After many appeals for Generation 4 remakes from Pokemon fans over the years, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are finally here, and they launched worldwide just over a day ago. The games are quite faithful adaptations of Game Freak's work on the original Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, but they also come with changes to popular features, like the Grand Underground, and new mechanics altogether. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are rich in content, with plenty of things to do at all levels - from reworked Contests to obtaining all sorts of statues while digging.
Pokemon Sword and Shield likely laid the foundations for these games and the upcoming Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and something that Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl adopt are the Switch-time-based events. With a full day-night cycle and the in-game calendar working based on the internal time of the Nintendo Switch, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl can be a fun experience that has something new to offer every single day. However, this can also be a problem when it comes to locking players out of the post-game section for a long time, solely based on obscure mechanics.
The problem is that there is only one wild Drifloon in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and it can be seen and caught right outside of Valley Windworks after players defeat Team Galactic within the building. The Pokemon, however, only appears on Fridays, and it will only appear on Friday after players defeat Team Galactic - even if they do defeat the Team on a Friday, considering that's the day of the week the games launched. This can lead to progress being soft-locked, considering that players need to see every Pokemon in the Sinnoh Pokedex to access the National Pokedex.
Make sure you answer all the Hearthome City gym questions incorrectly otherwise you won't be able to do post-game until next Friday frompokemon
As such, a Reddit user called Wakywill shared a very useful tip for those who didn't change their Switch's internal time before booting the games, as changing it later has no effect. The user shared a post stating that answering all questions incorrectly at the Hearthome Gym allows players to fight a Trainer who uses Drifloon, thus seeing the Pokemon before an entire week passes. This allows players to access post-game content much earlier and removes the soft-lock.
This is a serious issue for many players, especially because they might have inadvertently beat the Hearthome Gym already without knowing this tip. Because Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl reviews are here, it's not unlikely to see upset players lament the soft-lock issue as well.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are available now for the Nintendo Switch.