As fans of the biggest pop culture media franchise know, Pokémon has now released its eighth generation of games, with Sword & Shield bringing to the table various new species of Pokémon and a few unique features.
Going back four generations to the Sinnoh region, around the time the franchise was arguably at its peak, Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum garnered plenty of love from fans. The games took great advantage of the then-new hardware offered by the Nintendo DS. However, there were still features those games could have benefited from. Here are the five best features of the Sinnoh games and five they could have used.
10 Best: 107 New Pokémon
Definitely an easy one to pick out, but nonetheless important. This is especially great in retrospect as, since Generation VI with X & Y, Game Freak has not been adding in as many new Pokémon species as before. Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum introduced 107 brand new, mostly well-designed species.
Obviously, not every design is going to satisfy everyone, but the important thing is that there are enough to make the world feel vibrant, alive, and unique. Fan-favorites like Garchomp have stayed in the minds of fans.
9 Needed: Eliminating HMs
As fans who have stuck with the franchise all these years know, HMs are a thing of the past, and for good reason. However, the first through the sixth generation still had this problematic feature.
HMs were mostly just nuisances for fans as they forced players to either sacrifice a move slot on their Pokémon, sacrifice a team member to have a designated "HM slave," or have to constantly go back to the PC to pick up an HM slave. Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum still had this annoyance and could have done well without it, as every game with HMs could have.
8 Best: The Underground
This was a fun feature introduced in the Sinnoh games exclusively that spiced up the gameplay loop a bit. The Underground added a way to find special items like spheres which could then be used as currency to exchange for other items.
Other rare items players could find were various fossil Pokémon from the Sinnoh region and earlier. In addition, this served as a multiplayer mechanic as users could play with friends and visit each other's Secret Bases and even play a "capture the flag" game.
7 Needed: Difficulty Settings
Without a doubt, one of the most frequent requests in the mainline Pokémon games is to add an optional difficulty setting. While these games are designed to appeal to kids, a decent portion of the fan base consists of young adults who grew up with the franchise. As such, they desperately want a difficulty setting feature. Amazingly, Game Freak actually listened once to this and added three difficulty settings in Black 2 & White 2.
Unsurprisingly, but no less disappointingly, Game Freak removed the feature the very next generation and difficulty settings haven't reappeared since. Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum could have benefited from having this feature.
6 Best: The Global Trade Station
At the time, a revolutionary new feature for Pokémon was the introduction of the Global Trade Station. This, as the name implies, allowed players to trade their Pokémon with players from all over the world. This brought new possibilities in terms of obtaining new species and completing the Pokédex.
However, this feature wasn't without its flaws. For instance, there was a big problem with users demanding legendary Pokémon in exchange for level one Pidgeys and the like. Or some would ask for a literally impossible trade (officially), like asking for a Charizard at level nine or under.
5 Needed: More Fire-Type Pokémon In-Game
Surely this seems like an oddly specific feature to say the Sinnoh games lacked, however, many who played these titles will likely say the same. The Sinnoh games were all greatly received, critically and commercially, but finding Fire-type Pokémon was a bit of a nuisance.
In the entire Sinnoh region, there were only five (technically six) new Fire-types: The Chimchar line, Magmortar, and Heatran. The latter two cannot even be obtained until the post-game. Technically, Arceus with a Plate held would also qualify, but he cannot legitimately be obtained anymore in these games. Consequently, a player's only options in the main story were the Chimchar and Ponyta lines. Platinum hardly helped and while some Fire-types could be obtained via GBA compatibility, that was still in the post-game.
4 Best: The Battle Frontier
While the Battle Frontier is made available in Sinnoh as of Pokémon Platinum, this feature wasn't first introduced in Sinnoh. This facility (or combination of facilities) first appeared in Emerald. However, this does not change the fact that this was a great feature in Platinum.
The Battle Frontier added a strong bulk of post-game content to dump hours in and even added a noticeable layer of challenge, which many fans crave. Game Freak has suggested it has no intention of returning this fan-favorite feature seemingly in favor of further simplifying games that are already quite simple.
3 Needed: Regional Variant Forms
One of the best new innovative features Game Freak has introduced into the mainline series of games came in the seventh generation with Pokémon Sun & Moon. Similar to the sixth generation's Mega Evolutions, regional variants (Alolan and Galarian Forms) gave Pokémon fun design overhauls, along with stat, moveset, and type changes.
This was more "natural" and "realistic" than Mega Evolutions since this concept's inspiration was based on real-world animals adapting to their environments. The inclusion of "Sinnoh Forms" for Generation I to III species would have further spiced up the available roster.
2 Best: Game Boy Advance Compatibility
In terms of post-game features, this was definitely one of the most fun, creative, and impressive new additions introduced in the fourth generation Sinnoh games. Once in the post-game in each of Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, players can use the GBA slot in the DS to unlock a couple of coinciding and/or sub-features.
By inserting the Generation III GBA games, including FireRed and LeafGreen, users could find exclusive Pokémon and use the Pal Park to transfer any species from their GBA game's PC. This was a big upgrade as there wasn't any compatibility between the GB or GBC games to the GBA ones.
1 Needed: Exploring A Previous Region
Unfortunately, the option to revisit a previous generation's region is still exclusive to the Johto games. All of the mainline entries outside of the Johto ones could benefit greatly from this to add to their post-game content (as long as it isn't Kanto again).
At the time of the Sinnoh games, the Kanto region had already been remade (three times) and Johto was already remade once. Therefore, it would have been great to visit a touched-up, sprite-based Hoenn. This would have taken time to develop, but it would have been worth it if executed correctly.