In the second part of my journey, I discover the joy of making small animals kick the crap out of birds for me and I meet my very best friend in the world.
2:05 – Interestingly enough, Pokémon lets me name not only myself, but also my best friend. My best friend is TheHoff. Complete strangers in the game know me and TheHoff “are tight”. He just invited me to the lake. His theme song is rad.
2:09 – No balls. No monsters. No monsters in balls. I would like to do something.
2:10 – We’re going to Lake Verity: The Lake of Emotions. This is getting awful racy.
2:12 – This is definitely more of an RPG than I remember Blue being. Is there more of an emphasis on story here?
2:13 – BIRDS!
2:14 – I found an old man’s briefcase and it happened to be filled with balls containing beasts so now I’m fending off birds with a flaming monkey. One of my available commands is “Leer” which is really kind of creepy. The battle system doesn’t give any indication as to what an attack might do, though. Is that part of strategy, not knowing what the hell you’re doing?
2:17 – For the record, that lake seemed pretty even-keeled.
2:19 – Mom seems pretty indifferent to the fact that I almost got eaten by wild birds. What a bitch.
2:20 – Oh now I have running shoes. A run button would have been fine. Hey, wait a second. These are freaking Payless. Man, my mom is cheap. What a bitch.
2:24 – So if wild pokémon live in tall grass, just waiting to beat the crap out of people, why are all the roads in Sinnoh just overgrown messes?
2:28 – That old guy is letting me keep his fire monkey. I bet it’s sick or something. I do get to name it though. Weird that you get a larger allocation of letters to name your pets than do for yourself. Ten letters. My fire monkey is now PeteGabril. Now I just need to get in a fight with an electricity pokémon and hilarity can ensue!
2:32 – In the old game, your goal was to become a “pokémon master”. In this, you get to be more of a biological surveyor. Neat.
2:36 – Mom didn’t even make a stink when I told her I was going to be wandering the world on my own studying wild animals that attack people if they walk in some grass. Pretty awesome of her to be so open and understanding with me, her only daughter. What a bitch.
2:39 – Lots of fighting, but only with gophers and birds. PeteGabril can still only scratch and leer at people as well, much like his namesake, so the purported depth of the game is still a mystery.
2:41 – Now he can set people on fire!
2:45 – Forced, unplayable tutorial on catching wild pokémon. Forced, unplayable tutorials are unforgiveable, Nintendo.
2:48 – Caught me a BIDOOF! 
Well, I have to say, after an hour, I’m still somewhat mystified. The game is faster than it was ten years ago, but still a little clunky. But, as an RPG that is almost solely about level grinding and rocks-paper-scissor fighting, it’s impressive how quickly Pokémon Diamond throws you into the mix with a minimum of lengthy, unskippable dialogue sequences (especially considering it’s made by Nintendo, the reigning deities of lengthy, unskippable dialogue sequences.) I know this: I want to keep playing. I am enjoying the simplicity and airiness of the game, even this early on. I am, however, probably not going to turn into a slavering obsessive. But who knows what adventures await me and PeteGabril, here on the borders of gaming sanity!
Click here for Part 1.