04.24.07
On Them All, And The Catching Thereof
So, Pokemon Diamond. On the one hand, the enhancements to the user interface are pretty nice– touch-based battles are pretty much going to spoil me for any other RPGs for a while. The creatures… well, it’s not always obvious what they are or what they can do– as opposed to the first and second-generation creatures, which were pretty simplistic and easy to “get”– but they’re not bad. And either the difficulty ramping is really shallow, or they finally figured out that in a game like this the RPG quest is actually kind of periphery and should be short and easy enough to get through with a minimum of hassle (I don’t know why, but I always have the hardest time slogging through after about three or four badges in).
On the other hand, combat still runs at its usual glacial tempo, I’m a little disappointed in the lack of stylus things to do (the dreaded phrase “tacked-on” comes to mind) and there’s very little variety in the monsters that can be caught right now (I’m at the wind valley and my list is 8 long, counting the non-wifi trade I did). Oh, and all of my critters from Emerald– some 21 (sue me, I didn’t have it long)– can’t be accessed until I’ve finished the main quest here.
Overall I still think it was a good pick, especially given that the games I traded in were collecting dust; time will tell if I elect to keep going with it. It’s not really a priority right now anyway, but no big deal. In the meantime, I’m heading back to Super Robot Taisen to try to finish that one up.
There was good news and bad news yesterday. The rest of the week is going to be hyper-busy but hopefully it’ll all work itself out.