Pokemon: Breath of Fresh Air.
Pokemon has seen its fair share of entries apart from its beloved main series. From serving Pokemon beverages in a Cafe, taking in a bit of photography, to catching them outside in the real world via Pokemon Go. And yet, regardless of it being these companion games or its core main titles, we’ve yet to see a game release with the ambition and scope of Pokemon Legends: Arceus, a game that while controversial in its visuals, is the breath of fresh air the series has needed for years, a game that I can confidently say is the greatest Pokemon adventure of all time, and it's not even close.
My history with the franchise is wide-ranging, with playing nearly all main series games and a vast assortment of its side adventures. Despite my consistency with the series, I’ve finished very few of them, largely because the old formula starts to create a sensation of bordem, yet hopeful that each new entry would somehow get its hooks into me. Even when the series started to adapt more towards 3D visuals, the aged formula would only see small tweaks instead of any significant changes. Despite several entries having me play for countless hours, no single game in the franchise has made me this obsessed as I am with Arceus.
Part of what impresses me the most about Arceus is how I actually feel a true sense of adventure here that has lacked in many of its main series titles. The core formula for Pokemon worked well back in the day, setting the structure for years to come. Sadly, that formula just isn't as exciting anymore and the series has stagnated to the point of boredom in essentially playing the same game over and over with a new coat of paint and a new generation of Pokemon to catch. Arceus has some aspects of that formula at its core but leaves a drastic amount of them behind in favor of large open areas that were first teased in Sword and Shield as well as a battle and catch system that offers considerably more freedom and a UI that doesn't break up pacing upon every single action.
Before I get into the tall grass about Arceus, let's address the Phampy in the room; its visuals. There has been a great deal of discussion surrounding not just the art style, which has similarities to Japanese scroll art or something akin to ukiyo-e style, but also the technical aspects of how Game Freak just couldn't quite pull off its ambitious scope of creating a Breath of the Wild adaptation to this franchise. I'll stress right now that there is no world where Arceus looks like "garbage", but that doesn’t mean that much of its criticisms are not warranted. The title certainly does have a lot of technical shortcomings around it that honestly should not exist here, especially with how Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and even a non-Nintendo developed release like Monster Hunter Rise offer vastly better looking and performing, open worlds, and some of them from years ago. There are aspects of this game that do look amazing, but it can be hard to notice them when you have other such apparent issues popping up all around you, drowning out nearly anything positive.
Arceus’ biggest issues stem from a considerable amount of pop-in with trees, npc’s, Pokemon, and mountain ridges seemingly appearing out of nowhere. There is also a lot of shadowing flickering, stilted animations at a distance, and the total lack of anti-aliasing is also a huge bummer. While the pop-in isn’t a massive issue as you are walking around, it’s when you earn your far faster mounts where it’s just everywhere, all the time. This is clearly Game Freak’s first foray into a full movable camera in a 3D space, especially to the scale of its open world. However; with how much money the Pokemon company generates, it’s a shame another team with more experience wasn’t brought in to at least iron out these problems or improve upon the game’s performance in some way. This is on top of some very low-resolution textures that while are apparent in its environment, are even more so when they are on npc’s directly in front of you. While all these issues didn’t ruin the fun I had from its gameplay, that isn’t to say that I am not disappointed here, because I am.
Arceus takes place in the past when Pokemon are still unknown to a lot of its population, often deemed as terrifying and mysterious creatures. This means that there are only so many trainer battles due to how only certain people have taken it upon themselves to learn how to battle with them. Most of these characters are known as the Wardens, and they will test you throughout the game in various ways even if none of them prove to really be that much of a challenge. Personally, for myself, I appreciated that I wasn’t simply battling every random person along the path, but I do hope that in future installments or even some form of post-game DLC that there can be some sort of middle ground found here, like maybe a “one year later” spot of content that populates the world with new challenges and those who have embraced the Pokemon lifestyle.
In the game’s opening moments, your quickly customized character will appear on the beach after being sucked into what appears to be some sort of portal from the far-off future, indicated by the fact you are holding a cellphone. Then, as mysteriously as the portal appeared, your phone is transformed into some sort of high-tech device, capable of receiving signals from an equally mysterious force. Then, shortly after meeting the game’s Professor, you’ll be introduced to Team Galaxy and eventually start to work for them in Jubilife Village, putting in efforts to create the region’s first Pokedex. While most of your missions start here, you can also use the village to further customize your character, purchase goods, train your Pokemon, or use your storage to craft when you are not on the go.
