The lack of random matchmaking in the recently-released Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl has led to a popular fanmade custom Global Union Room, allowing Trainers to meet up for battles with random players. Competitive play in the latest Pokémon games leaves room to be desired due to certain design decisions, and is one of many Pokémon BDSP features fans think are lacking.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl‘s Union Room works largely the same in the 2021 Nintendo Switch remakes as it did in the original 2006 Pokémon Diamond and Pearl on Nintendo DS. Players can connect with friends to trade pocket monsters and battle in a somewhat easier fashion than in the original releases, with users now able to access the Union Room from the game menu. Unfortunately, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl‘s Union Room doesn’t allow users to be randomly matchmade with players, something which many players have found frustrating. Another sore point for some is the 20-minute battle timer from Pokémon Sword and Shield, also found in BDSP, which restricts competitive play.
YouTuber Ashiki (via Nintendo Life) has been spreading the password of their custom Global Union Room on Twitter, hoping to “liven up the battle” of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. This Union Room is where players can go for any sort of competitive play with random players, and has been very active according to Automaton. Ashiki encourages players to stream their matches in this Union Room, and requests to use three Pokémon that are level 50 and below when entering the room. Legendaries and multiple copies of the same held items also aren’t allowed in battles. For those interested, the password to enter the union room is 6350 4649.
See the post on Twitter here.
The competitive scene in Pokémon arguably hasn’t been the same since the removal of the Pokémon National Dex. Not all Pokémon being available to use provides fewer options during competitive play, and it doesn’t seem like there are currently any plans to have all Pokémon in one game again in the future. Outside of the games, one of the only sources in which players can battle using all Pokémon is the fan-made site Pokémon Showdown, which is very popular to use in Pokémon competitive play.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl’s competitive gameplay may be lacking, but at least a fan workaround exists. 2019’s Pokémon Sword and Shield did make advancements to help facilitate competitive play such as the addition of Pokémon Mints to change natures, but the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl remakes do take some steps back being remakes of old DS games. Times have changed since the days of the DS, and while the Union Room is a nice callback to the old days of locally connecting with players, the competitive scene has changed and grown even bigger since then, which is perhaps why players are finding the new Union Room lackluster.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are available now for Nintendo Switch.