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Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl: Which game should you buy?

By Eric Halliday

Nintendo
Nintendo /
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On November 19, 2021, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl, remakes of the classic Nintendo DS games, will be coming out for the Nintendo Switch. And if you aren’t going to do what I do and buy the two-pack of both, you might be trying to figure out which one you should get. Well, I’m going to tell you right now, it should to be Pokemon Shining Pearl, and I’m going to explain why with facts.

And before I get into it, let me tell you, I love Dialga more than Palkia. I’m not about to diss my special time boy. But there are reasons.

Exclusive Pokemon

Each Pokemon game has an exclusive legendary Pokemon you can only get from that particular game (or through a trade with a nice person like me that likes to beat the games multiple times, put the legendaries on Pokemon Home, and trade them away). In Diamond it’s Dialga, the four-legged time beastie. In Pearl it’s Palkia, the chonky future Godzilla that can claw through space itself.

But did you know that there are regular Pokemon that are version exclusive as well? Let’s break down some of them.

Nintendo (shown: The Pokemon known as Cranidos, one of the exclusives to Pokemon Brilliant Diamond)
Nintendo (shown: The Pokemon known as Cranidos, one of the exclusives to Pokemon Brilliant Diamond) /

In Pokemon Brilliant Diamond you can get:

  • Dialga (the legendary I mentioned earlier)
  • Stunky (the poison/dark type skunk Pokemon)
  • Skuntank (the poison/dark type Stunky evolves into)
  • Cranidos (the rock type fossil Pokemon based off the head headed dinosaur known as Pachycephalosaurs)
  • Rampardos (the rock type fossil Pokemon that Cranidos evolves into)

In Pokemon Shining Pearl you can get:

  • Palkia (the other legendary I mentioned earlier)
  • Glameow (the normal type cat Pokemon with long curly tail)
  • Purugly (the normal type obese cat that Glameow evolves into, possibly reluctantly)
  • Sheldon (the rock/steel type fossil Pokemon based off the Triceratops)
  • Bastiodon (the rock/steel type that Sheldon evolves into)

Now, whichever one you like more is entirely up to you, it’s your opinion and I’m not here to dog it. But I’m going to tell you why this is going to matter in the long run.

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