Quoted By:
>SPOnG: Okay, last quick question – two criticisms I’ve noticed which crop up time and time again are that lots of gamers don’t like Friend Codes within the games and there has also been some criticism of Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl for still being in 2D instead of 3D. How do you respond to these criticisms?
>Tsunekazu Ishihara: As you may know Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl include a feature which is very similar which is very similar to an IP, so you can chat to friends over the Internet via the WiFi connection. In this respect we have to be very careful about the security and we want to be careful that it is not possible to talk to complete strangers – so in that respect it was necessary to have this [friend] code in place as a security measure. This is something I take very seriously.
>The other elements that don’t require this code are already in there – but they tend to be separated, these two - so that you chat with people that you only know and you trust. But other things like casually trading a Pokémon with someone, can be done without even knowing them. So, we have intentionally separated these elements. Where privacy is needed we have put this measure in place. And where you want to play with lots of people that you don’t need to know, this is also available.
>In respect to your second question, if you look at the map [indicates DS screen] you will notice that they are all designed in 3D. We just wanted to maintain the feel of what Pokémon used to be – so it is the same feeling of walking through the town or the field or the map or whatever. So, we wanted to maintain the original idea of Pokémon being a game that you played on this big map. It is, physically, in three dimensions but it is designed in such a way that it doesn’t look like it is in three dimensions. Intentionally. So that we maintain the original feel of the game.
