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Tuesday, March 15, 2022

(Shaymin and) Darkrai and Arceus Events in Pokémon Shining Pearl and Brilliant Diamond... with criteria

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Platinum events! With upsetting requirements.

One of the initial (and current) complaints I saw a lot about Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl that I see a lot is that it doesn't include a lot of additions that Pokémon Platinum made to Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl—because people apparently expect content from a game that it's not a remaster of. Despite that, ILCA is making strides to include some of that content. We saw some of this in last month's Pokémon Presents with the Shaymin event. That event is still on-going, but it's time-limited. You have less than two weeks to open up Mystery Gift and receive Oak's Letter. You don't need to USE Oak's Letter by March 27, but you do need to receive it into your inventory. ...Just like Pokémon Platinum.

Pokémon Shining Pearl Shaymin Gratitude Rock Oak's Letter event thanks
Notice that I'm thanking... my own website.
(Not the readers or visitors to my website but my website itself. ...Is that truly being grateful?)


Today, The Pokémon Company announced two more events: The Member Card will be distributed via Mystery Gift between April 1 and April 30. Like Oak's Letter, you will be able to receive the Member Card as soon as you can Mystery Gift, but you will need to see the game credits and get the National Dex before being able to use it.

More immediately, there was a game update today (version 1.3.0) making another event available right now.


If your Nintendo Switch user account has save data from Pokémon Legends: Arceus that has all of the main missions completed (as someone who doesn't own the game yet, that probably means you beat the game?), and your copy of Brilliant Diamond or Shining Pearl has also seen the game credits and obtained the National Dex, you will be able to get the Azure Flute item... from your house, apparently. No Mystery Gift and no time requirement. Then make the long trek to Spear Pillar, play the flute, and... battle and catch the Creator with a very low catch rate. Have fun with that?

This is at least more work than just being given Jirachi and Mew by random old people early in the game if you have save data from Sword/Shield and a Let's Go game, respectively. These are the same events as what happened in Pokémon Platinum, although Arceus's event was never actually distributed. (Apparently, the Azure Flute was also in the original Diamond and Pearl, but since it was never distributed... what difference does it make?)

There is another Platinum-exclusive event that got into the remasters: the Secret Key required to open up Rotom's Room. While the distribution for that was also around a month back in 2009, it's now automatic and not time-limited upon catching Rotom in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. That's good. So why do Oak's Letter and the Member's Card have to be time-limited if Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are willing to be un-faithful with at least one of its event items?

The time-limited thing is probably worse than having to have save data for another game, which remains my biggest problem with Super Smash Bros. Melee: I never 100%ed the game because that requires having save data for Pikmin on your GameCube Memory Card in order to unlock the Captain Olimar trophy. There were no other alternatives. That frustrated me two decades ago and it frustrates me to this day, and I strongly dislike that this remains a practice that companies do. At least for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, when they've done similar gimmicks (like having Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin save data to get the Razewing Ratha Spirit), that was to get the Spirit EARLY. As opposed to never being able to get it. But if people are fine with content being locked behind purchases, then the save data part is basically more expensive DLC that happens to be its own videogame. Maybe it can introduce you to games you wouldn't have tried otherwise, or probably would play anyway.

Time-limited events don't have any silver lining whatsoever. There will probably be millions of copies sold of Shining Pearl and Brilliant Diamond after April 30. Why should those later-buyers, who probably have decent reasons for buying later (maybe they live paycheck-to-paycheck right now but they'll turn their life around in a year, or maybe they happen to be a war refugee at the moment and lack Internet access for the month. Thanks, Putin!), be punished by never getting access to Shaymin or Darkrai?

Speaking of Monster Hunter Stories 2, I think I'm pretty much very close to done with playing Shining Pearl. There's still stuff to do, like Ramanas Park, actually catching Rotom and getting that Secret Key, going through the Battle Tower, putting more work into completing my Pokédex, and checking out the GWS that just opened in today's 1.3.0 update. But I should be going through my backlog, including Monster Hunter Stories 2, at least starting next month. Being done with Ring Fit Adventure by then will help my time, too.



Quick reminder that when Ludwig spends time writing out KoopaTV articles, that's time in his evening he's NOT able to play videogames. So he actually gets to play games a lot less than he probably should as someone who is supposed to write about games! Which kind of content or achievement-locking do you dislike the most? Time-limited stuff? Save data-locked stuff? How about ones requiring you to have friends and play (local) multiplayer? Let KoopaTV know in the comments below.

6 comments :

  1. That’s why I’m glad I’m not a big PlayStation/ Xbox fan, the achievements on those systems are always so bogus. I’ve no patience for stuff like that. I wonder if you downloaded melee and pikmin onto your Wii U, would that count as having pikmin save data or would the game not be able to recognize it? I wouldn’t mind timed events if directly after they just became a lot rarer but still accessible. So for example, you can get a key item from professor oak himself for 3 months, but when that time is up, there is a 20% chance every turn you login/heal Pokemon for the professor to get that key item again to start the event. Hope that makes some sense.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "I wonder if you downloaded melee and pikmin onto your Wii U"
      Uh... But Melee isn't available there!

      I'd be much more fine if there was a way to activate events after the time ends even if it's not as easy as "activate Mystery Gift and it's beamed from the sky to your hands."
      I didn't even go into RNG-based achievements/content, because that's better than all of these.

      Delete
  2. Today I saw a bunch of people arguing the opposite, that time-limited events are better than save bonuses because the time-limited event doesn't require you to make an additional purchase, but I see it the way you do. If it's locked behind a save, there's always a chance. If it's a time-limited event, once you miss it, it's gone forever.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly. Exactly.

      Like, I could STILL potentially get Pikmin GameCube save data even in 2022 (though it costs, like, over 50 USD on eBay even just the disc), but if I only had a couple of months to get Pikmin save data, nah, that'd never happen.

      Time-limited stuff also goes against Nintendo's business strategy of evergreen titles.

      Delete
  3. Yeeeeeeeah I've...never cared about these things ever. I'm a gaming hedonist--I play what I want to play, when I want to play it, not based on any kind of induced incentives.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But what if you're a Darkrai fan? (Making you a FULLMOON ISLAND ENEMY.)

      Delete

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