Pong and Beyond

474th played so far

Genre: Role-Playing
Platform: Nintendo DS
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: The Pokémon Company

As mentioned about a year ago, when we played Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, I have always been into Pokémon. Those games were enjoyable already, even though that set of games wasn’t my favourite.

On the other hand, well, I’ve obviously played Diamond and Pearl before, and it’s always been up there – although I’ll admit it’s been aa while since I played. It’s also because of a lot of good memories – it’s the first game I played with Peter, the first surrounding meet ups with a lot of friends and (as a gaming thing) the first I completed the Pokedex on.

Our Thoughts

Yeah, the game is still as enjoyable as I remember. Aside from some lengthy stretches of dungeons and connecting routes that seem to drag on a bit too long, the world feels interesting and varied, nice to look at and creating some interesting challenges. It feels like a lot of design has gone into it without leaving a lot of empty space.

Added to that is a more interesting cast of characters, with a fun ‘main’ rival (whose “P-O-K-accent-E-balls” quote has stuck with me ever since I first read it) and gym leaders you actually encounter out in the world. The world feels a bit more alive than most others.

Graphicaly the game looks quite good, cartoony and neatly mixing sprites with 3D models. It rarely does anything too fancy with it, but it works.

Final Thoughts

Most of the game builds on previous games, and as we predicted then, Ruby and Sapphire‘s notes still apply, just improved on. Later games look better, and HeartGold/SoulSilver still feel like the superior games in the series, but these games show just how much fun a Pokemon game can be.