in the literal sense of the word. I understand people have different opinions (wrong opinions in this case) and have their own personal favorite Pokémon "game" (of which the mainline ones are all like the same game) or even game but come on, and pardon my French, Pokémon fucking copies and pastes every mainline game without changing anything in the core mechanics. Sure, attacks might work slightly different. Sure, there's other rivals, antagonists, an open world will be introduced, yadda yadda yadda... If nothing else changes about its core element except for "Hey look! New Starter Pokémon!" or "Hey look! It's evolving and in Z-A they're SUPER EVOLVING! WOW! Minecraft and the modding community surely weren't first were they?!" etc. Why oh why do people keep on eating up consumerist products for breakfast?! BREAKFAST I TELL YOU!!! This game literally babies you and has horrible anime tropes! Fuck Pokémon, fuck everything heavy consumerist there is. You know the average level of human intelligence? Yeah expect those of people buying every new shiny Pokémon ever to be lower. Yes, I know, speedrunners, nuzlocke developers, modders in general have the intelligence to break and reverse engineer and mod a game. That doesn't mean they're intelligent enough to know they're basically playing the same game in a different disguise! I've HAD IT! And I've known Pokémon all my life and even with 3 fucking games I know they're the same!

Tl;dr: Fuck mainline Pokémon and everyone liking a franchise of the same game is dead wrong. If you feel offended, sorry if you did. I never intended it to be that way. It's just my literal unfiltered opinion. Normally I don't believe in wrong opinions anymore but in this case I believe wrong opinions do exist.

Legends Arceus came out around the same time I first moved away from my childhood home to another state. I was now a fully independent adult and it felt like the series was growing with me.

This is a Pokemon game we have never seen before, a Pokemon game before the modern Pokeball and Pokedex. A Pokemon world where people live in fear of Pokemon not WITH them. This was a big draw for me. The region of Hisui and the characters that inhabit it are truly something. I enjoyed the nods to OG Gen 4 tunes in the soundtrack and the open world was fun to explore. I can see the Breath of the Wild inspiration but wish they had tweaked some things to be more in line with the rest of the series. I especially think that the music (even with its nods) fell a little flat for me. It also suffers from some pretty horrendous animations. (The black screen and sound effects worked okay in the early 2000s but now it feels a bit out of date).

Overall I really enjoyed the story and characters. The new gameplay mechanics were fun and provided some fun postgame challenges. I am happy I took the time to catch them all in this one!

3.5

When I watched two people play this, I was incredibly excited. An open world Pokémon game where you can free roam and catch Pokémon on the go? Heck yeah. Sadly, the actual game suffers in parts. Most of the enemies get pissed off and chase after you, even when they’re 60 levels under you. When running fast on foot or another Pokémon, all you have are 11 Pokémon trying to murder your character.

Speaking of murdering your character, I hate that bosses are now Dark Souls. Why does my child character have to fight legendaries and dodge roll while throwing balms? The whole point of Pokémon is an ordinary kid has extraordinary monsters but my kid can take way more hits from the beasts now.

Despite my complaints, I do like completing tasks to fill out the Pokédex and there’s a lot of variety in the side quests. The plot is alright and it certainly ties in with Diamond and Pearl, but I haven’t played those (definitely pandering to the remakes also on the Switch but that’s alright).

My problem with pretty much every Pokémon game is that I get gung-ho about completion, and then once those credits roll, I immediately stop caring. I hope future games follow more in this style of gameplay with the exception of the boss fights.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is an attempt at a new, streamlined take on a series that needed a shake-up. I can see where they were coming from with this game’s design to an extent, but I don’t totally love the execution. There is some decent Pokémon collecting fun to be had here, though, with a few ideas worth carrying forward.

One of the series’s pillars is the simple and fun invitation to “catch em all”. Arceus makes catching Pokémon faster than ever, decoupling it from battle and making it more of a realtime action mechanic. Changes like that were needed to fit this game’s objectives, since the player must gather research data on individual Pokémon by repeatedly capturing, battling, using, and observing them.

