Regional Differences

This is a sub-page of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.

Japanese ROM Size#

The header in the ROMs of the initial release of the Japanese versions specifies a size of 128 MB, but revision 5 decreased it to 64 MB.

Introduction Cutscene#

Japan	America	Europe	Korea

The screen which precedes the opening cutscene had its copyright dates updated. There is an ESRB notice below the copyright notice in the American release.

Title Screen#

Japan	Korea	International

In the Japanese and Korean versions, the title screen instructs players to "PUSH START BUTTON", but the localizations instead state "PRESS START".

Japanese Font#

Unlike Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen, and Emerald, the Western localizations of Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver use a different Japanese font for regular text as opposed to the one from the Japanese versions.

Black, White, Black 2, and White 2 instead use a Japanese font that is reminiscent of the one seen in some of Diamond and Pearl's pre-release Japanese footage.

Registeel Sprite#

Registeel uses a different pose in all non-English European releases of the game (as well as in the Korean release), as its original pose could be misinterpreted as a Nazi salute. This change was later applied to all versions of Platinum and retained for HeartGold and SoulSilver. It appears that the sprite was redrawn from scratch rather than edited, given the different shading.

Original	Non-English European and Korean

Event Items#

The Matchup Checker app for the Pokétch was distributed to Japanese players to celebrate the American release of Diamond and Pearl, and was later made available in-game in Platinum. Additionally, players of Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum could obtain a Lucario Doll from the Lucario Wakuwaku Fair event.

Recovery Program#

In revisions 0 and 5 of the Japanese versions, there are two issues which were officially acknowledged by Nintendo on October 24, 2006.

• Aaron's room at the Pokémon League allows the player to surf and enter the void.
• Returning to the second floor of the Pokémon League after using the Union Room causes the player to get stuck in a wall.

Nintendo proposed a solution to affected players who got stuck but had not saved the game yet. For other players, Nintendo recommended using the ダイヤモンド・パール修復プログラム Diamond & Pearl Recovery Program that was released on October 27, 2006 and could be downloaded from any DS Station, later 3DS Station, up to February 2018 or from the Wii's Nintendo Channel during its lifetime. Alternatively, they could mail in their cartridges for repair until February 2018.

Battle Mechanics#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Moves that suppress or change Abilities are Skill Swap, Worry Seed, Gastro Acid, Role Play, and Transform. Verify whether the bug in question happens with all of them or only some.

The following bugs are all exclusive to the Japanese versions.

• A Pokémon transforming and then having its held item stolen in battle will lead to both Pokémon retaining the item after battle, provided the transformed Pokémon does not faint. This can be used in Double Battles to easily duplicate items.
• Successfully using Transform through Mimic and then fainting will cause the user to permanently keep the moveset of the Pokémon it transformed into.
• A holder of a Choice item who then uses Pursuit on the same turn that the target switches out can use a different move on the next turn, even though that would normally be prevented by the Choice item.
• The Attack and Speed drops caused by the Slow Start Ability are retained even if the Ability is removed.

In-Game Trades#

In the English versions of Diamond and Pearl, the three Pokémon available through in-game trades (Machop for Abra, Buizel for Chatot, Medicham for Haunter) had their language of origin mistakenly set to Japanese. This was fixed in the non-English versions of the game, as well as all versions of Platinum.

The fourth Pokémon available through an in-game trade, Finneon for Magikarp, is unaffected by this bug, as this Pokémon is canonically foreign. Its language of origin is German in all languages except German, where its language of origin is Japanese instead.

Korean Versions#

Communication with games in other languages#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Investigate the Pal Park encoding glitch.

By the time Nintendo and The Pokémon Company opened their South Korean subsidiaries in 2006, Game Freak was finalizing Diamond and Pearl. A Korean release did not occur until 2008, and it has some limitations, such as items like the Manaphy Egg being unobtainable due to inherent incompatibilities and the unavailability of the required spin-off games. However, because at least Japanese Ruby and Sapphire were released in South Korea, Pal Park accepts all languages of Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen, and Emerald, unlike the Japanese and Western versions. The transferred Pokémon are treated as nicknamed due to the language mismatch, behavior that is not exclusive to the Korean versions. It supports one more language for its Pokédex than other languages as such.

Due to the lack of an Hangul font in non-Korean releases, communications between Korean and non-Korean copies were made impossible to avoid having display issues on those copies. This means that it is impossible to trade and receive non-Korean Pokémon on a Korean copy outside of Meister's Magikarp and Pokémon and their evolutions available from the Pal Park.

Veilstone Game Corner#

Since gambling is illegal in South Korea, the slot machines of the Veilstone Game Corner were replaced with Game Machines that drop 5 to 20 Coins every day, and multiple texts in the casino were altered. These changes were later ported to European versions of Platinum, which also edited Looker's dialogue accordingly. Note that the player can still buy Coins.

Most of the Korean dialogue here was recycled for the European and Korean Platinum. In the following table, for the sake of brevity, only the Japanese, Korean and English dialogues are shown, as well as the English rendition from the European Platinum for the lines that match. The “ID” is taken from Poké Corpus. Note that the last two lines are absent from non-Korean Diamond and Pearl.

Graphical changes#

The red color (#EF2010 and #FFAEBE) of some female-gendered strings like Original Trainer (OT) names was replaced with pink (#EF59EF and #FFAEFF) for cultural reasons, as names written in red are believed to bring misfortune or even death.

Japan	Korea

Imprison#

The move Imprison displays a large red X with the Japanese character “封” (short for 封印 fuuin, the Japanese name of the move) in the Japanese version. For international versions (including the Korean release), this was replaced with a large red wax seal stamp graphic.

The stamp graphic would be used in all languages starting with Generation VI.

Japan	International

Translation Errors#

Hotel Grand Lake NPC#

An NPC in Hotel Grand Lake mentions landmarks from regions featured in previous Pokémon games. However, the names he uses in some languages (particularly Spanish) are inconsistent.

Mt. Moon#

• In the Spanish version, the NPC mentions “Monte Luna”, but the location was translated as “MT. MOON” in the Generation 1 games (and the Generation 3 remakes). The Let's Go games re-translated the location as “Monte Moon”, which is also the name used in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl.

Tin Tower/Bell Tower#

• The English, French, Italian and German versions directly refer to the name used in the Generation 2 games (“TIN TOWER”, “TOUR FERRAILLE”, “TORRE DI LATTA” and “ZINNTURM”, respectively). However, the location was re-translated in HeartGold/SoulSilver to be more faithful with the Japanese original (as “Bell Tower”, “Tour Carillon”, “Torre Campana” and “Glockenturm”, respectively). That latest name was used in BDSP as well, except in the English version (which still uses “Tin Tower”).
• The Spanish version has two translation issues. First, the NPC mentions “Torre Lata”, but the location was named “TORRE HOJALATA” in the Generation 2 games (and “Torre Campana” in the remakes). The second mistake is in “Los Pokémon arco iris... Algún día los veré con mis propios ojos.” The sentence says there is more than one rainbow-colored Pokémon (a common translation mistake from English to Spanish, since the “the” article can refer to singular and plural, but Spanish has specific articles for gender and number). Both issues were fixed in BDSP.

Whirl Islands#

• Just like in the Bell Tower case, the Spanish version got the number wrong in “Los Pokémon de color plateado... Algún día los veré con mis propios ojos.”, implying that there's more than one silver-colored Pokémon. Fixed in BDSP.