By all accounts, this game should not work nearly as well as it does. The graphics are some of the worst I've seen in a modern triple-A title, the music is unmemorable and repetitive, the story and characters are flat and uninteresting even by this franchise's standards, the open world is pretty empty, the tutorial is nightmarishly long, and running out of space in your bag and needing to grind menial tasks to rank up your Pokedex are a constant annoyance. And yet, in the end the sum turns out to be greater than its parts, and Legends Arceus winds up as a surprisingly fun time.
I think this game's greatest strength is just the novelty of a real-time Pokemon experience. While it's still not quite the open world dream we've always had, it's a welcome step in the right direction. Catching Pokemon just by walking up and throwing a ball at it without the need for a random encounter battle never stopped being fun. There's a great selection here too, lots of fan favourites are present. It's always fun stumbling upon something you haven't seen before and trying to figure out how to best go about catching it. The best are the rare alpha Pokemon, defined by their giant size and dark red auras. These guys will ruin your day when you first encounter them if you aren't careful, but coming back later when you're stronger to take them on and capture them makes you feel downright unstoppable. I do wish there were some more new Pokemon available beyond a couple of new evolutions, but I guess they're saving that for Gen 9 later this year. Battling has been streamlined to be faster than ever as well, there's no lengthy intro or end screen and most battles are decided in just one or two moves. Personally I never minded the constant stop-and-start of the classic Pokemon games, but I don't know if I'll ever really be able to go back to them after playing through Arceus. Overall a lot of QoL stuff has been improved, whoever decided to eliminate the need for Move Tutors or Name Changers by letting you do that whenever you want as well as have Pokemon wait to evolve until you let them once they hit the criteria is a genius. The guardian boss Pokemon fights were a fun surprise too, though I question why they didn't include a health bar for your player character in these encounters. Arceus wears its Breath of the Wild inspirations on it's sleeve, and while the game's negatives hold it back from ever truly reaching those heights, it's still able to recapture a bit of the magic.
But yeah, if you're looking for problems with this game, there's a lot wrong with it. You do get used to the crusty visuals after a while but overall I don't know what they were thinking with the art direction of this game. Everything looks way too bright and washed out, and there's tons of pop-in and low-poly textures. The story does pick up a bit towards the end but you won't remember it a week after playing, there's a lot of dialogue in this game but it never really seems to say anything. I will say though as someone who was a kid that was super into Pokemon during the D/P/Pt era I did get a kick out of seeing some Sinnoh history stuff brought to life. The tutorial at the beginning of the game is brutal as well, it's extremely sluggish, filled with exposition, and worst of all it traps you in a super small area with only a few species of Pokemon for like an hour. Thankfully the game picks up as soon as you're done with it but I wouldn't blame anyone who dropped it early because the tutorial is just so miserable. And oh my god, I don't think I've ever struggled with inventory management in an open world game as much as I did with this one, you never seem to have enough space and you can only upgrade your bag one slot at a time for an increasingly expensive fee. It's downright outrageous.
It's weird because when you really think about it Legends Arceus is kind of a mess, but I had a great time with it despite everything. It feels like Game Freak is inching their way towards realizing everyone's hopes and making that epic Pokemon adventure of our wildest dreams, and this is a big step in the right direction. I'm definitely more excited to see what Scarlet/Violet is gonna be like now.
I think this game's greatest strength is just the novelty of a real-time Pokemon experience. While it's still not quite the open world dream we've always had, it's a welcome step in the right direction. Catching Pokemon just by walking up and throwing a ball at it without the need for a random encounter battle never stopped being fun. There's a great selection here too, lots of fan favourites are present. It's always fun stumbling upon something you haven't seen before and trying to figure out how to best go about catching it. The best are the rare alpha Pokemon, defined by their giant size and dark red auras. These guys will ruin your day when you first encounter them if you aren't careful, but coming back later when you're stronger to take them on and capture them makes you feel downright unstoppable. I do wish there were some more new Pokemon available beyond a couple of new evolutions, but I guess they're saving that for Gen 9 later this year. Battling has been streamlined to be faster than ever as well, there's no lengthy intro or end screen and most battles are decided in just one or two moves. Personally I never minded the constant stop-and-start of the classic Pokemon games, but I don't know if I'll ever really be able to go back to them after playing through Arceus. Overall a lot of QoL stuff has been improved, whoever decided to eliminate the need for Move Tutors or Name Changers by letting you do that whenever you want as well as have Pokemon wait to evolve until you let them once they hit the criteria is a genius. The guardian boss Pokemon fights were a fun surprise too, though I question why they didn't include a health bar for your player character in these encounters. Arceus wears its Breath of the Wild inspirations on it's sleeve, and while the game's negatives hold it back from ever truly reaching those heights, it's still able to recapture a bit of the magic.
But yeah, if you're looking for problems with this game, there's a lot wrong with it. You do get used to the crusty visuals after a while but overall I don't know what they were thinking with the art direction of this game. Everything looks way too bright and washed out, and there's tons of pop-in and low-poly textures. The story does pick up a bit towards the end but you won't remember it a week after playing, there's a lot of dialogue in this game but it never really seems to say anything. I will say though as someone who was a kid that was super into Pokemon during the D/P/Pt era I did get a kick out of seeing some Sinnoh history stuff brought to life. The tutorial at the beginning of the game is brutal as well, it's extremely sluggish, filled with exposition, and worst of all it traps you in a super small area with only a few species of Pokemon for like an hour. Thankfully the game picks up as soon as you're done with it but I wouldn't blame anyone who dropped it early because the tutorial is just so miserable. And oh my god, I don't think I've ever struggled with inventory management in an open world game as much as I did with this one, you never seem to have enough space and you can only upgrade your bag one slot at a time for an increasingly expensive fee. It's downright outrageous.
It's weird because when you really think about it Legends Arceus is kind of a mess, but I had a great time with it despite everything. It feels like Game Freak is inching their way towards realizing everyone's hopes and making that epic Pokemon adventure of our wildest dreams, and this is a big step in the right direction. I'm definitely more excited to see what Scarlet/Violet is gonna be like now.