyable experience. Meanwhile I enjoyed my time with Platinum, but couldn’t help but wonder how BDSP came to be so vocally and viscerally hated because it’s not a remake of Platinum.
I think Pokémon has an issue of discussion around the series being heavily influenced by the voices of people who have not engaged with the games they’re referring to in over a decade. Heavy nostalgia and hazy memory clouds all reasonable discussion, and a lack of desire to engage and give the time of day to a modern game release prevails and drives negative discourse around the new releases.
My only real complaint with BDSP is that as somebody familiar with post-gen 4 Pokémon, I found the moveset distribution on Pokémon baffling. BDSP features typing updates, as well as new moves that were introduced after gen 4. But TMs are left exactly as they were in generation 4. Level up learnsets were updated with new moves, but if a pre-gen 5 Pokémon in a post-gen 4 game only learns a move by TM, and that TM didn’t exist in gen 4, then you’re gonna have a pain getting that move on your pokémon.
The Grand Underground attempts to alleviate this issue slightly, with pokémon encountered unground featuring one of their egg moves, which were updated to reflect post-gen 4 moves. So if breeding chains are a possibility, this is one route, but the far easier and faster route is to just own a copy of Pokémon Sword/Shield, trade over the pokémon and just use a TM there before trading back to BDSP. I wish they would’ve had a brand new move tutor to teach moves learnable by TM in SS.
Considering the addition of hyper training to max IVs, mints for changing natures, and ability capsules, having SS TM moves be this convoluted to get onto pokémon within BDSP just feels like a weird oversight.
Regardless I didn’t have too much of an issue with it, I got Outrage on my Garchomp, Knock Off on my Machamp, and other staple moves onto my Battle Tower teams just with normal breeding chains. It just felt a tad excessive with the addition of modern IV/nature/ability items being added for convenience.
Getting good IVs also felt like a bit of a headache because the Poké Radar was updated to just randomly break chain more often in BDSP and high chains are the only way to guarantee maxed IVs on dittos. It wasn’t too bad though and engaging with the radar was a fun challenge that’s probably forgone by most casual players. It even picked me up a shiny Snorunt in the process which was entirely unintentional, and the wrong gender.
EV training has to be done the old way of battling wild pokémon, but it goes quickly once you can buy the power items. Honestly I prefer this over the mini game based EV training. The mini games get repetitive and stale very quickly while requiring a higher level of engagement from the player than just mindlessly battling bidoofs with a power item being held.
This leads into my favorite part of BDSP and the change that felt most significant to me over all else. The Battle Tower in BDSP is fantastic (for singles). In most Pokémon games (really, those made by Game Freak), battle facilities let trainers have a pool of possible pokémon to pick from to have their team consist of. In BDSP trainers in the Battle Tower feature a pool of possible teams to pick from. This leads to the power level of the Battle Tower in BDSP being the highest it’s ever been in the franchise, since opposing team options are all built around actual strategies or synergies in the same way a player would build a team, rather than just feeling like a mishmash of strong pokémon. This knowledge also leads to you being able to know exactly what pokémon and items are waiting for you in the back once you scout the first pokémon revealed from an opponent. Using this knowledge leads to battles feeling like an intense series of calculations and risk assessment. If you ever lose in the BDSP tower, it doesn’t feel like you lost to bad luck, it always feels like your own decision making or team building being the culprit of the loss.
