Well there you go, I am done with the first big game of the year! I’m a decent Pokemon fan. I was 10 when the first game came out here and I’ve played most of the mainline entries other than… gen 3 I think. Yeah, I know nothing about that one. A common complaint about the series is that all the games are basically the same since the first one… and that’s fair, but I don’t know if it’s a problem. Sometimes a dev tries something and it just works, and Pokemon is one of those things, it only sees minimal gameplay improvements/changes every gen, with obviously better graphics because of hardware. I’m personally fine with it. But something very new would be nice.

And here’s Pokemon Legends: Arceus, a game that is not a mainline Pokemon game, that changes pretty much everything you know about the series. I played through the whole thing. Caught all the pokey manz, did all but 3 sidequests, didn’t 100% any of the pokemon entries in the Pokedex… but I don’t feel compelled to do any of that.

So let’s talk about this completely different Pokemon experience and see if it’s a cool direction for the series!

Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
Release date: January 28th, 2022
Platforms: Switch
Genre: Action turn-based adventure console-style RPG

Review

This is definitely not a game you play for the story… which makes sense, it’s Pokemon. You, playing as the male or female protag from Diamond/Pearl I guess, Arceus sends you back to the past or whatever, and you join the Galaxy Team in an ancient-japan-inspired version of Sinnoh called Hisui, falling from a space-time rift that is scaring the populace. This is at a point in history where humans are still fearful of Pokemon, but some people have started developing Pokeballs to capture them and starting to understand them and living alongside them and stuff, with the professor making the very first Pokedex. In the Galaxy Team, you join the Survey Corps, which researches Pokemon and helps build up that Pokedex. Literally everyone but you sucks at the job so you have to discover all the Pokemon yourself. One night there’s lightning that hits all the Noble Pokemon who… exist and do stuff, I guess… which puts them in a violent frenzy. You train up a team of Pokemon to fight the Nobles, alongside the Diamond Clan and the Pearl Clan, who both pray to the Almighty Sinnoh but different versions of it (one clan thinks Sinnoh is a God of Time, the other thinks Sinnoh is a god of Space). So yeah, you help the Nobles and read the word “quell” so more than you ever have, in hopes of finding what exactly caused this. There’s a bit more story after the ending, where you investigate the cause of the space-time rift further, and then you try to find all the Pokemon and there’s actually no story ending after you do that task. A bit anticlimactic. Not a great story. Cyllene is best girl.

The graphics look fine… ish. The textures are low-res but not terrible since you rarely see things from too close, while the draw distance is really weirdly random (especially with wisps) and there’s SO much model and texture pop-in for the environment… so technically it really won’t blow your mind, but this IS a Switch game, so expecting amazing graphics technology would be unreasonable. The framerate was mostly fine, if a Pokemon is right on the edge of the draw distance that it appears they will move at roughly 2fps, but that’s fine since you’re not interacting with them. The Pokemon attack animations are a step up from some previous games I’d say.

So this isn’t quite a standard Pokemon game. There are no gyms, battles are a bit of a side thing this time, there’s barely any trainers (and most of them have only one or 2 Pokemon), and there’s only one village (and one settlement that… is there for no reason). It’s a more standard third-person adventure game, in a way. You walk around the world freely. You can run, you can dodge roll, you can duck and you can throw shit. One of the things you can throw, obviously is pokeballs. But you can also throw berries, smoke balls, and some projectiles that can chase away Pokemon or stun them. The core of the is to explore the world and try to catch pokemon, by actually moving around them yourself and throwing pokeballs at them. As you progress through the first world, you advance the story and, eventually, unlock a whole new area. The map may seem kinda big on the first map, but there are 5 maps that are that big. And then you get the flying power-up and realize that the maps aren’t actually that big… but they FEEL big, and have a lot to them anyways, they’re pretty varied. I like the maps. They’re not MASSIVE, but they’re big enough and have a lot of stuff in them. Definitely much better than any open-world.

