A love-letter to previous generations, D/P evolves PKMN mythology, technology, & classic ‘mons in a beautiful new Hokkaidö-inspired region of Sinnoh w. best 2D viz aestheticization & epic themes/legends: a contrastive juxtaposition of religion w. science-fiction. 9.6/10.

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Plot Synopsis: Pokémon Diamond Version and Pokémon Pearl Version are role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. They are the first installments in the fourth generation of the Pokémon video game series.

*Possible Spoilers Ahead*

The CLC Official Favorite Gen. IV Pokémon: 1. Giratina, 2. Manaphy, 3. Arceus, 4. Luxray, 5. Empoleon, 6. Mime Jr., 7. Abomasnow, 8. Spiritomb, 9. Palkia, 10. Cresselia, 11. Dialga, 12. Magnezone, 13. Bastiodon, 14. Gliscor, 15. Togekiss, 16. Yanmega, 17. Dusknoir, 18. Munchlax, 19. Riolu, 20. Torterra

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The Official CLC Review Of Diamond/Pearl/Platinum (Legends: Arceus At Bottom Of Page)

A trifecta of video games. The Pokémon Company x Game Freak had delivered just that with the releases of its preliminary three generations: Red/Blue/Green/Yellow, Gold/Silver/Crystal, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. Generation 1 is quite arguably the most revolutionary, influential, and greatest adventure and new idea origin game for a series in the history of its medium – the execution of a lifetime dream-project of friendship and nature by Satoshi Tajiri with a blueprint so ~perfect, it barely needed *any* changes even decades later today; Gen. 2 holds the prestige of being a love-letter to its origin Japanese culture adorned with the best creature design, new feature additions [shiny, FTW!], and post-game in video games; Generation 3 was the first integration of a major overarching storyline: a jewel case for complex/ambitious themes of climatological balance & apocalyptica with the greatest legendaries, region, elemental discourse, and villains of the saga. Even withstanding the chef d’oeuvre video game masterpieces of Gen. 1-3, Pocket Monsters was only mediocrely-popularized by the early-to-mid 2000’s. Difficult to believe the IP needed a fuel-injection of continuous innovation by comparative analysis to its kingdom status as the biggest media franchise in the world today, the pronunciation of Generation 4 did just what was requisite: shift gears to a mature fanbase & aggrandizing the scale/ambition 10x so in franchise mythology – science & religion.

A love-letter to previous generations w. bold new evolutions of the mythology/overworld for new demographics, DP adventures through a beautiful new Hokkaidö-inspired mountain-crux region in Sinnoh w. the best 2D visual aestheticization of PKMN, diverse orchestration, magic new pre/post evos of old ‘mons, the #2 best starters of the series, clean NDS technical proficiency, feature calibrations and – though in ~complacency – advancements (e.g. Contests, Poketch, Battle Mechanization, Underground, Gender Differences), & avant-garde storyline contrastively juxtaposing themes of church-like religion allegory with science-fiction galaxy x time x creation physics by complex ’50’s retro-futuristic cyberpunk antagonists, epic scale/ambition aggrandization, & all-time great legendaries. One of the most striking aspects of the games from their opening frames is the region: Sinnoh. Designed after the Hokkaīdo region of Japan with alternative inspirations of Russia’s Sarkhalin & Kunashir provinces, Sinnoh is an island bisected by a crux mountain range of major importance in every aspect of the game [as we’ll get into later]: Mt. Coronet. For better or worse (mixed for us in how we appreciate how much of a love-letter the games are to its origin region and Junichi Masuda’s home of Japan, but stilted they’re beginning to feel while incompletely capitalizing on diversification of topography in other parts of the world), Sinnoh sticks predominantly to its real world counterparts in everything from the position of cities to numbering of routes to design inspirations – e.g. Mt. Coronet being based on the Ezo mountain range, Jubilife being the largest city of the region just like Sapporo is, and the iconic three lakes being based on Lakes Kutcharo, Tōya, and Kussharo from Hokkaīdo.

We’re mixed on Sinnoh in two aspects: its cities and lack of water routes. The towns and civilization areas of the region… kind of suck; there are fine ones like the old west coal mining town of Oreburgh, the rainbow-hued flower fields of Floaroma, cargo port bridge architecture of Canalave, & one of the best cityscapes of the series by its skyscraper-clad TV capitalism themes in Jubilife, the gyms are contrastively perplexingly well-designed and imaginative in their puzzles and aesthetics [Hearthome’s ghost haunted house maze, Eterna’s floral rotating clock, and Veilstone’s (literal) boxing gym being our favorites], and we appreciate the new realism-intensifying features like apartment complexes, hotels, news/press buildings, TV stations, and more ambitious architecture by grace of Nintendo DS > Game Boy/GBA, but the vast majority of the cities are gray/brown, lifeless, now-clichéd retreads of older archetypes… and comprehensively forgettable. Geographically, though, when you venture outside of its cities – Sinnoh *really* opens up and charms. From the silvery ore and dark blue-greyish stones juxtaposing turquoise mystery waters of Mt. Coronet to milky hallucinogenic-twilit forests of Eterna to beachside bluffs of Route 213 to to swampy mash tram-bisected wetland neo-safari zone of Pastoria, Sinnoh takes advantage of its epic size to pack a punch where it matters most: vast, diversiiform wildlife terrains.

We’re given new ways to explore them: the underground and rock climbing. A fantastic new feature, the cavernous Underground is not only a fun place clad with minigames and 3DS wifi features for playing/socializing with friends, but it lets us tap into one of the great exploration fantasies of mankind’s history: becoming miners for precious gemstones that have captivated our ancestors going back to ancient civilizations all the way to The Gold Rush. A new HM is Rock Climb is an epic new idea that takes full advantage of its mountainous terrain to let us scale the mountains previously kept away from mankind by its herculean difficulty and dangerousness [+ fear of heights & falling off]. That’s not even including the greatest achievement of Sinnoh [a biome three generations and 10+ years in the making *ALONE* enough to make the game passable and sins-forgiven overworld wise]: Snowpoint City. Do you how long we’ve waited for this?! A winter wonderland out of a Golden-Age ’30’s Merrie Melodies Cartoon or Christmas-themed Big Sky Montana tundra landscape with touches of warmth, evergreen conifers/pines, and yetis, Routes 216-7 & Snowpoint are positively breathtaking – and, quite possibly, our favorite and the greatest nature experience in the history of the Pokémon games.

We very much appreciate the ability to again explore another region of nature previously inaccessible to mankind and ~impossible to explore in the real-world [unless you want to freeze to death on a weeks-long hike up Mt. Kilimanjaro or get eaten by a bear sleeping at night in a cave]: the best aspect of Pokémon adventure-wise, again capitalized on in making nature explorable in the comfort and safety of your own home. The landscape is a starkly new one for the pokéworld – and it’s further peppered with novelties like cool new weather additions like snow [powdery calm drizzles juxtaposed with full-scale blizzards] and fog, as well as the return of a fan-favorite feature from G/S/C enlivening the realism with further definition by the addition of transitional sunrises & sunsets: day/night cycles. Bizarrely, the man-made structures in natural areas outside the major cities & towns are fantastic too – the eco-sustainability wind turbines of Valley Windworks, the hazy blue flame luminescence graveyard with mossy limestone mausoleum white marble steps of Lost Tower, textured-floor labyrinth of Solaceon Ruins, ghostly forest decrepit purple-glowing craftsman house with poltergeist motors/televisions, eye-moving paintings, and ghost butlers/girls Old Chateau (love how much Sinnoh celebrates the macabre, both in ‘mons and aesthetically), etc.

The overworld culminates in the two big-ticket attractions of the game: Spear Pillar and Distortion World. Two of the greatest and most avant-garde worldbuilds in pokéhistory, Spear Pillar first evokes reminisces of Greek pantheonic god shrines and colosseums by its mountaintop locale status and ionic-columned white-stone architecture as the *perfect* setting for its boss finale meeting/fighting gods. On the flip side of the coin, Distortion World is 10x more batsh*t crazy: the msot hyperambitious place of the franchise to-date bar none; an entire alternative dimension where the laws of physics and science don’t apply – time doesn’t flow, space isn’t stable, gravity is zero, forests are illusions, you can walk between XYZ planes, and waterfalls flip 180 degrees. There’s a few disappointments – the imbalance/~absence of water routes failing one of the best adventure features of PKMN in being able to surf your ‘mons and explore the open seas [Sinnoh is the antithesization of Hoenn in that regard] & perplexing removal of HM Dive when you already have 8 and it’s one of the best ones for letting us further explore the most impossible depths of mystery below the sea [sure, it replaces it with Rock Climb to better suit its region just like Dive was for Hoenn… but why not both?] – but Sinnoh quickly avalanched our concerns city-wise to become one of our favorite regions.

That was before the post-game. The Post-Game of Gen. IV catalyzes its ascension to our favorite region in the history of Pokémon – in addition to being the best post-game since G/S/C. The Battle Area is absolutely breathtaking: a hyper-tropical island with black ash rock formations, lush evergreen palm trees in a jungle gently swaying and dropping coconuts in the breeze, turquoise waters, white sandy beaches, brown saharan dunes with sandstorms, and a red-lava’d volcano with a hidden surprise legendary battle/catch. It fuel-injects the tropical urge we’ve been missing since Hoenn and dominates our dream vacation fantasy, while also being the best version of the tropical aesthetic/backdrop of the series. Game-wise, it gives us the Battle Frontier we loved about Hoenn, while also being a pure celebration of previous generations and history of the series by its wild encounters of only Gens 1-3 Pokémon and giving us trainer battles at high-levels we can use our legendaries [w. more to catch too, fixing previous gens’ disappointments in not being able to use post-game legends story-wise] on. God, we love it *SO* much – and it makes Sinnoh the most geologically-diverse fantasy region of the series: hitting every possible note of what you’d want in a region. Bravo.

The region would be nothing without visual aestheticization and style to bring it to life – a challenge later gens had and were ~ruined by in awkward teenage growing stages, mixedly-advanced graphics engines, and laziness by TPC’s animators/engineers [Sun/Moon, USUM, Sword/Shield, etc.]. Luckily, Gen. IV strikes a jackpot: the best 2D visual style/aestheticization of PKMN – and what holds the crown of best visuals until Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee 13+ years later… and it’s even then a debate. Most striking are the textures, details, and rich color palettes they’re able to achieve; from the effervescence/personality-bursting sprites to chibi avatars to dynamic painting-like battle scenes swirling natural biomes into impressionistic Van Gogh painting, D/P/P [& HG/SS: The Greatest Pokémon Games Of All-Time in CLC’s vote, in the same generation] boasts masterpiece visual style hand-crafted by artisans whom you can feel the passion in every frame on, straddling the fine line between 8-Bit nostalgia & futuristic detailing and *alone* making the games mythological in status even if the other aspects failed. Impossibly though, it doesn’t on any other level – a major one being the score.

Beyond the visuals, the soundtrack of D/P/P is one of the best in the series – taking advantage of its DS technological bloom-evolution to energize and diversify its portfolio in everything from genres to tempos to keys to instrumentation. There are instances where songs change BPM mid-stream, notes and tracks are acoustically-panned to bounce from one headphone side to the other, side trainers get their own scores, and even old themes like the PKMN Center & Pokémart get remixed against our expectations. We can go on and on about the sound engineering/mix-and-mastering having experience in the field ourselves as previous musicians in college, but the compositions and themes dazzle & radiate themselves. From the title screen’s epic mystery omen atmosphere adorned with crescendoes of twinkling xylophones, we knew the score of Gen. IV was about to be special. Throughout the gameplay, we’re serenaded with soft, gentle flute harmonics to begin our adventure (one of our favorite themes ever: Twinleaf), a funky energized theme synergizing with our rival’s personality/chaos, warbling galactic synth arpeggiated villain themes sampling classic sci-fi movies and galaga to match the villain team, ’80’s discotheque doubletime, smooth brassy wurlitzers/accordions in Sandgem, future bass by the lakes, jazz in Jubilife, & clopping old west horse hooves and bluegrass guitar twangs of rusticism in Oreburgh.

There’s also slow-booming kaleidoscope synth pads juxtaposed with flurries of sweet-and-sour piano in Floaroma (one of the best themes), quiescence with liquid bass reverberated like echoes in the vast expanse of Eterna Forest, bouncy ritz sumptuousness in Hearthome, fancy chichi catwalk of Veilstone, African marimba in Pastoria Marsh Safari zone, sleigh-bells and snowflaked falling pad scales in Snowpoint, squaling violins and staccato gothic chords out of a horror movie in Old Chateau, hypnotic bass dubstep in the distortion world, etc. For a series known by musicians and audiophiles for its soundtracks (yet underappreciated by the general public), Sinnoh has one of the better ones – plus more advanced in its multi-channel audio system and ability to fully capitalize on real drums and instruments instead of white-noise flips like on the Game Boy in Kanto, only withstanding a couple of bad themes like disharmonic wrong keys at the Pokémon League & ~lazy reusages between a few cities towards the end [e.g. Celestic Town & Oreburgh having the exact same score]. Feature-wise, D/P has a legacy of more of fine-tuning and remastering existing mechaniszation than creating its own – not a terribly exciting or revolutionizante one, but an understandable one (the blueprint was so damn perfect in Gen. 1, after all, that ~90% of the games have stayed the same even into modern times ~30 years later).

