Let's Play Pokemon Shining Pearl, Part 1 - Return to Sinnoh

Oh hey, Pokemon Shining Pearl! 

The two Sinnoh remakes have not been looked upon favourably by the fandom due to having... minimal changes? Which I suppose is fair, the first three remakes added a lot to their respective games, at least in terms of story, new areas and new forms. But I don't mind playing through Sinnoh again. It's just... well, apparently it took me quite a while to open my copy of Pokemon: Shining Pearl. 

Just like my Let's Play of Let's Go Pikachu, I'm not going to pretend that I don't know the story of the Generation IV games inside and out, so this isn't going to be super-exhaustive as when I experienced a new Pokemon game for the first time. I've played through Platinum before and I think that game might be one of the Pokemon games I've sunk the most hours into. Top two or three, most certainly. 

But anyway, we get the character creation menu, with Professor Rowan introducing the world of Pokemon to us. The character selection is still Dawn and Lucas, as before, although with extra skin tones and hair colours. I get to name the rival, whose canonical name is Barry. The game then starts off with a staticky TV show about the Search for the Red Gyarados, which kickstarts Barry obsession towards getting to Lake Verity and finding a Red Gyarados of his own. Wrong game and region for that, but okay. Some minor changes to our hometown of Twinleaf Town -- everyone has a Nintendo Switch, now, and the technology is amazing guy talks about how you can interact with people wirelessly. A couple generations too late to be excited about that, but m'kay. 

Oh, and also... I pick up an Azure Flute. Which is just lying in my room next to my Nintendo Switch. That's a previously event-exclusive item to catch Arceus which was never released for the English version of the games, so I am going to experience something new at the very least! 

Barry is still his excitable "Imma fine you" self, and we go to the Lake Verity to see Professor Rowan and his assistant Lucas. Rowan is rude, Lucas is a doormat, and they leave their briefcase behind. Barry, as usual, is completely incapable of leaving stuff alone, so despite the recurring warnings to not go into the tall grass, we go straight into the tall grass and get jumped by a couple of Starly. It's been a while, but I pick back up my favourite starter in Generation IV, Turtwig. 

A lot of the stuff that happens afterwards is your typical 'start of a journey' sequence for Pokemon, which is why I think they saw the need to retool it from Generation V onwards -- giving the rivals and the surrounding characters a bit more personality, and from Generation VII onwards giving the Professor a bit more to do. As it is, Professor Rowan gives me the Turtwig and the Pokedex, and sends me off to run around and be a Pokemon Master. I get my Running Shoes, a fetch quest to give a Parcel to Barry, and get some tutorials for towns and Pokemon capture. I... I really wish this was optional. It was cool when I played a Pokemon game once every 2-3 years, but nowadays with the faster release schedule it's more realistically 2-3 games per year instead. 

Anyway, I go through Sandgem Town (which really has nothing other than the professor lab) before finally making my way to Jubilife City. It is kind of odd to have the wild battles be so slow with the animation, but I think I'm just a bit too used to the Generation IX engine or the DS-era games, so I won't complain too much. It is also kind of interesting that they actually made 'realistic-proportions' models for all the trainers... not just Dawn and Barry, but also all the trainers. I think that made some people a bit more prissy because this is what we 'could've gotten'.

Jubilife City is the first 'big city with something to do' I go into, and... it's kind of interesting to see that it splits off to the North, West and East but two of those are blocked by Surf and Rock Smash respectively. Already I kind of see why the opening of Generation IV is sometimes criticized for being way to slow, since the first 'big city' we see in the other generations tend to be a gym city -- even if, like Viridian or Petalburg, it's a gym we can't challenge yet. Jubilife, at least, has a little sidequest for us to do, finding the three clowns giving little Q&A things to tie into the Poketch gimmick... but after seeing what Generation VII and IX did with the concept of a 'Pokemon School', having the other big thing in the city be a school, and for that school to just be a blackboard... yeah. It could've been expanded a fair bit more for sure. 

The Poketch used to be the bottom screen of the DS layout, and... and they try their best to still include the Poketch in the remake by having it pop up in the R button. It's nowhere as intuitive or useful as it was in the DS games, and I don't think I care enough to go hard in the breeding or competitive aspects to really use a lot of the Poketch apps. It's a nice attempt for them to still include it, but I don't see myself using it a lot. 

One thing that is interesting is that in Pokemon's typical attempts to eliminate HMs from regular gameplay, the Poketch now serves as the replacement for Hidden Machines. It is flavoured a bit weirdly, by the Poketch summoning whatever Pokemon I need for Rock Smash or whatever... but the convenience of not needing HMs is really nice. 