As the game progresses, you’ll meet the Diamond and Pearl clans, who will require your aid when mysterious events start to befall their most cherished and honored Pokemon. While much of the game is built around you building the first-ever Pokedex, the game’s story does eventually wrap up in the endgame, which requires you to track down every single Pokemon to witness the game’s true ending, in a manner of speaking, anyway. Each of the available Clans has a variety of characters to interact with, as well as a deep-rooted history that you’ll come to understand.
While each of the previous games has had some sort of story, it’s varied wildly in its approach and it’s only been the past few entries where it’s taken any sort of a cinematic flavor to it. Now, your mileage is always going to vary on whether or not a story clicks with you, but out of the past few entries, the story told here has been vastly better, but that comes with a caveat. Up until the credits, I feel this game’s narrative was good but not great, largely because of a few unanswered questions still remaining. However; the endgame does more than satisfy what felt missing before then, and features one of the more challenging fights in the game to boot.
With the scale and approach Game Freak has taken here with its narrative, it is a shame that the entire adventure wasn’t voiced, especially since they likely have access to the voice talents from its own cartoon division. There is such an attempt here to really set this adventure apart and while Nintendo has most commonly avoided voice acting in their games, this would have been the perfect time to actually pull it off. That said, the game’s story and side quests are still quite good, especially that of a particular quest that has you tracking down a Spheal, but I can’t help but feel how more hysterical it would have been to have voice acting applied, especially to the last line of that particular quest.
Arceus gives you a ton of freedom as a trainer, and honestly, this is the first game in the series to treat the trainer like more than a progression outlet for selecting your pokemon. You can run and move around during battle, hide in the tall grass to stealth capture nearby Pokemon, and you can even be attacked and injured by them as well, dropping some key items that can be tracked down later by other players should you fall in combat. Battles and catching take place in the moment and is remarkably fluid as you can just simply toss a Pokeball and run away, hearing the sound of the ball clamping shut behind you as you go to track down your next victim. Pokemon also act differently from one another, sometimes being super aggressive or running away should you get too close.
You can also toss out Pokemon to gather materials or berries from nearby trees, and it gives Arceus this fast-paced feeling that we have never had before in the series to this extent. Apart from evolutions, most of all the game’s actions just happen while you are out of menus, as do alerts about your battles and the experience gains your team has after a victory. Everything is built to still give you all that same information, but not at the cost of having to push through prompt after prompt before you can return to the action at hand. This is one of the first Pokemon games where I felt I was playing it more so than I was buried in menus or various prompts containing information I already knew. Was that move Super Effective? Well yeah, the battle menu tells me that without it being a prompt. Things like this are everywhere and the game is far quicker-paced because of it.
Since gyms do not exist yet, your rank is that of a member of Team Galaxy. As you catch and work through your Pokedex, you’ll push through a series of Ranks, each allowing you access to control Pokemon of a higher level and granting you access to newly created Pokeballs. Each time you enter into the wild frontier of the Obsidian Fieldlands, Crimson Mirelands, Cobalt Coastlands, Coronet Highlands, or the Alabaster Icelands, you’ll find a wealth of unique Pokemon to each zone, as well as a variety of materials to snag for crafting, as well as uses for a variety of mounts you’ll receive that can sprint you around effortlessly, glide through the sky, swim through water, climb vertical surfaces, or track down items buried in the dirt. Each action you perform from throwing out a Pokemon for battle or to snagging those resources, will either develop that relationship between you and them or work towards your experience as both a trainer and that of your Pokemon. It’s extremely rewarding that everything you do has meaning here in some way, even if you’re simply going out on a resource gathering hunt in order to sit down for an evening of crafting.
The biggest differences between Arceus and even the most recent Sword and Shield is the pacing of catching your Pokemon and how battles work. There have been some major changes made to the meta with buffs and debuffs to certain moves, to outright changing how some of them work altogether. And, if your Pokemon suffers an ailment during a fight, they will be cured of it the moment the battle ends. You’ll still use items to top them up in or out of battles, but so much work has been made here to make your progression quick and snappier, even if it does mainstream some aspects of the game a bit too much for some players. Previous games have had you approach a Pokemon by either seeing it in the overworld via Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee, or through random battles in the grass, depleting its health low enough to hopefully secure it with a well-timed toss. While the latter can still happen from a catching perspecitve, you’ll see every Pokemon before you head into battle and you can either throw a ball at it before it notices you or engage into battle with it. If you sneak up behind it, while staying in the grass, you can ping the ball at its backside for a better chance at capturing it, complete with a very satisfying smack sound that just hits perfect. If there isn’t grass, you have a variety of other items to cloud yourself in smoke or appear less apparent, making stealth applicable pretty much anywhere.
