Pokemon Platinum (Generation 4) (Nintendo DS, 2008)

 

Man, that is one ugly box-art. No wonder I never gave this a whirl in-era on the DS. Back in 2006 I found Pokémon Diamond to be an incredibly slow, molasses-like game, so for a long time it warded me off of the series. I didn't get back into the series until a decade later with Gen 7.

Similarly, for these posts there was a ten year break between the first three generations and this one. In the interim I did the two Legends games and the Gen 1 remakes, but that's about it. Picking up with 2008 here.

The good news is that Gen 4's deluxe/upgrade version Pokémon Platinum fixes a lot of the issues with Gen 4 and speeds things up quite a bit. This is EASILY the definitive version of Gen 4, and one of the best Pokémon games period. It started a bit of a renaissance for the series, being followed by Gen 5 (debatably the best one) and super-solid remakes of Gens 2 and 3. Platinum heralds a pretty huge turnaround considering how bad Gen 4 started.

Historically, Pokémon posts were always R-Rated and weird as hell. Read at your own risk.

There are a couple ways I can do this. I've got both screens, or I can zero in on one. I'll do the latter for the most part because this game barely uses the bottom screen. Here, it gives us a nice picture of Giratina, the very unattractive legendary on the front cover of the game. Giratina is the Satan of the Pokémon world, which is probably why it looks so horrifying. No, I'm not kidding.

Whoa! Who said that? ....God?

AH! JESUS!

Well, where to start? I was born a poor Bulgarian child, hatched from an egg. My parents were a French lady of the night and a Rottweiler.

You didn't always get to choose between two protagonists.This started with Pokemon Crystal, at the end of Gen 2. For my money, the female hero here in Gen 4 is tied with the one in FireRed/LeafGreen as the cutest of the bunch.

The one you don't pick, in this case the dude, ends up becoming your ally. The girl is Dawn, the boy is Lucas.

The main rival is this guy. Can't name him manually, but you can pick a name from a short list. I went with Nolan because it was the only moderately intimidating one. He needs all the help he can get, with his wild turkey haircut and his ladypurse.

Dawn's search history is mortifying.

"Hey Google, what's better for tying up your partner's wrists, ropes or handcuffs?"

What a sick woman!

...neither, a silk scarf is what you're looking for.

The current system as of this point in time, and the era of Waggle-Motion(tm) is in full effect.

Waggle-Motion(tm)! The Wave of Tomorrow!

I'm just glad this game doesn't have any stylus control gimmicks. IIRC the original Diamond/Pearl did have something to that effect early in the game, but they got rid of it.

Now that I'm finally free to walk around, that comes to a halt almost immediately. This guy just shows up constantly to hound our heroine and darken her doorstep. Him and his stupid hair need to git!

Professor Rowan shows up and is appalled that these two brats were about to walk through tall grass without any Pokémon for self-defense. So he decides to entrust them with the great responsibility of taking care of animals. That makes total sense!

"Hurry up!!"

I agree, the woman should always go first. Preferably multiple times.

Everybody just BACK OFF and let me think, ALRIGHT?

To its credit, Gen 4 has a more balanced set of starters than the last few, though there's still a bit of a gap between them. This time, all three of them get a dual-type for their final form.

Grass: Grass/Ground

Fire: Fire/Fighting

Water: Water/Steel

Turtwig here is, unfortunately, the least-good. Grass seems to get the short end of the stick a lot.

It's strong defensively over the course of the game and does the best against the first gym, but that's about it. It's a tanky Pokémon that can take blows and absorb enemy HP, giving it survivability...and making an already-slow generation even slower. All of that is out the window if it faces an Ice-type foe, because Ice-type moves will do a whopping 4X damage against the evolved form of this guy. His dual types happen to both be weak against ice. So while the other two are both pretty solid, this one's the lowest-rated for me.

Chimchar evolves into a Fire/Fighting beast, and does the most damage of the group. Generally, most people would probably agree that this one is the best, and fire wins for the third straight gen (debatably, Gen 3 is very debatable). However, Chimchar runs into some problems later on, like half of the Elite Four being 2X against it, along with a couple of other gym leaders being tough for him to deal with. Most notably the first boss.

While our water-type isn't quite as powerful as Chimchar over the course of the game, it's pretty close. And Piplup here doesn't have as many weaknesses later on as Chimchar, nor does he have one big glaring weakness like Turtwig. His final form is Water/Steel, which is a good combination. Give him Flash Cannon from a TM and he's really good in the endgame.

This is a good time to mention that "STAB" moves are now a thing. Which stands for "Same Type Attack Bonus" and just means that a 'Mon using the same element attack as its own element will do quite a bit more damage. So 'Mons will want to stick to using their own element attacks, for the most part (probably also why a lot more of them have a dual-type now, to give you more options).

So who did I go with? Piplup. I always went with Piplup in Gen 4 in the past. Not worried at all about his ability to carry the team later. I need to start preparing early, because this game has what might be hardest final boss in the entire series, Cynthia.

Of course, I have to fight this Nolan guy and his starter next. .....what is wrong with him?

Presumably the third one went to Lucas, who is just sort of here, doing very little.

Oh My God. Piplup is ADORABLE.

Early game fights are slow, slow, grinds. Lots of buffing, debuffing, poking each other for 1 damage...it's thrilling.

I'm considering trying to do a low level game of sorts, at least for a while, because I don't want Piplup to evolve into his awkward teenager form. Stay in this adorable youth form forever! I suppose I could just hold the game off from evolving every time for a bit, but I don't want to miss out on any good moves either.