Gen. IV sees a physical pronunciation of gender differences – everything from real biological ones [e.g. male Luxray having thicker manes than female ones like real-world lions do] to adorable ones [e.g. Pikachu getting a heart-shaped tail and down-trod ears in females] – and we love how subtle and not-overstated they are. The info on the front screen has more compatibility for newcomers – giving an option to expand on the info for them, while making it skippable for veterans. There are more name options with symbols, expanded global terminal-led and group-possible wifi features for a new multiplayer experience with friends online, a handy ‘item last used’ trick for easy accessibility, mid-battle dialogue for evolving realism, soil that darkens as water is added when planting seeds, and tracking roaing legends is 1,000x faster due to the major innovation of D/P: the Pokétch. A capitalization on the nescient smartphone craze of the real-world, the games give us a device with proto A.I. and technological apps enabling everything from calendars to art pads to cooin flippers to link searchers to minigames to bring the bottom half of the screen alive and upgrade the Pokenav. PKMN Contests have been completely revamped and made 10x better by audience-vote, dance-coordination, pageantry, and collectibility of ribbons across multiple categories – a feature girls especially will love and is made for them if the more boy-minded battles aren’t to their liking as a new way to enjoy and interact with your ‘mons.

The addition of Poffins – puff-pastry that increases attributes like cuteness or coolness – shakes up the meta and gives a fun new minigame way of cooking them, and the new advancements with pokéballs are appreciable too. Seals are kind of a gimmick – and easily-manipulatable for gross or juvenile ways by the lowbrow of the general population – but a new way to customize the experience of your monsters’ release from their pokéballs into battle – and the new pokeball types are the best in the series: the pink girly Heal Balls restoring HP when caught, energy-infused blue/yellow Quick Balls giving us easy ways to save time catching new ‘mons without having to battle them first, epic lime green/black/red Dusk Balls synergistically giving a boost when catching at night with their genius nightmare design perfect for some of the darker legends, and blood-red Cherish Balls for event Pokémon. Even the Pal Park balls are epic in their yellow/white design perfect for the electric mouse mascot of the sseries – and we only wish they were usable outside their intended region. One of our favorite [OCD-compulsive] aspects of the games is color-matching our prized Pokémon to their pokéballs, and Gen. IV gives us the best-designed and richly-hued choices to do that. A+.

Now that we’ve gotten through the nuts-and-bolts that create the background and world around the action, it’s time to get into the characters, story, and monsters – and all three excel tremendously. From the beginning frame, of course, what instantly strikes us [and has become a definitive factor of Gen. IV’s everlasting popularization] is the costume design… especially for its female protagonist. Dawn has what is easily the greatest character design in the history of Pokémon – and, for that matter, perhaps: video games. Pokémon has been known for having cute female protagonists any guy would fantasize about becoming and going on the adventure as (it being 10x better to be a beautiful girl than guy real-or-dream world, as ~every guy recognizes and overwhelmingly picks the female avatar on streams, but that’s another discussion), but Sinnoh takes the cake. We love how D/P lets Dawn be girly and unapologetically-feminine – down to the pink flouncy skirt and boots, no traces of masculinity or sports masquerade anywhere [even though we still love Hoenn’s outfits]. The ski hat and scarf reverberate the region’s snowy terrain, her face is cherubic and adorable, and the fact she’s Japanese is our favorite aspect – honoring the culture of PKMN’s origins while infusing it into the gen’s showpiece character for the crown on top this queen avatar for the history books. That’s not even including the dres-sweater Platinum outfit – one that manages to look out of a fashion magazine and be, somehow, even better.

Then… there’s the male avatar. Everything right with our female protagonist’s design [Dawn, if we’re going by the animé’s name] goes wrong with Lucas [male avatar’s name, story-wise]. A bad Ash clone, he has the most unimaginative design – worse, because it’s so plebian. The blue jeans and a black sleeveless vest feel like they could be bought at the dollar store or clearance rack of your local walmart and the weird beret makes little-to-no sense in a Japanese and not French region [they even do a french region later down the line in Kalos X/Y… so why?]. The ensemble would’ve been better with non-basic jeans, a more imaginative vest/jacket, and real snapback-type hat even in the same color scheme – and his charcterization is mixed into a mundane, almost-forgettable research assistant (though we like the decision to triplex the major protagonists). Luckily, though, most of the other characters in the game are well-designed and nicely-characterized – including the other major protagonist: Barry. Thud!!!! From that beginning bump into by the doorside, Barry radiates charisma – the high-octane funk theme he’s paired with perfectly paralleling his personality traits and energizer-bunny presence.

Though his ‘fine’ schtick grows ~weary, his competitiveness, childlike hastiness/mischievousness, impatience, juvenileness, blonde orange-triped design, tangible father-proud dreams & ambition, and well-crafted team culminating in that epic showdown in front of the Pokémon League make him a very good rival that makes you feel like a kid again: one of the better ones of the series and a compliment being that’s the series greatest power of escapism. The characterization prowess extends throughout the rest of the canvas. D/P continues RSE’s legacy of a good parent – even though our dad is, once again, inexplicably gone and nary mentioned, our mom expresses parental sympathy and *gasp* asks how we’re doing [far from the glorified moneyhandler who moved her kid in the back of a moving truck back in Hoenn]. There are new trainer archetypes like artists, breeders, clowns, berry masters, waitresses, farm ranchers, idols, and skiiers, babies in the overworld, and private investigators – led by a great character whose goofy charm hiding behind streetlamps gives goofy nostalgic flashbacks to ’60’s B-films and spy international police missions inject a 007 Bond spy-angle side-arc into the game we quite love: Looker.

Even the alternative side characters in the game we meet like the woman who accompanies us through Eterna Forest in green-haired sweet mountain girl Cheryl and flamboyant blue-fedora’d Lucario-training acquaintance whose steely demeanor matches the Iron Island backdrop Riley are fantastically-designed and memorable. There’s even one downright evil character hidden in the overworld that has since become famous in the fandom: the heathen in Snowpoint City who trades Medicham for a Haunter she purposely sabotages to not evolve with an everstone – even going the extra mile to taunt us with ‘oh, is it evolving? just kidding’ for maximum god-tier trolling out of pure ruthlessness to express how much the writers cared about these minutiae details [one of the last games you can feel the creators actually cared about their craft before PKMN became a money-making scheme]. The gym leaders – though we wish they’d had more complete teams, many of them bizzarely only having 2-3 creatures on team – follow this trend of characterization: from friendly rock-miner Roark to determined bug-girl Gardenia to française rich, elegantly-gowned ghost-type Fantina to shy timid girl-fighter Maylene to macho luchadore Crasher Wake to scruffy masculine Roark-father Byron [a cool interplay between gym leaders] to ice Kimono girl Candance to bored/overpowered finale trainer of lost passion Volkner.

All of these are nothing, however, compared to the #2 best character of D/P/P and the Greatest Champion Of All-Time: Cynthia. Feminists rejoice and guys drool! Cynthia is a masterclass in how to – impossibly – please both demographics – a cute blonde sure to evoke hormones and wolf-whistles from the guys, but not even needing them by her meritocratable status as the Queen Of Sinnoh: beauty, brains, and brawn. Oh, lots of brawn. You better stock up on the hyper potions and revives, plus be 20+ overleveled to have a chance at beating her Garchomp, Spiritomb, and Togekiss. Cynthia’s team easily boasts the prestige of hardest *ever* to beat in the Pokémon League – a brilliantly-balanced type-span juxtaposing epic OHKO power with type coveragediversification and badass appeal for the perfect finale to our journey and test of your mettle as a trainer. The character-arc of her backstory exposition being a trainer coming from Pro. Rowan’s lab just like we did and corely-integrated throughout the storyline connects it full-circle and makes her punch well-above her class: one of the best characters of pure magic Pokémon has created to-date.

Cynthia recognizes herself in us and helps/grooms you as the trainer she used to be, even helping you battle/juggle legends and stop evil across the plot and against the forces of evil: Team Galactic. Before we get into the eponymous villains of D/P, it’s worth noting the sheer brilliance of Gen. IV: its contrastive and parallelogram juxtaposition of science-fiction, existentialism, and religion. We’ve come a *long* way from slowpoke wells. Themes of the storyline center on the existential mystery of life and who/what/when/where/why/how of the world around us. It unravels these through two threads: firstly, through science. D/P analyzes the physics of the world around us – an experimental lens focusing on time and space. The entire scope of history, healing factor of constancy, general relativity, travel directionality, divergent-lines, and dimensional non-circular mystification of time are evoked – and given a monarch whom oversees how much (civilizations from caves, machine guns from sticks, etc.) and how little (conflict, selfishness, greed, murder, etc.) the world and nature has changed over the eons.

The galaxy, stars, planets, void, aliens, wormholes, supernovas, alternate dimensions, and dark/anti-matter around our blue-and-green marble’s atmosphere are featured as well – the crestfallen mystery and white-hot curiosity of if we’re alone in the universe that has beckoned mankind since our primal days and challenged us to spend trillions by rockets, space stations, rovers, and shuttles exploring its endless seas of black silence. There is a fundamental balance and harmony in the universe in regards to the laws and physics that govern it and constitutes everything around us: space, time, matter, ecosystems, nature, gravity, climate, elements, weather, seasons, food chains, day/night, life cycles, etc. That system in place since day 1 of creation has been fundamentally shaken up and redefined since the arrival of mankind, and that’s the angle the game cruxes around through its storyline and protagonists/antagonists – foremost, Team Galactic.

We’ve always said: D/P are a love-letter to science-fiction – and that’s easily visible by the villain team. Team Galactic look like they just walked off the set of a ’50’s Golden-Age Hollywood Sci-Fi Movie (It Came From Outer Space!, Forbidden Planet, Star Trek, The Man From Planet X, etc.): a wonderfully-cheesy/wacky so-bad-it’s-good ensemble down to the moon boots, space-suit-like uniforms, and turquoise bowl-cut wigs meant to look like helmets. We love how goofy and fun PKMN went in their design – especially the planet-eponymous leaders/commanders: Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, etc. squabbling in Shakespearean family drama of power hierarchy that altogether make you crack a smile every time you see them and corely hit their target demographic of cinephiles right in the nostalgia bone. Make no mistake, though, they’re anything but funny in any other aspect: one of the [if not: the #1] darkest, most violent, twisted, and megalomaniacal of all villain teams.

‘And Now, All Will End. And Everything Will Begin.’ The storyline is beautifully-crafted: a mystery that begins unassumingly in regards to its antagonists. We just see them as some B-movie extras and science nerds causing mischief around – a bad copy of Team Rocket [coincidentally: them also employing scientific iconography in name] whose goons steal Pokémon and babble on about renewable energy through poké-evolution (furthering the climatological exposition of Team Magma/Aqua too and a theme way ahead of its time scientifically in the early-2000’s before the climate crisis worsened), funny jokes/puns, how they’re heroes, and some great plan. It isn’t until they actually *gasp* set off bombs that we’re forced to begin taking them seriously. For a video game series ostensibly previously marketed as family-friendly, this was dark-and-wild twist – Galactic literally enact terrorism across the Sinnoh region and their ‘plan’ becomes increasingly revealed and alarming: the death of our world and creation of a new one.

Team Galactic thus becomes a parable of the dangers of cults and groupthink [again, wayyy ahead of its time, those concerns becoming 10x more pronunciable in the internet age a decade or so later]: how people could voluntarily sign up for such an evil mission of genocide, god-complex, and gäsconade. The answer lies within its leader – one of the Greatest Characters In The History Of Pokémon: Cyrus. The blue-haired doppelgänger of Giovanni is the best villain since him – and, in CLC’s vote, even better a boss antagonist. A being of pure soul-ice, ataraxia, sociopathology, empathy-depravation, and megalomaniacism, Cyrus is frighteningly detached from the world and anyone/anything – able to destroy everything we know and love without even blinking an eyelash. Psychologically & Sociologicaly, he breathes the ideology of Nico Hadjicostis, Gödel, Epicurious, & Anti-Aristotlean Nihilism – a dark worldview of how broken we are as a species and how ugly humanity is, fostered painstakingly growing up as a quiet, outcast-child with no friends whom preferred the company of machines to people and dreamed of big things untethered to reality.

