Pokémon Legends: Arceus is Exactly the Game it Needed to Be

NOTE: Aside from very small worldbuilding details and previously-established information provided by the official website, this review is free of any spoilers. In fact, I strongly recommend diving into this game as blind from leaks as possible like I did; that way, you can savor each surprise and discover everything for yourself. Just something to consider, if not for this game, then for the next releases (which have just been announced as of Feb 27!). In any case, enjoy!

A month has passed since the release of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and as of this blog post, I have completed the main story, the postgame, the Pokédex, and nearly every sidequest save those pertaining to completing the newly released “path of solitude.” Without a doubt, my playthrough of this game has been the best time I’ve had with Pokémon since the days of playing Diamond and Pearl with my friends in the late 2000’s, and not just because of the Sinnoh connections.

(Before I get started, though, a quick side note: I went into this game as blind to leaks as possible; all I had were the handful of pre-release trailers and website information that were officially provided. As a result, I had the unparalleled thrill of being able to play through this game without knowing a thing about what I’d see or what would happen next, and I strongly recommend you try the same, if not for PLA, then for the (just announced!) next games in the series.)

Going into PLA, I had my share of gripes, especially involving—say it with me—difficulty and challenge. Between affection making the games even easier than they already are, and some dullness surrounding the design of the region(s), the games had just been feeling stale and overdone. When I wrote about what I wanted from Pokemon, I said that, regardless of its actual quality, Pokemon Legends: Arceus would show us just how much Gamefreak would be willing to change for the sake of improvement—and boy did they go the distance.

From the very beginning, the game tells you its primary focus: discovery. You’re thrown into a time period when Pokémon are feared, Poké balls are brand new, and you’re tasked in creating the first Pokédex for the Hisui Region, ultimately laying the foundation of the Sinnoh Region to come. Through that narrative lens, even the Pokémon you’ve seen a hundred times over are actually a delight to encounter and observe, while the brand-new forms and evolutions are even more exciting to come across.

The overall story plays out in a very chapter-like fashion, with Jubilife Village serving as your hub as you explore the different zones of Hisui. Some story beats are stronger than others—the Cobalt Coastland’s is my personal favorite—but each one holds its ownfor the most part. The base game’s climax is fun but the credits arrive somewhat abruptly. The postgame’s climax, however, is probably one of the greatest moments in Pokemon since N’s Castle in Black and White.

That’s the basic, summary-esque rundown, but there’s a lot more to say—both in favor of the game and against it. For the sake of balance, I’ll switch back and forth between the game’s key strengths and areas that are in definite need of improvement.

STRENGTH: It’s different—and actively challenging.

Moves have been streamlined, several status effects have been completely reworked (Sleep has been changed to drowsiness and works like paralysis with increased damage taken instead of reduced speed, and freezing has been changed to frostbite which works like burns except for reducing special attack instead of attack), and speed has been changed to make fights more dynamic. Type advantages trump level advantages almost every time, and battles can very rapidly shift both in and out of your favor. Even if you aren’t losing battles, you’re bound to suffer plenty of knockouts on your adventure, but never in such a way that makes it feel frustrating.

Of course, that’s only if you’re choosing to or forced to engage a Pokémon in a traditional battle. Whether you’re sneaking up on a Bidoof or dodging for your life hoping for a lucky catch against a ruthless alpha after it’s knocked out all of your partners, you’ll find there is plenty of thought that needs to go into how you approach each and every situation.

In that way, Pokemon has triumphed over its long-standing trouble with trying to keep a decades-old gameplay formula engaging and exciting.

WEAKNESS: The graphics & graphical fidelity are atrocious.

…Yeah, this one’s pretty obvious. While the game’s graphic style is okay, the game seriously struggles to look good most of the time.

Regarding graphic fidelity, what I mean by that is how the graphics as they are presented hold up during gameplay, which in this case… they don’t. Watching a flying Pokémon smoothly fly about with a whopping two frames of animation is an absolute joke, and watching a small Pokémon disintegrate into a pudding of polygons after stepping five feet away is just sad.