This very “efficient” and grindy take on interacting with wild Pokémon drained a bit of the satisfaction and excitement out of it for me. Catching my 6th Geodude for a Pokédex challenge wasn’t much more interesting than picking up the ore I needed to craft the Pokéball I used. MMO-style sidequest filler does not help the feeling that this game is more checklist than adventure.

The core actions of the game and building up a collection are pretty enjoyable when you’re just roaming around and doing it at your own pace. I dropped the game in its later chapters when I hit a wall where a lot of grinding was needed to even progress the story. Many players won’t even know that you have to reach a certain rank to progress, since they’ll hit it naturally—I was fine for a lot of the game, but at some point I’d had enough.

Though they don’t really feel like a truly lifelike, dynamic part of the world, Pokémon do have added behavior where they’ll evade capture or even attack the player if angered. Some special boss fights in particular have you actively dodging their attacks and hurling dozens of “balms” at them to calm them down before an actual battle. There’s a world where this kind of stuff is fun, but I mostly found it annoying here.

The turn-based battling systems are a bit stripped-down here to the essentials, but do add welcome new considerations around turn order. Moves can be done normally or in a “strong” or “agile” style that affects the damage output and when your Pokémon can attack next. They also generally speed up the flow of combat in nice small ways that add up over the course of a 20+ hour game.

I found the battles a weird mix of easy and frustrating—they’re not difficult, but just feel a bit off balance-wise now that they’re sped up. My main Pokémon was sometimes wiped out before I could even do anything, against a foe with no significant type or level advantage. Battles against multiple foes at once feel particularly un-fun. It’s not the most fun iteration of the series’s battle system, and not bad either, just one that I wasn’t super excited to engage with.

You would think that a game this concerned with making the action faster and more immediate would actually let you focus more on it. Instead, Arceus regularly spends far too much time on its mostly forgettable story and boring dialogue. Super-fans may find the historical lore interesting, at least. The story has its moments where it’s pretty good, but generally can be a drag on the game experience.

The medium-sized nature zones that you fast travel to lack notable landmarks or personality, much like Scarlet & Violet’s plain open world, but here there aren’t even cities or anything to smooth over that issue. Traveling from a hub to disconnected open zones lacks a feeling of actually progressing through a world. You can ride various Pokémon around these environments, which is fun, but annoyingly, you have to get off of most of them to throw balls or do other key gameplay tasks.

Much has been said about this game’s disappointing visuals. Its environments are definitely lackluster, with bland textures and color palettes, but I like some of the artistic choices like the historical Japanese influence on clothing and architecture. Performance for me was mostly totally fine and stable. The HUD is not bad, but the UI/UX falls apart a bit in the menus, which I found awkward to fumble my way through as I looked for the thing I wanted.

Many players are frustrated that this game’s faster gameplay was not carried over into the main series, and I suppose it’s up to Game Freak to find a happy medium that satisfies everyone. This game has plenty of moments of fun, enough for me to have a fine time playing for hours at a time. It just feels like a chore too often to be a direction for the series that I’m particularly excited about.

I would have given this one star but it was technically innovative in the sense that it was different for the Pokemon formula. If you still play Pokemon Go you will probably love this.

What works?

I will admit I was getting really into this when I entered the first semi-open world zone. It was cool stealthing up on Pokemon in the grass and then catching them with a pokeball. It was simple, responsive and cathartic. It immediately triggered those endorphins as intended. The graphics are okay, but I honestly felt Breath of the Wild looked better though they both have a similar style.

And what didn't?

I opened up my Pokedex and was utterly appalled by the amount of grinding required to finish a single Pokemon entry... catch 25 of the species, then catch 15 of them while being unseen (to be fair these 15 can count towards the 25), then watch the Pokemon use an ability 25 times (to be fair you can use that pokemon and control the use of said abilities), then defeat X amount of that Pokemon... ect. ect. ect. And all this bullshit is just for one Pokemon...multiple side quests require you to complete specific Pokemon entries... WTF. Is this a fucking MMO?