Perhaps the scariest part of Cyrus is… how much sense he makes. As much as we love to fantasize and delude ourselves into thinking the opposite, mankind is responsible for tragedies beyond any other lifeform – and has turned a paradise into a dystopian cesspool of larceny, blackmail, corruption, narcotics, murder, rape, embezzlement, fraud, genocide, sexism, racism, xenophobia, inequality, etc. This is in stark contrastive juxtaposition to the lost paradise and garden of eden the world was before humanity: ‘one of no conflict, no strife. only time flowing and space expanding’. The rage and seething antipathy festering beneath his skin appears as pure malevolence and to the naked eye, but it’s underscored by a twisted love and care for the world: one he wants to fix and laments how broken it’s become due to the ‘weakness of the human spirit’, it being nearly impossible to do so through minor tug-of-war changes and it being easier to just wipe the slate clean and start over: The New God.

The driving forces behind the games are fundamentalized in religious iconography, allegory, and literalism. Cyrus is a being of both God [Old-Testament] and The Devil in Biblical contexts. The tragic sympathizability of the red-tipped trident-wielding underworld fallen angel is exumed by his subjugation/exile from society for simply recognizing the flaws in the design and humanity just like Satan did, and the dark subsequent side is evoked by his lies and trickery [even doing so his own team he sadistically leads on about joining him as gods in the new world to weaponize and use their labor with no intentions of saving them]. The melagomaniacism, fickleness, amour-propre, complex, narcissism, ambition, and iron-fisted ruthlessness of Cyrus may seem perverse and villainlike… but people forget he exactly parallels Old-Testament God: whom too wanted to create a new world and expressed disgust with mankind – exiling them from the garden of eden after the original sin and the fall of man, watching and doing nothing as they committed atrocity after atrocity like brother killing brother in Cain & Abel before even doing the unconscionable: committing planetary genocide against his own creation through Noah’s Ark [what Cyrus can be seen to be merely copying, bringing into play stark questions about why one is regarded as okay and the being even eulogized through hymns and prayed to, while the other isn’t?].

Even in the unflinching nightmare presence this complex, über-dark/mature worldview, there is hope exposition: the flip side of the coin. Cynthia and D/P’s protagonists eulogize the sacredness and interconnectivity of life: how ‘all creatures touch others’ lives to create something anew and holy’; the beauty of sun after the rain, how there can be joy only when there is sadness/anger to juxtapose and define it, how there is connection, love, and compassion across languages, sex, culture, etc. across the galaxy, how we’re all born from the same molecules and natural world we return to. Diamond/Pearl/Platinum thus provide one of the most comprehensive and layered exposés on religion and life ever achieved in their medium – and it’s all done through the lens of a damn fantasy video game about monsters: here, not-so-pocket anymore… capitalizing on the greatest fantasy of Pokémon by letting us wield the power of nature, but here gods in a hierarchical literalization of religion boasting some of the best creature design in history. The Original One. Breathtakingly, we get the entire mechanization of how the poké-universe came to be in D/P: starting with its original creator: God – Arceus. One of the rarest and most off-limits PKMN, we’re mixed on how ~unattainable Arceus is [only through special events, it feeling simultaneously both right (he’s God and should be the rarest one-off of all pocket monsters) and wrong (why not include him in the story of D/P/P when he’s so critical to the lore/story? Update: 2022’s Legends: Arceus fixes this)], but his design and meta-gameplay/powers are absolutely incredible – one of CLC’s Top 20 Favorite & Top 10 Greatest Pokémon Of All-Time.

Based on creator deity archetypes across world cultures and time, Arceus encompasses what the vast majority of Earth believes as God – primarily through archetype of white/gold deer. The Egyptian Ptolemic calf idol Apis, horses Pegasus & king Arceusis αρχή arkhē in Ancient Greek, Cernunnos in Celtic Scotland/Ireland contexts, Nîmes in Catholicism, Lamb Of God [+ white/gold colorization from scriptures] in Biblical Christianity, Ramayana golden deer in Hinduism, Huichol deer in Mexico, Yggdrasil stags in Anglo-Saxonism, Keresh in Jewish Torah, Geyiklü Baba in Turkish Ottamanism, Furfur Goetia in Occultism, Deer Woman in Native American folklore, Deus in Latin, Ural golden deer in Slavic fairytales, Qlin in Chinese prefecture, World Egg across civilizations, Avalokiteśvara in Buddishm, Shishi-Odori & Amenominakanushi in Shinto Japanese religion, etc. The multi-type ability is the ultimate one in PKMN history by its ability to become any type/element and learn any move – fitting for God and accomplished through its circular arc that again references more religions like the Dharmachakra in Buddhism and Bhavacakra in Hinduism. We also love the crown/armor motif found across the creation mythology ‘mons of Sinnoh – giving them aggression, power, and further historical significance.

If all of that wasn’t genius enough, Arceus is just a dumbed-down name for mankind – his real creation name ‘has no pronounceable equivalent in language’! Epic. Of course, as fiction and world history have taught us time-and-time again, light needs to be balanced by dark; heroes by villains; gods by devil – and luckily for D/P & Gen. IV, its greatest PKMN delivered 10x so: Giratina. The Greatest Pokémon Of All-Time by any objective logic/analytical criterion, Giratina is a chef d’oeuvre, comprehensive masterpiece of creature design, aestehticization, worldbuilding, historical inspiration, and backstory exposition: The Devil Of Creation & God Of The Underworld. From its draconian aggression and dark-edge gaining further animalistic macabre from centipedes, bats, scorpions, and arachnids & fuel-injection by the chroma palette of spooky purples, blood reds, pale faded golds, and icy blue platinumized metals/flames [bonus: top 5 shiny version… ever], the hyperimaginative design boasts nothing like in historical or artistic contests. More existentially-fascinating, though, is its backstory and evocation of pure fear in pokéculture: a name forbidden to be spoken and erased out of history books due to its evil aestheticization, demonization by violence, and betrayal of God: Arceus.

This, in addition to the crown/armor motif it shares with the rest of the creation trio, tragic sympathizability for how lonely it must be and exile just for [perhaps justifiably or logically] calling out its creator while also fulfilling a job of importance in world/moral balance, and purple/red-hued hellish underworld it was banished to reign from alone in excommunication (even given literal shackles on its legs like a prisoner or slave), reveals its major crux inspiration to be The Fallen Angel: Satan of Biblical Christianity. Alternative inspirations include The Beasts Of Revelation (Greek: Θηρίον) in both Giratina forms [Origin: Sea / Altered: Earth] and persecution of saints to prepare for Armageddon before being thrown into the lake of fire by God, Samael in Talmudic/Israeli contexts & Gnostic cosmology by archangel status and principle/ethics complexity, Yokaï goblins & Akūma demons in Shinto mythology, Hades in Ancient Greek Pantheon [even the shiny colorway mimicking his blue fire], Seta the giant dragon-hatchling omükade centipede from Tōda’s Otogi-Zōshi Japanese fairy-tale, Seraphim from Islam by six wings and serpentine origin forme, Swedish lindwurms and French/English/Spanish/Italian Amphiptere medieval dragons, the ghostly-silver element of platinum fringing its appendages and mandible for its chemical unreactivity, rarity, and isolationism, & Cizin the Mayan apocalyptic god of the underworld and death with additional crown/architecture/headdress parallels to its mesoamerican civilizations and cultures.

The story of creation in D/P irrefutably referances the mythology of Shinto Japanese religion: the very first god and ‘center of heaven’ Amenominakanushi [Arceus], opposed by the Akūma/Yokaï demon [Giratina], summons two beings Izanami and Izanagi to create Japan with a celestial spear [Spear Pillar!]. Izanami and Izanagi can be seen to be Dialga and Palkia. The Demigod Of Time, Dialga’s morphology resembles sundials and the hands/lines of a clock – further referencing time by its sauropod dinosaur-like and horse animalism [both being extinct or old-fashioned historical creatures], dark blue coloration evoking the deep seas where life began, ancient-looking armor of metal being that metal lasts for eons, crux stone of a diamond on its chest satirizing the cliché ‘diamonds are forever and/or timeless’, and even faint cracks along Its body with the epic powers to fast-forward, reverse, evolve/devolve, or stop the flow of time altogether. Even its diamond and metal choices metaphorizes time’s rigidity and resistance to change/alteration – and its name references the spanish day día, clock dials, and a corruption of the last syllable of dragon. The Demigod Of Space & Dimensions, Palkia feels otherworldly – down to its pearl orbs covering a white [color of moonsuits] suit of what ostensibly appears to be alien tech/armor. Morphologically, it also gains inspirations from theoropod dinosaurs, European dragons, and Greco-Roman soldiers – while metaphorizing the everchanging forms and matter and energy in the universe by its water typology.

The avant-garde elementalization [dragon/_, for interesting meta] of the creation trio also references physics – Dialga: Steel, Palkia: Water, Giratina: Ghost for the three primary states of matter in the world of creation: solid, liquid, gas. There is nary one single flaw amongst the masterpiece designs of gods aforementioned,… but they become apparent in the next level downwards on the creation hierarchy: Azelf, Uxie, & Mesprit. The first departure from tradition, The Lake Guardians feel more like pseudo-mythicals than the previous gen trios they follow: Articuno/Zados/Moltres in R/B/G/Y, Raikou/Suicune/Entei in G/S/C, and Regirock/Regice/Registeel in R/S/E. Beings symbolizing complex emotion and the definitive hallmarks of mankind’s spirit, we love their power/significance: trinitizing to represent the Imperial Regalia Of Japan and agnosticism – Azelf [Kunasagi] represents willpower & valor, giving humans the determination to face challenges in life; Uxie [Yata no Kami] represents knowledge & honesty, giving humans the knowledge and logic to solve problems and improve quality of life; Mesprit [Yasakani no Magatama] represents emotion/benevolence, teaching humans how to experience sorrow, pain, & joy. Unforuntelay, however we *HATE* the designs of 2/3 of the Lake Guardians – pseudo-fairy/pixie mythicals like Celebi, Jirachi, and Mew… gone wrong, and deserving 10x better for their importance, mythologically. Azelf is the best of the trio design-wise – almost gnome & Zelda-evocative by its jewel-encrushed headpiece/tail and elf-ears. Uxie is mixed – looking intelligent enough for its purpose with almost a Buddhism/Hidnuism yogi or village elder visualization, but ~basic/plebian design. Mesprit is just awful and, perhaps, our least favorite legendary design ever – decent hypothesization by its joker or court jester idea, horrifically and ugly executed when a Greek theatre face mask would’ve been a better and more comprehensive motif in referencing emotions anyway.

Though we give credit for the cool undertonal reference and parallels to the icon characters of the animé we noticed [Ash = Azelf down to the blue coloration and fiery moxie, Brock = Uxie by his breeding knowledge and yellow/brown-vested maturity (except in the face of pretty girls), Dawn = Mesprit by emotion and compassion even both rocking pink], they’re awful designs. Our major questions on the lake trio center on: why are they so morphologically-awkward/plump, a boring gray coloration, and lazy for such significance on the beings responsible for the creation of mankind’s core attributes. Sigh. Fortunately, they’re only a few minuitiaie in the grand landscape of legends – and there are even a slew of other all-time great ones [Gen. IV, overall, has perhaps the best set of legends ever – only #2 after Hoenn in CLC’s Ranking] to exponentially decimate any sizable magnitude of their failures. First, The Lunar Duo. One of our favorite side-quests in PKMN, we love the dark Nightmare On Elm Street Freddy Krueger-esque mission of being heroes and having to venture to a mythical island to save a little boy from the clutches of a demon haunting his dreams: Darkrai. A being of shadows, fog plumes, noiry chiaroscuro, and hourglass phantasm, Darkrai [though we 10x prefer the midnight purple shiny to rblack] is a genius injection of dark that reaps inspirations from . the aforementioned NOES slasher film alongside mares, bogeymen, Morpheus from Greek mythology, jinn (genies), Oneiroi, Phoebetor, Nocnitsa – an evil spirit from Slavic folklore who torments children in nightmares and slowly drains the lifeforce from them each passing night. Holy sh*t, that’s dark: We only wish they hadn’t tried to humanize again after Giratina with the defense mechanism and just let him Darkrai be the first part of his name.

Contrastively juxtaposed is another A+ legend whose lunar wings we find to cure the townspeople: the psychic swan/duck of feminine soft curves, grace, cosmic energy, aurora, crescent moon, Saturn’s rings, Tennin hagoromo gowns in Japan, Chang’e/Sarimonok good fortune, Selene the Greek goddess of the moon, the Cygnus constellation, and the heavenly maiden goddess of birds Lindu who made the Milky Way in Estonian folktale: Cresselia. Heatran is another god-tier legend: a spicily-typed fire/steel type with the most double-resistances of all PKMN for fantastic meta-competitiveness and the best world-build quest of any legend to-date, based on a multitude of tropical civilizations like Hawaii’s folklore attributions of volcano eruptions to monsters living inside enraged – and the inner core of Earth being solid metal under totalitarian heat/pressure. Change Shiny Solgeleo [Alola Box Legend from S/M, Gen. VII] for Heatran design-wise with the epic backstory and worldbuild design of Battle Island, and it’d probably be our favorite legendary of all-time, but we still love the lava monster as a bonafide addition to our +’s column and one of the best (if few) fire types of not only Sinnoh, but beyond. The only mixed of the legends besides the lake trio is Shaymin. The Gratitude Pokémon with its name even referencing the Chinese language for thanks: 謝謝 xièxie, we appreciate the idea but hate the basicity of its everyday/real-world hedgehog design in Land Forme [even with the tropical bloom of the Gracidea flower making it look like a Chia pet; we ~like (but are still not completely in love) the animéic morphology in its more imaginative reindeer/terrier-like Sky Forme].

