Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl

I got my copy from Target, and they also didn't have it on the shelf. They were all in locked plastic boxes on a display. Horrible experience. On top of having to locate them, I was subjected to a soft-spoken young lady cashier. It would've been hard enough to hear what she was saying because of this, but I had her wearing a mask and a thick plexiglass throw on top of it. I had to have said "Excuse Me?" and "What was that?" like five times during the minute transaction.

Is Black Friday legit in the US. Over in the UK it had been exposed as a scam for shops to get rid of their old stock so they have room for the new stock for Christmas. Prices of items is also dubious to say the least.

« Last edited by Sanzano on Nov 27th 2021 »

Black Friday has not been the same the last two years. It has basically been online, and some stores are saying they are going to keep it this way. I have always done it online anyway. I think most is new old-stock, but I do not mind when it comes to anything but electronics.

« Last edited by Warrior13 on Nov 27th 2021 »

Yeah the past few years it's been different. This year a ton of stores had "Black Friday" deals for the entire week leading up to actual black Friday. I was out for breakfast Friday morning and it didn't seem much more busy than usual. I think most people have just been shopping online. Before the pandemic and online shopping took over even more it was definitely a thing though. You can still get some pretty good deals if you hunt for things. For most of the stuff I buy like tech and games Black Friday is usually the cheapest things get, but it's more like if a regular sale on a game is 50% off, the Black Friday deal will be 60% off. So nothing insane.

My brother did manage to snag a new laptop yesterday on a flash sale, it was regular $1200 and he got it for $700, and I grabbed a sweet 1440p monitor for $260 when the regular price is $400. I'm sure if we kept on eye on sales throughout the year we could've gotten a similar deal. Black Friday is just the day/weekend where you know things are going to be on sale.

« Last edited by steelersrock01 on Nov 27th 2021 »

Sounds exactly the same as the UK and Europe. When the concept of Black Friday was introduced several years back it was a major event in the yearly calender. People would literally camp outside stores in London like Selfridges and Harrods the night before and when the doors open there would be a mad stampede. It would make the daily news because people got crushed and there would be fights. It was comical watching two respectable looking middle aged men fighting over a boxed TV in the middle of the shop with chaos happening all around them.

That's all changed now, I think steelersrock01 is correct and people now search for their bargains online. I have noticed the following trick to rope people into shops. Items are discounted at 40% off on Black Friday and also the Saturday and Sunday. You pay the full amount when you go to the cashier who will then give you the the receipt telling you you have X amonut (your 40%) credit to spend the week before Christmas.

Shop owners are desperate to get shoppers spending money in their shops and not go online. It used to be the commercial centers putting the high street shops out of business, now it's online shopping threatening the shopping malls.

Lol they haven't done that store credit thing around me yet. That would make me so mad. That's not a discount, that's just them giving you credit to come back and spend even more later.

That's precisely what it is, they're hoping if they give you for example $40 credit when you return in a couple of weeks time to purchase something you'll spend $80. It's just a way to entice you back before you spend online.

Yeah, I've done pretty well this year since they've had it running for weeks, as Mike alluded to. Helped my mom find a new comforter set that goes for $300 for $80 and a new watch for my dad from $300 to $50. Just have to be on the lookout for the bigger deals. Got basically 30-50% off on everything I bought outside of the above.

These days I hardly buy any luxury thing if it's not at least 30% off lol. Most stuff goes on sale pretty regularly if you keep an eye out.

Yeah, I might do some Cyber Monday shopping today, but only if it is a good deal.

I started up a Platinum playthrough instead of buying BD/SP, just made it to Eternia City. Current team is Grotle, Staravia, Bidoof, and Kadabra. I want to end up with Torterra, Alakazam, Rhyperior, Altaria, Walrein, and Porygon-Z. Not the best type coverage but out of these I've only ever played with Kadabra. This time I'm playing on an emulator so I edited my game to let me evolve the Pokemon that need to be traded in other ways.

Nice, but watch out for Ice types. My team was exceptionally weak to them without me noticing.

My brother in law is playing through BDSP now, and he has the worst team I have ever heard of: Roserade, Crobat, Absol, Chimecho, Empoleon, and Luxray. He called it your pretty basic team, and I almost wet myself from laughing so hard. I know you can win any main game with just about any team, but that one was terrible. He then asked me what I went it and I was like. . . You know, just Torterra, Staraptor, Heracross, Milotic, Lucario, and Garchomp. Nothing big. . . lol

« Last edited by Warrior13 on Nov 28th 2021 »

I'll find a way to cover for them, as an adult you can get through the games pretty easily with just basic strategy.

Lmao, I guess that isn't really a terrible team from a game perspective. Tons of people used Piplup and shinx, I'm sure. The others though I'm not sure why you'd choose. Absol at least has the cool factor going for it.

Yeah, I almost went with Absol as fill in until Milotic and Lucario since it can be caught in the underground, but the free Manaphy and Jirachi were already way enough.

Lol, I did a whole guide on Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl and I still don't have a clue what you two are going on about.

Lol you really have to have grown up with it to really get it I think.

Currently I'm at the Pastoria Gym with Torterra, Alakazam, Rhydon, Porygon2, and Staravia. I'm a tiny bit overlevelled but not too bad. I really wish they still made the games this way. Clearly still made for kids, but for like 10-13 year old kids, not 5 year olds like the newer games. You can still breeze through if you know what you're doing but if you're new to Pokemon it would be quite difficult.

I was overleveled the entire game in BDSP until the post game. Those levels were clearly for the older fans.

In the newer games I don't even know how it would be possible to be underlevelled with the whole team getting exp share and all the bonuses they give you. Unless you skipped every trainer battle and did no random encounters. When I played Sword I don't think there was a single point in my whole playthrough where I needed to stop and grind levels for more than a few minutes. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing; grinding is just padding the game out. But they still need to work to smooth out the level curve a little bit. It seems like playing normal will get your entire team a couple levels higher than your opponents, and when you've got 6 pokemon and the average opponent has 2 or 3 it's just easy. Plus it tells you when moves are super effective, which I actually like. It's been a bit of a pain playing Platinum and I can't remember if something is Dark, Normal, Psychic, Poison or Ghost.

SwSh broke the whole system. Seriously. Two or three dynamax battles when you first get to the wild area and you are pretty much set on candy to overlevel. My starter was fully evolved by the time I reached the first gym. O.O

Yeah it is just too much, and they really push you into using that stuff too. It's not like finding a rare candy every now and then. You're finding level-up aids constantly. They really just make the games trivial, and it's a little insulting to the audience. I know the games are for kids but when I was 10 playing FireRed and Emerald it at least felt like the game was respecting my intelligence.

IDK if they've done market research and found that players drop games at the first sign of a challenge nowadays or what, but playing Sw/Sh as an adult really makes me feel like I'm playing a game for small children, and playing Platinum today doesn't give me that feeling at all. But the games sell more and more every time so it isn't going to change.