I proceeded to complete multiple non-Pokedex entry side quests to see what I was rewarded. Mostly useless shit with the occasional Rare candy... almost all of these side quests felt copy-pasted out of an MMO. Go here and talk to X. Then go back to the start and talk to Y. Done. Or go collect X and give it to Y.

The greatest missed opportunity here, besides not having a real open world, was the lack of environmental storytelling. That's something that both Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild did fantastically. It creates immersion and makes the NPCs and monsters feel like real breathing creatures in the world. While thought may have been made with the placement of Pokemon, they don't do any kind of interaction with the environment or other Pokemon (that I witnessed). Instead, they just shambled around in an endless loop like any MMO mob. There wasn't cool details like a Pokemon smacking a tree to get berries from it, or having a Pokemon play in the water, or having two Pokemon of the same species playfully chase each other around. Anything to breath life into these Pokemon. Hell even Pokemon Snap, as silly as it was, made an effort to give the Pokemon interaction with their environments and other Pokemon. I get it's easier to do it on a controlled rail shooter, but that was a N64 game. Why can't you at least meet it's standard after making so many Pokemon games for decades?!

The Alpha Pokemon mechanic was almost a good inclusion. Conceptually it's cool to have stronger Pokemon varieties with unique moves. The issue is how outrageously strong and over leveled most are. For example, there's an Alpha Rapidash in the first zone you can enter. Every Pokemon around it is level 4-6. It's fucking level 40! And I couldn't tell it was level 40 until I engaged it in combat. The turn based system also feels completely imbalanced because some Pokemon will simply one shot you before you can even decide to run away let alone switch Pokemon. Thus I got my first Pokemon curbed stomped to death before I could run away because the Pokemon was level 40...

Don't even get me started on the "plot." Endless monologues of inane bullshit. My favorite (ironically) was when I was trying to figure out how to calm down a legendary Pokemon. I had to feed it to chill it out, but it was TOO dangerous to get close to it. After a drawn out series of go to X and then to Y quests of talking to NPCs, I finally consult a professor. He pours over his extensive research notes to conclude... why don't you make a snowball from the food and throw it at it? I'm glad his endless years of studying Pokemon have paid off with such ingenious ideas... I guess I should have known of his utter incompetence given his stupid Pokemon hat that he wears on his head.

In conclusion, a swing and a miss for me.

Note: I wrote this review earlier this year and never published it. Might as well dump it here.

When Nintendo announced Pokémon Legends: Arceus alongside Pokémon: Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, it felt a bit like a social experiment. What game would people gravitate to--a remake that devoutly sticks to delivering the classic Pokémon formula exactly as you remember it, or a promised reinvention of what Pokémon is? Big shocker, but the most exciting of the two games ended up being the one that looks forward, not the one that looks back.

STORY

In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, you are launched into the distant past of the world of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, at a time when the region of Sinnoh was called Hisui. Your character falls into Hisui through a rift in space and time, and you're quickly introduced to Professor Laventon, the Galaxy Expedition Team and their main settlement, Jubilife Village. The Galaxy Team is a group of foreigners trying to make a home for themselves in Hisui. Due to your character's expert knowledge of a recent invention known as the Pokéball, it is up to you to survey the lands of Hisui and document the wildlife of the region in Hisui's first ever Pokédex.

In past games, Pocket Monsters never felt threatening. Not so in Legends: Arceus. While docile Pokémon like Bidoof and Psyduck are completely fine with human interaction, most of the critters in Hisui are hostile, and will attack people on sight. This makes your scientific expedition something that's crucial to people's survival in the region. It's a great twist that gives you a good reason to go out and find all of these Pokémon that you've probably seen before--especially if you've recently played Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

There's a story--it's not mind blowing by any means, and the pacing is quite slow near the beginning. That said, it feels much more compelling than Pokémon Sword and Shield's plot, and it dives into a surprising amount of Pokémon lore, with many fun references to Diamond and Pearl. It has some hilariously dark undertones, like people being terrified that Pokémon will come and hurt them, or the just fact that you're working for a colonial power dead set on taking over a land that's already populated by a native people, exploiting their religious feud and poaching the wildlife by trapping them in little balls by the hundreds... But hey!

