After persistent fan speculation and desire, The Pokémon Company finally announced remakes of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl for Nintendo Switch. However, they weren't the remakes that anyone expected. The newly announced Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl aren't following the paths laid by previous Pokémon remakes. Instead, they're charting a new course, one that's heavily rooted in Nintendo DS-era nostalgia. For both better and worse, Game Freak has outsourced these titles to ILCA and tasked this new team with faithfully retreading the original game's footprints. A safe revisit of Sinnoh has its own merit, but Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl certainly feel like a missed opportunity.
The strength of the Pokémon remakes has always been their ability to revisit familiar titles in a new context. For fans who have spent years cherishing and replaying older generations, the fun of a remake is getting a fresh experience. There are many ways to accomplish this. Pokémon Let's Go refreshed the series' mechanics to give Kanto a new feel. Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire introduced ideas like Soar and the Delta Episode to Hoenn. Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver added a host of features that brought Johto to life. Even Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen at least modernized generation one to generation three standards, for as limited as it was.
The baseline assumption was that, like FireRed, Sinnoh remakes would bring the games to current generation standards. For as much baggage as Pokémon Sword and Shield carry due to their controversy, seeing Diamond and Pearl in that engine would've been excellent. It would've added so much depth to Sinnoh and allowed players to explore it in a new light. That's the fun of Pokémon remakes. For as iterative as the series is, many new mechanics and ideas are added with each generation. So much time and so many games have passed since generation four. Getting to revisit such an important pair of titles with the modern Pokémon format and mechanics would've been very special.
Instead, Game Freak opted for the safest option: an incredibly faithful recreation. This makes sense in the context of ILCA developing the game. Since the title is being outsourced, it isn't a big surprise that this new team is tasked with, in essence, a paint by numbers revitalization. The fact that Game Freak is outsourcing a Pokémon title at all is interesting, and it should help with workflow at the company. More studios hopefully means less crunch. This is the Call of Duty model. That series is annualized not because the same team makes a game every year but because three teams rotate. Ideally, this gives each studio more time to work.
For the health of Game Freak and Pokémon overall, this move is very promising. It allows time for the other Game Freak teams to work on exciting projects. To that point, it's unlikely that Pokémon Legends: Arceus would even exist if generation four remakes hadn't been outsourced. Considering that Legends, for as rough as it looks, remains one of the most exciting Pokémon announcements ever, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl may already be paying off. But that's all external to the games themselves. In a vacuum, they're far less exciting.
Without modern Pokémon ideas or any true advancement, these remakes feel unimportant. They feel like a quick way to cash in on the nostalgia for Diamond and Pearl. Leveraging nostalgia has always been part of Pokémon remakes, but that's been a part of the appeal instead of the whole appeal. In some respects, these remakes feel like Skyward Sword HD – they feel like the bare minimum.
That said, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were flawed games initially. The pace of gameplay was incredibly slow. Certain battles felt more unfair than legitimately challenging. The distribution of Pokémon types and move pools was unbalanced. ILCA could use this opportunity to fix a lot of small issues that snowballed into larger frustrations. By reexamining Sinnoh's design and retooling its weaker aspects, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl could be solid upgrades.
Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will almost definitely be the most refined versions of Sinnoh. But again, they'll be the definitive editions in the same way Skyward Sword HD will be. Both are relatively safe retreads that will hopefully address underlying issues. A general lack of ambition will be compensated for by a wealth of polish. Still, ILCA can polish all it wants to, but it'll be hard not to think about what could've been.