Haven't mentioned up to now how damn slow the walking speed is in this game. Luckily, you get these before long and they give you a more normal sprint button. This was one of the best changes introduced in Gen 3; it's hard to go back to the slow movement speed of the first two now.

There's a legendary on the loose, and these two brats are gonna capture it!

...some Cyrus guy was here first, though. Not that it matters, because the legendary didn't show up.

Cyrus the Virus, that guy was a real Jackal.

The random battles begin, with the dastardly BIDOOF. What exactly IS BIDOOF? No one knows for sure.

Dawn is a real cutie. She must be gorgeous in the 3D remake of Gen 4, since everyone has more realistic proportions in the 3D half of the series.

::high-pitched screaming::

I get the chance to name my starter. This sure is putting a lot of trust in the average Pokémon player...

I name him after Stephanie McMahon!

Just realized that another advantage to choosing Chimchar is that there is a huge lack of fire types in this game compared to the other two. He might even be the only one you get until the endgame for a fair amount of players. That might be the best reason to pick him.

Well, too late, we're ALL IN with Nipple H.

"It shows which Pokemon you've seen and captured, and if you swipe on the lower screen of the DS, it'll let you browse through hot singles in the current town."

"Be sure to accumulate as many notches on the bedpost as possible while collecting Pokémon, Dawn! As for you, Lucas....lol GL with that"

Next Lucas has to give me a tutorial on what everything is in a town. Way too much time in this game is spent on tutorials. Maybe these games are all like that and it's just becoming more annoying to me now. 9 out of 10 of the people playing this have already done all of this multiple times over, to say nothing of having to wade through all of this on a replay.

I try to leave town, and... seriously? Can this dude stop showing up everywhere? Let me play the damn game!

When a nipple grows, you know you're doing something right.

Eventually, he'll become the King of Kings:

Empoleon: "I am the Game-uh!"

This thing is supposed to be a Napoleon reference, I think. Also he talks in run-on sentences:

Punctuation, man!

Our hero takes more foes to Pound Town, and the adventure finally gets underway.

Before setting out, you have to visit Dawn's Mom so she can lament that she's stuck at home while her daughter travels the world and gets laid. At the ripe old age of 35, she's basically a corpse in a Japanese RPG.

Next I hit the shop. It's a tough call whether to get Poke Balls or Potions at this stage with my limited funds (this game is more generous than most in the series with starting funds, at least). I err towards mostly getting Poke Balls.

You again? GAWD! Stop! Leave me alone!

Well, now I'm glad I didn't pick Chimchar. He is one unattractive Pokémon in battle.

...who is Dawn's dad, anyway? They don't even mention him. Whoever he is he's long-gone, I guess.

Lucas then gives me a bunch of Poke Balls. DAMN IT. I bought them for nothing! Couldn't this happen before it gave me access to a store?

Now our hero can blast Lasses with soapy suds!

Have some soapy suds! Hawr! Look at her running away giggling!

....well, the attacks in this game aren't much to look at, especially at these low levels. This series has always felt really barebones in the spell effect and animation departments. Pokémon games are hard-carried by the appeal of elemental types and the monster designs.

Finally caught a decent Pokémon. This thing evolves into an electric-type with some good moves, if I remember right.

On the surface, this feels very much like Gen 1. Similar moves, similar gym leader types (at first), similar first couple of towns, similar chasing a professor around. This series isn't known for taking many risks, and this gen in particular feels like an intentional return to basics after Gen 3 got a little far from the initial formula. Sales were WAY down by the time this dropped, though it was still a powerhouse series.

The beginnings of the Looker Brigade, which our heroes joined in Pokemon Legends Z-X, seem to be found here with this "international super investigator". I guess he went to France and founded the Bureau after this.

I wish I could take that cap off of Dawn. It looks like she's wearing a giant rubber nipple. Which is on brand for me I guess.

What in the blue hell. No.

Jubilife City is probably this gen's most famous town, and it's got a nice jazzy theme song. This is a good stopping point, now that I've gotten all the basics out of the way. Next time I can really blast this game and take down some gyms.

Talk to enough soulless clowns and you get this Poketch upgrade, which gives the bottom screen something to do finally. It can display the current HP of your mons, which is the most useful function, or it can be a clock with a Pikachu on it.

Or it can be a calculator, which is marginally useful, but the buttons are pretty small so you need to use the stylus.

.....well, at least the game doesn't have any Waggle-Motion(tm) or Stylus Controls. Mostly just uses the top screen, the D-Pad, and the buttons. That's all you really need. No Dongle-Integration or Power Glove or Rob the Robot or anything. All you need is just an image and a controller.

Well, it's good to finally get this series going again. The next few games are probably my four favorites outside of the nostalgia of Gen 1. This, HG/SS, B/W, and B/W2. Not many people played Gen 5 so it's got a bit of a hidden gem status and I look forward to playing it for a second time...eventually. It's contingent on whether or not my souped-up 3DS (or more accurately, the one old laptop that will actually connect to it) keeps soldiering on that long.

In the near-term I'm going to do this last deluxe version and the three remaining remake versions to completely finish off Gens 1-4. At least that's the idea. The remakes should be fairly brisk and I'm only really going in-depth on Platinum. This game has been such a long time coming. I played it in 2016 right after I finished the Gen 3 posts, but at the time had no 3DS capture device and thus no way to continue the posts, so that was it. Well, here it is, just a couple months shy of ten years later.

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