Platinum Notes

Depending on who you are this game is either the best 35 bucks you'll spend, or a total waste. I fall into the former camp, and I'm hella glad for that.

The changes from Diamond have been subtle, but pretty fantastic. Every area has had at least a bit of a graphical overhaul, which was nice and really made the game prettier. The Elite 4, and Battle Island or whatever the devil it's called look particularly splendid in comparison to Diamond. Back sprite animations are pretty nifty albeit completely unnecessary, it made my heart flutter though as a long time fan.

The two largest additions to Platinum has been the added in story depth, and the distortion world. The distortion world was a bit of a let down, it was nifty, but the fact that besides INCREDIBLY rudimentary puzzles (actually I think there was only one...) and containing JUST Giratina sort of ruined it. You can travel back after you beat the game, but it's just to obtain an orb that allows Giratina to stay in his badass Origin forme outside of this realm. The look of it was most definitely sexy, and I think that if Nintendo found a way to build on this idea it could work. Like if it was where Unown's originated or something for example. It just lacked depth.

The additional story bits were iffy to good. Having Cyrus appear earlier and getting hints as to what he was plotting throughout the whole game was very beneficial to the story as a whole. The detective they added in was more pointless than Eusine from Crystal. The professor was sort of nifty, though I think he should have been assimilated into the story more directly and a lot earlier. The climax of Galactic at Spear Tower was pretty epic, but the final encounter at Mt. Stark was pretty disappointing. It most definitely helped refine the tale of Team Galactic, but it needs a LOT more retooling to be any where near as good as Rocket's or even Aqua/Magma's stories.

The difficulty was slightly ramped up too, Pokemon trainers with more than three Pokemon are actually pretty common now, and near the end of the game they have some power houses, especially on Victory Road. The AI is still pretty weak, and possibly worse, than it has been previously which is a bit sad. I'm really glad for all the new battle opportunities such as in Pokemon Centers, the Clefairy Maid Challenge thing, the Trainer House in the Survival area, and how the Elite 4 levels up their Pokemon after you acquire the National Dex and your rival levels up his Pokemon (all the way up to fucking 85) if you beat the Elite 4 enough. I'm so glad that high level Pokemon training is now actually a possibility.

My team as of right now is:
Torterra
Scizor
Magmortar
Crobat
Vaporeon
Rotom

Besides Torterra and Crobat I've never really used any of these guys, so it's been pretty interesting and the team actually has a pretty good dynamic. I really don't suggest Rotom though. He's not bad, just painfully average, and his hidden formes aren't really that impressive either.

Magmortar's a total fucking badass though, as is Vaporeon surprisingly. They were both late additions to the party, but they have been the main two pillars of power since adding them. Torterra was nerfed in the beginning because I gave him two HMs as I refused to use an HM Slave this go round, once I get rid of those two HMs though I think he'll be a fairly competent addition. Scizor's almost as good as Magmortar and Vaporeon, but I threw Defog on him, which obviously lowered his worth. And finally Crobat's just a G, not really fantastic, but he hasn't dragged the party down like Torterra has from time to time.

I'm still relishing in this game right now, so a more complete and organized blog will probably come later. Or not, knowing how lazy I am. I still need to write about the wonderfulness that is Four Swords...