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Well, it pretty much still uses the same engine as its preceeder's. I just hope this is the beta, or something. The graphics look fairly crisp, but the battles still look nearly the same as the GBA versions.

Anyway, I'm somewhat excited, but..for some reason, just not as much as I'd thought I'd me. Maybe the 2D battle system..?

WAHOO! They finally added backgrounds to the battles!! XD Yay, I'm happy. Maybe this time the monsters will actually have faint animations than simply falling through the floor. It wouldn't make sense this time around as the floor now has detail instead of a white circle.

The graphics, while not much of a graphical leap, is still looking very nice. I wish they showed pics of Pokémon that we haven't already seen before : /

Well, they kinda showed off the new release ones.

Either way, I have high hopes about the game. Despite using the same equation over and over again, it's still a really good formula. Hopefully they still have that whole concept of becoming something different other than just a Pokemon master... Like a Gym Trainer, or a Breeder or something. Just something different.

Wi-fi would be a great addition too. Online battling would just complete the Pokemon series and seriously make the game flawless. And hopefully we have more regions to look around with. Like going to Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn. That would just complete the series and i'd finally be a happy trainer.

Yeah. I agree with the above.

Plus I want just a bit more plot involving the legendaries and the bad guys. They were on the right track with Ruby/Sapphire, I want to see that expanded.

Like something similar to the Pokemon movies on a smaller scale.

But the ones shown in the ads are the same Pokémon they've already shown months ago. Unless you've been kept in the dark all this time about it, these monsters are old news. I was hoping they'd show brand new monsters, and not things that are just baby forms of existing ones. I hated the idea of pre-evolutions in the games.

Eh, i'm just considering them new because they haven't been released in any of the recent Pokemon games.

Anyway, i'm hoping just as much as anyone that new Pokemon are released in this game. Who wouldn't want new ones?

Graphics look more like late GBA-generation graphics. Can't say I'm that impressed with the limited screenshots. But all the previous pokemon games (not counting trozei or dash and their ilk) have turned out fine. I'm waiting for more details, maybe some touch screen interaction.

I doubt it. If anything, one of the screens will be used as a map, or something of that sort. Who knows..

The graphics itself isn't the problem, it's just that, from the looks of it, it hasn't distinguished itself as a DS game, but like you said, Yggdrasil, a late GBA-generation game. I'm hoping there will be some sort of animation throughout the battles, or something.

Meh, graphics isn't important much for Pokémon. People complained that the Harvest Moon DS game uses the same sprites as GBA Friends of Mineral Town, and so didn't look like a DS game at all, but I think the sprites in FoMT were very good anyway, so I don't mind playing a FoMT look-alike.

The graphics for Diamond/Pearl are good enough for me. It looks like it captures the Pokémon feel very well.

I'd have to disagree here.

Perhaps the GBA is capable of rendering the graphics using some sort of implementation of Mode 2 or 7, but I don't think it would as nearly effectively as the DS is capable of.

I think the end product will far better display that it's a DS game.

I'm interested, and I might just pick it up when it goes stateside.

I like the way they've added depth to objects like houses by moving the screen downward so instead of you playing with an "overhead" type view, you get more of a "chase/reverse-chase" perspective.

Actually, I think the graphics are in a "sprite 3d", very simplified 3d graphics that look similar to sprite graphics due to the texture treatment (kind of like cell shading), because if you look closely to the hometown screenshots, the paths on the ground aren't straight, and actually would converge at a perspective point. Granted, that point would be very, very far away because the ground only slants slightly, but it's there nonetheless.

In other news, those "battle backgrounds" don't look like backgrounds to me. I myself wondered when they would implement backgrounds into Pokemon battles, and when I thought about it, i don't think they ever will. I mean, it's already weird enough that water battles take place with the combating Pokemon "floating" over the water, but other than those simple issues, there are also issues about size. If I recall correctly, looking at Groudon's size in the Pokedex, he was FREAKISHLY huge, and making a background in battle would mean that you would have to create size-proportional Pokemon, and that would mean you would only see Groudon's legs, and that'd be no fun.

Yes but FOMT looks better than this garbage by a country mile. Pokemon Gold and Silver pushed the original Gameboy and Gameboy Color further than any other game at the time. I don't see why we should let them getaway with this patheticly slow progress. Theres a huge gap between Pokemon releases so why does it feel like each game is barely a step ahead of the one before it?

This one is still really early, and GameFreak developed Drill Dozer in between this and the last ones, so I have faith they'll deliver a complete product in the end.

Oh yeah I'll still buy it but I'll complain loudly until then. Seriously though with every Pokemon game it's liek they take it further away from the potential hinted at in the first iteration.

Yeah, but when we saw the Screens for Ruby and Saphire, those screens didn't change, and in reality, I'm doubting these will either. I'm pretty sure this will be close to, if not exactly, the end product as far as graphics go.

This one is going for a 3D-ish look though.. which always looks bad in early screenshots, especially on DS. I dunno, we'll see.

While I'm here, I really hope that the battle images arent static like they always are. You'd think that with technological progression they'd at least make the battle images not be static anymore or something. But perhaps I am being picky.

No, I don't think you're expecting anything out of line. In fact, animated battle sprites were something they SHOULD have added at LEAST by Ruby and Sapphire. It's dumb that they don't have them, and the battles are wearing thin because of simple things like that, and in a game where battling is pretty much all you do, that's saying a lot.

To their defense. To animate over 380 monsters with individual hand drawn frames of animation for attack and defense and the like would take a hell of a lot of work. I'm more pissed off concerning the overall presentation of the game.

First (short, choppy) video of the game in action. Action as in, walking.

Edit-ooo: World map? =o
http://i.yimg.jp/images/kids/pokemon...tory02_img.gif

So was that Hip Tanaka music? It was neat anyway. Woo! Kind of a daft video though.

Here's to hoping there's a dark-type Gym leader this time around?

Everyone should have a look at this site for loads of D/P info(if you haven't already).

Anyway...DAY & NIGHT RETURNS!!

Huzzah for day and night!

I wonder how many players will actually be able to participate in a single battle, though. I imagine the 16 player "Union Rooms" will be more for the purpose of setting up tournaments, with players participating in seperate battles in a ladder.

Also, yay for being able to transfer Ruby/Sapphire/Leaf Green/Fire Red to Diamond Sapphire! Unfortunately, it'll probably still be lacking a bunch of Gold/Silver Pokemon that I miss. ;_;

And Voice Chat. Ugh. I hope you can disable it.