Pokémon Legends: Arceus

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You know how everyone’s down on Fortnite these days? Yeah, that’s nothing new. Before Fortnite it was PUBG, before that it was something else, at one point it was World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Halo…you know how it goes. At one point, in fact, it was Pokémon. Please imagine the world trying to be fashionably disgusted with Pokémon. It was a thing!

Anyway, that didn’t stop the series from going on and on and on for decades, leading us here to the release of Pokémon Legends: Arceus in 2022. It’s the latest and greatest step in the franchise’s evolution, taking a few pages from the open-world exploration genre that’s dominated the industry as of late.

via YouTube

This is a story all about how your life gets flipped, turned upside-down as you’re warped through time and space via the power of the Pokémon deity Arceus. You find yourself in the Hisui region, essentially the land of Sinnoh we all know and love from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl but several generations in the past. As a mysterious newcomer, the people of Hisui are reluctant to trust you, but by joining the Galaxy Expedition Team and putting your skills taming Pokémon to work, you can make a home for yourself – or maybe find yourself a way back home.

There’s also the matter of that mysterious space-time rift in the air that’s upsetting all the region’s most powerful Pokémon. You’ll probably want to do something about that as well.

Hisui isn’t like the regions we’re familiar with, though. Pokémon aren’t the ubiquitous pets you might know and love from other games in the series. Instead, the people of Hisui fear Pokémon as dangerous and harmful beasts. Your patron in the region, Professor Laventon, is one of the few who’s willing to research Pokémon and try to find a more reasonable means of coming to terms with them.

“More reasonable” in this case means sneaking up on them and smacking the Poké-poop out of them with Poké Balls. Yes, Legends is an action-RPG as opposed to the more traditional turn-based RPGs that dominate the rest of the series. That means you’re going to spend a lot of your time sneaking around through tall grass, climbing cliff faces, surfing across vast bodies of water and mostly doing the sort of open-world stuff we’ve been doing since Breath of the Wild came out. There’s exploration, crafting and hidden stuff galore.

When it comes to catching Pokémon, in Legends it’s often as easy as getting the drop on them and beaning them with a Poké Ball, no battle necessary. Combat’s still a thing, of course, and it works in much the same way as the previous Pokémon titles, but battles have vastly diminished in importance compared to the act of exploring the world and interacting with Pokémon on their home turf. That’s not to say any of this is bad, of course. Rather, Legends’ exploration and discovery is such a good time that the (perfectly fine) combat tends to fade into the background a little.

Why are you gathering all of these strange and wondrous beasts like some sort of anime Noah? To complete the Pokédex, of course, same as you did in the other games! Of course, here it’s more of a ratty old notebook, so it’ll take a little more than just catching a single copy of each species to fill it out. Completing each Pokémon’s entry involves all manner of mini-challenges, ranging from catching multiple copies of each species to watching them use their signature moves to even feeding them in the wild. Pokémon Snap fans are going to find this to be a blast, and it forms the majority of what you’ll actually be doing with the Pokémon in this game. There’s even new and interesting regional forms for many classic Pokémon here in Hisui!

As for presentation, well, this is a Switch game several years into that platform’s lifespan. Pokémon Legends does its best, it really does, but we’re starting to reach the point where games this ambitious would benefit from better hardware. This is a beautiful, delightful adventure filled with impressive vistas and well-animated monsters that just wants a little more space to roam. We’ve got what we’ve got, though, and from that perspective Legends does fine with what it’s given barring the odd framerate drop or texture pop-in.

One other note – while Pokémon has always been a multiplayer-focused experience, Legends is a little less big on that kind of thing, so don’t come in expecting ranked battles or anything like that.

All that said, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a fascinating Pokémon experience that represents a new direction for the franchise. Kids who grew up with the Pokémon anime wishing they could explore the world like Ash Ketchum are now adults who are going to fall in love with this game. It’s really an experience for everyone, to be honest, and absolutely worth checking out, even if you’re a newcomer to the series.

About the Author: Cory Galliher