GAMEPLAY

So, it's a bit obvious, but I HAVE to say it: Legends: Arceus is trying to recreate the Pokémon gameplay experience in an open world. Hisui is not a seamless open world, like, say, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild--it is split into several areas representing each of the Hisui's biomes. Kind of like in a Monster Hunter game, Jubilife Village serves as your main hub, and the place where you can take on missions and prepare for your excursions into the wild.

Despite the fact that the world is not seamless, the influence from Breath of the Wild really shines through. The game gives you missions that you complete in open environments, with natural rivers and mountains serving as the obstacles that you have to overcome. You collect items from the environment that you then use to craft useful things, and it even makes a similar sound when you collect them. You eventually get to ride Pokémon and glide through the air! Even the music is pretty similar.

But, this is most definitely not Zelda, because despite this influence, it's really nice that Legends: Arceus really retains its identity as a Pokémon game first and foremost. Pokémon are everywhere in Hisui. It's hard to stand anywhere without a bunch of them spotting you and immediately trying to attack you. How you interact with said Pokémon is everything in Legends: Arceus. In a funny reversal of mainline Pokémon gameplay, you can use tall grass to sneak up on Pokémon. When you try to catch them, the game turns into a sort of shooter where you throw Pokéballs and items at them. There’s a standard Pokéball, but there’s also a light variant that is effective at long range, and a heavy variant that is especially effective if you hit Pokémon from up close. You can throw food to temporarily distract Pokémon, and there are other items that can help you sneak up on them more effectively.

The quality of your items and Pokéballs are gated by your Star Rank, which is leveled up by completing your Pokédex. Unlike in past games, catching a Pokémon is not enough to complete their entry. Each Pokémon has their own list of challenges that you can complete. This can involve catching the Pokémon a bunch of times, feeding them their favorite food, defeating them with a specific type of move, or even just having that Pokémon in your party and using them in battle. Once you get 10 points on any given Pokémon, the entry is complete. It’s a brilliantly flexible system that lets you play how you want.

This is mainly what makes Pokémon Legends: Arceus the most addictive Pokémon game that I've played in a LONG time. No matter what you’re focusing on at any particular moment, you can just go out into the world and feel like you’re making some progress. Completing your Pokédex increases your Star Rank, which unlocks more and more tools to help you complete the Pokédex more efficiently. It’s just plain good game design.

If a Pokémon spots you, they’ll enter an alert state, and empty Pokéballs will just bounce off of them. At that point, you can chuck objects at them to stun them and run away for dear life, or you can throw out one of your own Pokémon to initiate a classic style Pokémon battle. And--can I just say--one of the absolutely best things about this game is how seamlessly it transitions in and out of battle. Battles take place in the open world, and you still have control of your character kind of like in Dragon Quest XI. One nice touch that I loved is that you can get caught up in a Pokemon’s attack if you stand too close to the battle! If the next Pokémon game regresses from this, I will be very disappointed.

For the most part, battles play out like they do in any other Pokémon game. They do feel a little faster, which keeps the game going at a pretty brisk pace. The main twist this time around is that once a Pokémon masters a particular move, they can perform Strong or Agile versions of that attack. A Strong Attack powers up the move at the risk of losing a turn, while an Agile attack weakens your move in exchange for a chance at an extra turn. It’s not revolutionary, but it actually does add a cool layer of strategy in some of the game's tougher fights.

If all of your Pokémon faint, you still have a chance to physically run away from the battle, but getting knocked out means you lose a few of the items you were carrying in your bag. If you're worried by that, don't be, because all you have to do is wait to get them back. Losing ties into a neat mechanic where you can find bags dropped by other players at the spot where they blacked out. The player whose bag you're collecting gets their items back, and you are awarded special points that can be used to buy special items. It makes losing feel strangely exciting, because you're giving other players a chance to gain something.

