Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were released just over two days ago, and many players are taking advantage of the weekend launch to play the games. Some are still figuring out the Pokemon to look for after carefully planning their team, and others have already finished the base game and are approaching the post-game content. Even though Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are mostly faithful remakes of the original Generation 4 Pokemon games, they also introduce new features and reworked classic ones to make the games feel a bit different without diminishing the experience of the 2006 titles.
Still, a few fans discovered that it's possible to be softlocked out of post-game content in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl by not seeing Drifloon in Valley Windworks or the Hearthome Gym. Some players were unhappy with the discovery, as the softlock has its foundations in obscure mechanics and the weird choice to make Drifloon only spawn after an entire week from Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl's launch.
Furthermore, players have found another softlock in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl in the seventh Gym, which is located in Snowpoint City and has Candice as its leader. The issue arises if players perform a specific set of movements that can lead to being stuck between unbreakable snowballs and an unclimbable icy slope, all while trying to solve the Gym's puzzle to fight Candice. A Reddit user by the name of Hoomanadaw found the softlock while playing and then shared a post with a video attached to showcase the steps needed to reproduce it.
The main problem is that Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl players might inadvertently lose a lot of progress or their entire game save depending on how often they save and other factors. Because Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have an auto-save feature active by default, players who run into the issue could reboot their Switch and restart at the entrance of the gym. However, players who don't save frequently and deactivate the auto-save might end up losing their progress, or their entire game save if they saved after getting stuck.
Players are also finding it annoying that early Starly encounters at the beginning of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl can result in Shiny critters, albeit they cannot be caught. Softlocks and uncatchable Shinies are major oversights in Pokemon games, and hopefully they will be patched to prevent them from ruining the players' experience.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are out now for the Nintendo Switch.