Pokémon Platinum Version (DS)

Somewhat more than Diamond and Pearl redux.
3/23/2009 9:22 PM | 1 Comments | Page 1 of 2

On the off chance that somebody reading Pokémon Platinum Version review has never seen a Pokémon cartoon, touched Pokémon cards, or played a Pokémon game -- yeah, right -- allow me to explain the concept. Pokémon is a sanitized cockfighting simulation in which players stroll around a friendly fantasy world, capturing adorable little monsters (Pokémon is short for Pocket Monsters) which they enter into an ongoing fighting circuit until the little buggers take so much damage that they pass out.

In short, it's sort of like "Fight Club" with plushies.

For the monsters, winning turn-based fights results in experience points and evolution. For the player, victory means money, notoriety and a shot to go down in history as one of the greatest Pokémon masters of all time.

Along the way to becoming a Pokémon master, you bike, run, walk, fly, and surf around a surprisingly large world with mountains, marshes, grasslands and coasts -- all of which serve as habitats for the 200-plus species of monsters living in the Sinnoh Region of the Poké-world.

For those of you who haven't layed any version of Pokémon since the Red and Blue versions came out in 1996, very little has changed. You still control a young punk Pokémon trainer hoping to make a name for himself and break his way into the big leagues. You still travel the world with a maximum of six monster companions whom you keep in pocket-sized cages called Pokéballs; and you still find wild monsters hidden in tall grass, water, graveyards and mountain trails.

Pokémon's turn-based fighting style has not changed over the last 13 years. Why should it? Nintendo has sold 186 million Pokémon games worldwide. This has got to be the best-selling handheld game series ever.

In other words, it works. It works well.

Even less has changed from Pokémon Diamond Version and Pokémon Pearl, the first Nintendo DS entries into traditional Pokémon adventuring. Pokémon Platinum Version is sort of a version 1.1 of those earlier games with some notable updates.

The most striking change between Platinum and its predecessors is the addition of the "Distortion World," a break from the mundane Sinnoh Region that will remind players of either the works M.C. Escher, or the Looney Tunes episodes in which Daffy Duck meets Marvin the Martian on his home world. One moment you are trading jabs with the fanatics of Team Galactic, a crime syndicate bent on perfecting the world (classic Poké-players may remember the misguided Team Magma/Aqua ecologists of Pokémon Sapphire and Ruby fame, and the glory-bond bounders of Team Rocket from the early days of Pokémon.); the next moment, you see a portal to a new dimension. Super Mario Galaxy fans will feel right at home with this area's setting and physics.

Less striking but more substantial than the Distortion World are the innovations in connectivity Nintendo has added. There is a new "Global Terminal," which allows players to trade Pokémon worldwide. There is also a new "Wi-Fi Plaza" with mini-games and a Rose Bowl-style Pokémon parade.