Talking Point: How Do You Feel About Pokémon Brilliant Diamond And Shining Pearl's Affection Rates?

Wish it were a toggle, or opt-in like it used to be in Gen 6 and 7. I hate it when I'm nuzlocking. If I make a mistake, I don't want the game to be like "actually, no you didn't". Takes so much out of the challenge/fun for me. Now, cue a certain someone coming in to tell everyone that we need to respect the developer's decision and we're all wrong because he is excited about the friendship system making the game easier.

As a casual player the messages during battle and additional time it adds to them is highly annoying.

My biggest issue with the games is that they weren't complete at launch. Hell, they're still incomplete (the GTS remains inaccessible).

A highly unprofessional showing from TPCi and Nintendo for releasing the game in this state, and it sets a really poor precedent for the series going forward, and especially more so because it involves a remake that has had the advantage of most of its groundwork laid out for it ahead of time (and not to mention the heavy use of pre-existing assets).

The cinematics aren't even on the cart, and the patched clips are compressed to an absurd degree. It looks bad enough in handheld mode and I don't even want to contemplate how it would look on the big screen.

Meanwhile, my copies of the original Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum are all complete on cartridge. Gee, how backwards is that?!

With that said, I'm enjoying the games otherwise. The affection mechanic is really irritating though as it really drags out every battle as the game will remind you relentlessly of how your entire party are willing to martyr themselves for you. It's nice when they evade moves and survive a potential final blow, but... I'd prefer it gone.

It's also really annoying that the game will only allow you to use the touch-screen for the Pokétch, and nothing else. There are plenty of other opportunities where the touch screen ought to be usable (battles, Pokédex, menus etc.). Also annoying is that only some apps are usable while they're in the corner of the screen, which defeats their usefulness a lot of the time (especially the dowsing machine, which only works when maximised).

It's easy to recommend to nostalgic fans, but I'd recommend that newcomers stick with Sword/Shield instead, which provides more content, as well as a more pleasing presentation (and polish) for the price.

This is probably gonna come off as strange.
But I always found irritating when developers wants the player to feel loved by characters in a game.

It's like they think I'm a lone nerd without friends or something, and they want me to feel fulfilled by some kind of virtual affection.
It's borderline offensive as far as I'm concerned.

And it's something I usually see in Japanese RPG (the prime example is probably the Persona series, where almost every character in the game treats the main character, wich is supposed to be the player, as if it was some kind of perfect man).

I don't need a program to tell me that it likes me.

Nothing quite like "[insert Pokemon] got a critical hit, wishing to be praised" constantly popping when you're trying to catch Pokemon. That said, some of that crap helped in the post-game rematches because those teams are pretty cracked. Taking a Facade from a competitive Flame Orb Guts Heracross while all of your Pokemon are junk because their spreads and IVs are all jank from playing the campaign changes a man.

I don’t mind affection going up as easily as it does, I just wish it didn’t affect battle mechanics, other than Return & Frustration. For me, the main two annoyances are all the bull**** messages that show up at the start of every single battle when I’m just trying to rush through somewhere as quickly as possible, and the critical hits that ALWAYS seem to come either when I don’t need them to (last hit the opponent needs to faint), or don’t want them to (KOing wild Pokémon I’m attempting to catch). For a game that is so much more faithful to its original incarnation than any other remake in the series, for better and/or worse, it baffles me that this was brought over.

I don't mind the inclusion too much (but can see why it would bother players with strategies who are less casual) but wish it was harder for it to happen.
Shield was far too easy but my main team only got to the 'op friendship' stage nearer the end whereas I'm swapping pokemon a lot thanks to exp share and portable box but a couple are already op after the 2nd gym :/

While I certainly don’t prefer the mechanic, BDSP is still the hardest Pokémon game ever.

@Markiemania95 like I said... it's like a toddler that thinks they're helping. Or a dog that keeps bringing you the newspaper all chewed up. I'd rather they just didn't!

My problem is I’m trying to catch a Pokemon and my Pokemon gets a crit to try to impress me, knocking it out. No, I am NOT praising you, do what I tell you to do you little twerp. 😩

I have this problem in real life, so annoying!!

@Screen Honestly, I’ve found it second easiest, after only ORAS.

I think it's adorable. Especially when they are "thrilled to bits". 🥰

@Screen it definitely has the hardest post-game. If you go straight into gym rematches after credits, you might get curb stomped. Base campaign is still damn easy, though I know some people had trouble with Maylene, Fantina, and the Elite Four/Cynthia. Was also refreshing to go back to some of the longer non-linear dungeons. Right now I'm changing my entire teams sans my shiny Houndoom in prep for final rematch Elite Four.

I think it's fine, tbh. Cynthia was hard regardless of affection. And whenever a clutch moment happened, it was thrilling for me, not annoying.

@Markiemania95 it's at least harder than XY and SS for sure, and probably a bit stiffer than most others. People forget Pokemon's always been super easy, it's just been to varying degrees. My mom and aunt play and they've never wiped in those games but they did wipe to Maylene's Lucario here. Grand Underground also doesn't crack the game as hard as Battle Chateau and Exp Candies did for those games.