Luckily enough, it’s just another minor forgettable grievance, 10x overshadowed by two more legends amongst our favorite and the best ‘mons ever created: Manaphy and Regigigas. Manaphy is one of The Top 10 Greatest [& Top 10 CLC Favorite] Pokémon Of All-Time. From its adorable blue chibi sprite adorned with feminine design touches down to its sclerae, mane-up-like eyelash, royal jewels, and ponytail-like antennae, The Prince[ss] & Guardian Of The Sea is one of the cutest and most life-infused create designs we’ve ever seen – clearly reference-evocative of water-droplets alive to perfectly synergize along with its tropical blue coloration to celebrate the ocean & Chao lifeform sprites from the Sonic The Hedgehog video game series down to the tropical beach-palette turquoise/yellow coloration and chubby baby-like morphology. Even despite its breathtaking design effervescence, the crux mystical-type powers of Manaphy are our favorite: the ability to body swap. Do you know how many people, especially guys -> girls and others bored with their lives, have fantasized ~daily about something like this? Perhaps The Greatest Ability In PKMN, Manaphy’s Heart Swap is one of the best dream capitalizations on fictional imagination potential in the series – cementing its status as the #2 Mythical Of All-Time after Celebi [by the smallest of margins] and going further to shroud its existentialism in mystery by its perplexing ability to breed (unheard of in legendaries and mythicals) and give offspring to another sister-species: Phione.

Finally, we get to the last legendary on the list: Regigigas. Etymologically signifying royalty, morphologically referencing the folklore/psalm tales of Hebrew golems, titans of Greek mythology, and mankind’s creation, and metaphorically symbolizing the historical epochs: The Ice Age, Stone Age, & Iron/Technology Age, The Regi’s are one of our favorite -and the most hyper-mysterious – legend collections in PKMN. The Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? had never been fully revealed except in PhD-excursion hints of notes the fandom was meant to decipher on their own. D/P gives us one answer on what we’ve been dying to know: the King & Creator Of The Regi’s – a being so powerful, it can tug the continents by-rope, crush and energy-beam when provoked, & sculpted other legendaries it can control in its family-line out of elements and inanimate objects: Regigigas. The only mixed aspect being its Slow Start ability, Regigigas feels kingly and like The Ultimate Regi; it shares great similarities and encompasses the others in its gemstones, but evolves past them with a lost/ancient time moss coverings, royalty-like armor (we can just see a crown and cape/robe on him!), I and markings feeling almost magician-like [furthered by the epic deep purple shiny version amongst the best of Gen. IV & Pokémon]. Its backstory inspirations further capitalize on its golem Of Prague parallels by its power-levels and lock-away location in the basement of The Snowpoint Temple post-titanomachy – as well as reference likely Japanese & Greek inspirations of the gigantic yokaï Daidarabotchi who could easily manipulate mountains, demigod Ōmitsunu who pulled land via ropes to expand his kingdom, and βλέμμυες Akephaloi/Blemmyes for, again: a broken record, one of our favorite & the best legends of all-time. Whew.

As if that wasn’t enough, there are still *TONS* of questions and mystery unanswered in Sinnoh – alluded to even in the smallest of background details from the mysterious being that killed a family in Old Chateau [likely Rotom, another great multi-form/type pseudo-legend able to energy-possess electronic and turn them into horror machines like lawnmowers and microwaves] to a myth book tale of a creature that makes you forget who you are and drains emotions/mobility from someone just by touching & looking it in the eyes [???, unanswered] to pokémon able to shed its hide to sleep and roam villages as a human [???, unanswered – did humans come from pokémon?] to the veilstone myth of a young man whom smote wild innocent pokémon with a sword he by chance encountered until there were ~none left, famine struck his village, and he was forced to journey to find one and the only one he did threatening to exact ‘vengeance and a toll’ on mankind [???, unanswered – Giratina?]. Epic. The design perfection, depth of historical/religious/mythological references, and hyperimagination doesn’t stop with the D/P legends – it diffuses throughout the rest of the creature roster of Gen. IV: the last generation of good new ‘mon designs in PKMN, tragically. Of course, there are a few bad & mixed ones [humorously: many of them ending with suffixes -on and (what they are): -ass]: Budew, Combee, Burmy, Magmortar, Chingling, Mothim, Shellos, Floatzel, Gastrodon, Drapion, Finneon, Lumineon, Carnivine, Leafeon/Glaceon, Probopass, & Frosslass. However, these constitute a measly 15-16% of the roster overall – and, besides a well-documented and perplexing oversight: ~absence of fire-types in the region, the rest of the new creatures are god-tier.

Of course, there are too many good designs of diversiiforme inspirations & animal kingdom counterparts from Marilyn Monroe plant theatre acrresses to beaver HM-slaves to electric squirrels to floatee-clad jet-propelled weasels to live-cherry to skunks to child-spirit baloons/blimps to musical note parrots to ’50’s American obesity lollipop kids to ugly cats to witch-ghosts for us to even go through every single one on here; D/P are one of the few video games we actually have a tough choice not only picking our starter, but even our team with so many good options: the best problem to have, most important aspect to get right in PKMN, greatest compliment a gen. can get. Our favorites & the best new ‘mons of Diamond/Pearl & Platinum [excluding the starter lines; we’ll separately analyze those later] are: electric x-ray constellation lion/tiger/panther/sphinx/lynx of pure aggression Luxray (top 25 all-time for CLC), mohawk punk-rock starling/hawk Staraptor, adorable sympthony conductor baby cricket Kricketot (dweedledweedlelooooop, had to say it for ‘tune), spiky battering ram dracorex dino Rampardos, tribal-nose caste-wall-bastille/bulldozer-head chamosaurus Bastiodon (god, what a design!), queen bee/wasp & hive combo Vespiquen, epic wyvern x jet aircraft x grim reaper scythed x hammerhead shark x gargoyle x dromaeosaurid dino Garchomp, Egypitan Anubis-themed martial art boxer & superhero wolf/jackal with khakkhara Riolu & Lucario, desert hippopotamus Hippowdon, evergreen tree x yeti abominable snow x 樹氷 juhyou snow monster/king Abomasnow, & spooky grave tomb demon & Jibakurei/Deildegast/Japa/Water-Margin Spiritomb with Japanese, Chinese, Buddhist, and Norwegian inspirations down to the mysterious stone monument, purple/green design, bell rings, & 108 number being a purposeful number of repetition throughout the aforementioned myths/legends.

The new creature designs of Gen. IV are so damn good, they could’ve survived on their own as one of the best collections of monsters in a video game – one that’s breathtakingly balanced across styles, tastes, elements, cultures, and demographics [D/P’s roster being far more badas/mature than previous gens]. They’re only reinforced and aggrandized in greatness by a major leitmotif contribution to the meta: new pre/post-evolutions to old & classic pokémon. The lasting impression and heart-on-sleeve of D/P as video games are a celebration of previous generations and its franchise, as can be easily seen throughout the gameplay. Generation 1: Kanto & R/B/G/Y are invoked from the first gym being rock using Onix & Geodude to the male avatar looking like Red/Ash to Galactic stealing trainers’ ‘mons like Rocket to Cyrus looking like Giovanni to Hearthome’s gold city evocation of Saffron to l-word ghost towers in Lost/Lavender to Veilstone being in stone lie Pewter to Pastoria Gym’s Cerulean-esque Design to the storyline’s allegorical parallels to Mewtwo and existential mystery of life in The First Movie to Volkner the yellow-spiked hair power magnate employing a Raichu at his gym in Sunyshore like Lt. Surge. Gen. 3: Hoenn & R/S/E nostalgic touches are seen in the pokéschool, underground becoming the new dive, ecosustanibility themes in their ambitious villain teams, big church-like structures in Hearthome and Rustboro, poffins being like pokéblock, the sister’s boyfriend arc writing love-letter by mail in Pastoria & Fortree City, Regi’s, etc. Finaly, Gen. 2: Johto & G/S/C can be found from the opening frame being a Red Shiny Gyarados at a like just like the Lake Of Rage, Gardenia looking just like a genderbent Bugsy, Maylen’s shy timid girl personality as a gym leader just like Jasmine, Pastoria’s festival tribute to Croagunk like Azalea’s Slowpokes, Volkner’s serioius aciculate personality being like Falkner, Veilstone massage salons like Goldenrod, & Solaceon Ruins reminding of the Ruins Of Alph [with Arceus even looking like Unown letters together to expose frightening similarities and complexities in the mythology; the Johto remakes HG/SS even have the ruins connected via name/lore: The Sinjoh Ruins].

The Battle Island also gives us a post-game foundationally rooted in giving previous generations their shine by the exclusive presence and domination of them on the island. The biggest celebration, however, is a tradition established in G/S/C – opposite by its (synergized) focus on evolving previous gens & 10x amplification here: pre/post-evolutions to old & classic pokémon. 20+ family lines [Togepi, Elekid, Rhyhorn, Gligar, Aipom, Magby, Swinub, Roselia, Chansey, Sudowoodo, Magnemite, Sneasel, Lickitung, Eevee, Tangela, Yanma, Porygon, Ralts, Snover, Duskull, Nosepass, Snorlax, Mr. Mime] get new additions in D/P – many of them completely saving and making cool their entire ones by the fuel-injection of imagination and badassery in their remixes. The best & our favorites ones include the little mischevious parisien mime kid Mime Jr. (bonus: getting Christmasy with its all-time great shiny amongst our favorites ever evoking reminiscence of Dr. Seuss’ The Who’s from The Grinch and plum/jelly dessert pudding), chubby baby nurse with ponytail screamings its eponymous emotion Happiny, indescribably-adorable baby larcenous burglar-bear neighbor totoro Munchlax [one of the best pre-evolutions ever for the simplistic legend ‘mon of Gen. 1], fused magneton by electromagnetism into a UFO-like drone machine Magnezone, ’50’s Americana Obesity Child Licking A Lollipop with bib and Elvis-hairdo Lickilicky, Tarzan-like vine overgrowth Tangrowth, drill-clad rhinercous-dino with hard hat and armor vest like he’s a working miner Rhyperior, electric Yeti/gorilla with tesla coil horns and wire tails Electivire, meganeura monyi prehistoric dragon/griffinfly & military helicopter Yanmega, fairy angel-dove/owl of pure kindness and ecstasy Togekiss, ghostly paranormal cyclops-reaper Yamawaro Chōchin-obake Dusknoir, Ice Age wild boar & ski-goggle clad onomatopoeiac būbū Inuit-culture woolly mammoth Mamoswine, and gargoyle/scorpion/vampire/amikiri with Batman characteristics & cape [+ an all-time great shiny] Gliscor. Whew, sorry for going into overdrive… but there’s just so many damn good pokémon in Gen. IV we need to eulogize for their brilliance: The #2 Best Roster Of New Creature Design In Pokémon & VG History.

Of course, no generation is complete without the first choice you make between the fire/grass/water trio in the lab: its starters. The Sinnoh starters may be the #2 best of all-time… well, at least in the final stages. As far as the preliminary forms, there’s really only one good one: Piplup. An indescribably-cute baby emperor penguin, Piplup is one of our favorite PKMN of all-time itself – before progressively evolving with immaculate consistency across its three forms into a kingly Napoleonesque emperor penguin with Greek mythology’s Ocean-God Poseidon’s trident as a crown, icebreakers on its sharp wings, and metallic touches paralleling its epically-innovative water/steel typology: Empoleon [maybe our #2 favorite starter evolution of all-time, after Charizard]. Chimchar, one the other hand, might be our most hated preliminary starter ever – an ugly, basic red chimpanzee with joshed hair tossles for its only imagination. Bizarrely, however, it boasts perhaps the best mid-form in the history of starter lines (good enough to be a final evo, honestly) in kung fu superhero baboon Monferno before becoming a badass fire warrior-monkey with Goku Dragonball Z, Sun Wukong, & Hanuman (from Hinduism’s epic Ramayana – as Indian POC’s, we deeply appreciate this representation and depth of celebration, even down to the god’s grant of immunity to fire) references/inspirations – as well as a continuation of the Chinese Zodiac. Finally, though we’re mixed on its box-turtle prelimiary starter clearly mixing Bulbasaur and Squirtle inspirations, Turtwig’s final evolution of the epic-sized planetarium-backed, World Turtle mythologically culture-referential, anklyosaur/meiolania/proganochelys/snapping turtle-dino Torterra is an amazing starter: perhaps the best grass starter line ever to-date.

