In a true Monkey’s Paw moment for many fans of the franchise, The Pokémon Company confirmed earlier this year that remakes of Gen IV titles Diamond & Pearl were in active development for Nintendo Switch.
What should have been a universally celebratory occasion, though, quickly turned sour for veteran fans hoping to see Sinnoh reimagined using the same engine responsible for bringing Sword and Shield‘s sprawling Galar Region to life. Chibi art – a stylistic choice intended to mimic classic entries in the mainline RPG series – aside, initial footage was swiftly criticized for being an obvious downgrade in visual fidelity over 2019’s aforementioned installments, with particular umbrage being directed towards rough or altogether absent textures.
While neither Game Freak nor outsourced developer IC LA has publicaly acknowledged these misgivings, it would appear as though efforts have since been made to touch up the remakes. Demoed during yesterday’s Switch OLED announcement, Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl was one of several games used to showcase the hybrid console’s improved screen, with Pokémon fansite owner Joe Merrick one of many to subsequently point out the subtle upgrade.
As shown in the gallery above, background environmental assets such as rock faces and flora appear sharper and the player character model sports a number of additional details to their clothing and rucksack. These discrepancies, while obvious upon closer inspection, are definitely in the realms of subtle, and it’ll be interesting to see if a similar quality check has been carried out on all areas of the games, especially the overworld and, arguably most important of all, animations.
With any luck, there’ll be more Pokémon Diamond & Pearl news to come in the months ahead of launch, but until then, let us know what you make of these changes in the usual place below!