Pokémon Platinum

Pokémon Platinum

The Pokémon series has sold over 130 million copies since its debut in 1996, making it the best-selling RPG series ever. But this is not a franchise to rest on its laurels, continuing to obsess new generations of school children with its monster collecting/ battling mechanics thanks to a steady rhythm of yearly updates.

This latest release follows on the tail of last year’s Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, offering a familiar yet different take on those titles’ storylines with some key changes to improve the formula. As such, it’s more of a special edition/ director’s cut than a true new release. Nevertheless, the smart tweaks and improvements ensure that, if you’ve never played a Pokémon game before, Pokémon Platinum is a great place to begin.

All of the series' traditional elements are in place. You begin by choosing a character and selecting its gender before receiving your very first pocket monster from the local Professor Rowan. Your task is simple: go out and collect more Pokémon, capturing them in special balls and bringing them back to the professor to study. To catch a Pokémon you must challenge it to a duel with one of your previously captured pets. If you reduce its health to zero, causing it to pass out, you capture the creature. However, lose the battle and it’ll run back into the undergrowth. Every Pokémon has up to four moves and the trick is finding the right elemental attack to capitalize on your prey’s weakness, for example by using a fire-based attack on a water-based enemy and so on.

As well as fighting wild Pokémon you’ll have the chance to face off against other Pokémon trainers. To defeat these rivals you’ll need to train up your pets as well as finding a good balance of Pokémon types to make up your squad. Platinum has almost 60 new Pokémon to collect and all of your rival trainers, from the hapless Team Galactic to those in the fabled ‘Elite 4’ have had their Pokémon line-ups adjusted to incorporate the new creatures.

The new Battle Frontier presents the game’s toughest foes that must be defeated to earn rare prizes and its Battle Tower offers a slew of tough new challenges with strict criteria. Additionally the game’s Wi-Fi features have all been overhauled, allowing you to battle other players over the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection far more smoothly, as well as trade monsters more easily. Platinum also boats a new e-mail feature that contacts your Wii account to notify you of successful trades, even when you’re offline. A 'Battle Videos' feature even allows you to take videos of battles and upload and share them with friends, YouTube-style.

Visually the game is identical to last year’s releases and, for players who milked those titles for everything on offer, this may be a disappointing update. However, for newcomers, or players who only scratched the surface of the previous title and who are ready to go much deeper, Platinum offers the best Pokémon experience currently on the market.

4 out of 5