We love how hyperexotic the animal choices are across the starters here, as well as how they’re perfectly-balanced in power with the genius injection of dual-typology giving each elemental/move weaknesses and advantages over the others [Infernape: Fire/Fighting -> Blast Burn -> / <- Earthquake <- Torterra -> Earthquake -> / <- Blizzard <- Empoleon -> Hydro Cannon -> / <- Close Combat <- Infernape, etc.]. Overall, D/P & IV are perhaps the last true masterpiece generation of PKMN’s Golden-Age – a swan-song that celebrates, remixes, and defines its overworld’s mythology and history perfectly & comprehensively… before everything started going downhill. A love-letter to previous generations w. bold new evolutions of the mythology/overworld for new demographics, DP adventures through a beautiful new Hokkaidö-inspired mountain-crux region in Sinnoh w. the best 2D visual aestheticization of PKMN, diverse orchestration, magic new pre/post evos of old ‘mons, the #2 best starters of the series, clean NDS technical proficiency, feature calibrations and – though in ~complacency – advancements (e.g. Contests, Pokétch, Battle Mechanization, Underground, Gender Differences), & avant-garde storyline contrastively juxtaposing themes of church-like religion allegory with existentialism and science-fiction galaxy x time x creation physics by complex ’50’s retro-futuristic cyberpunk antagonists, epic scale/ambition aggrandization, & all-time great legendaries.

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Pokémon – Legends: Arceus (2022)

The First Bonafide Re-Injection Of Life & Major Evolution Of Series In A Decade+, PLA – despite a raw graphics/texture engine and vexingly-gatekept/info-lite box legend – is a BOTW-evocative ~open world adventure D/P prequel of bold, exiting new future directions capitalizing on Gen. IV’s greatest selling points/themes: history, proto-civilization, kaiju biblical awe, and religion vs. science-fiction exposition alongside the best story & characterization since Black/White, epic new features and QOL bloom-evolution, A+ new formes and roster additions/remixes, and mature fandom-symbiosis in a breathtaking old Maruyama BCE Japanese worldbuild for the God Of PKMN. 9.7/10.

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Plot Synopsis: Pokémon Legends: Arceus is an upcoming 2022 action role-playing game developed by Game Freak for the Nintendo Switch and published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company.

*Spoilers Ahead*

Official CLC Review

Finally: D/P remakes! The Gen. IV Fandom had been dreaming of this day of proclamation for 10+ years – ever since the release of HeartGold & SoulSilver: perhaps the Greatest Pokémon Games Of All-Time, beginning a time-honored tradition of god-tier remakes on new consoles with new features and evolutions all improving upon the already-amazing original games from HG/SS (2010) to Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire (2013) to Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee! (2018) on the exact same console the D/P remakes: Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl were scheduled to be released on. Then, the trailer hit… and Sinnoh-diehards were left shaking in pure agony at what was laid before our eyes. The cancerous tourbillion plaguing the franchise and dividing the fandom the past ~5+ years climaxed in BD/SP: lazy, basic, effortless, corporatized deepfake port-overs pretentiously galavanting as true evolutions failing the all-time video game legacy of epic PKMN remakes with a bad chibi style, mixed textures, quality-of-life reversion, challenge-dilution, no new mega-evolutions, no new regionals, no platinum content, no national dex, and no soul. Pokémon is the biggest media franchise in the world at a $100,000,000,000+ evaluation (2020), and thus had no possible justification for releasing such low-quality/craftsmanship cash-grab games – none worse than BD/SP: no difference to the original games it’s 10x preferable and more enjoyable to just fire up back on the DS, so why buy again?

Besides the capitalism exposition and lost-in-sauce greed allegations trainers were beginning to throw like pokéballs at a GameFreak whose avaricious hunger for our every penny never seemed to be satisfied, there was the herculean disappointment of knowing the best fictional idea/world of all-time was being failed, in addition to – quite arguably – the best gen. of Pokémon. A love-letter to previous generations with bold new evolutions of the mythology/overworld for new demographics, Diamond/Pearl adventured through a beautiful new Hokkaidö-inspired mountain-crux region in Sinnoh with the best 2D visual aestheticization of PKMN, diverse orchestration, magic new pre/post evos of old ‘mons, the #2 best starters of the series, clean NDS technical proficiency, feature calibrations/advancements (e.g. Contests, Poketch, Battle Mechanization, Underground, Gender Differences), & avant-garde storyline contrastively juxtaposing themes of church-like religion allegory with science-fiction galaxy x time x creation physics by complex ’50’s retro-futuristic cyberpunk antagonists, epic scale/ambition aggrandization, & all-time great legendaries. CLC et. al millions of alternative Sinnoh fans wept for the lost capitalization of [theme-synergized] scientifically-modernized re-engineering of the mythology with 2020’s technology… but then, the announcement of a new type of Pokémon game began to give us hope again – Legends: Arceus.

The First Bonafide Re-Injection Of Life & Major Evolution Of Series In A Decade+, PLA – despite a raw graphics/texture engine and vexingly-gatekept/info-lite box legend – is a BOTW-evocative ~open world adventure D/P prequel of bold, exiting new future directions capitalizing on Gen. IV’s greatest selling points/themes: history, proto-civilization, kaiju biblical awe, and religion vs. science-fiction exposition alongside the best story & characterization since Black/White, epic new features and QOL bloom-evolution, A+ new formes and roster additions/remixes, and mature fandom-symbiosis in a breathtaking old Maruyama BCE Japanese worldbuild for the God Of PKMN. The Concept-Pitch for Legends: Arceus is absolutely genius – God appears to us in a hypnagogic theophany and we wake up in a mysterious land, thrown back centuries into time for a pokéadventure like nothing we’ve ever experienced before. The idea completely understands and capitalizes on everything that made Gen. IV and Sinnoh so legendary – the primal, existential fascination of mankind with mythology, our ancestors, and history; the where?, what?, when?, why?, who?, and how? of both us and God. Better, it comprehensively lorebuilds the laws, religion, and creation genesis of the pokéworld canonically… even more so than D/P did, establishing a hierarchy of gods able to properly govern a world of such natural complexity and depth of fantasy and physical imagination, monsters are able to wield the very powers of the elements and the landscape around them. PLA [Pokémon Legends: Arceus] elucidates the mystery of how mankind and fantasy creatures so unimaginable came to be as one and in as much synergized harmony of love, friendship, and camaraderie as we came into back in 1996 – showing that it wasn’t always as we know.

PLA teleports us back into a biblical old-testament genesis: one in which mankind doesn’t hunt, catch, or own Pokémon… but the other way around; they want to *kill* us! The complete 180-flip of power dynamicism is epic and boldly-imaginative – antitypifying everything we know of the world’s biggest media franchise in a batsh*t-crazy idea of remarkable ambition and innovation we are extremely proud of GameFreak and the original creators of the worldbuild for finally having some balls to not play it safe [far from it]. The overworld is indeed a dark, edgy, brutal, savage nightmare landscape wherein everything we once loved about PKMN is weaponized against us; the cute, cuddly pre-domesticated creatures we once knew and loved now hurl lightning bolts, breathe flamethrowers, summon earthquakes, hypnotize, icebeam, razor leaf, etc. at us with hostile, dangerous, malice-heavy, deadly objectives [for the vast majority; there are a few meager or curious types who don’t attack or run away, but ~95% of ‘mons view us as targets]. Kids aren’t allowed to play outside at night, you’re outcast from the village or banished from entering at even the slightest suspicion of alternative intentions against the safety/survival of the group, etc. The super-effective concept-pitch is not only hyper-realistic to what creatures like pocket monsters would be like in real-life, but eulogizes nature and humbles mankind by evoking a history we’ve long since forgotten in our cushy suburban homes and cityscape penthouses: the cycle of hardship called survival out in the wilderness. Prehistoric times saw our ancestors and all forms of wildlife (even to today’s age for them) in a carnage-heavy worldbuild where you’re either the hunter or hunted, and everything is dangerous to survival… from disease to natural elements to predation to starvation.

Life was indeed a daily struggle for survival wherein us writing and playing video games like this was neigh but a fantasy as much so as the world of PKMN – and PLA evokes its reminiscence powerfully while also serving to celebrate how far mankind has come over the centuries of yore: villages to cities, farms to facebook, journals to smartphones, etc. Precociously, PLA fast-forwards a bit from the cavemen era to a BCE worldbuild of feudal warlords, clans, hierarchical politics, and early social structure – a perfect goldilockian middle-ground in the story of mankind that’s not too advanced, not too primitive. The greatest achievement of PLA is its celebration of its culture and birthplace of origin: Japan. We’re transported back to a pre-Meiji Restoration Ezo Hokkaido, Japan with love, honor, and pride in every brushstroke of design. Specifically, there are multiple references to the Aīnu: the indigenous tribe of the real-world Hokkaīdo region Sinnoh/Hisui is modeled after in-game to make the design even more impressive. The background and heart-on-sleeve aestheticization is the most authentically-japanese of any game in the series [even over G/S/C’s Johto] – from the wooden architecture with tiled/thatched roofs and fusama-laden partitions & floor-cushions/futons in the villages complete with ryōtei [mochi] restaurants and dojinshi baaar marketplaces and shinden/shoin/sukiya-zukuri temples for daimyo nobility of importance to ninja, samurai, and traditional kimono-themed apparel (the greatest character design in the history of PKMN games, even outdoing the already-masterpiece D/P costumes!) for the characters in the overworld to sumo gong/drum entrances to battles to even japanese characters written with scroll-ink laid underneath the language-of-choice introductions to different wild areas and names being no longer Barry, Red, Cynthia, etc., but unapologetpically-Japanese names across languages: Rei, Akai, Kamado, Zisu, Mai, etc.

That’s only in the [one] village of civilization (besides the Diamond and Pearl clans we’ll get to later); 95% of the landscape of Sinnoh is wild and natural, scarcely resembling the region we once adventured in back in 2006’s D/P, down to even its name not being the same – instead revisionizing Sinnoh 0.0 under a past ancient original name revelation: Hisui. The absence of perfectly-manicured routes lined with trainers itching to battle and only small distances between metropolises like Jubilife, Hearthome, and Canalave makes the worldbuild feel vastly-different than anything else we’ve ever seen in PKMN – and 1,000x the scale. In PLA, exploration and our adventure knows no bounds; we’re able to fly wide open skies, swim vast oceans, climb towering mountains, and gallop across endless fields all stretching for miles and miles in this beautifully-pastoral landscape of rusticism and soul-quenching natural majesty. There are four major areas in Hisui [outside of Jubilife village: basically the home base]: The Verdant Green Obsidian Fieldlands, Beachside Cliff-Fringed Cobalt Coastlands, Deserty Red Crimson Mirelands (harboring the Diamond Clan Settlement), and Snowy Tundra Alabaster Icelands (harboring the Pearl Clan Settlement) – all around the Mountainous Coronet Highlands with Mt. Coronet at its crux peak of centrality both narratively and geographically. The names and directions of the four major areas correspond to the Chinese Four Symbols, for even further eulogization of Asian cultural heritage. There are multiple references to present-day Sinnoh and its modernized landmarks like Jubilife Village | City, Solaceon Ruins, Lake Verity/Acuity/Valor, Mt. Coronet, etc., but it couldn’t feel more different – stripping the region bare to fill it with new topographical niches like Windswept Run, Nature’s Pantry, Tidewater Dam, The Heartwood, etc. fringed by bright white daytime sun to autumnal sunsets to hyper-star galaxy nights for the most predominantly natural and free-to-explore adventure of any PKMN game: one that may not be classifiably ‘open-world’… but basically is for major satisfaction adding an entirely new level of depth to the series capitalizing on the renaissance of gaming BOTW [Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild] inaugurated.

The hills feel 10x more alive with PKMN both old and new (as we’ll certainly get to later!) in their natural habitats with their own agency not just bowing or rolling over and letting us capture them but instead fighting back and making it a challenge to hunt and catch them, and there are infinite new features, QOL update/revisions, and comprehensive remixes of crux mechanization and ideas on how to interact with them in what’s – easily – the boldest and most imaginative/ambition post-R/B/G/Y game of the series to-date. There are hundreds of new items: doppel bonnets, smoke balls, iron chunks, scatter bangs, feather/wing/jet balls, tumblestones, sticky golbs, charms, bugworts, medicinal leeks, candy truffles, gigaton balls, caster ferns, origin balls, pop pods, sand radishes, vivichokes, black augurite, peat block, jubilife muffins, choice dumpling, swap snack, elemental balms, crunchy salt, bean cakes, springy mushrooms, grit pebbles/rocks, swordcaps, pokeshi dolls, and more in a comprehensively-anew distortion world/dimension its own in the mechanization of the game. Bonus points: the best new item in the game is the Linking Cord, letting us evolve ‘mons that previously were obtainaible only through trades ourselves. Game-changing. In PLA, we add necromancy, metallurgy, alchemy, and hand-craftsmanship of our OWN items to our extensive resumé from generations-past: biologists, researchers, trainers, heroes, etc. This imbues even more of a freedom, empowering self-sufficiency, and refreshing anti-capitalism into the game – letting us be the masters of our own journey and not have to interrupt our adventure in the wilds to run to the PKMN center or pokémart while also dialing up the Zelda and Harry Potter-feel plus honoring the open-world games coming before it [predominantly medieval-themed, when activities like these were at their zenith popularity crux]. Catching-wise, PLA praisably goes back to what Let’s Go, Pikachu & Eevee! got perfectly: being able to catch ‘mons without having to battle them or leaving the overworld. Not everything from the old games was the best possible achievement of the idea, and we [though we value nostalgia] are not apologists weaponizing it and toxically-venomizing any new updates to the sytem like much of the fanbase was when the new Go-like catching mechanic was introduced.

