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| Pikachu Records | bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net |
With experience and time, GameFreak has exercised greater and greater care when it comes to designing a realistic world. The magnificent Sinnoh region represented their greatest achievement yet, an effortless balance of rural and urban, of rivers and seas, of forests and caves. Most notably, a large mountain range bisects the continent, except for a small, frigid town by the northernmost lake. Displaying attention to detail sometimes absent from their earlier (and future) work, GameFreak follows through on the real-world implications of separating an ecosystem in two. A certain species of slugfriend shows signs of actual adaptational dimorphism: it is a slimier blue in the east, but the western strain has taken on quite a friendly shade of pink.
Sinnoh also boasted the greatest variety of urban design to date. The high-tech roadways of Sunnyshore City are built from solar panels, soaking up the lovely balmy weather. Oreburgh City, where you challenge your first gym, is a mining town, full of bulldozers and excavators and conveyor belts loaded with fresh dark coal. The streets of Snowpoint City at the frosty zenith of the continent appear to be laid out like a large snowflake, but with too many points — Japanese-speaking players may recognise the outline of a certain kanji. Verisimilitude notwithstanding, the symbolism of the region does not go unremarked upon. At each corner of Sinnoh's rough triangle lies a sacred lake, and at its centre rises the mighty peak of Mount Coronet. Ancient murals in Celestic Town's temple spell this out for the benefit of younger players, linking it to Sinnoh lore. Several myths recorded in Canalave City's voluminous library recount tales of three deities appearing, surrounding, overpowering and subduing a fourth.
The florid embellishments that defined the Gameboy Advance soundtracks were shelved, and a softer, jazzier tone was struck. Though inevitably broader and less focused, it is nonetheless very pleasant. Unexpected melodic and tonal shifts are woven into the fabric of the game from the very beginning. Your childhood friend invites you to Lake Verity, just by your hometown, where you used to play as children, seemingly oblivious to the unnerving contrast between a rigid breakbeat and gentle harp arpeggios. When visiting a Pokémon Centre at night to heal your precious buddies' wounds, a smooth brass section plays straight against a softly swung piano interpolation of the same tune fans will recognise from every Pokémon Centre since the series' inception.
Later in the game, you must climb the unforgiving slopes of Mount Coronet, accompanied by only your wits and a nervous, stumbling polyrhythm. The melodramatic crescendo mirrors your fear, building to a stuttering flourish, then drags right back down as your conviction ebbs. Apprehensive scraps of melody flutter in the gale. With every repetition, it almost gives up. But it soldiers on through the chill and the storm. And so must you.
The soundtrack's jazzier influences are especially prominent in route themes, which, prior to these games, were largely adrenaline-pumping marches propelling you from plot point to plot point, with the exception of the charmingly twee stylings of the very beginning of the game intended to ease your introduction into a surprisingly macabre world. Route 203 skirts around the Coronet foothills while nimbly leaping across the manuals of an organ. The barren routes in Sinnoh's icy north are all accompanied by bright wintry honky-tonk. Gentle R&B beats guide you through the quaint farming community in the region's mideast. The muddy swamps and marshes that mire the southeast of Sinnoh are still soundtracked traditionally adventurously, but feel lighter on their feet, sculpted around improvised basslines.
Of course the region's urban areas don't miss out on the fun. The family-friendliness of Hearthome City plays nicely with its jaunty close-harmony electric piano. Sinnoh's two biggest metropolises are both soundtracked with relaxed mid-tempo lounge music — Veilstone going bright and bold with a saxophone, Jubilife keeping it simple with a breezy piano line.
Again, Diamond and Pearl don't shy away from conveying the horror of what the regional villains set out to accomplish. In a change from the ambitious but bland organisations from Hoenn, Team Galactic are a sharply-focused cult of personality. On the several occasions you cross paths with the their monomaniacal boss Cyrus: he comes across as a charismatic but crazed sociopath, ranting about the futility of emotion, expressing his desire to escape to a world free of burdensome spirit. Citizens of Sinnoh dismiss Team Galactic's actions as absurd, or even blasphemous. (You are encouraged to as well. Your trusted ally, the crusty old Professor Rowan, dresses down several grunts during an early-game skirmish, calling out their ridiculous retro-spaceman attire and their epidemic of electric-blue bowl cuts.) The region's legends are simply fairytales, nothing more. Few believe that the guardians of the lakes even exist, and fewer still that they hold the power to summon and tame a great creator deity. Confusion turns to dread when a faction of Galactic grunts set off a bomb at at Lake Valour, force entry to the grotto under the lakebed and escape with what they came for.
