Pokemon Platinum, the upcoming entry for Nintendo's mega million selling franchise, was just released in Japan to thunderous praise. Nearly one million copies flew off store shelves in two days, leading us to believe that either the Japanese really love all things Pokemon (a likely possibility), this game's excellent or perhaps both. All we know is we need more Pokemon in our lives.
Similar to Diamond and Pearl, you receive one of three starter Pokemon (Chimchar, Turtwig and Piplup) and once again explore the Sinnoh region and capture wild Pokemon. The goal here is to raise your pocket monsters and defeat other trainers in battle. In typical Pokemon sequel fashion, Nintendo slapped a new monster on the box. In this case, it's Giratina, a giant caterpillar/ghost/dragon that makes a grand entrance. Of course, there's 210 Pokemon to start with and the ability to upload ones from Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Leaf Green and Fire Red games. In addition, there are new critters running about, including Cut Rotom, which is a strange lawnmower-like creature.
Platinum also features improved animations (even the trainers move during battles), better graphics and a new winter theme. There's even a new area to explore called Torn World, an upside down environment with gravity-defying effects.
In addition, the game features a Pokemon Emerald-inspired Battle Frontier, a facility that contains different challenges and tournaments. You'll also square off against rival trainers and the Elite Four.
Another cool feature is the ability to save Frontier and Wi-Fi battles via the Battle Recorder, which lets you preserve your greatest victories. Visiting the game's Global Trade Center enables you to access it and check out other people's battles. Since Nintendo categorizes the videos based on popularity, locating the best stuff should be easy.
As expected, Pokemon Platinum has online play, and as expected, there is no random matchmaking for battles. Instead, you must rely on those annoying friend codes. We suppose you could access the Wi-Fi Club to get your fix. It has three minigames that let you pop balloons with Wobbuffet, test your balancing skills with Mime Jr. and feed cherries to a presumably hungry Swalot, but none of these look as addictive as traditional trainer versus trainer combat.
As much as we'd love to import Pokemon Platinum, all that Japanese is bound to get in the way, so we'll have to settle for the U.S. version, which will hopefully appear sometime next fall. Gather your Poke Balls and get ready for tons of Pokemon coverage as we gear up for what should be one of the DS' most anticipated role-playing adventure.
Reader Comments (2)
i agree, i love pokemon, but japan needs to stop sometime, or eventually they will run out of pokemon names, pokemon, or metals or colors to name the games(pokemon cloud white, pokemon orange orange, pokemin sillicon LOL :) )
You'd think they would eventually run out of ideas for new Pokemon, but they just keep on making more! Jesus, do those Japanese people never stop? X)