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Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Ramanas Park: Sinnoh's New Legendary Pokémon Gathering Place

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Why does this keep happening?

Today was a really bizarre news day for Pokémon Shining Pearl and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond. First, we learned about the existence of Ramanas Park:



Next, we learned that those games are getting a massive 3 GB update tomorrow—Version 1.1.0. ...Keep in mind that the games release on the 19th. (However, some people do have it already. Like certain videogame journalists... along with a few people who aren't supposed to have the game yet.) Both of these news items got their own separate Nintendo press release!

Let's talk about that update first. For one, it enables things for after the Hall of Fame, such as Ramanas Park. It will also add communication features for places like the Union Room and the Underground, as well as Mystery Gift, which makes sense if you... really want to restrict pre-release copies. But it also adds the opening animation movie to the game. Why isn't that shipping on the physical game card in Version 1.0? Like, if I'm playing the game for the first time on a plane ride or something and haven't updated it to 1.1.0, I'm just going to get a title screen and no opening animation? Because the original games—and not just Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl but the very first games in the franchise—had an opening cinematic, too. Even if it involved a Nidorino or Jigglypuff trying to use what's surely a Normal-typed attack against a Gengar but they did this cliffhanger kind of cutaway on the surely anti-climactic result. Even notoriously rushed Super Smash Bros. Melee had one. And it's beautiful to this day. And 3 GB? That's bigger than some entire other games. What the heck happened in the development of this?


As for Ramanas Park itself, it clearly physically replaces the Pal Park location in the original Sinnoh titles. Unlike Pal Park, which has you transferring any of your Pokémon from your Nintendo DS's Game Boy Advance cartridge slot over to your DS game which sits in the DS card slot, it seems like Ramanas Park is dedicated just to Legendary Pokémon. Legendary Pokémon that you can make appear by finding slates within the Sinnoh region that suspiciously look like Game Boy/Game Boy Advance cartridges. You can find Mewtwo and Rayquaza in both versions with their slates, and in Brilliant Diamond you can get a slate to find and capture Ho-Oh, Raikou, Suicune, and Entei... or in Shining Pearl that same slate will provide access to Lugia, Zapdos, Articuno, and Moltres.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond Shining Pearl Ramanas Park Sinnoh Mewtwo slate Dawn
So if Dawn is inserting Mewtwo's slate here, and I'm some NPC walking along in the park,
and Mewtwo comes to Ramanas Park because it senses the slate's presence,
can I just find Mewtwo first? Or is the park closed to everyone just because Dawn's in the vicinity?


I think my thoughts on this topic are pretty clear in my article, “Stop spamming Legendary Pokémon as Third Game/DLC Incentives”. In this case, these Sinnoh remakes (and I guess they're inching closer to being remakes than remasters with all of these changes) are spamming those Legendary Pokémon in a park much like Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon did in the wilds of space, and like Sword and Shield did by putting them all in... a cave.

I did make two notes in that article: One, Arceus might be the kind of Creator to think it's amusing to stuff powerful Legendary Pokémon in increasingly mundane locations without regard to lore. (But there might be lore involved because, hey, it's Arceus's own region and perhaps the slates come from Him.) And two, these Legendary Pokémon keep showing up en masse because it's hard to get them in their native locations otherwise because not every Pokémon generation gets remade every... well, hardware generation. But they want them available somehow, anyway. At least there's a limiting factor here in that Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will only have Pokémon from Kanto through Sinnoh and not any generation after! I wonder how Regirock, Regice, and Registeel will factor into this.

Related: They also announced that if you have save data from Pokémon Sword or Pokémon Shield and you go to talk to a gentleman in Floaroma Town, he'll just hand you the Mythical Pokémon Jirachi. If you talk to the madame next to him but with save data from Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! or Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee!, she'll hand you the Mythical Pokémon Mew. No background checks or anything. You just get them and are asked to take good care of them. I don't think those people will check up on you or the Pokémon they gave you. Very irresponsible. How do they have Mew and Jirachi? Why do they care so little for them they're giving them away? Will anyone provide a Celebi?

In totally unrelated news, someone figured out that they should also have bonuses for those games that apply to Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Sword/Shield will give you a mission involving Shaymin. How involved this is is unspecified. And for the Let's Go games, you'll get a tacky mask to wear of that game's respective mascot.

I don't have save data on my Switch of any of the games mentioned in this article, and I don't plan to.



Ludwig wants to know if the slates will be a whole post-game story-filled extra side quest that expands on the original game. That could be cool, as long as it doesn't trample on established canon.


Ludwig's enthusiasm for the game won't let him get it any faster. In fact, the opposite occurred. So there'll be lots of time used downloading that update!
That beginning update is needed for the music to sound good.
You can get a Darkrai in Pokémon Legends: Arceus with Sinnoh remake save data.
You can now get Shaymin, Darkrai, and Arceus in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl... though with restrictions.

8 comments :

  1. NGL I freaked the heck out when I found out about the update from a tweet. I was like, "shit, it's out already?!" This threw me so much! XD

    ReplyDelete
  2. "At least there's a limiting factor here in that Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will only have Pokémon from Kanto through Sinnoh and not any generation after!"

    I will finally be reunited with the giraffe again.

    Also so far I still did not actually buy a Pokémon game for the Switch. My sister's husband has been getting me them. I got Sword, Let's Go Pikachu (as a first Pokémon game for my older daughter) and soon whatever will be the opposite version of what he is having for the gen 4 remakes and Legends Arceus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So you still don't know whether your sister's husband will be brilliant or shiny?

      Delete
  3. While this is cool, I am certainly not a fan of releasing games and updating them, WITH STUFF THAT SHOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN THERE, as time goes on. Kirby Star allies is a good example of this. While I think adding more dream friends and their guest star modes was great and really got Gordos like me excited, the game on day one was significantly lacking content. It suffered greatly in reviews because of it.

    While I’m happy for it’s success, It’s also unfortunate that Animal crossing New Horizons sold tremendously as it is another example of updating with things that should already be there. Brewster is a staple, why is he only being added now? I can understand new furniture and holidays, but not decades old NPC’s!

    Still, I have to admit it ended up being better in that situation. Nintendo sold ACNH like hotcakes, and they’re still selling!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If your issue was that Kirby Star Allies was lacking in content on day one, should you be not a fan of Pokémon getting content on day negative eight?

      Delete
    2. Your comment Kinda sounds like a double negative but it technically isn’t.

      I understand your point, but I think this should’ve been included in the beginning. I don’t like the idea of booting up the game only to be greeted by a update screen. This game hasn’t even been released yet and there’s already things missing?

      Delete
    3. Well, bad news for you: There's now a version 1.1.1 out as of YESTERDAY.
      What does it do? Not sure: https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/57058#v111
      So that's two updates. :)

      Delete

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