Highlights

  • Pokemon Platinum remains a standout sequel version in the franchise, celebrated for its innovation and quality-of-life changes.
  • The game's cut content from the Gen 4 remakes was sorely missed by fans, raising concerns about future remakes' direction.
  • Modern Pokemon games pay homage to Pokemon Platinum by incorporating features like Rotom's form changes and Giratina's mechanics.

Pokemon Platinum first launched 16 years ago in Japan, but it wasn't until March 22 2009 that it made its way on consoles in the United States, and slowly after that in the rest of the world. While Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are often considered mid-tier titles in the series, Pokemon Platinum is arguably one of the best games in the franchise thanks to a plethora of quality-of-life changes compared to its predecessors as well as new features that made it more replayable. But this was no bed of roses for Pokemon Platinum, which after 15 years realized its full potential only halfway through.

Gen 4 has undoubtedly received a lot of attention lately, and that's thanks to the release of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl in November 2021 and then Pokemon Legends: Arceus in January 2022, giving Sinnoh (and thus Hisui) a fair share of time in the spotlight. However, Gen 4 remakes were not received well by fans, to the point that many were worried that the same developer, ILCA, would work on the rumored Gen 5 remakes. A prominent reason why Gen 4 remakes were received so poorly is the change in direction compared to Pokemon Platinum, especially considering that the game's content was completely cut.

pokemon platinum art from nintendo store
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Pokemon Platinum's popularity should have warranted Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl to include its content, especially seeing how some quality-of-life features introduced with the third Gen 4 game were sorely missing from the remakes. Not only that, but some of the new content introduced in Pokemon Platinum didn't make it into the Gen 4 remakes, including some pretty significant features. These include:

  • The Wi-Fi Plaza, which had several mini-games and was tied to the DS' touchscreen.
  • The Battle Frontier, which came back in Pokemon Platinum from Pokemon Emerald and acted as endgame content.
  • Additional Team Galactic story with the introduction of new characters in the form of Looker, an investigator, and Charon, a Team Galactic admin.
  • Pokemon Platinum's Distortion World, Giratina's domain, which featured distorted physics and new story beats.
  • The post-game Villa for players to decorate.

As such, Pokemon Platinum has a lot of unrealized and untapped potential that only came to fruition when the game was originally released between 2008 and 2009, but not much so after that. That doesn't mean that Pokemon Platinum's content was forgotten, however, and other games in the franchise did adopt some of it as well as Gen 4 remakes themselves.

Pokemon Platinum's Content and Legacy Explained

How Modern Pokemon Games Pay Homage to Pokemon Platinum

An example is the fact that Rotom was capable of changing forms and retained its new Pokemon Platinum forms in all mainline games after that, to the point that some Rotom forms are even used in Pokemon VGC tournaments to this day. Another example comes from the general form-change mechanics regarding Giratina, Shaymin, and other pocket monsters. Pokemon Legends: Arceus' Origin Forme Dialga and Palkia also used form-change items like the ones introduced in Pokemon Platinum, and they still do in more recent games like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

Overall, there is a lot of good that Pokemon Platinum can be remembered by, but it does stick out like a sore thumb considering that some of its most relevant additions didn't make it in Gen 4 remakes, and those may have been the last remakes of the series if Gen 5 doesn't follow suit. It's also unlikely that Pokemon Platinum will get a standalone remake, which has never been the case with third-version games like Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Crystal, and Pokemon Emerald. Fans will have to wait and see, but Pokemon Platinum's legacy does have a place in modern titles on its own.