Ruby and Sapphire did well crafting a sense of despair and panic after their villains awoke a vengeful behemoth whose mere presence bends the very weather to its will — in Sapphire, Hoenn is drowning under torrential downpour; in Ruby it is scorched beyond recognition. But such sudden catastrophes and on such a scale lack a real-world counterpart. They are abstract dangers. Madmen blowing up famous landmarks to further their own agendas are distressingly familiar.
You arrive too late to foil similar plans at Lake Acuity in the distant frosty north, and at Lake Verity, your childhood playground. You fight your way through the Galactic Headquarters in Veilstone City, an unsuspicious edifice of satellite dishes and spikes. You breach the laboratory levels deep below. The ridiculous flashy parody of elevator music that has accompanied you thus far drops out completely, leaving only chilling ambient wailing. The brightly lit network of offices and hallways gives way to dingy claustrophobic corridors, faintly green, partially flooded. You come across shellshocked scientists. They are sickened by what they have done, disgusted at the task Cyrus has forced them to perform. And in the final chamber you discover the guardian sprites. They are real, shackled right there in front of you, and in tremendous pain. Precious gemstones have been wrested from their foreheads and forged into a crystalline chain, now in the possession of a certain omnicidal maniac.
Cyrus reveals the full extent of his plan. He will bind the great deity and force it to do his bidding. He will finally depart from this ugly and incomplete world. He will create a glorious new universe for himself alone, and for good measure will destroy ours. And with that, he absconds.
Even in their most ambitious moments, Pokémon games always manage to communicate an anti-extremist message by demonstrating what happens when it is not heeded. It is heavily implied that Cyrus only got so far because he was severely underestimated by the wider population. From more than one point of view, the imminent collapse of the universe is everyone's fault — a hefty thought to chew on while chasing Cyrus through the driving snow and labyrinthine caves as he ascends to the peak of Mount Coronet.
I await the announcement of the inevitable Adamant Diamond and Lustrous Pearl with bated breath. Doubtless, what transpires between Cyrus and his shackled dragon will be rendered even more impressively. Join us again tomorrow when we dip into the hotly anticipated return to the Johto region!
Sinnoh also boasted the greatest variety of urban design to date. The high-tech roadways of Sunnyshore City are built from solar panels, soaking up the lovely balmy weather. Oreburgh City, where you challenge your first gym, is a mining town, full of bulldozers and excavators and conveyor belts loaded with fresh dark coal. The streets of Snowpoint City at the frosty zenith of the continent appear to be laid out like a large snowflake, but with too many points — Japanese-speaking players may recognise the outline of a certain kanji. Verisimilitude notwithstanding, the symbolism of the region does not go unremarked upon. At each corner of Sinnoh's rough triangle lies a sacred lake, and at its centre rises the mighty peak of Mount Coronet. Ancient murals in Celestic Town's temple spell this out for the benefit of younger players, linking it to Sinnoh lore. Several myths recorded in Canalave City's voluminous library recount tales of three deities appearing, surrounding, overpowering and subduing a fourth.
The florid embellishments that defined the Gameboy Advance soundtracks were shelved, and a softer, jazzier tone was struck. Though inevitably broader and less focused, it is nonetheless very pleasant. Unexpected melodic and tonal shifts are woven into the fabric of the game from the very beginning. Your childhood friend invites you to Lake Verity, just by your hometown, where you used to play as children, seemingly oblivious to the unnerving contrast between a rigid breakbeat and gentle harp arpeggios. When visiting a Pokémon Centre at night to heal your precious buddies' wounds, a smooth brass section plays straight against a softly swung piano interpolation of the same tune fans will recognise from every Pokémon Centre since the series' inception.
Later in the game, you must climb the unforgiving slopes of Mount Coronet, accompanied by only your wits and a nervous, stumbling polyrhythm. The melodramatic crescendo mirrors your fear, building to a stuttering flourish, then drags right back down as your conviction ebbs. Apprehensive scraps of melody flutter in the gale. With every repetition, it almost gives up. But it soldiers on through the chill and the storm. And so must you.
