Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, while commercially successful, haven't been popular with many fans, and the Pokémon Company would be wise to take notes for when they release their next batch of Pokémon remakes. Pokémon BDSP performed terrifically sales-wise, but they also received some of the lowest critic scores of any mainline Pokémon games, and the online discourse around the two titles has been mixed, at best. Fans have taken issue with a number of aspects of the remakes, most notably the games' art styles, reduced content, and lack of online features. If the Pokémon Company continues their current cadence of releases, then fans can probably expect Pokémon Black and White remakes within the next couple of years, and it's essential that those games stick the landing better than BDSP have.
The Generation 5 games, Pokémon Black and White, and their enhanced versions, Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 take the player to the Unova region, and are widely considered to be some of the strongest games in the entire series. Gen 5 was the first time that the series attempted to do something somewhat bold with the story, as they explored much deeper issues than the games were accustomed to at the time, such as the morality of capturing Pokémon. This, combined with a brand new Pokédex, a unique region, and some of the best Pokémon sprite work the Nintendo DS has ever produced helped to establish the generation as a favorite for many.
As much outcry as the BDSP games have garnered, similarly low-effort remakes of Pokémon Black and White would most likely be received even worse by the fanbase. The Pokémon Company has to put much more effort into these hypothetical remakes, and must avoid making the same mistakes they did with BDSP. So how do they go about making better remakes for Gen 5? There are three key aspects the team should focus on.
Pokémon Gen 5 Remakes Need A Stronger Art Style
One of the biggest criticisms aimed at Pokémon BDSP has been their art style. Up until this generation, fans were used to previous remakes bringing the graphical style up to whatever the newest game in the series was at the time. If the Pokémon Company were going to continue this trend then that would mean that BDSP would look very similar to Pokémon Sword and Shield. However, they decided to pivot, and fans received a divisive chibi art style for Pokémon BDSP instead. The BDSP games are still more visually impressive than the original Diamond and Pearl, especially in the games' battle sequences, but fans were still expecting a bigger jump considering the power of the Switch, and the fact that the original DS games released 15 years ago.
This is one aspect of the eventual Black and White remakes that the developers simply have to improve on. As mentioned earlier, the Gen 5 games, and particularly Black 2 and White 2 featured widely-beloved graphics. The games took full advantage of the power of the 3DS, creating easily the liveliest and most vibrant sprites the series had seen. The fact that the the sprites actually moved and looked more alive than ever was enough on its own to put the generation at the top of many fans' lists. In many ways these graphics are still able to stand toe to toe with the sprites in Pokémon BDSP. If the Pokémon Company tried a similar chibi art-style approach with the Gen. 5 remakes the backlash would probably be much worse than what the BDSP games have received. If they are going to overhaul such a beloved art-style in the remakes they will have to put much more effort into it this time around, otherwise fans will probably just prefer to stick to their DS copies of the games.
Claiming that it wanted to be faithful to the original Diamond and Pearl games, developer ILCA were likely directly responsible for the other primary criticism of the BDSP titles: that they're faithful remakes almost to a fault. They omitted all of the Pokémon Platinum content. This also did not go over well with many fans - why remake these games with no new features when the superior Platinum version of the originals already exists? Even worse, prior to BDSP, previous remakes would almost always add something new for fans to enjoy. FireRed and LeafGreen added the Sevi Islands, SoulSilver and HeartGold had the Battle Frontier, and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire had the Delta episode. BDSP were the first remakes to add nothing notable at all, and the Pokémon Company would be better off not making that same mistake twice. Gen 5 is known for its expansive postgame, but if the developers could add onto that already solid foundation they could really have something special on their hands. Something as simple as adding a Unova Battle Frontier would probably be enough to win many of the hardcore fans over on its own.
Pokémon Gen 5 Remakes Need Additional Content
Finally, the Black and White remakes will need to have better connectivity with the rest of the series. It's hard to say where the series will be when these remakes actually release, but assuming fans have been given a Gen 9 by then, it would be ideal for the Unova remakes to have full connectivity capability with those games. Another common complaint about BDSP is how barebones the online matchmaking features are. While they do support union rooms and online connectivity via the Grand Underground, they don't have any sort of online matchmaking or competitive ladder the way that Sword and Shield do.
It makes sense that the Pokémon Company would want to keep Sword and Shield as the official hub for the competitive scene, but that doesn't excuse BDSP from having significantly less online features. BDSP also launched with no Pokémon Home support, and while it's supposedly coming in 2022, at the time of writing there is no news of a release window. Bottom line, the Black and White remakes have to give gamers more incentive to play online than BDSP do. After all, Pokémon is a social game at its core, and this is just yet again another area where BDSP drops the ball.
Pokémon Black and White remakes will certainly be coming in a couple of years, and if there's anything fans can learn from BDSP, it's that they're likely going to sell well no matter what. But hopefully the Pokémon Company, BDSP developer ILCA, and original developer Game Freak are learning lessons from the BDSP release, and decide to give Unova the remake treatment it deserves. In order to live up to the bar set by the original titles, Gen 5 remakes will need vastly better visuals, more content, and better online features than Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have.