The day of the remake of the original Pokemon Diamond & Pearl has finally arrived.
Sinnoh is returning
For me this remake has been a long time coming. It seemed like it was going to be the next after Game Freak finished up their work on Pokemon UltraSun & UltraMoon in 2016. There was a cycle to their releases. But after that… and after I bought the new Nintendo 2DS XL… the word came that they were done with Pokemon on the that hardware. The Pokemon era with the DS series was over. Pokemon would be moving to the Nintendo Switch hardware.
That reset the schedule as Game Freak first put out a light Pokemon title, Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee, before committing to a full blown Pokemon RPG title in with Pokemon Sword & Shield.
Sword & Shield set a new standard for Pokemon titles, running through two DLC expansions as the story wound through the Galar region.
I bought and played through some of Sword & Shield, having purchased a Switch Lite, but it didn’t really stick with me.
Now though, there is the return to the Sinnoh region, which is where Pokemon began at our house, back when we bought our daughter a pink Nintendo DS Lite to keep her occupied on regular flights to visit family in Hawaii. Watching her play got me invested and soon I had my own cobalt blue DS Lite, a solid piece of hardware that is still sitting on my bookshelf.
We played through that game together, bought the guide books, battled the gym leaders, caught and traded Pokemon, built bases in the underground, and caught the legendary Pokemon. It was the gateway to us playing through almost all of the titles that came out on the DS series. (We bought them all, though I don’t think either of us finished UltraSun & UltraMoon.)
I am not running out and buying it today. Well, I might buy it soon, but I will be buying two copies and saving it for the holidays. We’ll see if my daughter and I can find some time to play when she is home from school.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 