Pokemon: Diamond and Pearl is the fourth generation installment to the popular Pokemon series that was released back in 2006 for Japan and later in 2007 for North America for the Nintendo DS console. Developed by Game Freak, the game puts players into the fantasy world of catching Pokemon and facing off against a new criminal group known as Team Galactic.
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Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are two of the most successful pokemon game series of all time, selling two million more cartridges than their predecessors Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. With this established popularity, hackers wanted to learn more about the game and released the source code online from the Nintendo servers. One of the things they found relates to how often pokemon spawn on certain days.
On days dedicated to remembering tragedies, such as 9/11 and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, pokemon are 10% less likely to appear in all areas of the game. Pokemon are also less likely to spawn on holidays such as Christmas, Culture Day, New Year’s Eve, and the Spring and Fall Equinox. However, these other holidays only have a 5% decrease in spawn rate, unlike anniversaries for tragedies.
The hackers also revealed that Pokemon were more likely to spawn on certain holidays as well. Those holidays include Christmas Eve, the 4th of July, and St. Patricks Day. National holidays in other countries were also taken into consideration and given boosted spawn rates, such as Italy’s Italian Liberation, Japan’s National Foundation Day, and Germany’s Volkstrauertag.
It is speculated that this feature was included in the game to encourage fans to play more during specific festivities, while inversely stay away from the game in order to spend time with family and memorialize incidents. Whatever the case may be, only time will tell what other interesting secrets can be learned from these classic games and if they will be carry over in a possible Diamond and Pearl Remake.
Pokemon: Diamond and Pearl is out now for the Nintendo DS
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