SHORTCOMINGS & VISUAL PRESENTATION

There’s a couple of quirks I have to note though—There are several rideable Pokémon in the game that help make it easier to traverse each section of Hisui. Wyrdeer helps you zip around quickly to places on land, while Basculegion helps you get around on water. Both of them work pretty well, although it's quite annoying that you sprint by clicking in the left stick while on foot, but while riding Wyrdeer and Basculegion, it's changed up to the B button. Come on guys, that the heck. There's also Sneasel and Braviary, who replicate the climbing and gliding mechanics from Breath of the Wild, but in a significantly clunkier fashion due to the controls. It's all functional enough, but it feels like this stuff just didn't get the polish it needed.

Another thing that left me feeling mixed are the boss battles. Just to clarify, I'm not talking about the Pokémon battle kind--there's actually a few of those here that felt pleasantly challenging. No, I'm talking about the Noble Pokémon encounters. These are the big boss battles of each region of Hisui, where Legends: Arceus turns into more of an action game. You have to dodge attacks and throw balms at the boss to decrease its health bar. At certain specified points, you can throw out your Pokémon to initiate a battle, and if you win the battle, the boss enters a stunned state that lets you get some free shots in. However, that mechanic feels pretty irrelevant, and the game mostly lets you completely ignore it. The boss mechanics are fine, but they feel like they lack polish.

Now, let’s talk about the visual presentation, because that’s probably the biggest downside to this game, and it's impossible to miss. Legends: Arceus can be butt ugly at times, with some shockingly low quality environments that feel like they’re right out of an early PS2 game. Sure, it's not ALL bad—the skybox is pretty, and you get a stable overall frame rate here (Despite the dreadful amount of pop in and choppy frames on distant monsters). There are also some weird glitches sometimes, like Pokémon clipping through walls, or Pokéballs just not reacting correctly when you throw them. It’s all the more puzzling considering that we’ve had games like Xenoblade Chronicles and Breath of the Wild, which make the most out of the Switch’s hardware to create some stunning open world environments. The visuals were distracting, but they weren't enough to take away from the fun of the game. It's just really bizarre to see this from a developer of Game Freak's stature, and I hope they invest some time into making their games look nicer in the future.

CONCLUSION

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is SO close to being the perfect Pokémon game. The core of that perfect game is here, but it's got a plethora of rough edges. Even with those rough edges, this a really fun game. I know not everyone may feel this way, but honestly I wouldn't lose much sleep if this served as the template for future Pokémon games. The series really needed some reimagining, and this finally executes on that need. To me, Sword and Shield felt like 3DS games with fancier graphics, but this feels like the proper next generation Pokémon game I was waiting for. At least when it comes to the gameplay--please spend some money on people who know their way around 3D graphics, Game Freak.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus on uudenlainen pelinavaus veteraanisarjalle. Tähän asti sarjan pelit ovat luottaneet hyvin vahvasti jo Redissä ja Bluessa luotuun kaavaan ja meininkiin. Perinteet ovat hyviä, paikoilleeen jämähtäminen ei. Pokémon-pelien kohdalta vaakakuppi alkoi kallistua liikaa jälkimmäisen suuntaan. Niin suunnittelu kuin ulosantikin on näyttänyt elähtäneeltä jo pitkään.

Vaikka Pokémon Swordista ihan tykkäsinkin, on erittäin hieno nähdä, miten Pokémon Legends: Arceus tekee asioita uudella tapaa. Se heittää tutun kaupunkien kiertämisen ja salimerkkien keräilyn syrjään ja keskittyy ennen kaikkea Pokémonien keräämiseen luonnosta. Ja sen se tekee hyvin. Tuntuu jopa oudolta, että Pokemonien nappaaminen ja niiden kanssa ottelu on nopeaa, sulavaa ja viihdyttävää. Tätä helpottaa se, että avoimissa ja laajoissa pelialueissa liikkuminen on tehty myös mukavan sujuvaksi. Yleisestikin Arceuksessa on hauska tehdä asioita, kun aiemmissa peleissä moni juttu tuntui pelin kankeuden tai hitauden takia lähinnä vaivalta. Sekin yllättää, että Pokémon-pelissä on haastetta. Kiitos tästä kuuluu eniten Alpha-pokémoneille, jotka Arceuksessa ovat ajoittain vastaan tulevia jättimäisiä ja voimakkaita perus-pokémoneista. Myös dodge-spämmäämistä olevat lopparit tuovat mukavaa haastetta, vaikka ovatkin varsin yksinkertaisia ja toisteisia keskenään. Tarinakin on pelissä ihan mielenkiintoinen katsaus Pokémonien ja ihmisten yhteiselon kivikkoisiin alkuaikoihin sekä hirviökeräilyn ensiaskeliin.