Even though I love this game, the game’s graphical woes are unacceptable and inexcusable. Fingers crossed that Pokémon does better in this department in the future—or at least gets help from another company.

STRENGTH: The Pokémon have personality to spare.

Taking a break while snow-buddy’s watching…

This one’s technically a threefold strength. First, the Pokémon out in the wild do more than just wander about randomly: they sit, they sleep, they hustle around and roar, they look at each other, and you can even see their eyes shift about once they’ve caught onto you. In one memorable instance, I dropped from a ledge and caught a wild Pokémon’s attention, but was able to hide into grass before it could properly spot me. It approached and shifted its eyes left and right, suspicious of my presence, before making an educated guess and launching an attack in my area. I instinctively dodged, forced out into the open as the Pokémon ran off. Personal stories like this can only happen thanks to the advances that Game Freak makes to both the behavior and the mechanics of how Pokémon go about.

Second, we actually get to see Game Freak live up to their word about new animations as some Pokémon take on new, dynamic stances and/or launch wild attacks, charging in ways they haven’t and couldn’t after years of recycling assets from the days of X and Y. While not exactly something I’ve berated them for, it’s been a longstanding issue that has at least been addressed at long last.

Lastly, I just enjoy sitting around with my Pokémon, watching them interact with the trainer and each other. It’s a charming way to integrate recreational interactions with Pokémon a la Pokémon Amie and Pokémon Camp, and I am EXTREMELY grateful that affection is nowhere to be found in this game.

WEAKNESS: You run out of things to do eventually.

All good things come to an end eventually, and unfortunately, PLA is no exception. Once you’ve completed every quest and caught every Pokémon, there isn’t a whole lot to do other than everything you’ve already done. While not exactly a problem on its own, it does hurt when you don’t have even an extra file to start a new game with without erasing everything you cherish about the one you’ve completed.

This gripe will be and has already been sated slightly by at least one free update and won’t be as big of a deal once Pokémon Home compatibility arrives, but all the same, the solitude of a single save file hurts a bit, given that the pricey Nintendo Online subscription only counts for one account per switch.

STRENGTH: It makes me excited for the future of Pokémon.

“I’m optimistic!” says local optimist. More at 11.

Not in a long while have I finished playing a Pokémon game, seen the next one on the horizon, and felt to myself “I can’t wait to see what they do with the next one!” Most of the time, it’s either been neutral excitement or just hope that they’d do things a little better next time, but instead, I’ve been given the luxury of (cautious, realistic) optimism. With that said…

WEAKNESS: It makes Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl even worse in retrospect

I’m sorry. I’m not even trying to actively dunk on BDSP, but unfortunately, PLA just completely blows them completely out of the water, and I can’t really think of a way that they could have been spared that fate while sticking to the mission statement of “faithful remakes,” while also making bewildering choices like unavoidable affection bonuses and of EXP Share being shoehorned and implemented problematically (PLA helped me brighten my opinion of its inclusion for the most part).

I’m glad we got something like them, though. They exist to give newer fans a chance to play through the original Sinnoh Region, and I managed to enjoy them despite my issues. No doubt a chief complaint if we didn’t get them would have been “I wish we just got proper Diamond and Pearl remakes instead” or something similar.

If anything, BDSP can be viewed capstone on what Pokemon used to be like, for better and for worse. Still, as much as I hate dwelling on could-have-should-have-would-have thoughts, I’m still bummed that they’re stuck in the shadow of an overall stronger and more pivotal game in the series.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Despite all the things there are to criticize and take jabs at, Pokémon Legends: Arceus’s strengths and improvements upon the overall series far outweigh its weaknesses. It’s exactly the game it needed to be, for its own sake.

…That would be the note that I ended on, but then Game Freak had to go on and announced that the ninth generation is on its way in the forms of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet. In the trailer, we can see glimpses of some of the advancements that PLA put into practice, but almost everything about the games remains unconfirmed, save for the declaration that it is an earnest open world. With that in mind, it’ll be interesting and exciting, if not frightening, to see what aspects of PLA will carry on into the next generation…and what will ultimately stay behind.

A thought for another blog post. For now, I’m just happy with what PLA has to give.