After spending well over a decade on Nintendo’s portable exclusive consoles, Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield in late-2019 brought the mainline RPG games to home consoles. This might have been fine for a brand new instalment in the franchise, but what about one which harkens back to the 2D sprite days of the series? We will soon find out how this transition fares, with The Pokemon Company and Nintendo announcing development is underway on Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl for the Nintendo Switch.
Based on the 2006 RPGs Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl on the Nintendo DS, players will be invited back to the Sinnoh region with what is being pitched as a “faithful [remake] of the two games”. Unfortunately or fortunately for some, being faithful to the original game has seen the development team stick to a different visual style than other games, incorporating chibified 3D character models and locale designs in the overworld, with more traditional 3D character models in battle. A preview of what this looks like can be found below.
Developed by ILCA, Inc. with direction by Junichi Masuda (GAME FREAK) and Yuichi Ueda (ILCA), they have aimed for the game to be “faithfully reproduced and colourfully revitalized for Nintendo Switch”, with “the sense of scale of the towns and routes […] carefully preserved. Promoted features include both Diamond and Pearl being “updated with the easy-to-understand, player-friendly conveniences introduced in recent Pokémon core series video games”.
Both Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl are due to release exclusively on the Nintendo Switch simultaneously in late-2021.
