Pokémon Platinum dated for May

By Robert Purchese Published 12 February, 2009

Expanded remake of Diamond/Pearl.

Nintendo has announced a 22nd May release date for Pokémon Platinum.

This is a remake-cum-enhancement of Pokémon Diamond/Pearl, and so features lots of extra bits and bobs.

Our favourite is a special winter wardrobe for hero characters that will keep them warm and trendy while exploring the wintry lands of Sinnoh, where the new adventure takes place. There's a fancy Distortion World to run around where time and space are irrelevant, too.

Various well-known Pokémon will spring-up along the way to fight and capture, plus Diamond/Pearl owners can transfer the Shaymin monster into Platinum and unlock its Sky form. This unleashes new attributes and special powers.

And then, once the boss of the main campaign has been bested, players can nip over to the Battle Frontiers for all sorts of extra challenges and tournaments.

Wi-Fi battles return, as does a revamped Global Trade Station: now known as the Global Terminal. Here, players can swap videos of them doing battle as well as trade creatures and play mini-games together. Just like one big animal-cruelty family.

All of which will probably turn out to be quite brilliant, as Pokémon Diamond and Pearl proved in 2007.

Head over to our Pokémon Diamond/Pearl review to find out why.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (9) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • jonsaan #1 3 years ago

    My lad will be over the moon about this. Despite the fact that I keep telling him it's the same game all over again.

  • DFawkes #2 3 years ago

    I'm never fussy about the 3 versions, but it'll still be good. And when I say I'm not fussy, I still end up buying them. Not this one thought, not this time!

  • Dr.Mott #3 3 years ago

    Oh yes. I've recently gone back to playing Sapphire and once again, I'm completely addicted, so I'll probably end up getting this as well, since I never did finish diamond. My only problem is with the name. Where do you go from platinum?

  • Eraysor #4 3 years ago

    As much as I wish they would try a different approach to the series for once, it's still brilliant.

  • Waffleaber #5 3 years ago

    Pokemon Pearl is one of the only games I think I played the endgame than I did during the main quest. Suddenly getting 100's of new (old) pokemon appear in the world and chasing shinys with the pokeradar and breeding then trading the rarer critters was wildly addictive. If they've expanded on that might have to trade in and start from scratch.

  • Dr.Mott #6 3 years ago

    @ Waffleaber

    Don't trade it in, use it to trade Pokémon that aren't in that game to each other. It's how I got Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Charmander back in the Red/Blue/Yellow days.

  • carrotcake #7 3 years ago

    I played the japanese version... did basically everything then deleted my save by mistake.
    You can catch articuno, zapdos and moltres in Platinum version... they roam around after you beat the main quest and talk to prof oak.
    distortion world is kinda interesting.
    a cafe in the survival area where you rematch gym leaders is interesting also/

  • ISmoke #8 3 years ago

    I've been playing the pokemon games since Red/Blue/Yellow/Silver/Ruby/Snap/arena i dont care that i'm 19 they're good games. Time to buy a DS i belive and become PokéKing..... again

  • Les #9 3 years ago

    Never played a Pokemon game but got Pearl recently. Hope to be able to fit it into my schedule soon and see what it's like.