I hadn't played a Pokemon game since Gold/Silver, but Pearl kinda got me back into the series. Don't worry about the new Pokemon. I don't think you really need to be able to list them all off or anything. :P There are still a bunch out there I haven't seen yet. If anything, it makes the game more immersive.

Hey, you know, all of us who don't watch the Anime series don't know any new Pokemon either. Thinking back, when we all first started playing Red/Blue/Green/Yellow as a kid, none of us knew the 151 1st-gen Pokemon right?

Why not bring back that mentality, and experience the learning process once again? I went through the process of learning about the new Pokemon (there are only 150 on Sonnoh Island before you get the new Pokedex, and there are some from the 1st-gen), and I must say the fun in Pokemon that I felt many years back hasn't changed, albeit more fun than before.

There are certainly some new Pokemon you'll like, because after getting to know (from the Pokedex) some of the new ones that I found in the wild, I found that Nintendo is still rather creative and some of the personalities of the new Pokemon are really special.

Give it a try!=)

Alright, I'll put it on my "buy when it's cheap" list.

As long as I have Charmander and Psyduck I think I'll get by okay, anyways. Those were always my favourite pokemon in the show/game.

I too only played the original Game Boy version. Blue, I think. I don't have time to play the games I already have, so my exposure to Pokemon in recent years has been limited to Melee and Brawl. And of course Joystiq and it's Nintendo sibling sites.

As to the Pokemon that I feel rock? Geodude and Onyx.

Uh... you know you're supposed to try to have fun with games, right? Not try to make them as close to a non-paying job as possible?

I enjoy playing that way. I usually do the collecting stuff after the story is done as a sort of "end game"

Fair enough, then. As long as you enjoy it.

No, if anything it'll be the Emerald to Diamond/Pearl. So just like the last two.

Hm... I respect your opinion but I must say that I think Nintendo have hit the right spots with D/P. I mean, the Global Trade Station is a fantastic way to bring trainers the world over together and make the game more real.

I mean, I couldn't help but be overcome with joy knowing that I had a Piplup (D/P Starter - Water -- for those who don't know) from a Japanese trainer and a Turtwig (D/P Starter - Grass -- for those who don't know) from an American trainer. It was a really great feeling that I had never felt before in any other game in the series as well as a dream come true since R/B/Y.

I also did my best not to check up on any of the new Pokemon and boy what a joy it was. Heck, it was only when I sold my copy of Diamond that I went to check up on those legendary monsters and found a ton I hadn't seen before.

That's just my experience on the Pokemon games and you're entitled to yours -- it's just a pity you didn't enjoy D/P as much as I had.

If Nintendo introduces a third Pokemon game in the D/P series at E3, then I will definitely pick up where I left off in Diamond. In fact, Diamond is on my To Buy list (again -_-') so I might scratch that off and see what E3 holds.

Yeah, global trade station was a blast for the first two weeks when I was getting overpowered Japanese pokemon for my 6+ English character-nicknamed creatures. It spiraled down into kids only accepting Dialgas and Palkias for whatever they were offering (or, when I did get something I wanted, it would be nicknamed something trollish like DIEPOKEFAG), though, so, because I'm not a collector or a competitive battler or anything, the magic just went out of it. If it felt fresh and new for you, great, I actually kind of envy the people who were still able to remain excited for D/P. I'll definitely say that the wi-fi features were a huge step forward in theory, but between the aforementioned flaws of the trading system and the likelihood that battles are dominated by NetBattle junkies and hackers, I wasn't going to potentially set myself up for disappointment by taking casual teams in there.

And yeah, there were a ton of legendaries in D/P. Dialga and Palkia were far better-designed than Kyogre and Groudon in R/S, and Darkrai is probably the best design for a legendary yet. But there were just so many of them, and I tend to avoid legendaries anyway because they tend to be overpowered, but that's just personal preference.

Pokemon Amber? :-P

If anything, it'll be opal since Giratina's name comes from the stone "girasol" which means (of course) opal.

it is officially called pokemon platinum. www.serebii.net/index2.shtml