Battles themselves play out very similar to what the series is known in its turn-based combat, except for a few key differences. The biggest change is that you’ll now be able to allow Pokemon to master certain abilities, and this results in the Pokemon being able to alter how these moves work in combat. When a move is mastered, a scroll icon will appear next to the move and give you the option of using it either in an Agile Stance, or that of a Strong Stance. Agile attacks are weaker but often allow you to attack again immediately after using them. Strong attacks work to the other end that while giving the attack more power, it will result in your Pokemon losing the ability to attack next turn and usually take two hits back to back from your opponent.
Another big change is that while Pokemon can have access to only four moves at a time, they are allowed to keep all their previous moves for a quick swap before any battle, allowing you to min-max your team for every fight. While your camp is always a fast travel trip away, you won’t be able to access your Pokemon Box at any time, instead, relying on those camps or even back in Jubilife Village to swap out your team. While there appears to be a massive amount of storage to contain every Pokemon you encounter, whether they be shiny or larger versions called Alpha’s, I do wish you could auto-organize the box instead of having to manually sort them, especially since the inventory menus themselves have a sort all function for your items.
in regards to combat, there is one last change, but it’s something more applicable to your trainer. A few battles across the game have you dodging Pokemon in their own personal habitat. These battles can feature you attacking with Pokemon, but you’ll have to weaken or stun them first by dodging out-of-the-way of their attacks as they aim for your trainer. Personally, I really dug these as it shows the efforts your trainer is willing to go to and makes them more than just a menu tool for your Pokemon. I’ve always compared Pokemon to being that of spells in an RPG, so it’s nice that the person wielding said spells can have other avenues in regards to combat available to them.
Another fairly big and welcome change is that the Pokedex isn’t just a catch and forget system anymore, but instead, have you pushing through a series of tasks like catching, battling, or using particular moves for a Pokemon a certain number of times. Each entry can be leveled up to level 10 and this results in your shiny chances improving, even if it can be fairly easy to encounter shiny’s regardless. You’ll also encounter Alpha variants, which can be another task to complete, and these larger than normal versions are nearly twice to three times as tall as their normal counterparts and pack considerably more punch as well. Thankfully, any 10 tasks can be completed from catching or battle more to fleshing out and mastering all of the available tasks if you see fit to do so.
To keep you occupied in the wild open spaces that each zone presents, you’ll have a few activities apart from the story and side quests that will keep you coming back to the zones over and over again; Outbreaks and Space-Time Distortions. Outbreaks are rapid spawns of a specific Pokemon in a set zone where you’ll average around a dozen or so of the same Pokemon in a very tight area. There has even been a way to manipulate them into almost always offering a shiny, so I would certainly recommend checking this video out for details on how to achieve that. Space-Time Distortions are extremely fun and challenging events as these dome-covered areas start to flash in strong and sometimes very rare Pokemon. They only last a few minutes and can be a great way to make a serious haul of not just rare items, but Pokemon as well. For how to spawn them, check out this video as it explains in detail exactly how they work.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus was always going to be controversial. Whether it was its tech-limiting visuals or its new approach to reshaping the formula, it was always going to disrupt the Pokemon fanbase in an attempt to make something new out of it. Whether this is a spin-off to work alongside standard formula fare releases, it’s hard to say, but I’ll say this. Arceus, whether you are fine with its visuals or not, is the biggest leap we’ve ever had in modernizing this series beyond its hand-held design. It’s the biggest leap we’ve seen in what a Pokemon game CAN and SHOULD be, and in significant ways for its first big attempt. The previous formula is far too archaic in its design to continue, and much like its wonderful cast of beloved Pocket Monsters, it’s finally leveled up enough to see its next evolution. Legends Arceus was the rare candy the series needed, and with a little bit of hope, there will be no need to look back.
Developer - Game Freak. Publisher - Nintendo, The Pokémon Company. Released - January 28th, 2022. Available On - Nintendo Switch. Rated - (E) Mild Fantasy, Violence.
Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch OLED. Review Access - Pokemon Legends: Arceus was purchased by the reviewer.