>>58114367I played Ruby, FireRed, Emerald, Diamond, and Platinum as they came out. What struck me when I first played Diamond was the massive leap in audio quality, especially hearing Pokémon cries like Chimchar, Starly, and Kricketot. I didn't notice anything with the speed, and I especially didn't notice when Platinum had faster surfing speed because surfing isn't anywhere near as prominent in Sinnoh as it is in Hoenn. There are maybe three separate dedicated water routes and some ponds, and you only ever really visit them once, unlike Gen I, II, and III which put all their dedicated water routes in big clumps. But suffice it to say that speed was never an issue for me. I took notice that Gen V was much snappier, and I've considered what it would be like if Gen IV was in Gen V's engine, but I don't think it feels right. Really, my only outright issue with speed is "Saving a lot of data...", that's annoying, especially after using the PC once. Other than that, I feel like Gen IV being a bit more leisurely is part of its identity, and it's really prominent in the music (and even in Barry's character's arc). Was the performance meant to intentionally tie with that? No, probably not, but parts like music tempo and HP dropping 1 point per frame are deliberate design decisions. Maximum running speed being what it is partly tied to not breaking the game engine (which Japanese v1.0 Diamond and Pearl were notorious for being able to do with tweaking), but I wouldn't say it feels wrong to me. At any rate, it doesn't bother me to play.
