Pokémon Legends Arceus

Dedicated video game blog post? Why not?

If you’ve skimmed through my Medium stories, chances are it’s not lost on you that I’m a big fan of the pokémon video games. I wrote a whole breakdown summarizing the pokémon games on the dual-screen Nintendo DS and was eagerly anticipating the “next-generation” pokémon game on the then-newly released Nintendo Switch. But alas, we got Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee instead. The creators reassured fans that a “core mainline” pokémon RPG was to make its debut on the Switch the following year, which it did. Pokémon Sword and Shield. I was incredibly disappointed by those Gen VIII games, to be honest. It was shallow, bland, boring, uninspired, and entirely forgettable. The routes were linear hallways, exploration was entirely done away with, the National Dex was gone, and the Dynamax mechanic was so gimmicky and unfun.

Despite all that, Sword and Shield went on to become the best-selling pokémon games, right after Red & Blue. I guess being hot on the heels of Detective Pikachu and the success of Pokémon Go counts for something. And then came Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, the long-anticipated Gen IV remakes but with a chibi art style, and one that does away with most of the good mechanics from Platinum. I didn’t even bother buying this one, because despite having greatly enjoyed Gen IV, I was just not a big fan of the direction that the franchise was heading in. There was one game that was announced though which had my attention from the moment it was revealed — Pokémon Legends Arceus.

For years, fans have been fantasizing about what an open-world pokémon game would feel like. I myself am responsible for a few fanart pieces that involve Photoshopped renders of pokémon in a Breath of the Wild-esque open world where you’ve got a lot of freedom to just run around and catch pokémon at your own pace. And this game seemed to promise just that. From the gameplay trailers, I could see that it had revamped the catching mechanics, updated some battle mechanics, and seemed to have some interesting gameplay tweaks that might be for the better. Even then, I was cautious about getting too hyped up about it, because it is still the same studio that shipped the same stale formula for over 20 years in the form of pokémon games. Regardless, I told myself I’d definitely be at least checking it out to give them some credit for trying to innovate here. I started playing it the moment it was available and I’ve now been playing the game for the past couple of weeks now.

I’m only some 30 hours into the game now and have not completed it, but I can already say that yes, this is exactly the type of pokémon game I had always dreamed of playing. It is open-world, it streamlines much of the catching and battling, it does away with the eight gym leads and an Elite 4 formula, it places you as a researcher (not a trainer) in an ancient version of Sinnoh, you can craft your own items, it has boss battles where pokémon directly fight you, it has alpha pokémon where the pokémon attack you, and the game is fairly challenging overall too. You can’t get overleveled easily and stomp your way through the game with your starter like you could in previous games. It’s overall a surprisingly fun and incredibly enjoyable experience. This is — and I don’t say this lightly, as someone who has played every single pokémon game ever released — the best pokémon game I’ve ever played.

Yeah. From the moment I booted up the game, I was shocked to see a fully 3D freeform controllable camera. After 20 years of playing pokémon games with a top-down camera, it was unsettling to be let loose and run around while controlling the camera as you wished. It felt good. And then came the catching tutorial, and I was impressed with how smooth it was to chuck pokéballs and catch pokémon. They really did nail the primary interaction mechanic with the world, and the pokéballs have varying flight trajectories depending on the type of ball you use. All of the pokéballs even have an old-world style aesthetic to them, where they’re made out of wood and clasped shut with a mechanical lock. Even the catch indicator is different, with smoke puffs indicating the catch rate in a really novel and unique way.

The tutorial was, as is tradition in pokémon games, the longest and most annoying chunk of the game. I really wish Game Freak would take lessons from studios like Insomniac or Naughty Dog, who want you to get into the action and core gameplay loop as soon as possible. In Spider-Man, you’re web swinging literally two minutes into the game. In Uncharted, you’re already in a car chase sequence or shootout within minutes of booting it up. In pokémon, it takes some three or four hours until you’re out of the tutorial. It’s such a grind and I really wish they experimented with finding a better method to tutorialize it. The game literally makes you catch a Bidoof, a Starly, and a Shinx to make sure that you don’t have trouble in the upcoming battles. It’s really showing who the audience it’s geared towards is with moves like that.

I have to give the game a lot of credit for managing to create a believable, immersive open world. The characters are all interesting and the side mission system was a great addition. You’re constantly getting requests from townsfolk to go catch a specific pokémon or complete a research entry for a pokémon that results in cool rewards. Lore-wise, it makes sense because this is set at a time when people are afraid of pokémon and won’t leave the town borders without the escort of the Security Corps. The pokémon themselves are quite dangerous too. I was constantly getting team wiped by a random pokémon out in the wild which I thought I could definitely take on knowing that my team was several levels higher. The alpha pokémon are even more dangerous, easily one-hit-KO’ing most of my team with their enraged stats and powerful moves.

