Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl Won't Let Players Turn Off Experience Share

Trainers looking for a challenge in the upcoming Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will be disappointed to learn about the games' strict implementation of the Experience Share feature.

During a preview of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, NintendoWorldReport discovered that players are no longer given the option to toggle Exp. Share on or off. Instead, the feature that distributes experience points across trainers' current party of Pokémon will remain permanently turned on. Although some players may find Exp. Share useful for avoiding the grind of leveling Pokémon individually, others have complained about the feature making the games less difficult -- especially when the level curve of opposing Pokémon is not designed around it.

What makes the decision to restrict Exp. Share even more confusing is the fact that the Auto-Save feature can be toggled on and off. As such, some fans find it strange that Auto-Save, which helps prevent players from losing hard-earned progress, is optional while Exp. Share is mandatory despite only affecting the challenge of battles and the time spent grinding their Pokémon to desired levels.

Exp. Share was originally introduced in the series' first generation of games, where it was called "Exp. All" and split half the amount of experience points earned by the battling Pokémon among all others in the player's party. It wasn't until the second generation of games when the Item was renamed to "Exp. Share" and half the amount of experience points were shared only with the non-fainted Pokémon holding the Item. Exp. Share worked similarly in later generations before becoming a Key Item in Generation 6, which allowed it to be toggled from the Bag menu and half the amount of experience points earned in battle to be split across all non-fainted Pokémon.

Although it is unknown how effectively the opposing level curve in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl is designed around permanent Exp. Share, the upcoming remakes will feature plenty more new additions and returning features both big and small. Pokémon Hideaways revamp the Sinnoh Underground, offering not only a return to mining and base-building but also exclusive Pokémon that help address the limited type variety and frustrating encounter conditions of the original games. Trainers will even be able to polish their gym badges once again using the Switch's touchscreen in handheld mode. With all this and more coming to the remakes, players planning on purchasing the games digitally should expect to free up roughly 9.7 GB of storage.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl arrive Nov. 19 exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.