I have played most Pokemon games, but I am deciding between Pokemon Sun/Moon/Ultra and Brilliant Diamond.
I have never played either of these games not even their original versions. What do you think?
Additionally, is Sun/Moon good or is the Ultra version better?
Don't play Brilliant Diamond, play Platinum instead, it's much better in every single way.
You can use an emulator to get it up and running quickly.
As far as Sun vs Ultra Sun, I think most people prefer the original but I've never played them.
BDSP are 1:1 Unity remakes of diamond and pearl, for better or worse. Platinum just had some small quality of life upgrades and both the legendaries.
Also, BDSP aren't made by Pokemon Company, I enjoyed the games but artistically it's just not Pokemon. If you told me BDSP was a fan game, I'd believe you. It's cool to see a 3d chibi take of Pokemon but I love the art direction of the DS games far more.
Platinum had a lot more than small upgrades, it's just easy to forget how much of gen 4 comes from platinum.
Platinum came out a year after Diamond and Pearl, it made a lot of changes to the games. From the top of my head these are the most important ones:
- Expanded Pokedex from 151 to 210 or so pokemon.
- Revamped team galactic, changes their bases' looks and adding tons of dialogue.
- Gym leaders, galatic leaders and elite four have improved teams due to the added pokemon.
- Improved sprites although this doesn't really matter at this point.
- Added trainers that follow you and turn areas into pure double battles for a while.
- Improved the big showdown with team galatic and gave Giratina a role in the story.
I've consistently heard that the gameplay fixes of Ultra make the game objectively better, however they make some weird ass story changes that ruin the story of a very dialogue heavy game.
I'd play Pokemon Platinum. Being able to still hack the events like Darkrai or Shamin (one of my favorite Pokemon events ever) is a huge benefit for the older games.
I'd say get ultra unless you care about deep Pokemon lore. The gameplay in the ultra games is just objectively better. Small QOL stuff like Emerald vs RS, but it's still just simply better in some ways. However ultra changes the stories of the games for the worst, like it just doesn't make sense at all.
I started ultra Sun last night and have been enjoying it a lot. I havn't gotten too far, just the first city.
I am trying to collect all the totem stickers, but I am not sure if they are important.