Product Info

Platform

Switch

Publisher

Nintendo

Developer

Game Freak

Series

Pokémon

Genre

Action, RPG

Players

1-2

File Size (Minimum)

6 GB

Release Date (NA)

Jan 28, 2022

Release Date (JP)

Jan 28, 2022

Purchase From

Amazon

Best Buy

eShop

The majority of Pokémon games have followed the same gameplay style since the series’s introduction in 1996. Spin-off games such as Pokémon Pinball and Pokémon Snap dabbled in other genres, but they were mostly isolated one-offs. The next entry to the series, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, however, reshapes the mechanics and gameplay that will define Pokémon titles in the future.

A Whole New World

In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, you are summoned from the modern world to the new world of Hisui. The Hisui region resembles the Edo period of Japan (between 1603 and 1867) with its unique style of art such as woodblock prints and scrolls. Referencing real world areas isn’t anything new in Pokémon games. After all, Pokémon Sun and Moon takes place in the Alola region that resembles Hawaii.

You’re stuck in a world with no technology, except for your mobile device that was transformed into a communication tool at the beginning of the game. This device will help you uncover mysteries about the legendary Pokémon in the game as well as be a helpful map to get around. 

In Hisui, Pokémon are considered dangerous and that has made the people of the growing town of Jubilife Village fearful. The town is run by Commander Kamado, leader of the Galaxy Team. You’ll enter as a member of the Survey Corps to help study how Pokémon live. You’ll work closely with the game’s Pokémon scientist who is working on the first-ever Pokédex. He’ll also provide you with your first Pokémon to start your journey. 

Outside of the town is a vast world that carries hundreds of different types of Pokémon and also clans that’ll work with you on specific missions. While it looks and has an open-world vibe, Legends: Arceus has limits. Unlike the popular The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you cannot roam freely through Hisui. Instead, players are shown a map to select one of the five main areas to explore, which is a good start for this new style of gameplay. These areas are rather large, much bigger than the first area you find yourself in. Once the boundaries of the area are reached, players will be prompted that they cannot go any further.

When starting off, you’ll spend a good two hours learning about the game and go through a lot of dialogue. Players will probably become impatient, but once that’s over, you can start roaming. The fun starts picking up when you place your second campsite in the first area. There’s hiking involved, but thankfully, the game’s map will let you return to camp in an instant, as long as you are not being targeted by roaming Pokémon that is. You’ll also get a little help from special Pokémon to travel quicker relatively early in the game, whereas in most Pokémon games, you wait till almost the midway point.

Help is On the Way

You’ll need some help exploring the Hisui region, and there’s a set of Pokémon that have unique powers that’ll aid you. For example, you can call upon a Pokémon to swim across water or climb up mountains. However, not everything is perfect. Flying feels more like a glider since you cannot go up, only dive and dash in the air as you descend. You’ll have to find higher ground if you want to explore the area by air as long as you can.

These mysterious Pokémon are very handy and are better than the old mechanics in past Pokémon games. Originally, to swim and fly in most of the games, you used a specific skill on a Pokémon in your party. Some even required you to use a roster spot for these Pokémon. With Legends: Arceus, it’s simple to swap between each unique Pokémon by pushing the “+” and then toggling back and forth between Pokémon using the D-pad.

The First Pokédex

Being in a non-digital world, entries are written in a paperbound book and completing the Pokédex isn’t just witnessing and capturing a Pokémon once like in other Pokémon games. Instead, each Pokémon research requires a completion at level 10. It’s not difficult to achieve that level as long as you follow some of the requirements and use your Pokémon in battle. For example, using Rowlet to perform a certain amount of attacks and styles will earn that level 10 quickly. You can also witness opposing Pokémon in battle to help complete your entry. Once you have enough data, report your findings to the professor, and he’ll update the research level of all Pokémon you’ve encountered and used on your journey.

Filling the Pokédex takes some work to complete, but it’s actually pretty fun if you’re into 100% completions. It feels like it gives more meaning for players to use it and puts more responsibility on the player to complete it. And don’t worry if you don’t finish it before you get through the whole story: you can still continue your journey.