Catching Pokemon is fairly straightforward. You throw a pokeball at a Pokemon and see if it’s caught. The catch rate is definitely higher than normal Pokemon games, you can totally catch a level 85 Garchomp with a pokeball if you want, without fighting it (though yes, better balls will have a much better catch rate). You can increase the catch rate in a few ways (outside of fighting). Hitting the back of the pokemon is one, as is throwing the pokeball while the Pokemon is eating a berry that you threw as bait. A heavy ball doesn’t get thrown far, but it further increases the catch rate if you manage to stealth behind Pokemon. I randomly caught so many super-strong Pokemon by just throwing a wing ball casually and somehow getting it in one try (when I wasn’t even actively trying to catch it), so it’s definitely worth trying. You have a few tools, like Stealth Spray which makes you harder to notice by Pokemon, and Smoke Balls which basically act as a thing you can crouch into to hide from Pokemon. There are basically 3 “types” of Pokemon. Some will just walk around without a care, like Bidoof, and won’t react to your existence. There are very few of these, but they are the easiest to catch. The second type is Pokemon that will run away from you if they see you. If you’re crouching in tall grass you generally won’t be seen (how the tables have turned). They’ll try to avoid your pokeballs somewhat, mostly just by moving away from you, but you can try catching them as they run. The third type is aggressive Pokemon, who will attack you. And I mean you, specifically. That’s why you have a dodge roll, you can dodge away from attacks. When a Pokemon notices you and attacks, you can no longer just catch them as they’ll knock pokeballs away. So you have 2 options: run and hide, or throw in your own pokemon to fight it. Note that if you get hit enough times you blackout and are brought back to the last camp you were in, and you also lose items from your satchel.

There’s a special Pokemon type here called Alpha Pokemon. They’re bigger, stronger versions of the other Pokemon that you can find normally in the while. They’re generally in set spots. They have red eyes and are all aggressive, even alpha versions of usually-peaceful Pokemon like Bidoof. You still try to catch them the same as usual, but they are higher level than other pokemon in the area by quite a bit and their catch rate is a bit lower (but still very reasonable). They hit harder if they attack you, so at first, it’s probably better to run away. But getting them is just nice for your team, and they get moves the normal versions don’t. And since catch rates are generally high, you lose basically nothing doing an attempt or two to catch them. Yay!

Fighting is pretty different from standard Pokemon, even though it is a turn-based battle system. First is initiating battle, which you do by selecting one of your Pokemon and throwing their pokeball at your target. Hitting the target on the back basically cancels their first turn, which is great. Turns work differently, as, when it’s your turn, you see an… approximation of following turns. A Pokemon with enough speed can actually act twice in a row from time to time. Another different thing is Style. As you use a Pokemon, they may master a move, which means they can use styles. The agile style gives them a speed boost, which may give them a double turn later on (or prevent a double turn from the opponent), at the cost of the attack being 10 power weaker (which doesn’t sound too crazy but it’s pretty huge). Strong style slows you down (giving a chance for the opponent to get a double turn), but increases the attack power by 10 (which, again, is pretty huge). So there’s some extra strategy here. Speed IS a weird-ass thing though because switching pokemon, I think, recalculates speed and might make you lose a turn… but sometimes not (so switching doesn’t always take a turn)… but I’ve seen cases where, say, a level 85 Alpha Garchomp took 5 turns in a row if he managed to get kills. Weird! Also, some moves have minor speed increases, that don’t tell you about it, like Calm Mind. Also, you can fight multiple Pokemon at once. Fun! You get the shit beat out of you, considering even being, like, 60 levels higher than another Pokemon doesn’t guarantee you’ll kill them in one hit with any attack (that at least hits).

A few extra notes on battles. I have no idea why you can move freely in battle. Getting hit by attacks during a battle doesn’t actually hurt you, so… being able to move when you don’t have the menu up is… completely useless. Sort of. The ONLY function this serves is that you have an alternate way to run from battles, but nothing’s preventing you from doing that and, as far as I’ve seen, the escape rate is 100% anyways. Also, moves might not function the same in this game as they do in other games. Stealth Rock is a 40 power attack, for example, and it has an effect where it does damage over time like poison (but doesn’t count as a status ailment). Speaking of status ailments, they also work differently. You can actually overwrite them which is fun, so if you’re drowsy but get burned, you lose the drowsiness. But, like, there’s no “sleeping” condition anymore, it’s just getting drowsy, and it works kinda like paralysis where it has a chance of making you lose a turn. So while it kinda looks like Pokemon, with the styles and status ailments and different attacks, it does feel quite a bit different from normal Pokemon… and there’s the fact that most combat is basically optional. You get EXP for your entire team for not just fighting, but also catching Pokemon. So you level up a bunch anyways, especially since you capture so many Pokemon.