I do really love the act of just walking around and catching pokémon. If you hide in tall grass and chuck a pokéball to the pokémon’s back without being spotted, it counts as a backstrike and you stand a higher chance of catching it unaware. I also love how you have to physically toss your own pokémon at the wild pokémon to engage in a battle. It’s the little touches like this that make the experience feel so much more immersive. If you do get spotted, pokémon will sometimes attack you in groups of two or three, significantly raising the stakes of the battle. I found myself depleting my Potions and Revives much faster than I did in previous pokémon games. My pokémon were just fainting that often. It actually encouraged me to gather crafting materials and craft my own battle items, which in itself was a really satisfying gameplay loop without getting overly bogged down in inventory management.

The ride pokémon from Alola are back! And they’re fantastic. You’re able to summon pokémon with the Celestia Flute (which plays the same tune as the opening intro from the original Diamond & Pearl — a nice touch) and use them to ride around on the terrain. I also love the little quality of life touches when it immediately transitions from Wyrdeer (the land ride pokémon) to Basculegion (the water ride pokémon) when you transition from land to water and vice-versa. The game even prompts you to call the ride pokémon when you’re in terrain that would benefit from its use. Some of them, like Sneasler, are downright hilarious in how your entire player hides in a basket on Sneasler’s back as it climbs cliffs.

Another aspect of the game I love are the boss fights. Yes, there are real boss fights where the pokémon actually attack you and you have to dodge using your i-frames (this is truly the Dark Souls of pokémon games). They’re a fair challenge, with me having to re-attempt a couple of them to truly defeat the frenzied pokémon. This was an interesting mechanic that I wasn’t expecting but greatly appreciate. The fights are well designed, they actually feel dangerous, and the soundtrack is kickass. Really great addition to the whole game that punctuates the various events as you transition to new areas.

The space-time distortions are also one of my favorite things. They switch up the gameplay by appearing on a certain part of the map and forcing you to haul ass over there as quickly as possible for the chance to catch rare pokémon and collect rare items. It’s very cool how it switches up the moment-to-moment gameplay, with you deciding whether it’s worth it to slowly sneak and catch a mighty alpha Mismagius or beeline towards the space-time distortion to try and catch some rare pokémon. You also can’t soft reset a space-time distortion by saving, so it adds a nice layer of risk and reward if you’re really careful.

My favorite moment in this game came about midway through, when I made it to Coronet Highlands and was to go to a nearby location to progress the main quest. And then I saw a space-time distortion forming at the top of the map, near Cloudcap Pass. I thought to myself…”Well, I just got here and don’t have the means to get all the way up there…right? Or can I?”. While the space-time distortion was about to appear, I galloped on my Wyrdeer around the mountains and hopped my way through sheer cliffs, leaping over all kinds of high-leveled alpha pokémon that I had not seen yet on a map that I didn’t even know, and made it to the space-time distortion right as it appeared. I then spent a few minutes catching rare pokémon in the distortion and then slowly made my way down the mountain catching all the alpha pokémon and new pokémon that I could. This was peak pokémon. I hadn’t done anything as cool as that in any pokémon game I’ve ever played and this is the type of emergent gameplay that open-world freeform pokémon promised. And here it was. I was loving it.

Aside from the big stuff, there’s a whole slew of quality-of-life changes that make the game infinitely better. For one, battles take place in the overworld and there’s no separation between the world and the battle screen. It just happens wherever you are. Small but huge improvement for immersion. The pace of battles is faster because animations happen in conjunction with the text prompts, pokémon learn new moves automatically that you can re-spec later, and level-ups happen on the HUD as you’re playing. All these little things add up to speed things up dramatically. You can also swap out pokémon moves directly from the menus instead of going to a move tutor or move deleter. There’s even a mass outbreak mechanism to make shiny hunting easier than ever before.

The battle system itself had the Agile and Strong style moves added, which affect the action speed of pokémon. This too was a surprising and welcome change to the formula, where the Speed stat has greatly changed in how it functions. Instead of just letting the faster pokémon always move first, the pokémon have an action speed stat that determines who goes first in a turn order. The pokémon can switch up the turn order by using moves in agile-style that raises their action speed at the cost of some move power. In contrast, they can move in strong-style, which lowers the action speed but lets you hit harder. It turns into a decision-making game to determine if your pokémon’s move can almost knock out the opponent in one hit, at which point you might be inclined to use a strong-style move to slightly boost the power and guarantee a OHKO. Or if you don’t have any moves that can nearly knock out the opponent, you might consider agile-styling with a status move to let you move twice back-to-back in the turn order and strategize accordingly. It’s a very good change to how the speed stat works and I really like it, even if I rarely use strong vs agile style moves.

One more little detail I love is how you can just chuck your entire team on the ground and have them all pop out of the pokéballs. They all just chill there and run through a set of idle animations. You can also interact with them to get them to do cool stuff. They don’t follow you around unfortunately (I’m guessing the models for the gigantic alpha pokémon would be so huge that they’d obscure the camera — my alpha Snorlax barely fits on the screen sometimes). I have to say, the emotive animations of the pokémon are really well done. The 3D models really come to life and are extremely expressive, exhibiting the behaviors of that pokémon species really well.

