This is my first time playing platinum, and I played the Challenger's Edition hack. I am having a marrrrrrrrrvelous time. I am loving playing this hack, just beat the Elite Four and am now doing the other content in the game. Thanks for this hack!
The random encounters are nicely unpredictable in this hack, I found myself wondering "What am I going to find in this area?" every time I went somewhere new. The wild pokemon encounters made traveling Sinnoh "real" for me. I only encountered two notable glitches in the random encounters: A level 70 Celebi in Eterna Forest (which I ran the **** away from at my level) and a level 59 machamp in Victor Road that infrequently spawned, when most of the other random encounters were in the 40's (though I used this machamp to get a nice experience boost
I lol'ed when I used the super-rod for the first time and fished up a Gyarados. Imagine if you were there in real life: throw the bob in the water, wait for a nibble, pull back slightly - HOLY ****ING GYARADOS.
The party I beat the Elite Four with, and am still using, is the following:
Omastar
Milotic
Absol
Torterra
Scyther
Ninetales
I had most of these pokemon for a large portion of the game, so they're pretty close to me. I caught Milotic and Ninetales in their evolved forms, Omastar was evolved.
The following information may be useful for players of this hack:
To get the Member's Card, needed to get Darkrai, trade a Medicham for Gaspar the Haunter in Snowpoint City
To get the Azure Flute, needed to get Arceus, trade a Buizel for Charap the Chatot in Eterna City
To get Oak's Letter, needed to get Shaymin, trade a Machop for an Kazza the Abra in Oreburgh City
To get the Secret Key, needed to get access to the Rotom room, trade a Finneon for Foppa the Magikarp in Route 226.
In all the above cases, the secret item is held by the pokemon you get from the trade.
Warning on the Finneon trade - it is possible to strand yourself on Meister's island if you don't have any party members with Fly and Finneon was your only Surf'er in your party. Of course, this is unlikely because you probably just caught a Finneon for the occasion. If I put this here hopefully you will read it. Thanks to http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Meister for this bit of advice.
