Review: Pokémon Legends Arceus

With the ever-increasing number of pokémon, the task of truly catching ‘em all has become slightly tiresome. With the original 151, it at least felt doable, providing you had some friends to trade with (if you didn’t, however, more fool you). It’s refreshing then, that Legends Arceus draws the focus away from the monumental task of catching these huge amounts of creatures, and instead provides a more research-based approach. Does it all work, though? Read on to find out.

Plot: 

The pokémon series isn’t exactly known for its innovative narratives. Previous entries have basically consisted of the main player (a 10 year-old girl or boy) deciding they’re too old to remain at home, retrieving a starter Pokémon from a tree-named Professor, and building up a team to beat all the gym leaders in their region, ultimately either capturing or killing (or, as the child-friendly game stipulates, ‘fainting’) an ancient pokémon that nobody else has been able to deal with for thousands of years. Simple enough.

In this game, however, by taking the game back to a past setting (the fourth generation Sinnoh region becomes the Hisui region), we can finally explore what our friendly pocket monsters were like before they got on with their human counterparts. After falling from the sky, you soon become a member of the Galaxy Expedition Team, and learn that pokémon are dangerous. You can get injured! You can die! You can’t actually do either of these things, despite what the commanders say. This is still a kid’s game, remember? If your character is attacked too much, you just black out, lose some items and return to base camp. Lame.

Besides being tasked with researching pokémon, you also have to figure out what’s going on with the sky that you fell out of, which involves defeating five noble pokémon, overpowered creatures that need to calm down and eat some Snickers. Or, essentially receive some ass-kicking from yours truly. Once you’ve sorted them out and the legendary pokemon are dealt with, and then most of the plot is finished. While the narrative still has the basic building blocks of previous entries, the past setting and the dynamic between pokemon and people (pokémon trainers aren’t established yet) is pretty neat. And the game’s primary villain is the best since Pokémon Black and White’s N.

Gameplay: 

Part of this may be because I played this game with a Switch Lite rather than a regular Switch, but the controls definitely left something to be desired. Walking around the terrain is fine enough, but tasks that should have been relatively simple like aiming poke balls took far too long to master, and the noble Pokémon fights were hellish. Part of this was because this new, Dark Souls-like dynamic of combat provided a new and intriguing level of difficulty, but another part of this was because the controls for these fights were as smooth and intuitive as instructing a Magikarp to swim the Channel. Also, considering that children are the target audience, they’re not going to get too far with these fights. Especially the final fight with Arceus. Many of my blood cells left their mortal coil before I managed to beat this (un)holy dude.

Visuals:

The last game I’d played in the series before this was Pokémon Ultra Moon, so the visuals initially felt like a big step up. They weren’t exactly Breath of the Wild quality (a game that Arceus had frequently been compared to before its release), but they’re pretty good compared to the graphics of the small screen. That being said, even after the update to fix some glitches in the graphics, there’s still room for improvement. If you decide to engage in battle, your character can walk straight through the pokemon, which is kind of disconcerting. The last thing pikachu needs when it’s under attack is a random human just standing within its whole figure. If you’re looking for pristine graphics and realistic, complex rendering, then look elsewhere (although that’s more down to the quality in visuals between consoles. You’re never going to get Dark Souls-quality of animations on the Switch). Also, some glitches still haven’t been patched. That Togepi I saw walking around in sporadic circles a while ago, with no abject purpose? It’s still there sometimes. I don’t know what pokéblocks that guy ingested, but I don’t want what he’s having.

Longevity:

The game’s focus on research will probably be a make or break for some. It might get boring quickly, or it might suit completionists well. The main storyline will take about 25 hours. The potential for extended gameplay, however, was one of the highlights for me; even though the catch em’ all mission isn’t there anymore, it still feels satisfying to try and complete as many entries in your records (the pokédex hasn’t been established yet) as possible. And completing the Path of Solitude quests introduced in the Daybreak update also provide a decent challenge. And if you want another challenge, why not complete the Path of Solitude with every pokémon in the game? Not saying I’ve done that *cough*.

Verdict: 7 Mews out of 10