I am slowly building up my party -- my original playthrough of Platinum had an inordinately large amount of Gen I-II party members because it was also the game I played when I got back to Pokemon after a massive hiatus. But I don't really see myself keeping Starly, Bidoof, Shinx or Budew for the long term... not the biggest fan of any of them or their final stages. Not sure what my final party will be, but I'll try my best to consciously utilize Generation IV Pokemon. 

Anyway, I reach Oreburgh Town, which... I actually do like the upgraded graphics a lot! The moving coal lines with the little itty-bitty coal bits mined from the underground mine... It's just that, y'know, they could've... they could've done more? Added more lines of dialogue or a puzzle or something? I know, I know, faithful to the original, but you can be faithful and make it a bit better, y'know? Minor complaints. 

The little fetch quest for Roark is a bit of a joke, honestly, because Oreburgh Mine is not even a maze. I just go down, and Roark's personality is essentially a tutorial for Rock Smash and for the gym. It's a bit depressing, really. I have a grass starter and his gym is just filled with people using Geodudes, and the only reason my Turtwig doesn't one-shot a Pokemon with Razor Leaf is Sturdy. Roark at least gets to keep Cranidos as his ace Pokemon... I know this game uses the original Diamond/Pearl rosters, which can be quite weak, but Roark at least doesn't, like, just have a Geodude and an Onix or something. He's still a pushover, though. 

That is the first gym, and now I have to backtrack all the way back to go through Floarama Town to get to Eterna City. Those parts of this game, I remember! I remember them more fondly than this run through Twinleaf to Oreburgh, for sure. 

Anyway, let me talk a bit about how I feel about this remake! It is kind of a shame, but while there isn't inherently a sin in being a one-to-one remake, FireRed & LeafGreen had the advantage of being the very first remake, of updating the Game Boy generation to the GBA-and-beyond one, and also adding quite a lot of content with the Sevii Islands. HeartGold & SoulSilver streamlined the Crystal contents into the main plot, added a lot of extra fluff in regards to Lugia, Ho-Oh and the Team Rocket Admins, and generally has such a good polished update for the Johto cities. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire gave mega evolutions, primal forms for Groudon and Kyogre, an additional Rayquaza/Deoxys chapter, and additional characterization for the evil admins. While the other remake for Gen I, Let's Go, had the gimmickry of the Pokemon Go tie-in. Being one-on-one, and not adding much... again, I don't think this makes this game bad in any sense of the word, but it's just outshone by other Pokemon games at the time. Particularly because Legends: Arceus was so well-received and also Sinnoh-themed. Bit of a shame! I'm enjoying my time playing this, but I also am a huge Pokemon fan either way, so. 

Random Notes:

• 
  As a bit of a (late) celebration with Pokemon TCG Pocket, I'll be using almost exclusively artwork of cards that released there. Kind of helpful that one of their first couple of expansions were Sinnoh-themed! God, the full-art pieces are gorgeous for this game. 
• The game has automatic EXP Share on. That's... that's probably going to make leveling a bit too easy, isn't it?
• While I'm kind of indifferent on what Pokemon I'll use and I'll just see who attracts my attention, I can tell you that Drifblim will be in my final party. Drifblim has kind of been a mascot for Pokemon content in this blog, and I'm obligated to use one! 
• My original Platinum party mostly consisted of Torterra, Espeon, Crobat and Togekiss. Not exactly the most comprehensive representation of the fourth generation! I'm not limiting myself to only Gen-IV Pokemon, but I do want to try and use Pokemon I've not used in a 'main party' before.
  
• Professor Rowan also left Sinnoh for four years in the original games, right? That wasn't me misremembering things? That wasn't a commentary on the time it took for the remake to come out (which is most certainly more than four years)? 
• Unlike Sword/Shield or Scarlet/Violet, the Nintendo Switch JoyCons in my room does not change to the colour of the JoyCons I am using. Not sure if it's my particular JoyCons that isn't responding or what, but boo!  
• Starly is just a lot less threatening than other Pokemon that attacks you before, like Poochyena. 
• Barry really just yaps a lot before zipping away. This hyperactive mentality does make him memorable, but it also makes the scenes I spend with him flow so quickly that I don't really get as attached to him as I would some of my other rivals. That's kind of by design, though, and I know we'll get a bit more characterization later on. 
• I did the Machop/Abra trade in Oreburgh City. The Abra's called Kazza! Abras are a pain in the ass to catch without Quick Balls.