Pokémon. How once you used to beckon my every spare minute of time allowing me to battle monsters on my Gameboy or trade cards with my friends. You could call this review a reunion of sorts between myself and the series as any knowledge I have is simply restricted to the primary colours and the 151 Pokémon that inhabited those. When Emerald, Gold, Silver and the like got released my interest waned and I left with the sweet memories I had of the Blue adventure and moved on.

Now though, many years have passed and even more versions have made their way to store shelves leaving us finally with Pokémon Platinum. Normally I would pass at the opportunity of buying a Pokémon game, but after a lot of nagging and bugging from my little brother I finally caved and decided to give it a shot.

Pokémon is a turn based strategy game which sees you wondering towns, cities, woods and other environments battling other wild Pokémon or other trainers and their beasts as you go. Each Pokémon can learn up to four moves that range from sheer impact moves, attacks that affect stats like an opponents’ accuracy or speed, ones that can poison, freeze or burn... the list goes on. The monsters themselves too have types. For example an Onix is a rock type and is weak to water and grass types, however it is greatly impervious to electric. You can see how picking the right Pokémon is the difference between winning and losing and the elements of strategy used are vast. The turn based gameplay may seem shallow on the surface, but once you play you’ll soon discover how deep it can become with potions and other items also playing a role. Only being allowed to carry six Pokémon at a time also means choices are important given certain situations. There’s a lot to account for when battling and thankfully it’s great fun.

I guess you could say there is some sort of story to the game, but it isn’t much. You want to become a Pokémon master so a kind Professor gives you your first and off you go. That’s about it.

I remember the adventure I once had with Ash all those years ago and as soon as I loaded up Platinum I immediately started to recognise similarities. You see after all this time the formula remains largely unchanged. Pick a starting Pokémon (grass, water or fire type) battle other trainers, catch new Pokémon, level them up, venture from town to town and grab the eight badges from the eight gyms. The main goal of becoming a Pokémon champion is the same as is the pathway leading to it. Is that a bad thing? Not so much to me. After such a long break from the series it feels great replaying this enormous adventure in a new updated format.

What may not be a new feature to this edition but definitely is one to me is the addition of duo matches. Like singles here two trainers tackles another two using up to three Pokémon each. It’s a nice mix up and breaks the flow of singles after singles match during your quest.

Of course battling isn’t restricted to the solo career so you can take the fight online which is great fun, especially when it’s with people you know. But online functionality doesn’t end there as unwanted Pokémon can be put up for trade with ones you want. Simply choose the beast you no longer want, specify the Pokémon you do want and its level and come back later to see if anyone out there has responded. It’s a great system and of course if you’d rather just straight out trade with friends you can.

One reason I never took to the newer editions was the fact the added Pokémon just didn’t seem as well crafted or have as much character. I’ll always remember Bulbasaur, Charizard and Meowth as they were cute and cool whereas the newer ones lack any personality and seem slightly tacky in appearance. The roster here is good and bad. The good is that some of the original 151 make an appearance as you venture through. This brought many a smile to my face. The bad is that the new ones take centre stage. While some fit in well like Luxio and Lucario, others just seem like rip-offs of previous ones or just downright poor in general. I’m sure fans will love them all, but I just prefer the originals, end of discussion. However what is impressive is the fact that you can in time find and use every single Pokémon from every game. That’s around five hundred in all! A number sure to keep players searching for ages.

Visually the game is decent enough. It is cool to see detailed sprites in colour, but is that it? Animations should be improved during battle, it is a DS title after all. Some 3D elements are also used when travelling for tall skyscrapers, wind turbines and more. Overall it is an improvement from the black and white visuals I was used to, but as far as DS games go it should be better.

Sound is disappointing. I loved Pokémon Snap not only because it was a good game but because it had real Pokémon noises in. Here they make beeps and bleeps making them sound more like R2-D2 than anything else. We’re not on the Gameboy now so surely we can do without robot noises. As for the music it isn’t awful. The melodies you hear from town to town are fairly generic but in contrast the battle music is great really getting you pumped for the upcoming fight.

The main adventure will last around forty hours which is long in itself but collecting all of the creatures, levelling them up, grabbing loads of cash, battling with friends online, there’s so much to be done. Chances are you won’t ever finish this epic quest one hundred percent. The fact all this is put onto a single DS cartridge is all the more astounding.

So it’s been a while since I equipt my Pokéballs and went battling on a handheld, but since returning the experience has seemed very familiar. It is undeniable that Pokémon still has that addictiveness about it, even after all this time. A simple repackage and it’s still so much fun. But how many more times can they give an old system a new fresh set of paint before we’ve had enough? Maybe it’s time for a change. Until then though, I’m back to Platinum.