It really really should be possible to turn this off. It's been a thing for a few generations now and while it's a cute mechanic and helpful for newbies, it kind of defeats the purpose of trying to be strategic and winning on your own merit. Why use strategies when you can just count on your pokemon to survive everything?

@tsdenizen Big disagree. Gen I wasn’t ‘super easy’, I personally found SwSh at least slightly more difficult than this, and if you turned Exp. Share off in X/Y, it could honestly actually get pretty tricky. If only that toggle still existed… 👀

Blacking/whiting out has not been an issue for me in any game (Battle Facilities aside). I had 1 Pokémon fall to Galactic’s Skuntank, and another to Cynthia’s Garchomp in this game.

Absolutely obnoxious. I guess I like the idea of it, but I wish it was optional somehow, because in execution it's constantly reminding me how much the game wants to hold my hand.

The added time to every battle is definitely the worst offense, along with no optionality. This mechanic originated in XY as a reward for time spent in Pokemon Amie, which was totally optional. BDSP cheapens it and makes it unavoidable.

Pokemon already has a pointlessly slow battle engine mostly intact from the Gen 1 games. Other RPGs can show weather and status without a halting text box every turn, or type effectiveness and crits with a simple "weak" or "resist" sign when the attack lands. I KNOW my Pokemon is asleep or confused thanks, you don't need to stop the battle to tell me every turn. I can SEE if there's a sandstorm or rain happening, also.

In a game where you do hundreds of these battles for just a casual run, adding another thing the game stops to tell you every single time is super annoying. My pokemon's model swiveling 45° in place so the game can say "Torterra is looking at you expectantly!" does NOT make me feel any closer to it.

It makes the game more heartwarming for me. Makes my pokemon feel more real.

@tsdenizen Also cynthia has competitive items. Not something in the originals.

It did seem super easy to get affection, but aside from the extra battle dialogue, I don't really care. I've only had it hinder me one time. If you are concerned about it, you can just use the bitter medicine all of the time on them to ensure they aren't friendly. That's kind of the whole point of them

"Certain Pokémon, like Sylveon, will only evolve once the Pokémon has high enough friendship/affection."

lol wut??

@LXP8 I assume it means Eevee into Sylveon, rather than Sylveon into anything else.

I don't know, I had a Zubat in my team from catching it and leveled it up to Golbat and it still didn't have 1 heart on the affection. Doesn't seem that easy.

@Mauzuri Because only loners use the internet? What year is this, 1997?

I’ve always liked affection in Pokémon, but it feels a little bit too easy in this game.

It feels like it's something that people are going to complain about just because they are looking for something to complain about, while the rest really won't care. The game is very easy even without it and before it wasnt exp share wasn't rebalanced, so it makes very little difference.

The mechanic is significantly more negligible than people are acting like it is. Set the text speed to fast, and the extra time it adds is so little that it's obvious you're looking to complain.

The moment you used items in battle of have it set to switch, you're cheesing the story harder than any small percentage affection heal would.

Self imposed rules ruined since your pokemon got a clutch agency dodge? I guess I don't know why you'd want to lose it, besides the fake justification that it is indeed "harder", but just self impose more rules. There are more than enough things you can do to make it more "difficult".

Crit on a wild Pokemon you wanted to catch? I've got good news for you. Game Freak gave us False Swipe 20+ years ago to mitigate issues like that.

And good news! It actually doesn't effect multiplayer or the battle tower, so if you're looking for actual strategy, you're in luck as those are good.

Don't like it? Hey that's cool. I actually don't care for it much either. Getting mad enough to bring your rage to the internet or write garbage articles? Now let's not be hasty

@Bakfug i appreciate the righteous fury in this comment

@Bakfug I think your rage against the rage is a bit concerning.

@Bakfug well, you certainly showed me

I'm really enjoying Brilliant Diamond, but between the forced affection and forced EXP. Share mechanics, I really do feel like it's too easy. I haven't noticed much of an overall level increase over the last four gyms, but my team's gone up quite a few levels at this point. The affection effects aren't coming up super often, but they're still kind of annoying and it feels like cheating. If people want to have those mechanics, that's fine! But it shouldn't be forced on people who don't want them either. There's no reason to do that. Great games, but those are two major flaws.

Before Brilliant Diamond, UltraSun was the last pokemon game I played and I didn't even finish it because of all the petting, grooming and such you'd have to do after every battle to keep your pokemon happy. Felt too tamagoshi-ish for me. So having happy pokemon just by battling feels perfectly fine, though indeed it does make the game a bit too easy. I'd say trim it down if possible, but it doesn't ruin the game for me.

I just started using herbs to heal as soon as they were available to try and counteract the ***** friendship system and make my pokemon hate me. Theyre also a lot cheaper than normal potions so why not

Despite that half my team was still doing unwanted dodges etc and made me feel like I got a few undeserved wins lol