BDSP came out a while ago! What do you think of it?
Heya! Still trying to do the legendary mon hunt postgame, but I have mixed thoughts about it being such a strict remake yet removing some things, but honestly, BDSP's been a fun revisit to Sinnoh as a game, personally!
Naturally, I treated this run as a revisit of Oliver's run but just in another timeline. :D
I'll put out my cons first:
- I was disappointed in the watering down of contests 'cause they were one of my favorite side activities. The rhythm game would have been nice if they didn't remove the dress up and move appeals completely :(
- I also didn't like that the Underground lost the traditional secret bases and traps, as I was so excited to play with my sister and friends. That said, honestly, the main reason I wanted BDSP was to be able to play Sinnoh with others (I missed out on the DS wifi), so the lack of features to connect and play with others even as simple as poffin-making made me disappointed.
- I am so polarized with the topic of difficulty and balance in this game. This mainly impacted my personal way to go about my journey with my team in Pokemon games, so two things:
1) I did not appreciate affection mechanics being merged with friendship, keeping it separate like in SWSH camp at the least would make me feel less bad that I have high friendship with them but not triggering the OP affection mechanics lol. I didn't like using herbs to lower friendship just to lessen affection so I just lived with it.
I don't like battling online so I'd have preferred to experience the competitively-adjusted trainers in the main game with fair battles.
2) The EXP Share topic is a hot one, but it was weirdly balanced yet not in this game? Gen 4 games were not built around it at all, and it was so apparent with the Gym levels after Gardenia that I had to make a backup team to soak up the extra levels. I'm personally in the "make it optional" camp because I liked keeping my team up to speed and turning it off once I feel they're strong enough, but it saved some time pre-Cynthia for me not to be TOO underleveled lol.
And for the pros!
- Playing through it reminded me that there's something I really liked about the older game designs that incentivized backtracking and getting lost out of the way, and I wish future gens moving forward will get that charm of adventuring back. (SWSH dlc felt like that in a good way!)
- The new stuff they can get away with were nice!! I loved having such a tough time with the E4 and Gym rematches.
- I LOVE how they were serious making the trainers competitive and tough. I went in a deliberately underleveled run with the E4 and I like... spent the whole afternoon genuinely struggling with the levels AND their strategies. And Cynthia's Milotic???? MY NIGHTMARE
- I've rambled about it a bit in my twitter once in a while, but the DPPt soundtrack is my favorite from all of the others, and I am so happy to hear how it was approached!
My personal favorites---those I prefer much more now than the ogs, were Trainer battle (I already was obsessed with it before), Eterna, Route 209, Canalave, and the Ending theme.
- And did I mention how much I love the DPPt credits theme?? And BDSP ambushed me in the best way possible once I finished it, wow, I did not expect them to actually base the whole thing mainly from Platinum and add DP elements?!?! It's probably one of my favorite credits sequences as a whole now because of everything they did there, I was so emotional by the end!!!
- My personal favorite part? My sister and I were especially adoring all the new outfits for the O-sibs---they may be few, but I can feel that someone in the new dev team really likes fashion design, and I thought they did such a good job matching the outfits to them as existing characters!!
I wanna doodle all of them sometime, but for now I'll end this post with some of the ones I did while playing:
(I will compile these in a separate post once I complete the outfits!)
All in all, I enjoyed my time while it lasted despite my gripes! I do hope they update the game more 'cause I love Sinnoh, but atm I'm slowly focusing more on Legends. I'm really excited for it and hoping we learn more of it soon!!!
Felt this was too fun not to share here!! Here's a rundown of our Sinnoh timeline for our headcanon verse after finishing most of Legends Arceus, 6 years in the making!
(not to be taken as canon explanation. also yes it is all arceus’ fault)
BDSP and Legends have trainer customization. Alterenate protags in your multiverse like the Alola games?
Good question! We'll be treating BDSP as a fun and casual retread of our original Platinum run in 2016, so this will still have Oliver and Ophelia but just in the DP universe.
We reconsidered taking it as an AU when Legends was newly announced, but after more confirmed ancestor talk, the Legends protags will be new characters as the O-sibs' ancestors, so we'll probs make more use with customization here :]
I'm finally opening sketch commissions through my Ko-Fi account!
Aside from chibi comms, I'm opening up more sketch choices such as headshot, waist-up, and fullbodies. Check my account and my portfolio for more samples! :D