So outside of just fighting and catching Pokemon, there are still a few things to talk about. Namely, the Pokedex. Instead of just catching a Pokemon and getting a Pokedex entry, you only get, basically, experience points towards that entry. At research level 10, the entry is considered “complete”, but it’s not 100%. You increase that level in different ways. The most obvious one is catching them, you need to catch several to actually 100% the Pokedex. For Bidoof you need 25 of them to fill the “capture” category. But many of the pokemon also have categories for defeating enough of them, seeing them use certain moves (or styles), feeding them in the wild, catching them without being seen, and probably a few other things. I believe fully completing a Pokedex entry gives you an extra chance of finding shinies? I’m not entirely sure. That said, you WILL catch a LOT of Pokemon, even if you don’t want to 100% the Pokedex… and of course release a lot. Speaking of shinies, I actually found some, which is wild because, other than the Red Gyarados, I’ve never gotten a shiny in any Pokemon game I’ve played. Here I got 3 (technically 4, but the game does give you a shiny Ponyta for free in a quest so I don’t count it). I got a shiny Skuntank, Psyduck, and Geodude. The game doesn’t make a big deal out of it, but there is a small special sound that plays if one is around at least. Heck, I didn’t even notice the shiny Skuntank until later, I just thought the lighting was weird in that area and that’s why it looked red.

On the field, you can walk around and stealth and stuff, but you have other movement options, as you progress. You get to ride a few Pokemon… All of them become deprecated when you get the flying one, because it does what all the others do, combined. Each area gives you a new one. The trailers showed Wyrdeer and Basculegion, one for running fast and jumping, the other for water travel (because water is a death sentence in this game if you don’t have Basculegion’s help) Wyrdeer actually functions much like a Skyrim horse, where you can kinda do some weird climbing and jumping and shit to get to places a bit earlier than expected. I don’t think this leads to any story sequence breaking, but you can find some strong Pokemon pretty early this way, like a Togekiss flying high above Lake Valor (I saw Sana from Hololive English get that very early). It’s fun to move around and use the different options to explore and maybe find more Pokemon.

Oh, there are boss battles. You basically throw stuff at big strong Pokemon, dealing damage, and try to get to a point where the Pokemon is stunned so you can throw one of your Pokemon out to fight for larger damage until the bar is at 0. There are lots of attacks to avoid, you don’t heal over time so you can only get hit a few times before having to restart… and so on. It’s a pretty simple element but some of them are fun.

You can also mine and gather materials. Just throw your Pokemon at ore deposits and trees that have berries and such. This material goes in your satchel, which sucks at first but you can pay a dude a shitload of money to add spaces in it (though the in-story explanation is that he shows you how to organize it better… weird). You can use that material to craft potions and stealth tools and pokeballs. You can also buy a lot of these, but crafting is “free”, and money is a bit tight in the early game. There are no trainers to farm for money, instead, you talk to the professor at a campsite and you’ll get paid based on how many pokemon you captured/evolved since the last time you talked to him (with bonuses when you catch alphas, catch new pokemon, catch pokemon by hitting them from the back, and other such things). This also gives you research EXP, which can increase your rank within the Galaxy Team (even though you START better than everyone in the team, you’re still a poor 0-star at the start). A higher rank allows you to gain more money from catching Pokemon, as well as controlling pokemon of higher levels (kinda like gym badges do in normal Pokemon games) and using/crafting better pokeballs.

There are also a lot of sidequests. If you want to fully “finish” the game, there are some you have to do to get Pokemon that aren’t available elsewhere (mostly some legendaries). Some of the missions are decent, some are stupid (The Sea Legend which requires knowing the content of a book from another game). Some of them require finding certain pokemon, or specific versions of certain pokemon, or getting their research level to 10, or finding lost people… stuff like that. The worst one is the wisp mission, which requires you to find a few wisps in the village, and then 20 in each of the big maps. The wisp mission is especially ass because it’s required to complete the game. Thank you internet. I have no problem with these existing, some have pretty cool rewards, but fuck the wisps.

