Pokemon Brilliant Diamond sees the return of a rare easter egg from the originals

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Happy birthday to Pokemon director/composer Junichi Masuda!

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond
(Image credit: Nintendo)

A rare Easter egg hidden in the original Pokemon Diamond and Pearl games has re-emerged in the Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remakes. 

Originally spotted by Nintendo Life, the 'diamond dust' Easter egg was first revealed in the original games back in 2008. The idea is that this type of shimmering snow will only appear in the game on special occasions (eg: New Year's Eve, the player’s birthday, etc.) however it does also appear on one other occasion, a day not every fan is aware of. 

Junichi Masuda, director and composer of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl as well as a host of other Pokemon titles, will be celebrating his birthday today (January 12), and to honor the video game icon, Diamond and Pearl’s Snowpoint City will be decorated with a flurry of diamond dust - giving the whole town a sparkly touch-up. 

This Easter egg was first teased by Masuda back in January 2008 when he published a post on his own blog which read: "Here’s a little surprise for you. Please play Pokemon Diamond / Pearl on January 12th. You’ll find something different." Despite Pokemon Diamond and Pearl releasing in 2006, the Easter egg didn’t appear until January 12, 2008, due to Masuda celebrating his 40th birthday that year. 

It’s nice that the new developer of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, ILCA, decided to keep this in the games - especially considering the original titles were developed by Game Freak. It might not be too much of a surprise though considering Junichi Masuda did return to direct, compose, and work on the game’s overall concept and plot this time around too. We can’t blame him for wanting to celebrate his 54th birthday with players too. 

Wondering which Pokemon games you should revisit? Take a look at our best Pokemon games list for inspiration. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.