Audiovisuaalisella puolella ollaankin sitten enemmän tyypillisen Pokémonin parissa. Sarjalle tuttuunn tapaan, musiikit ovat pelissä todella miellyttävät. Mukana on niin tunnelmapalaa kuin pirteää rallia. Äänipuolella ei muuten ole moitittavaa yhtä isoa miinusta lukuunottamatta: ääninäyttelyn puute tuntuu selkeästi. Pelin välivideot tuntuvat hiljaisuudessaan ja jäykkyydessään Gamecube-ajan tekeleiltä. Lisäksi välivideoita ja peliä kokonaisuudessaan vaivaa erittäin selkeästi karu visuaalinen anti. Grafiikat ovat paikoin todella rumat ja vanhahtavat. Joskus peli onnistuu olemaan jopa miellyttävän näköinen (cel-shading ja upea skybox tekevät paljon), mutta useimmiten peli näyttää paljon rumemmalta ja karummalta kuin se ansaitsisi.

Onneksi grafiikat, heikko vakuuttavuus sinemaattisuuden puolella ja ääninäyttelyn puute eivät tuhoa pelin hauskaa ja koukuttavaa pelattavuutta. Peliä on vain hauska pelata. Tämän jälkeen on hankala palata vanhojen Pokémonien pariin, ja toivon että Gamefreak kokee asian myös näin.

Pokemon pelien kaava on jämähtänyt sinne 90-luvulle, jolloin itsekin otin ensikosketukseni tähän ihmeelliseen taskuhirviöiden maailmaan. Peli toisensa jälkeen on muistuttanut hyvin paljon toisiaan, mutta nyt vihdoin spin-offissa on uskallettu lähteä tutkimaan uusia suuntia sarjalle. Pokemon Legends: Arceus esittelee pelisarjaan avoimen maailman sekä uudenlaisen gameplay flown, joka tekee pelistä todella koukuttavan.

Yksi suurimmista muutoksista on Pokemonien catchays vain pokepalloa heittämällä. Jos haluat taistella väsyttääksesi kovemman pokemonin, onnistuu sekin oman pokemonin heittämällä villin hirviön jalkojen juureen. Pokedexin tavoitteiden täyttäminen, catchayksen nopeus ja pokemonien näkeminen maailmassa, tekee sen, että peli pyörii enemmän moton "gotta catch em all"in ympärillä kuin mikään aikaisempi Pokemon. Pokemon taisteluihinkin oli tuotu uusia ideoita mm. agile ja strong iskujen kautta, heikkouksien ja vahvuuksien suuremmalla merkityksellä ja taisteluiden kohtuu korkealla vaikeustasolla.

Tälläisenään peli vaikuttaa lähes täydelliseltä. Kuitenkin pelissä on monia ongelmia, jotka laskee pelin arvosanaa. Pelistä huokuu aivan liikaa se, kuinka pienellä budjetilla peli on tehty. Graafisesti peli on aivan toisesta maailmasta muiden Nintendon yksinoikeuspelien kanssa. Piirtoetäisyys on olematon ja avoin maailma on hyvin tyhjä ja tylsä. Peli vaikuttaa tietyllä tavalla hieman keskeneräiseltä ja raakileelta. Tälläisenään peli ei vain millään pääse samalle tasolle sellaisten mestariteosten kanssa kuten Breath of the Wildin tai Super Mario Odysseyn kanssa.

Mielelläni näkisin vastaavan kaavan Pokemon pelin suuremmalla budjetilla ja kunnianhimolla. Silti jo tälläisenä kokemus oli positiivinen ja Arceus on monin tavoin paras Pokemon peli, jota olen pelannut.

4/5 Kiitettävä