The perfect balance is reached too by the fact you can battle any ‘mon in the overworldand catch it the old-fashioned way, or opt for the 10x easier and more natural way by sneaking up behind them like the ninjas we’re dressed as or throwing balls from afar or by the help of strategic items now elevating catching to the level of fun as battling. Oh, and it’s far more realistic: we actually have to become hunters like our ancestors, only it’s the safe and healthy way to do so by the fact we’re not injuring or killing animals, but can get the same primal thrills from it in the near-perfect execution of catching. Interaction is also enlivened by the sheer brilliance of the Frenzy Mode – having to do battle and quell ~all big encounterable ‘mons and legends in the entire overworld before catching them in a pseudo-boss battle of epic proportions in what’s easily the best new feature addition to the PKMN series ever after Mega-Evolutions and makes legendaries.. feel more legendary. Alpha PKMN are a fantastic addition too: like square shinies in shield playing to the older mature fanbase by giving a more badass, powerful, rare, and difficult-to-capture version of every pocket monster in the overworld while again turning up the realism by the hierarchy of alpha males in animals in real life nature in our world. There are minigames like balloon races and target practices for even more tertiary fun, and no TM’s or HM’s – instead letting our creatures learn/remember moves themselves in what’s 1,000x better QOL-wise and more lifelike (how do you forget a move you knew since birth? After all, we don’t use y=mx+b anymore, but still remember it from childhood decades later) and relying on Ride PKMN more easily accessible whenever and wherever we want in the main world while ditching the corny cheeseball safety outfits that made us cringe/laugh back in Alola. The Pokédex experience is far more comprehensive and journal-like grassroots in experience – making us have to do more than just catch them but instead actually study them to learn about these mysterious pocket monsters, while also giving us more satisfaction and importance by having us write the very first one in the history of the overworld to be used as a basic guideline for all future iterations across generations and millennia.

The biggest feature change of all is the battle mechanization: PLA completely remixes a system that was never even broken, and *still* somehow manages to improve upon what is PKMN’s best feature. Challenge is leadened back in truckloads by a Game Freak finally listening to its fanbase and the older, mature fans who grew up with and have loved the series back since it was a niche indie adventure passion-project in black/white monochrome in ’96 no one had ever heard of and its creators had to self-bankrupt to even ever see the light of release date. There are no forced super-effective markings in battle anymore unless you actively search it out in the menu, tons of huge changes to battle moves like stealth rock and spikes now doing damage as attacks in addition to their effects while digging in each turn, hypnosis making drowsy and freezing giving frostbite like a pseudo-paralysis/burn/poison instead of full sleep and freeze incapacitation, no auto-switch capability after you defeat someone’s PKMN in battle [not giving us the chance to switch into a favorable type matchup and thus throwing us off our game by not knowing what our opponent is sending out next and giving weight importance to a switch-battle command], 3v1 multi-battles, less exp. given to counterbalance a forced exp. share that doesn’t seem as much a burden anymore, simplification of EV’s to a single digit universal scale based on addition, exponential volatility-increase in OHKO’s almost harkening back to the Gen. I RBGY days enough to put a smile on any longtime genwunners face and make us pack the max revives in the first game in 10+ years that we couldn’t sleepwalk through without taking any damage and instead had to replay several battles multiple times in, and the greatest addition: Move-mastering. Being able to use Strong or Agile-Style Moves in addition to normal ones completely remixes the entire battle system – shaking up the action order and giving an ENTIRE new level of strategy-depth to battles letting us go 2-for-1 or squeeze out a first-move when we need it, or hit harder when we otherwise want to or need that extra oomph. God, what a game.

Gameplay-wise, Pokémon – Legends: Arceus is like Ghost Of Tsushima x Diamond/Pearl x Breath Of The Wild in cultural authenticism and setting, mythology, and open-world system & aestheticization, respectively. The Star-Rank Progression System instead of gym battles & badges is the most antitypifying change against the crux of the series and everything we know, yet [somehow] works by the skill of its execution – and the missions, side-quests, and requests let you create your own game map and playstyle letting you chart your own adventure and do as much or as little as you want to minimize or maximize your experience in this layered game whose hyperambition and bold mutation of series-expectations/hallmarks [as well as finally making a game solely-targeted at the older mature slice of its fanbase] deserves celebration. The only new feature that’s problematic – besides a minor gripe with how fast day/night and weather cycles shift in the overworld: minutes instead of hours like even past games such as SwSh and the flying mechanic forever tilting down and not allowing for vertical locomotion or catching from the air – isn’t so much a QOL revision as a reversion… 25+ years’ worth of upgrades ago: bag space. This is a big problem that haunts the periphery of almost every natural excursion we go on in Hisui – and one we have to save up every pokedollar we earn throughout our journey to spend on to even have a chance at a somewhat-normal experience not plagued by the notification ‘there is no space for this item in your bag’. Even in the original Diamond/Pearl games, there was unlimited bag space, so it makes no sense to be running out decades later like we’re back in Red/Blue – especially with the infinite new items to be collected and required to craft essential items in the overworld, down to even pokeballs and revives/potions. The über-capitalist in Galaxy Headquarters who 1-ups his charge fee every single time we have to pay him for more bag space is one of the most noxiously-vexatious people in pokéhistory – hilariously-ironic given that he synergizes to Niantic, Game Freak, & The Pokémon Company in modern times making hundreds of billions of dollars out of the pokéfandom yet continually producing mediocre content that often feels like a corporatized cashgrab meant to buy their CEO a new yacht or mega-mansion.

On the subject matter of lazy capitalism and antiquated effort values comes PLA’s biggest flaw by far [&, really, *only* one to be honest… though it’s a major problem]: the graphics/textures. It pains my soul to say this: Pokémon – Legends: Arceus is an ugly game on any visual scale. Now, it’s very important to specify & underine: zero blame is to be heaved on anyone dealing with the character/’mon/overworld design. In fact, the diametric opposition:; almost every single new Pokémon is amazing [as we’ll get to later], the character-design is easily the best and most avant-garde in the series, there are even new move animations and box sprites that must’ve taken a long time to implement for the ~250+ mons in the game, and the worldbuild of pure old BCE Japan architecture juxtaposed with wide-open natural vistas is limitlessly-explorable and sounds absolutely flawless on paper. A raw texture/graphics engine in the game 100% due to corporate politics is what’s completely to blame for this tragedy. There is no excuse for a video game In the Biggest Media Franchise In The World in the complex technology age of the 2020’s to look as bad as Pokémon – Legends: Arceus. Go play [or even just watch 15 seconds of the E3 trailers] of Ghost Of Tsushima, Horizon: Forbidden West, Resident Evil: Village, Cyberpunk 2077, Batman: Arkham Knight, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, etc. and compare the vast difference in visual quality as epic as the scale of the wild areas of Hisui. Even if they didn’t want to go with an ultra-lifelike 3D texture-skin like the aforementioned titles, there are equal masterpieces in the more-2D aestheticizations: Cuphead, Super Mario: Odyssey, and even the own series’ previous title on the same exact system years ago Let’s Go, Pikachu/Eevee! – while even the game PLA most clearly evokes and references in watercoloresque stylism to the point of ostensible and unoriginal ~plagiarism Breath Of The Wild [impossibly] looks better despite being almost half-a-decade older.

Nay, PLA’s raw graphics and textures indeed look like the (proverbial) PS2 games memes have so longly claimed – complete with a muddy grayscale color dilution siphoning life by the lack of vibrance and making the overworld seem too-unvaried in topography [the long CLC-documented laziest way to make your game/movie/TV-show feel mature]. I know the motif of the game is old-world, but it shouldn’t feel like cavemen were the ones coding the visuals In what is otherwise a masterpiece game; a metaphorical soufflé crafted with complexity and intricacy, only to be finished with horseradish sauce or not followed careful systemized directions every chef and kitchen knows on how long it was to be cooked in the oven, yet serving it burnt or undercooked… just because. God, why did they rush the release of what is easily the best PKMN game since the original Diamond/Pearl back in 2006 and, really, first good [new] games (not counting Let’s Go P/E) since Black/White/BW2 – and why not spend the money to fix a game built for the fans and honoring by namesake the very God of the pokéworld? Money is a hell of a drug, and – apparently – enough will never be enough as long as the shareholders and billionaires know there’s no need for the games to be pefect or as craftsman a quality as they were back in Gen. I-IV when they will sell and make them billions of dollars regardless. We’ve long since said [& even taken to heart in our very design and CLC’s mechanization] visuals are the most important part of the media experience – and that rings even truer for a game foundationalized on the precipice of a new world with extreme lore/mythology depth on the most epic fictional scale imaginable whom deserved more than looking like a glorified Microsoft Screensaver we frequently wanted to close our eyes on but were forced to see constantly by peripheral vision when reading the dialogue.

Besides that point also referencing something the fandom has been asking for (and there’s no reason can’t be added when almost every other major franchise has it and the technology makes it easy if the developers are willing to spend just a few bucks): voice acting, the soundtrack of PLA is good; it’s not all-time great or anything, but synergizes well with the aestheticization and reworks classic Diamond/Pearl themes and soundscapes for maximum experience. From the flutter of notes by flute signifying the opening credits theme of the original games flipped into the mechanization of the plot and call for ride pokémon of Hisui to mysterious to xylophones to timpani to tribal drums to chimes to mandolins, koto shamisen, and gaku-biwa, PLA utilizes ancient Japanese instruments for its major recurring themes – juxtaposing them with beautiful, sweeping string quartets and elegant piano ensembles, acoustic soft guitar strums, military horns and marching drums, and soul-quenching peace and diegetic background sound of nature (wind flowing through the trees, water flowing by the river, waves lapping, etc.). Oh, and there’s a hyperenergized livewire new wah pedal fxed electric guitar ballad in the battles – and the game frequently reuses or remixes old scores like Celestic Town’s, Oreburgh’s, Team Galactic’s, Distortion World’s, and Cynthia’s to super-effective acoustic synergization making for one of the best soundtracks in generations [especially in the epic church-like choral chants of the Dialga/Palkia boss-fight and lattermost finale, as we’ll get to later!].

Actually, the best part of PLA might be the story and characterization: the best since Black/White and, quite possibly, the best in the history of the franchise. The core apothegm and crux theme of PLA is one that’s been driving mankind mad with burning curiosity since the dawn of time: the mystery, morality, and might of God [Arceus]. We begin the game in a dreamscape and otherworldly realm beyond the limits of space-time in which God speaks to us directly and takes us, throwing us back thousands of years and dropping us into an unknown land and time. Though the surroundings may not be familiar and the questions of when?, what? where?, how?, and why? linger on the palate, we instantly begin to recognize the faces around us: gender/age-bent versions [likely the ancestors] of the original Diamond/Pearl characters! We can tell how much pure fun the writer team at TPC had remixing these characters, and it’s a perfect way to amalgamate the old and give it a fresh new perspective keeping us guessing about who these people are and what that means for their modern-day Sinnoh counterparts. The tough-but-teddy-bear Cyllene is clearly referential to Cyrus down to the blue-hair and facial expression, showing the villain of D/P came from a lineage of heroes that manages to flip sides just like her corps’ name did. Commander Kamado is Prof. Rowan: a fantastic arc going from not trusting others and science to wanting to become a professor and pass on through generations next after our interaction with him. Irida is definitely modeled after Barry flipping the hyperenergized and overconfidence of the latter into a timid and shy girl who eventually learns to become sure of herself, Arezu is Mars going from good to bad, Clover is Candace going from bad to good, Coin is a genderbent Saturn staying bad-to-bad, Charm is Bertha [the Miss Fortunes are hilarious and a perfect classic ’80’s cheesy villain catburgler trio evoking reminisces of Team Rocket], Palina is Looker, Ginter is Volkner, Lian is Clay, Colza is Gardenia, Tao Hua is Mai, Peselle is Nurse Joy, Sabi is Cheryl going from clairvoyant region all-knower to lost-girl, Mai is Marley, the infinitely-detestable Melli Warden is Lucian, Rye is Riley complete with Lucario, Gaeric is Craasher Wake, Choy is Charon, etc.

