The Pokémon game series has recently had two new released games, these games being Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. The games were released on November 19, 2021 and are updates of the original Pokémon Diamond and Pearl with some major differences between the new and old. 

     Starting with the most obvious difference, which is graphics. This a lot has to do with the advancement of. The old Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were played on the old Nintendo DS, and the new Pokémon is played on the Nintendo Switch, which was released in 2017. Another major difference that stood out to me was that an item in the game called HM, or hidden moves, are no longer HMs and instead TMs, or technical machine, and can be used as actual attacking moves. Examples of these HMs are moves like “fly,” where you fans can fly across the map to cities, “rock smash” where you can smash frail-looking rocks, “strength” where you can push around heavy-looking rocks, and many other moves. They are in a sense utilities but I’m not sure if we can still consider them utilities since they have been turned into attacking moves now. 

     The changes I spoke of are not bad at all; they only make the game better. They are all additions; nothing that was changed was bad, only expanded. The game brings back so much nostalgia from my past grinding out Pokémon Diamond. Of course, I had to choose to buy Pokémon Diamond because that’s what I had played in the past and I love all of the exclusive Pokémon that are in Brilliant Diamond. 

As of right now I have completed 7 of the 8 gyms. I will be stuck at 7 gyms for quite some time after the 7th gym you meet your first legendary Pokémon which is either Palkia or Dialga. This depends on which game you choose: Brilliant Diamond gives you Dialga while Shining Pearl gives you Palkia. You meet this legendary Pokémon after defeating the 7th gym leader when fighting this legendary. Many people choose to use a master ball to catch the legendary because the master ball is a guaranteed catch and these legendary Pokémon are very hard to catch. Poke balls are balls used to contain Pokémon most of the time you need to weaken a Pokémon to be able to catch one but there are poke balls that are more effective then others like the one I just talked about.

     If you have never played Pokémon before I greatly recommend this new game to be your first. The game has a story and walks you through everything plus diamond and pearl in my opinion and some of the best Pokémon games and why not start with one of the best. The only game I would say is better than Pokémon brilliant diamond and shining pearl is Pokémon black and white 2 which is amazing but for that you would need to buy a DS and I would think many people don’t have a DS since the switch is so popular now. So Pokémon brilliant diamond and shining pearl and 10/10 definitely recommend for new people are old players and you can grind shinies

     And if my own thoughts on the game don’t persuade new players to try I can explain pokemon as a whole. Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are set in a fictional region by the name of Sinnoh in Sinnoh is a village by the name of twin leaf village this is your home village where you the protagonist grew up. The protagonist is named Lucas but the game allows you to select your own name under certain conditions. You have a childhood friend who also gets one of the Pokémon you compete in strength throughout the whole game. One day you find a poke ball outside in a briefcase and select between three poke balls. You end up using this Pokémon against a wild Pokémon and your mother finds out after this you set off on an adventure. Your goal is to get as strong as possible so that you can defeat all gyms and acquire all gym rewards. After defeating all gyms you can fight the elite four who are on another level then gyms they use the max 6 Pokémon so you are even when fighting them. You can prepare type advantage to win against them but you cannot switch Pokémon mid-way only heal. 

   Before you fight the elite four there’s another thing you must do there is your main antagonist who is a group of evildoers by the name of team galactic their goal being to control the legendary Pokémon Dialga and Palkia your goal is to stop their plans and save the legendary Pokémon. After you have completed all of this you have completed the story and may choose to level up Pokémon or try to catch all other legendary Pokémon who are all caught in different ways. I am still on Dialga so I’m not sure you can look it up if you get this far.