Pokemon Brilliant Diamond Review

Title: Pokemon Brilliant Diamond
Developer: ILCA
Genre: Role-playing
Released: 2021
Rating: 7/10

In Pokemon Brilliant Diamond (BD), choose Turtwig, Chimchar, or Piplup as your first companion and start your journey throughout Sinnoh! Collect pokemon, battle at gyms, and defeat the evil organization… Team Galactic!

Pros:
Post game
Once you complete the main story and beat the champion, you dive right into post game content which includes a ton of additional features. You can compete at the battle park, work to complete the national pokedex, catch legendary pokemon, join the Ribbon Club after receiving 10 ribbons for a pokemon, and so much more. 

The Underground
I loved the underground in Pokemon BD. Pokemon Blue didn’t have it so this was my first time experiencing the underground and it did not disappoint. You can dig into the walls to get rare items, enter areas to battle pokemon, and find NPCs to trade with. It’s where I caught most of my pokemon and the level of the pokemon matches yours so you don’t have to waste time leveling up a weaker pokemon to catch them up. You can spend hours in the underground and still have more to explore. 

Cons:
Felt like a short amount of game time to complete the main story
From start to finish, it took me about 40 hours to complete the main story. For me, that’s a short amount of time compared to the hundreds of hours I’ve spent playing games like Legend of Zelda: BOTW and Animal Crossing. Because the game felt short, the post game experience was needed and absolutely awesome. 

Felt too easy… 
I remember playing Pokemon Blue when I was a kid and I actively avoided the gyms because I would get beaten every time. In Pokemon BD, I was never beaten in the gyms and the only ones to beat me were the Elite Four and Champion. You could say that I’m an adult now so I’m better at playing the game. And while that may be true… it still felt too easy. I wish it had been a bit more of a challenge. 

Things to Consider:
Look and feel of the game
The game looks and feels like the older versions of the game like Pokemon Blue. I picked Pokemon BD because of that exact reason – the nostalgia of playing Pokemon like I did years ago on my Game Boy. If you’re hoping for a more modern feel, I’d recommend looking into other options like Pokemon Sword and Shield or Pokemon Legends: Arceus. 

Overall…
I recommend Pokemon BD – especially if you played as a kid on Game Boy. It was an absolute joy to play and the pokemon battle cinematics were very cool. I’m looking forward to comparing Pokemon BD to other Pokemon games… next up will likely be Legends Arceus!