Oh, and Rei/Akari is a fantastic rival-turned-friend based on the other avatar and Luke/Dawn, whose nightly potato mochi dinner table conversations are a pleasure along with one of the many new characters in the game. Prof. Laventon is a goofy dadbod ski-hat ball of pure comedic relief, earnestness, and lovability whom completes a trifecta troupe of incredible chemistry that welcomes and guides us through this region, Adaman is a peacockish pretty boy whom has epic repartée masqerading as hate when it feels like love in almost an Ash-Misty dynamic with Irida you can’t help but root for romantically, Iscan the burly yet scaredy-cat Hawaiian guy in charge of Basculeigon is humorous, Warden Calaba, Vessa, & more complete the overworld. There are even doppelgangers of different-gen characters to parallel D/P’s original celebration of previous gens while expanding the story’s ramifications in important [and epically-plot twisting!] ways. Zisu looks an awful lot likea genderbent Lysandre from Gen. V, Irgo is directly lifted from Black/White’s subway – not even looking any different whatsoever and having the same outfit on while telling us he was dropped into the overworld just like we are for extreme mystery of what is God’s plan with these drop-ins and why we aren’t alone, and Beni the kind-hearted old-man who looks like an ancestor of Wally from Hoenn prepares our nightly potato mochi is revelaed to be a pseudo-villain in an epic plot-twist in the finale as we’re weaved a tale of crisis we become heroes in by preventing apocalyptic chaos by closing a space-time rift atop Mt. Coronet whose origins are mysterious and believed to be the handiwork of a God in agnosticism. Nothing can prepare us in characterization, plot-twists, shock-value, genius for the standout character: whom is quite arguably the best character ever in Pokémon history: Volo.

Volo of the Ginkgo Guild is a masterpiece character for the pantheon of video games, and the #2 Greatest Character In PKMN History, only after 2010 Black/White’s N. A mercantile genderbent Cynthia with bonus visual evocation of Link from Legend Of Zelda by his outfit coloration to blonde hair to even build, our chief Hisuian comrade never more than a few mere feet away from us throughout the entire storyline of PLA hails all the hallmarks of a benevolent angel and friend/rival constantly peppering us with cute smiles, empowering compliments, and helpful tips/items that all work by his cover job as a merchant of rare goods with a sweet-tooth for excavation and curiosity with legends that never manifests itself as anything more than innocence bolstered by our preconceptions of heroicism and pokélove by Cynthia’s connections. That’s what makes the post-game plot-twist and true revelation hit the hardest of any video game we’ve played in years characterizationally: Volo [+ a Giratina pulling the strings and manipulating him from the shadows] is actually the villain and mechanization of the entire storyline. This is one of the most jaw-dropping and epic plot-twists we’ve ever beheld. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, we watch in horror as the nightmarishly-expressionless and morality-deprived wicked face of an Arceus-themed hidden paraphernalia/iconography imposter reveals *he’s* the one who opened the space/time rift, used us (betrayal by a best friend with a serial-killer’s ability to hide in plain sight, watching over us in malevolence) to do his dirty work of collecting the plates for him to steal and take ‘by force’, and put the entire region and millions of lifeforms and creatures in jeopardy just to draw out and converse with/conquer God and create a universe anew… all with the power of a hidden accomplice snake demon pulling strings and lurking from the shadows with malice conspiratory objectives to commit genocide if necessary to get revenge on God: The Greatest Pokémon Of All-Time – Giratina. The character motivations and accomplice breathe parallels to Cyrus of Team galactic [already an S-tier villain from the original D/P games], except he’s better by the epic plot-twist antitypifying everything we could possibly know about him and far more character-depth and relatability by his hard life toiling away at a proto-9-5 without externalization of meaning in anything beyond nihilism and unhappy childhood anyone who’s experienced depression can relate to and lust to know why life is so unfair and why the world is broken. Volo also majorly parallels the G.O.A.T. Character in PKMN: N – both are mysterious white dudes with minimalistic designs and long hair in ponytails beneath hats whom watch us from early in the game, are fascinated and existentially-driven with complex ideas and curiosity about the world around us and why everything is, have dark backstories, wield a legendary PKMN whom recognizes and entrusts them with major powers, control the entire narrative from behind-the-scenes, are figures of iconoclasm who hate how civilization and the laws of the universe work, and are wolves hiding in sheep’s clothing (N: literally, down to his New Testament Jesus shepherd iconography and namesake, really a Zoroark in disguise analyzing and trying to take down humanity for its and its animal kingdom friends’ one-perspective black-and-white ideal of segregation, wielding creation-level power to reshape the world as they singularly deem fit). Though we slightly give the edge to N, Volo is damn good enough to challenge the throne and even outdoes him in areas like team – a dark-version N for the ages showing PKMN still has the writers and craftsmen in their rolodex/organization to recreate the magic of lost early gens,.. if they want to.

Is God is good or bad by nature; all-powerful and letting tragedy befall the world with a blind eye or all-good and not powerful enough to stop the many crimes and ugly sins of the world: murder, rape, trafficking, narcotics, betrayal, starvation, overexposure, war, abuse, etc. in philosophical complexity in themes/questions? This is all brought to life by elegant award-worthy screenwriting ‘the temples li in ruins: columns cracked and broken like pillars now turned into spears [how the spear pillar got its name: epic] stabbing into the heavens]. There’s also tangible relatability in the fact he just wants to meet God – if any of us were actually given the ability to meet in-person and conquer God, we would probably do the same thing; after all, God has been inseparable and the entire crux we’ve based our civilization and laws since the beginning of time – and that’s without any bonafide proof even of his existence. Devil iconography [+ references to Greek mythology and N] also 10x amplifies the badassery – from the dominant consonants in his name (V and L) to hairstyle’s horns to betrayal as the ultimate worshipper and studier of God who devoted his entire life in perceived benevolence, but is still given the cold-shoulder by a ruthless deity paralleling Giratina’s arc being exiled/banished from heaven and doomed to the hell-synergized Distortion World alone for all eternity in purgatory by a tyrannical and megalomaniacal Arceus just because he dared to defy God for unknown reasons, perhaps even with justification. The ability to wield such a perfectly-synergized legend easily the most beloved one by the fandom all-time and hold his own being powerful enough to be his trainer is a feat for the ages, as well as one that honors longtime diehards who’ve flooded 4Chan/Reddit/Tumblr with fanart of Cynthia with Giratina since ’06 D/P. CYNTHIA IS THE VILLAIN OF THE D/P PREQUEL/REMAKES – HOLY SH*T.

The duality eposition and 180-flip of Cynthia is even more genius and breathtaking when in consideration of the names of her and Volo: in Latin [the ancient language, synergized with Sinnoh and its Gods of Olde], Volo: I want (= Azelf, Being Of Willpower), Cynthia aka Sentia: I feel (= Mesprit, Being Of Emotion), and the trinity-completion is another character whose presence is of major importance in the canvas – likely a mother figure or even perhaps a time-traveled older tragic widow or betrayed/champion-lost Cynthia who is thrown back into Hisui and wants to plan revenge on the God responsible for her demise as to why she knows so much more about the Sinnoh legends and has an interesting dynamic with a Volo she perhaps manipulates/uses for her own gain: the biggest mystery, potential Easter Egg, and complex, layered, IQ-ambitious story since N/Ghetsis and Gen. V – Cogita: I Know (= Uxie, Being Of Knowledge). Wild. When Volo throws his first pokeball and Cynthia’s music theme begins and we see Spiritomb come out, God: that might just have been the most epic fan moment we’ve ever experienced in a video game – he wields who was already one of the best characters, hardest bosses, and ultimate champion in PKMN history’s face, team, and mythos for a new generation in what’s easily [by addition having to defeat Giratina not once… but 2X in both forms (!!!!) afterwards] toughest battle in the entire franchise in 25+ years [only rivaled by Red on Mt. Silver in G/S/C and HG/SS, and we’re still giving the edge to Volo] and easily the most epic: one that, even with a team of Legends, took us 5x to fully beat on a red emergency-beeping sliver of health on one ‘mon left. Volo is like N x Cyrus x Blue x Cynthia on steroids, and a character for the history books. Epic. There’s even further intrigue and mystery by the fact Mistress Cogita in a secret home in the overworld looks like an Old Cynthia too even down to the facial structure, name constants again C_a and number of syllables in three, and color scheme of black/white – whom utters bizarre dialogue signifying a connection to God somehow and omnipotence seeing some of our exploits while not even being there. Was she Giratina disguising itself as a human? Was she actually Cynthia or his mother? Is she from another time? Is Volo? The fandom will certainly have billions of hypothesized theoretical analyses on these for years to come! Within the overworld, there is an ecosystem of three major groups representing three nations all worshipping different religions, themes, and causes.

The Diamond Clan worshipping their perceived ‘Almighty Sinnoh’ who controls time [Dialga], The Pearl Clan worshipping their perceived ‘Almighty Sinnoh’ who controls space [Palkia], and the Galaxy Team w. a Survey Corps who worships neither but instead believes and advances knowledge through the power of science and is trying to complete the very first pokedex. There is an uneasy alliance and treaty between the clans ready to go to war at any time and harboring extreme hatred of each other due to the vast difference of their belief systems diametrically clashing by the laws of physics – all while we try to keep peace in the region while dealing with a crisis in the frenzy mode of god-powered noble pokémon wreaking havoc in the region. The complex allegory of PLA is one of celebratory principle, value, and unity upon interpretation: the false-yet-wholly-believed ‘Gods’ of the clans and xenophobia/division metaphorize our religions like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. – presenting the radical-yet-rootable notion they all might be smaller parts of a larger shared whole just like Dialga and Palkia [+ Giratina] are smaller segments and demigods to the one true creator and ruler of all: Arceus. Maybe we shouldn’t hate, pillage, or go to war with each other focusing on the differences that arise via time and perpetuate through space and history, but instead come together through the similarities and let science reveal more about God’s true nature [such as evolution perhaps being the mechanism by which God created life instead of Eden stories debunked by mountains of research/evidence] just like our field research in the pokédex did on Arceus to piece together the whole story of God and evolve as a civilization and species. Brilliant.

Despite the genius of the storyline and themes on larger scales, our other major problem with the game is how vexingly-absent/gatekept Arceus is in a game called Pokémon – Legends: Arceus. The fact Arceus isn’t even the final boss fight in the main game [however epic it is, as we’ll get to] was already a major cause for concern… but the decision to continually über-gatekeep him behind a noxiously-moronic decision to fulfill the entire pokedex and ‘Seek Out All Pokémon’ [entirely-hypocritical with the well-documented fandom-outrage of no Nat. Dex in the modern pokégames; even here only choosing 242 mixedly-selected ‘mons it’s pointless to have to sadomasochistically collect all before getting the Arceus meeting the game literally promises on its cover box art, but shortchanges us on].. Even when you do complete the game (better pack away 250+ hours if you even dream of attempting to complete the full dex), Arceus is completely bare and exactly the same one we knew from D/P – there is no Mega Evolution or Origin Form to comprehensively fail the God Of The Pokéworld designwise as much as the comprehensive lack/gatekeeping of *ANY* information regarding Arceus’ job, connection, mechanism of creation/justice, power, control, etc. is in the pokéworld and galaxy. We learn ~nothing more/new about Arceus.. even in his own game. Based on creator deity archetypes across world cultures and time, Arceus encompasses what the vast majority of Earth believes as God – primarily through archetype of white/gold deer. The Egyptian Ptolemic calf idol Apis, horses Pegasus & king Arceusis αρχή arkhē in Ancient Greek, Cernunnos in Celtic Scotland/Ireland contexts, Nîmes in Catholicism, Lamb Of God [+ white/gold colorization from scriptures] in Biblical Christianity, Ramayana golden deer in Hinduism, Huichol deer in Mexico, Yggdrasil stags in Anglo-Saxonism, Keresh in Jewish Torah, Geyiklü Baba in Turkish Ottamanism, Furfur Goetia in Occultism, Deer Woman in Native American folklore, Deus in Latin, Ural golden deer in Slavic fairytales, Qlin in Chinese prefecture, World Egg across civilizations, Avalokiteśvara in Buddishm, Shishi-Odori & Amenominakanushi in Shinto Japanese religion, etc.

