OK, so today I tried out this “Pokemon Go” thing. I’ve heard the youngsters talking about it, figured I’d see what the fuss is about. When I start it up, it asks me to pick between Diamond and Pearl. Now, I haven’t played a Pokemon game since Red and Blue, so I’m a little lost.
First thing I did was hit up Google. Typed in “Pokemon Go Diamond or Pearl which one to choose” and got a bunch of forum posts. Some folks are saying Diamond, others are saying Pearl. Seems like it changes which Pokemon you see more often, but I don’t even know what half these new Pokemon are! They all look so weird compared to the originals.
I poked around a few more sites, and it sounds like there’s some kind of event going on, and that’s why it’s asking me to choose. There’s some special research thing, and picking Diamond or Pearl gives you different bonuses. I guess Diamond has something to do with this Dialga thing, and Pearl is about Palkia? No clue who those are, but they look kind of cool, I guess.
I ended up just flipping a coin, heads for Diamond, tails for Pearl. It landed on heads, so Diamond it is! After that, the game started up like normal, with that Professor Willow guy giving his usual speech. I caught a few Pokemon near my house, nothing special. A Turtwig, a Chimchar and a Piplup. Are those the starters now?
What about that special research?
- After choosing Diamond, I got some tasks related to catching Pokemon and spinning PokeStops. Pretty standard stuff.
- The rewards were nothing to write home about. Some Stardust, some XP, and a few encounters with Pokemon I already had.
- I did notice that I was seeing a lot of Pokemon from the Sinnoh region, which I guess is where Diamond and Pearl are set?
Honestly, I’m still not sure what the big deal is with this Diamond and Pearl choice. Maybe it gets more important later on? I’ll keep playing and see if anything interesting happens. If any of you young’uns have any tips, let me know! This old dog is trying to learn some new tricks.