Now, there are some valid criticisms to make about the game. The most obvious one might be the visuals. Yeah, it’s not a pretty game. The environment art in the open world honestly looks really bland and severely lacks any sense of art direction. The technical artistry in the open world is also lacking, with the assets and textures looking like they were made for the Gamecube. Like, Breath of the Wild was able to pull off stunning visuals through incredible art direction. And that game launched with the Switch. There’s really not much of an excuse for Game Freak to not nail this, but they didn’t quite have the talent or time to get it right, I guess. The framerate and draw distance in the game is also pathetic, resulting in a lot of pop-in as you approach new areas and is quite immersion-breaking at times. Honestly, the game probably needed more time to refine the visuals, especially in the open world environments. Despite that, I don’t think visuals are the biggest deal in a game and at the end of the day, it’s the gameplay that holds up this game.

In terms of gameplay, pokémon abilities were removed. This completely threw me off several times, as I felt like an idiot sending my Haunter out in front of a Graveler only to watch it die a painful death to Rollout (I got too accustomed to Haunter having Levitate and avoiding Ground type moves). It’s not a huge loss, but I did appreciate how much abilities changed up the tide of battle in previous games. I would sometimes find myself using specific pokémon for their abilities alone, and some pokémon had abilities that could be used outside of battle, like Pickup to literally grab randon items off the ground or Flame Body to hatch the eggs in your party faster. Speaking of eggs, there’s no more breeding. Again, not a huge loss because you can just directly teach egg moves from a move tutor, but some of the depth of breeding that perfect IV mon is lost for sure. And finally, you can’t give pokémon held items anymore. This one also threw me off a lot, as I attempted to cure drowsiness with a Chesto Berry only to realize that you couldn’t. Most of the berry held items have repurposed uses as bait and lure for wild pokémon, which is interesting. Besides, not having held items is less management when switching out your team.

Other criticisms include the lack of voice acting, limited facial expressions, and the faux-dialogue choice given to the player. While valid, I wasn’t exactly expecting any innovation here. If you’ve played most JRPGs, they’re all very similar and also lack these features. I guess it’s immersion breaking for Western players, but I personally didn’t mind much. Some players don’t enjoy the story, but I’m actually liking it a fair bit. I especially love how you’re not a pokémon trainer but instead a researcher part of an organization that goes on to become Team Galactic. The organization itself is split up into the Survey Corps (of which you’re a part of), the Medical Corps, the Construction Corps, and the Security Corps. I expected all these corps to play a larger role in the story, but they’re mostly used as background flavor to set up camps in the open worlds and escort you to and from the village. Many of the characters in the game also comment on how strange it is to “catch” pokémon in pokéballs, as it’s something that not many in the area are used to. They see themselves as partners to pokémon, not their masters. It showcases a time of living with pokémon that’s very different and refreshing, which I appreciate. The tone of the game also seems a bit darker and more mature (for a pokémon game, I mean), which is also a welcome surprise.

Despite the criticisms, the game deserves credit for all the expected-but-appreciated additions or continuations from the mainline games. There is a proper day/night cycle (including midday and evening times), weather effects that happen frequently, and many improved battle animations. Seriously, I think they re-did every single battle animation. The pokémon even move and taunt each other menacingly in battle and move forward/backward towards the other pokémon model when attacking. Even better, the player character can move around in a battle to get a different view of the action and enjoy the 3D models in all their glory. What a small but impactful improvement. There’s a few minigames like the balloon race which are cool. The crafting system overall plays in really well with all the other systems of the game like requests and resource gathering. You can even find other players’ lost satchels to get “Merit Points” to buy evolution stones or rare items like the Link Cable, allowing you to evolve pokémon like Haunter or Machoke that normally would’ve required a trade entirely by yourself.

I’m not kidding when I say this is the best pokémon game I’ve ever played. There’s just so much good stuff here and it’s incredibly fun. Lots of excellent system designs that interact meaningfully with each other. I’ve stayed up way past midnight several times the past two weeks just catching new pokémon or completing requests. It has that “just one more thing…” addictive gameplay loop to it, and the game is better off for it. It would be a shame to see Game Freak treat this as a one-off experiment and never release another game like this again. I really want to see all these mechanics carry over to the mainline games in Gen IX and beyond.

Pokémon Legends Arceus apparently sold 6.5 million copies in its first week of launch, which is astoundingly high for a game that didn’t launch with dual versions and one that launched outside of the holiday season with not a lot of marketing or fanfare from Nintendo. Honestly, the only reason I was aware of the launch was because I was closely tracking the game since its announcement. For it to sell that many copies must surely be an indication that Game Freak sees the demand for this type of pokémon adventure and must absolutely expand on it in the future, right? We can only hope. I would love to see a Kalos version of this formula in Pokémon Legends Zygarde going forward. Or even a combination of Pokémon Snap with this formula, where you as a Survey Corps researcher get your hands on a camera and need to photograph pokémon in different behaviors/interactions as well as catch them to complete pokédex entries. Until then though, I’m gonna continue playing Pokémon Legends Arceus, comfortably my favorite pokémon game by a landslide, and I’m gonna enjoy the hell out of it.