More Action, More Types of Pokémon

Players can easily get sucked into roaming and exploring every part of each area. While the game still has turn-based battles, there’s much more action than any main entry Pokémon game. You’ll enter battles where you, the avatar, will need to rely on your dodging, throwing, and stealth skills against wild Pokémon. You’ll encounter Pokémon with glowing red eyes known as alpha Pokémon. These Pokémon are larger in size and tougher, possessing high levels, but capturing them makes it even sweeter. Some you can capture right off the bat with the right Pokéball and stealth movements, but expect some pretty tough battles.

Obtaining a set of alpha Pokémon will help build your dream team to take on the challenges that await you at the end. Many of the alpha Pokémon are located in specific areas, though some require exploring to find, such as Lucario and Empoleon. Once you have a well-built team of regular Pokémon, start exploring and building your alpha team. Just finding and capturing every type of alpha Pokémon makes Legends: Arceus entertaining.

While exploring, time warps will appear randomly in the area you are visiting. They’re not permanent, sticking around for roughly ten minutes before disappearing. However, these are great chances to find rare items, such as evolution stones, and rare Pokémon. It’s a good place to find high-level Eevee since that particular Pokémon is hard to find outside the time warp area and escape easily even when you do. Other high-level Pokémon will also appear and go after you.

With many new ways to play and capture Pokémon, it’s difficult to put down the controller, and when you finally do, players can find themselves picking it back up only a few hours later.

Camps Are Your Friend

Like any Pokémon game, when you are carrying six Pokémon, the Pokémon recently caught will go directly to the pasture in Jubilife Village. Unfortunately, the game does not prompt you if you want to swap the Pokémon. Anytime you need to make a swap, you can either return to the village or talk to a Galaxy team member at your base camp. While the recent Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl are better when it comes to swapping Pokémon anytime and anywhere, Legends: Arceus still makes it easy to access your overstock Pokémon.

Camps also give players easy access to rest to heal your Pokémon, shop for basic items, and adjust your inventory slots. Players can also rest for certain times of the day, making it easier to explore for specific Pokémon that roam around at night or only during the day. While you’ll carry a craft kit, there’s one already set up at camp. Crafting is one the best features of the game. Materials collected during your exploration or through purchase can help you create your own Pokéballs or other useful items such as Pokémon bait and healing items.

Additionally, you can report to the professor to submit your findings to help fill your Pokédex and earn star ranks. Once you gain enough points to earn a rank, return to the village and make your report to Captain Cyllene, the leader of the Galaxy Team’s Survey Corps. Obtaining ranks gives you rewards like earning gym badges in other Pokémon games. Pokémon at certain levels will listen to you, and recipes to make Pokéballs and other useful items like potions will become available. You can earn up to ten stars, but you don’t need all ten to make every Pokémon obey you.

Pastures Need Tweaking

The game’s version of holding your overstock Pokémon is helpful and has a clean user interface. Players can choose multiple Pokémon to set free once you obtain a certain amount of Pokémon, but the means of organizing them isn’t the best. While the game offers symbols to use to place on each Pokémon, it’s manual work. Organizing based on type is also a manual effort. If you have over four pastures of Pokémon, expect to spend at least 30 minutes and into an hour organizing.

Quick organizing options that could save hours of time are not available. Right now, in the base game, there are 242 different Pokémon. Expect to have multiple of the same Pokémon, further emphasizing the need for a better filter to help organize your pastures.

Remember That Move?

Originally, in Pokémon games, once your Pokémon learned four moves and a new move was introduced, you had to delete one. To retrieve an older move, you had to search for a specific character to help a Pokémon remember it. It was a hassle! In Legends: Arceus, you do not lose moves. I repeat: you do not lose moves! Instead, they are stacked away and can easily be accessed from the game’s menu screen to be swapped freely. Additionally, you can learn new moves by speaking to Zisu who resides in Jubilife Village. It’ll cost in-game money but not having to lose moves is worth it.

For those Pokémon veterans who remember Technical Machine (TM) and Hidden Machine (HM) moves, those no longer exist. TM and HM are specific moves that are given to Pokémon to learn, such as “slash” or “rock smash.” Instead, you’ll rely on what your Pokémon learn when they level up and on Zisu for learning moves.