The multi-type ability is the ultimate one in PKMN history by its ability to become any type/element and learn any move – fitting for God and accomplished through its circular arc that again references more religions like the Dharmachakra in Buddhism and Bhavacakra in Hinduism. Such an incredible design of remarkable complexity and aspiration deserved the promised ultra-badass final form say a Rayquaza got that catapulted it to #2 Pokémon Of All-Time. The finale Arceus meeting is ~anticlimactic, undercooked, and unbelievably information-lite: it doesn’t even explain why we were chosen for this whole mission, how/if we’re getting back home (are we just.. stranded here for the rest of our lives?), anything about the creation of the pokéworld that a game on its literal god should’ve expositioned in-depth for lore finalization, and who the ‘hero of Hisui’ constantly alluded to throughout the game and region [+ even mentioned by Arceus himself] was. Through in-depth extensive background research, we hypothesize the original hero was likely Alder: the life-enjoying, happy-go-lucky, passionate, God’s creation-eulogizing, goofy-yet-wise Christ figure and Champion Of Unova in the Black/White games on a crusade to share [and reinspire] his love for PKMN after a tragic loss of his best friend ‘mon due to illness – thrown back into time just like we were. Evidence centers on the fact that he is the only shared portrait literally prayed to as a deity in both the Diamond & Pearl clans on the sides of their original founders: Archie and Maxie. He is said to have wielded at team of 10 PKMN: all ride and noble ‘mons of the region – and this was thousands of years before our arrival so even befriending one would’ve been an impossible task for someone without prior experience/knowledge. He’s also shown to have pokéballs on a necklace around his neck in the picture – again, impossible thousands of years ago when it is revealed pokéballs were only created two years before our arrival, so he must be from the future. There are urban legends and ancient myths of a ‘hero of Hisui (the prequel original name for Sinnoh)’ who wielded 10 Pokémon at a time no one else could even handle or fathom one and is seen on a shared portrait besides their two founders, worshipped by both the warring Diamond & Pearl clans dominating the region. Alder’s personality and guiding principle/goals of voyaging throughout the region to teach people [especially those like kids who are afraid as literally mentioned in Black/White dialogue: perfect for the Hisuian landscape] to love and cherish PKMN would make him an understandable contender if God had to pick someone to try to bridge the gap early on [perhaps him only failing then due to the revolutionism too advanced for the primitive age and needing a reminder in us to prove it once again].

The memory-wipe would explain why/how there is no prior memory of his exploits in Unova or Hisui in either region (although small tidbits could explain why he doesn’t know hoe to use the PC system and somehow knows/speaks in old ancient outdated Japanese in Unova and isn’t afraid of PKMN in Hisui when everyone else), Ingo’s presence also signifies Gen. V importance to signal it’s actually him and not an ancestor, and it is said he defeated Arceus himself: what led Arceus alongside our secondary confirmation to bless humankind and perhaps give us power in the overworld over PKMN like we are here in the real world with power over nature as the apex species. Though his design ends up being more like the god of the sun his Volcarona literalizes, Alder was originally intended to be Christ-like in design – and this is about as Christ-like in iconography and story as could be possible in the pokéworld, further supported by his messianic personality/demeanor aforementioned and godlike physical prowess (he jumps down a freaking cliff that would kill 95% of people instantaneously, and walks it off like it didn’t faze him / in the animé, he’s able to lift and throw a nearly 600-lb Gigalith into the air with his bare hands).. I just wish the game wasn’t so vexingly-stubborn about what the whole hero arc means [just as stubborn and agnostic in that as it is letting us finally see the box legend we paid and spent hundreds of hours on the promise of meeting] – and it does admittedly dilute the importance of our exploits for no apparent reason when we’re second-bananas to someone who already did it when we could’ve been the revolution figure showing humans and Pokémon can live and work together as one… like it hinted throughout the story and is not-pretentious/god-complexed seeing as how all past PKMN games have had us stopping full-blown apocalypses, saving billions of lives, and catching legends [+ even God in D/P]. Moving beyond the mindf*ck of unfathomable complexity of Arceus’ plan and unraveling the mystery of the complete story [He does work in mysterious ways, after all!] that will keep the fandom busy for years and might’ve been handled better/cleaner, PLA is alone worth its weight in gold 10x over by its Origin Formes: Dialga and Palkia.

Dialga and Palkia are celebrated throughout the games in what’s clearly meant to be the official Diamond/Pearl remakes [not sure what BDSP even was then] – new thematized exposition around time and space is expertly analyzed thoughout the storyline, and, best, of all, they finally get the justice and ultra-badass mega-evolution/origin final forms to elevate them into the pantheon of all-time Pokémon designs on par with Hoenn’s legends. The Demigod Of Time, Dialga’s morphology already resembled sundials and the hands/lines of a clock – further referencing time by its sauropod dinosaur-like and horse animalism [both being extinct or old-fashioned historical creatures], dark blue coloration evoking the deep seas where life began, ancient-looking armor of metal being that metal lasts for eons, crux stone of a diamond on its chest satirizing the cliché ‘diamonds are forever and/or timeless’, and even faint cracks along Its body with the epic powers to fast-forward, reverse, evolve/devolve, or stop the flow of time altogether. Even its diamond and metal choices metaphorizes time’s rigidity and resistance to change/alteration – and its name references the spanish day día, clock dials, and a corruption of the last syllable of dragon. Origin Forme Dialga takes what was genius about his original design and just polishes and eccentuates its brilliance of aspiration: the lines are smoother, ugly man-made metal armor no god would ever need gone, he’s made 2x bigger in size, and given more of a qilin or Longma design resembling Arceus and making the sundial clock hand ridges on its back stick up like spear pillars. Oh, and there’s a freaking cannon on its chest/throat for roars of time. Epic. Even though Origin Forme Dialga is a new Top 30 Pokémon Of All-Time in CLC’s ranking, Palkia is the more avant-garde, complex, hyperimaginative, and better of the two. The Demigod Of Space & Dimensions, Palkia always felt otherworldly down to its pearl orbs covering a white [color of moonsuits] suit of what ostensibly appears to be alien tech/armor.

Morphologically, Palkia also gained inspirations from theoropod dinosaurs, European dragons, and Greco-Roman soldiers – while metaphorizing the everchanging forms and matter and energy in the universe by its water typology. Color-wise, it’s probably the most avant-garde box legend ever; who could’ve thought a pink girly-colored dragon could be epic and badass?! Origin Forme Palkia takes major inspiration from Greek mythology (Centaurs, Pegasus) and the Four Horseman Of The Apocalypse while amplifying the pink, aggrandizing the size, and giving him epic new move animations like a reality/space-shattering move for Spacial Rend to be a Top 25 Pokémon Of All-Time in CLC’s Vote. Pure brilliance. PLA gives us everyhthing we ever wanted in a D/P remake for its two crux box legends and hypersatifies Gen. IV junkies on the most important two beings imaginable… we just comprehensively don’t understand why they stopped there. Why not give Darkrai a Voodoo or Kruegerian fuel-injection of malice, Cresselia saturn-ling rings in orbit, Manaphy a crown and scepter, the lake guardians tools that match their abilities like books for Uxie and emojis/jester-masks for Mesprit, etc.: mega-evolutions or origin formes themselves. They also don’t get bonafide subarcs explaining anything more about their origins, ability, genesis, meaning, etc.: another major disappointment that could be left for a DLC [we would even be willing to *pay* for]… but we doubt it, given TPC’s lazy streak probably being just forgotten or purposely avoided – even more gratingly-annoying after the display of brilliance on Dialga & Palkia’s new formes showing they have the capacity to continue and revive Pokémon’s best-ever feature addition… but are blatantly teasing us and refusing to… for inexplicable reasons. Sigh.

Even worse: the new Pokémon and regional forms in PLA are bloody fantastic – all brilliantly working within a contextualized aestheticization of Old Japan with continuous reference to the indigenous Aīnu tribes of real-world Hokkaīdo Sinnoh/Hisui is modeled after and boasting enough genius in design to even same multiple of the worst, forgotten, and lamest PKMN of all-time. Kleavor is an epic restylization of Scyther with a chonmage/ji-heavy dead mantis axeman, Basculegion is a new-Gyarados taking the laughable Basculin and making it a badass aggressive itou/coho-salmon/snakehead/goliath-tiger/itaomacip themed king of the waters, Wyrdeer similarly saves a ~mixed Stantler line with a Zelda-esque wise elder Yezo sika reindeer we gallop across the region on-hooves, Overqwill – again – fuel-injects pur malice and hyperaggressive/strong badassery into a forgotten lame mon by making Qwilfish a toxic spike kenzan-naval mine porcupine/pufferfish chef d’oeuvre, and Ursaluna: a new addition to CLC’s Top 50 Pokémon Of All-Time evolving the already-legendary Teddiursa line into a final thicc Kim-un-kamuy Ussuri brown bear native to Hokkaīdo bursting with personality and beauty-and-beast diametric-introspective-clashes by his gentle-giant shyness in eyes juxtaposing a massive, scary, badass bear body. Incredible. There are two mixed new ‘mons: a grinchy Salazzle-PTSD NSFW Sneasler looking like an overgrown-fingernail Sneasel and ghastly-ugly, forced-heart new Force Of Nature Enamorus taking good Ugajin/Saraswati/Yaxchilan-themed historical inspirations and squandering them by overexeuction and bad character-design. However, they’re vastly overshadowed by the great – and there’s just as many in the new Hisuian forms of previous ‘mons too.

Hisuian Lilligant is a graceful ballet/gymnastics dancer with a kick of indigenous etnobotanical Allium victoralis, Zorua/Zoroark from frostbite sores and kitsune-masked vengeful spirits/revenants in were-arctic-wolf form, Voltorb & Electrode with new reinvigorated personality while echoing the more rustic hand-crafted wood pokeballs of the region, Growlithe with long hair and morphology based on Komainu statues [though we don’t like Arcanine just being a dark-color resking mostly-similar to its original form anyway on one of the already-great GI mons deserving more], Goodra feeling far more epic and intimidating yet retaing scaly foot gastropod characteristics and its goopy poison dragon feel, and Braviary as a genius revamp of the already-great americana patriot eagle of Unova into a Stellar’s sea-eagle x Papuan harpy-eagle migratory pilot with glowing psychic goggles amongst the best flying-type birds ever made. Then, there’s the starters… and 2/3 of them are S-tier. Decidueye is 10x better and wildly-different in Hisuian form than the already-great aumakua archer-owl Robin Hood of Alola by feather-crowned kasa Ronin Cikap-kamuy hunter-owl of Hokkaīdo [our only possible gripe being we wish it kept the normal coloration of green for the regular version instead of the shiny it seems off with by fall coloration]. Samurott is the worst by far and only bad new design – if you even have the audacity to call a simple recoloration… ‘new’ for what was a decent armored samurai/ronin otter deserving far more exposition and innovation in a region now matching its primal API origins. However, it’s all made up for by the best of the new starter evos: Typhlosion. Anyone who knows us and reads CLC going back to our G/S/C Johto days knows how much we love Typhlosion; it’s – easily – a Top 3 Starter Final-Form Of All-Time and a stoat volcanic Greek mythological Typhon Dracula-badger of pure flame-blazed intimidation and badassery.

The Hisuian form gives Typhlosion a complete remix of everything: new mellow/lax pot-smoking personality with a twinge of malice, epic new typology mixing the two most badass types of PKMN: ghost x fire, and depth of design/inspirations being chiefly based on psychopomp figures guiding newly-deceased souls to the afterlife with magatama ghost-pink flames on its pearl femme necklace with a number of flames consistent with Spiritomb’s 108 in Japamala/Buddhism and Aínuian Kamuy-huci: the goddess of fire and the hearth. ~25 Years Later, I never would’ve thought a comparatively-lazy new-age GameFreak and Pokémon Company could’ve possibly made a new version of a classic fandom-cherished ‘mon from my first-ever pokéexperience and video game introduction to my favorite franchise of all-time, but it’s here and deserves to be celebrated. Even with all this genius and a clear ~90%+ W rate on the new designs/forms, we can’t help but feel cheated by the fact we keep getting regional forms instead of Mega Evolutions. Mega Evolutions are the infinitely better choice: not making us choose between versions and giving each and every ‘mon in the entire game a chance to go higher in itself instead of a remix, and it was the best feature in PKMN they’ve inexplicably forgotten despite the fandom screaming it at them in the replies under every social media post. If there were even just Mega-Legends [besides Origin Dialga/Palkia which basically are Mega’s and show how genius the concept is and they still have the ability to create greatness in the feature] alongside the regional starters, it would’ve been perfect – and we just beg: PLEASE CAN WE GET NEW MEGAS. PLA is – overall – a fantastic game we’ve very, very, very glad exists; it’s the best [new, discounting LGPE] Pokémon Game Since B/W… and first truly good one in ~10+ Years. The only real obstacles of the franchise-runners are themselves: holding the series back from previous Gen. I-V greatness by the (in addition to the inexplicable information/presence-gatekeeping around Arceus plaguing the god of the overworld’s handling back since ’06) drug of money and lazy complacency that’s not as obvious here in what’s the first bonafide love-letter to pokéorigins and the mature older demographic base of the fandom in eons, but is still a problem by how unfinished/rushed the game looks in raw textures and graphics, gatekept its box-legend is, and missing its mega-forms of Sinnoh ‘mons is I guess we’ll never see changed from the DS flute harmonics of ’06 Diamond/Pearl. Regardless, we hope – and would bet is in the pipline by the constant references to Gen. V – this isn’t the last Legends game, as the good vastly outweights the bad and we would burst at the seams to see a Celebi, Kyurem, Mew, Zygarde, etc. adventure in the future.

…