The soundtrack's jazzier influences are especially prominent in route themes, which, prior to these games, were largely adrenaline-pumping marches propelling you from plot point to plot point, with the exception of the charmingly twee stylings of the very beginning of the game intended to ease your introduction into a surprisingly macabre world. Route 203 skirts around the Coronet foothills while nimbly leaping across the manuals of an organ. The barren routes in Sinnoh's icy north are all accompanied by bright wintry honky-tonk. Gentle R&B beats guide you through the quaint farming community in the region's mideast. The muddy swamps and marshes that mire the southeast of Sinnoh are still soundtracked traditionally adventurously, but feel lighter on their feet, sculpted around improvised basslines.
Of course the region's urban areas don't miss out on the fun. The family-friendliness of Hearthome City plays nicely with its jaunty close-harmony electric piano. Sinnoh's two biggest metropolises are both soundtracked with relaxed mid-tempo lounge music — Veilstone going bright and bold with a saxophone, Jubilife keeping it simple with a breezy piano line.
Again, Diamond and Pearl don't shy away from conveying the horror of what the regional villains set out to accomplish. In a change from the ambitious but bland organisations from Hoenn, Team Galactic are a sharply-focused cult of personality. On the several occasions you cross paths with the their monomaniacal boss Cyrus: he comes across as a charismatic but crazed sociopath, ranting about the futility of emotion, expressing his desire to escape to a world free of burdensome spirit. Citizens of Sinnoh dismiss Team Galactic's actions as absurd, or even blasphemous. (You are encouraged to as well. Your trusted ally, the crusty old Professor Rowan, dresses down several grunts during an early-game skirmish, calling out their ridiculous retro-spaceman attire and their epidemic of electric-blue bowl cuts.) The region's legends are simply fairytales, nothing more. Few believe that the guardians of the lakes even exist, and fewer still that they hold the power to summon and tame a great creator deity. Confusion turns to dread when a faction of Galactic grunts set off a bomb at at Lake Valour, force entry to the grotto under the lakebed and escape with what they came for.
Ruby and Sapphire did well crafting a sense of despair and panic after their villains awoke a vengeful behemoth whose mere presence bends the very weather to its will — in Sapphire, Hoenn is drowning under torrential downpour; in Ruby it is scorched beyond recognition. But such sudden catastrophes and on such a scale lack a real-world counterpart. They are abstract dangers. Madmen blowing up famous landmarks to further their own agendas are distressingly familiar.
You arrive too late to foil similar plans at Lake Acuity in the distant frosty north, and at Lake Verity, your childhood playground. You fight your way through the Galactic Headquarters in Veilstone City, an unsuspicious edifice of satellite dishes and spikes. You breach the laboratory levels deep below. The ridiculous flashy parody of elevator music that has accompanied you thus far drops out completely, leaving only chilling ambient wailing. The brightly lit network of offices and hallways gives way to dingy claustrophobic corridors, faintly green, partially flooded. You come across shellshocked scientists. They are sickened by what they have done, disgusted at the task Cyrus has forced them to perform. And in the final chamber you discover the guardian sprites. They are real, shackled right there in front of you, and in tremendous pain. Precious gemstones have been wrested from their foreheads and forged into a crystalline chain, now in the possession of a certain omnicidal maniac.
Cyrus reveals the full extent of his plan. He will bind the great deity and force it to do his bidding. He will finally depart from this ugly and incomplete world. He will create a glorious new universe for himself alone, and for good measure will destroy ours. And with that, he absconds.
Even in their most ambitious moments, Pokémon games always manage to communicate an anti-extremist message by demonstrating what happens when it is not heeded. It is heavily implied that Cyrus only got so far because he was severely underestimated by the wider population. From more than one point of view, the imminent collapse of the universe is everyone's fault — a hefty thought to chew on while chasing Cyrus through the driving snow and labyrinthine caves as he ascends to the peak of Mount Coronet.
I await the announcement of the inevitable Adamant Diamond and Lustrous Pearl with bated breath. Doubtless, what transpires between Cyrus and his shackled dragon will be rendered even more impressively. Join us again tomorrow when we dip into the hotly anticipated return to the Johto region!