Some Pokémon fans may not like the removal of TMs and HMs altogether, but it keeps moves simple and clean from a clutter of TMs overflowing your inventory. It’s great to adjust your Pokémon’s moveset before an upcoming battle. Hopefully, future Pokémon titles will pick up this new way of setting up movesets.

New Styles of Fighting

Legends: Arceus introduces new battle techniques to enhance your tactic skills: Agile Style and Strong Style. Agile style lowers the Pokémon’s move power but can potentially add more moves in the turn-based roles. Strong Style adds more power but has a drawback: potentially decreases turns in battles. Whichever style you choose, each attack takes more power points (PP).  If neither style works for you, you can ignore the option and attack normally.

That’s not all. Normally, in Pokémon, when a Pokémon is replaced during battle, the rotation starts over. Not so in Legends: Arceus — the rotation starts where it left off. This can be a hassle if a new Pokémon enters because most likely it’s their turn. They have the potential to take out your Pokémon with its weakness, evening out the score. There’s more thought made in planning battles in Legends: Arceus, and that’s not a bad thing.

It’s a Frenzy Battle!

Your entry into the new world not only brought a space-time rift, but the noble Pokémon have also gone into a frenzy, creating havoc for people and Pokémon alike. You’ll be tasked to help calm the noble Pokémon down by throwing handmade balms that are filled with their favorite food.

Each battle against a noble Pokémon requires different strategies to wear them down, but the steps are the same. (1) Wear out the frenzy Pokémon. (2) Toss your Pokémon into battle, and deplete its health gauge. (3) Toss balms at the Pokémon to deplete a larger, yellow gauge until it recovers from being dizzy. (4) Rinse and repeat until the yellow gauge is depleted.

Winning doesn’t let you catch the Pokémon, but you’ll be awarded unique plates that are necessary later in the game. These are the most action-packed battles you’ll encounter, and there’s a handful of them that you’ll find throughout the game’s story. After completing the main story, you can have rematches with the noble Pokémon. The frenzy battles help make the game not just about capturing and battling Pokémon since it also requires the human element to battle. In Legends: Arceus, the number of Pokémon battles between other trainers is very low compared to other Pokémon games. That said, having to focus more on wild Pokémon is a nice change of pace.

A Broken Yet Vibrant World

While Legends: Arceus has many positive points, the biggest weakness of the game is by far the graphics. Subpar textures from the water to the sky are noticeable and downgrades the game’s quality. When exploring across the water, players will notice white pixelation surrounding your avatar and Pokémon once in a while. The grass animates and spazzes out at times during a Pokémon battle. Later in the game, when the sky turns into a bright, polygon pattern, it’s really noticeable how low the quality is. Otherwise, the sky has some of the better visuals in the environment.

The game also has difficulties rendering objects from afar. Players will see Pokémon animating in a low frame count at a distance, and that doesn’t smooth out until you are closer to it. Otherwise, up close, the game looks better, except for some objects glitching out such as your avatar’s foot if you are standing on a hill. While the graphics and low frame rates don’t hinder the game’s fun factor, it won’t make the game age well visually.

Outside of the graphical issues, the game is vibrant. The sunset colors and daylight sky shining down captures the colors very well. The weather doesn’t enhance the game’s visuals but instead adds texture to the avatar. Snow collects on your clothes and your hair gets a shiny, wet look from rain. That said, it only covers the necessities to make it feel like there’s an interaction with the weather. Don’t expect to see footprints following you as you hike through the snow.

The game’s soundtrack is also not as lively and upbeat as it is in many Pokémon games. Instead, most tracks are slow paced, making the atmosphere feel dark and gloomy. With how dark the world of Hisui is, it does get the job done, but some upbeat tracks would be a nice welcome when exploring. Battles against Pokémon at least have energetic and more upbeat tunes, but when traveling across Hisui, the music plays subtly in the background and will come and go.

The Final Catch

After 26 years of catching them all, Pokémon Legends: Arceus takes the foundations of Pokémon and successfully reshapes it into a new style. While the graphics need considerable improvement, Legends: Arceus makes Pokémon fun all over again. By going into the past, Pokémon has evolved for the future. Look forward to the next line of games in this new form!

A purchased copy was used for this review.