The single issue with the tower, or should I say double issue, is with specifically masters doubles. In normal doubles, double battles function as you’d expect based on the name. 4v4 double battles between you and an opponent. For an inexplicable reason, masters doubles has you doing 4v4 battles against a pair of two trainers, so you’re operating under multi battle rules. What this means is that each opposing trainer has two pokémon, and they each occupy their own position on the field. So if you knock out both pokémon from one of the trainers, i.e. both pokémon on a single side, the other opposing trainer cannot send out their second pokémon onto that field position. So effectively you only have to eliminate two pokémon (from a single side) and you get to 2v1 the last two pokémon from the opponents. You’re not restricted by this, only the opponents are. Which means masters doubles is weirdly the easiest format in the battle tower, although building strategies to cheese it with and knowing how these mechanics work certainly isn’t a freebie. And when you’re facing off against Palmer during “boss” sequence of streaks, those are proper double battles with a very high difficulty. I enjoy masters doubles for the team building aspect, and the Palmer fights are always equal parts enjoyable and nerve wracking, but it would be an understatement to say masters doubles would be better if it was proper double battles.
If there’s a singular reason I need to justify my time with BDSP, it’s the sheer amount of fun I got from the Battle Tower here.
BDSP did have one other trick up its sleeve that surprised me though. The limited dex size to only being pre-gen 5 pokémon combined with the box link item actually had me catching pokémon as if it was my job. Box link allows you to transfer pokémon from your party to your PC and vice versa from most locations (gyms being a notable example of an exclusion). The ability to freely swap your party around combined with a party wide EXP share meant i was constantly leveling up new pokémon and never keeping fully evolved pokémon in my party. Frequently catching new ones to put in the queue to level up to evolve and fill out my pokédex even further. Swapping out pokémon so often during the main game as well as the byproduct of not using fully evolved pokémon added a great layer of difficulty to the main game that kept it engaging and fun. I also played with set battle order to not allow for free switches before my opponents send out a new pokémon. Set battle meaning your team needs to be able to make defensive switches, combined with the heavy stat and level gimping offered by not using fully evolved pokémon and constantly swapping my party around meant I was consistently engaged with the gameplay. Never was I just mashing a single damage dealing attack or relying on the same boost strategy or a single fast and hard hitting pokémon with good coverage.
Pokémon games are as hard as you make them out to be, and I think BDSP offers ample opportunity to make the game more challenging if you want it to be. Being able to turn EXP share off would be a nice feature, I liked that a lot in generation 7, but with how In played through BDSP, the game felt like a fun mild challenge still even with exp share on. I would never call it “hard.” But it was absolutely engaging and had me consistently thinking of possible battle lines, team compositions, and movesets. Never did I feel like I was just going through the motions of mashing A and walking to the end of the game.
Compared to Platinum, box link honestly made all the difference. The addition of box link and having a constantly shifting usable party provided me with an experience I could not have during the main game of platinum. Using set battle, items in battle, and intentional avoiding all battles that weren’t required to never overlevel gave me an experience where I felt like I would’ve liked to have put an additional restriction on how I played the game. Playing platinum honestly did feel a bit like just walking to the end, but while I will acknowledge that I could’ve made it harder with more restrictions, I could not have replicated how I played through BDSP with box link.
The additional content in Platinum didn’t wow me either. The distortion world puzzle was a visually stunning setpiece with almost nothing to actually engage with other than a very basic strength puzzle. And while the Battle Frontier is cool, I got just as much out of the Battle Tower. The Battle Factory is the only facility I really love in platinum, but the other facilities are very interesting, but I’m not convinced that their exclusion was a big deal.
I’m really not convinced that very many casual players actually engaged with these facilities heavily. And I’d imagine the people who have sunk serious time into them will keep playing Emerald/Platinum/HGSS. If ORAS or BDSP had the battle frontier it may have introduced some new fans of these facilities, but I think for the people who really want them, this is a reason for those old games to stay relevant and still be worth playing. Having these new remakes try to replace and obsolete as much as possible from the old games feels like a waste to me. I think remakes like ORAS and BDSP are better seen as alternatives you can enjoy in tandem with Emerald and Platinum, not things that should exist to replace generations 3 and 4.
BDSP is a very good game and I’m happy I sunk so much time into it. It’s a bit sad the discourse around the games are more focused with what they aren’t than what they are, because they’re darn good, and I’m glad they exist alongside the original generation 4 games.
— Juni - January 30th, 2025 —
