Pokemon as a franchise has spanned many years and inspired a great number of players with its games. With a number of different regions and generations, the community is filled with players who have nostalgia for different games. For those who fell in love with the franchise through Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl, one player has made the perfect papercraft tribute.
Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl were released for the Nintendo DS in Japan in 2006 and in North America, Europe, and Australia in 2007. Though Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl are independent of one another, both follow a nearly identical plot line and both start in Twinleaf Town. Papercraft is an artform in which paper or cards are used to create either 2D or 3D structures.
The post on the Pokemon subreddit shows off a near exact recreation of the town players start both of these games in. Unlike a recent remake of Twinleaf in the Unreal Engine, in this case, u/pokecreation used paper models to recreate Twinleaf Town from those games. This small town is host to four buildings, a handful of residents, and some flowers and holds a special place for those who fell in love with these games. U/pokecreation has perfectly designed the buildings from the games, transferred that to a paper model, and tied them all together to make this picture look like a screenshot. On top of this, they even brought in the NPCs who populate the area as well as the playable characters.
The papercraft models used here are exactly what players see in either game. The design and build must have taken quite a bit of time but, judging by u/pokecreation's other work on their Instagram account, this is likely just the beginning. They have recreated a number of other memorable sites from other games in the Pokemon series.
The creation here by u/pokecreation comes at a time just before the release of the Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl remakes. These two titles will be released in November of this year as part of the eighth generation of Pokemon games. The Pokemon franchise has done remakes before and, judging from the trailers, these games will likely follow a similar path as their originals.
The strong positive response on u/pokecreation's post does much to show the strong feelings the community still has for Pokemon Pearl and Pokemon Diamond. There is a debate at the moment in the Pokemon community as to whether or the changes for the remakes are too much or not enough. But, regardless of which said players land on, these creations are an impressive tribute to one of the more successful games in the franchise.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will release on November 19, 2021 for Nintendo Switch.