This review contains spoilers
The one saving grace for Pokémon in the Switch era.
They obviously took huge inspiration from BOTW and decided to make a Pokémon game in the same vein. Despite it being a blatant copy of BOTW, it really does work with the Pokémon concept. The game isn't open-world, however you can somewhat give them a pass given the fact it's the first time they have ever done something like this. And lets face it, you can't exactly rely on GF making a good, playable, Pokémon game anyway so the fact they managed to pull this off is quite the feat.
The story of Legends: Arceus is very simple, which is to be expected given the fact it's a Pokémon game and they haven't really tried a good narrative story since Gen 5 (and everybody cried about it) so you can't really blame them for trying to make a good story in the games when the last time they did it, everybody hated it. You're a kid who gets transported into the Hisui region, your goal is to simply seek out all Pokémon and eventually come to heads with Arceus. Simple, it works, it's not exactly groundbreaking but there's enough of it there to keep you intrigued.
Catching mechanic is great, the fact you don't really need to battle Pokémon in order to catch them was a really neat addition. Just sneaking up behind them and throwing all the Poké balls you've got is fun. Having different sized Pokémon was a fantastic feature, Alpha Pokémon are huge and you really feel like a badass trainer having a team of 6 huge Alpha Pokémon.
Agile/Strong style was another good addition, it made it feel like they really counted towards battling and you had to actually use your brain to think about when you'd use each style in a battle.
Speaking of battles, man... they're TOUGH. Haven't been this difficult since, I don't know, probably Colosseum back in the Gamecube days. The final battle, Volo, is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT. You'd really need to make sure your team is ready and also levels higher than his team in order to actually battle him. The music, the scene with Giratina, it's just absolutely perfect and really sums up what it means to have an epic battle in Pokémon.
The final part, against Arceus, is again incredibly well done. The one recurring theme throughout this iteration of Pokémon is the music. They really did a fantastic job on that and it shows when you're in an intense battle against Volo and later Arceus. The battle against Arceus itself is fun, and challenging, will no doubt take you a few attempts because it gets kind of tricky towards the end.
Overall, Legends Arceus is an incredible game that really saved Pokémon in the Switch era. It's fun, it's exciting, it's rewarding, it's just a very well made game.
They obviously took huge inspiration from BOTW and decided to make a Pokémon game in the same vein. Despite it being a blatant copy of BOTW, it really does work with the Pokémon concept. The game isn't open-world, however you can somewhat give them a pass given the fact it's the first time they have ever done something like this. And lets face it, you can't exactly rely on GF making a good, playable, Pokémon game anyway so the fact they managed to pull this off is quite the feat.
The story of Legends: Arceus is very simple, which is to be expected given the fact it's a Pokémon game and they haven't really tried a good narrative story since Gen 5 (and everybody cried about it) so you can't really blame them for trying to make a good story in the games when the last time they did it, everybody hated it. You're a kid who gets transported into the Hisui region, your goal is to simply seek out all Pokémon and eventually come to heads with Arceus. Simple, it works, it's not exactly groundbreaking but there's enough of it there to keep you intrigued.
Catching mechanic is great, the fact you don't really need to battle Pokémon in order to catch them was a really neat addition. Just sneaking up behind them and throwing all the Poké balls you've got is fun. Having different sized Pokémon was a fantastic feature, Alpha Pokémon are huge and you really feel like a badass trainer having a team of 6 huge Alpha Pokémon.
Agile/Strong style was another good addition, it made it feel like they really counted towards battling and you had to actually use your brain to think about when you'd use each style in a battle.
Speaking of battles, man... they're TOUGH. Haven't been this difficult since, I don't know, probably Colosseum back in the Gamecube days. The final battle, Volo, is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT. You'd really need to make sure your team is ready and also levels higher than his team in order to actually battle him. The music, the scene with Giratina, it's just absolutely perfect and really sums up what it means to have an epic battle in Pokémon.
The final part, against Arceus, is again incredibly well done. The one recurring theme throughout this iteration of Pokémon is the music. They really did a fantastic job on that and it shows when you're in an intense battle against Volo and later Arceus. The battle against Arceus itself is fun, and challenging, will no doubt take you a few attempts because it gets kind of tricky towards the end.
Overall, Legends Arceus is an incredible game that really saved Pokémon in the Switch era. It's fun, it's exciting, it's rewarding, it's just a very well made game.