Nintendo is as eager as ever to expand the Pokemon franchise, and fans are reaping the benefits. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl look more and more like the high-quality Diamond and Pearl remakes that fans have been hoping for, in spite of the mixed reception that these remakes got when they were first announced. From upgrades to many of Diamond and Pearl's most appealing features to the seeming use of the expanded Platinum Pokedex, there's a lot to like about Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Still, there's a lot of questions to be answered about the game, including whether or not it has a National Pokedex.

The closer fans get to the remakes' release, the more worried they get that there's no National Pokedex. In fact, some fans speculate that Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will only have Pokemon from the first through fourth generations, up to the days of Diamond and Pearl. That could send a worrying message. If developer ILCA isn't putting every Pokemon in the base version of the game, then it and Nintendo might have a broader plan to add the rest of the franchise's Pokemon as paid DLC. The last thing that the BDSP remakes need is for the National Pokedex to be kept behind a paywall, though that could be happening.

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The Potential National Pokedex DLC

The rumor that Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl won't feature all eight generations of Pokemon stems in part from a post by Nintendo of France that said the games will feature monsters that appeared in games through Generation 4. That phrasing heavily suggests that Pokemon from Black and White onwards will be missing from Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. This would be a major break in precedent for Pokemon remakes. Usually, when Pokemon returns to a region, the old region brings in all kinds of new Pokemon that've been introduced since that region first appeared. HeartGold and SoulSilver followed this precedent, as did Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

As important as it is to the game, Nintendo has generally avoided talking about exactly what Pokemon will appear in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl's Pokedex, in spite of all the publicity that the game has gotten. The trailers only show Pokemon that first appeared in the Sinnoh region or the regions that preceded it, so there's no clear sign that a National Pokedex will appear. That could very well be because ILCA only plans on putting Pokemon from the first four generations in the BDSP base games, with the intention of releasing the other four generations as post-launch content.

It wouldn't be surprising for Nintendo to turn the National Pokedex into a DLC. Nintendo has found a ton of success selling DLCs recently, after all. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's many DLC fighters are best-sellers, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's DLCs prosper too. As paid expansions become more and more comfortable as a part of the Nintendo brand, a National Pokedex expansion from Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl seems less and less out of the question. On the contrary, it seems increasingly likely.

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Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Should Avoid DLC

If this is really the angle that ILCA and Nintendo are taking, it could be a disaster. One only needs to look back as far as Pokemon Sword and Shield, which faced widespread criticism for cutting hundreds of Pokemon and featuring an incomplete Pokedex at launch. Game Freak and Nintendo relied on Sword and Shield DLCs to add tons of missing Pokemon back into the games, but fans remained very frustrated that Pokemon were missing at all. As the Pokemon world grows, fans are extremely anxious to have all of their favorite Pokemon available to them, meaning there's just no way to cut Pokemon without upsetting fans.

Putting missing Pokemon behind a paywall doesn't solve BDSP's potential Pokedex issue. The Sword and Shield DLCs may have brought back a lot of Pokemon, but they also introduced new storylines, areas, and Legendary Pokemon that made the investment much more worth it. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, in contrast, don't take place in totally new regions that could suddenly get new areas and Legendaries through DLC. There's not a lot of content that ILCA could whip up that would simultaneously make sense as an addition to the Sinnoh region and satisfy fans who are skeptical of buying a Pokemon DLC.

In a broader sense, a National Pokedex DLC for Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl sets a bad precedent. Some fans and critics feel that the game industry is increasingly reliant on DLC as a way of 'finishing' a game after its release, generating some extra revenue in the process. Nintendo can't fall into that trap. Pokemon fans tend to see a Pokemon game as incomplete or missing something if it doesn't feature every Pokemon in the franchise, so it'd be very hard for ILCA and Nintendo to frame a National Pokedex DLC as anything other than patching an incomplete game at an additional cost in the eyes of fans.

Diamond and Pearl Deserve Complete Pokedexes

Hopefully Nintendo is just playing coy when it comes to a National Pokedex. It's entirely possible that ILCA has already put the totality of some 900 Pokemon in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but Nintendo just hasn't advertised it yet. As the BDSP release date draws near, there's definitely some value in saving the National Pokedex for a reveal until weeks or days before the games release. A big trailer revealing a complete National Pokedex in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl could stimulate a surge in sales that Nintendo can ride through the end of the holiday season.

Nintendo seems to be releasing Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl trailers a little more frequently than before, which makes sense in the last months before the remakes release. As such, maybe the National Pokedex's reveal is right around the corner. The entirety of the Pokemon franchise really deserves to be in these games, no matter how the National Pokedex gets incorporated. Fans have wanted Diamond and Pearl remakes for so long that it wouldn't feel right to return to the Sinnoh region without inviting Pokemon from Kalos, Galar, and so on to visit. Hopefully the National Pokedex makes the cut in BDSP, and it would be best if this was not accomplished through DLC.

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl release on November 19, 2021 for Nintendo Switch.

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