To fully finish the game, you need to capture one of each Pokemon. There are 242, which is solid (and idiots that are complaining that there aren’t over 800 Pokemon are fucking stupid). A few of them are a bit annoying. I’m gonna mention Munchlax and Bonsly later, but others have pretty weird evolution methods. Some require trading, but there’s an item you can use that does it instead. Some are pretty dumb. “Use the Agile Style version of X attack 20 times”… is dumb. One of them needs to deal 294 recoil damage to itself (total)… It’s all pretty random. You may need a guide for some of these. Heck, the game doesn’t tell you there are 242 pokemon to get, so while the game tells you “Seek all pokemon”, you might not know how many you’re missing unless you search this up. If you don’t see a pokemon, it won’t go into your Pokedex as a “seen” pokemon. Basically, there are I feel like, to get the “not-really-ending” of the game with the true-final-boss-for-real-this-time-lol, it’s a bit too… busywork.

I do have complaints. I find that having to return to the village to change between areas is a dumb waste of time. There’s no reason I should go back to the village if I’m in the snow area and decide I want to go to the swamp area. Just bring me to the map and let me decide where I want to go. Another complaint would be that rare spawns are tremendously annoying. If a pokemon has a special method to appear or whatever, that’s fine, it’s puzzle-solving and it can be fun. I’m even fine with some Pokemon requiring certain weather or time of day. That’s all fine. What isn’t is just “keep going back to the village and going back to a very specific spot to find a rare spawn” as a method for finding a pokemon, because you have no idea that pokemon is meant to spawn in-between those 2 trees on a random cliffside MUNCHLAX. And this goes to one of my other complaints, that being that the second “post-game” is just finding all the pokemon, and if the last one you’re missing is, say, Bonsly, and you’re stupid like me and forgot that Sudowoodo has a pre-evolution, and you never saw Bonsly in the game at all so it’s not in your Pokedex as “seen”, you have no way to know that this is what you’re looking for outside of looking at pokemon lists on the internet. Why is it like this? This should just be in the game in some way. Another problem was one of the side-quests I had to google, it requires going through a thing in the environment while having 3 specific pokemon in your party and I don’t know how you’re meant to figure that out, as none of the dialogue hinted to this… The ACTUAL SOLUTION is to remember lore bits from a book that exists in A DIFFERENT POKEMON GAME. This is fucking stupid. Nothing in the game itself tells you this. How the shit does that happen? Finally, the wisp mission sucks. The draw distance is so random it’s hard to ever find any of the wisps. If you could get, like, 90 of the 108 instead of the whole 108, that would be a lot less stupid. I could do that naturally. It would still suck a bit, but be doable without a guide at least.

I will note 2 glitches I heard about. Cherrims become entirely uncatchable if they transform, making them possibly very difficult to capture, especially since they’re a rare spawn from a shaking tree. Also, a friend showed me a weird instance where he tried to throw a Pokeball to use a Pokemon and got interrupted, but you’d see the Pokeball still shining in his belt as if the pokemon was coming out, but he couldn’t throw out another pokemon and had to return to the village to reset it. Weird.

Also, the requirement of NSO for the lost satchel feature is fucking stupid, but at least there’s an alternate system with random satchels being strewn about for you to get merit points from so you’re not locked out of anything there (and I think you can get most evolution items without merit points… though the merit points are the best way to get these).

There are probably a few other things to talk about (like how there are no Abilities for Pokemon here, and Effort Values are different here with the Effort Level system), but this is pretty much all the important stuff here.

Overall

I really liked this game. I was not expecting to like it this much and to catch all the pokemon, but I did. This is legitimately really good.

It does a lot of new things for Pokemon, some of it could probably get a bit of polish to be even better next time, but this is a great base for a fun pokemon experience to release alongside normal Pokemon. It’s a fully single-player experience, to the point of removing the multiplayer battling which… is fine, there are other Pokemon games if you want to do that. The combat is a very different take on pokemon combat, there’s some non-combat gameplay that’s actually really interesting with the minor stealth elements for catching pokemon in the wild without initiating battles, fun movement options that are all rendered pointless by the flying option, a good amount of sidequests, action-based boss battles… it’s really interesting. I could see some of the things here make their way to normal Pokemon games that might be fun.

Things a sequel could improve is stuff like my complaints with returning to the village and rare spawns, or improving controls and attacks in boss battles, making the battle system a bit better with the whole “we’re displaying 1 turn for the opponent but he gets 2 lul” BS, maybe making it non-pointless that you can move during battle, have more emphasis on being able to fight several Pokemon by having AOE attacks, maybe something that points towards what enemies are currently aggressive towards you (sometimes it’s impossible to tell)… And probably a few other things I’m not thinking about right now… But this is much more solid than I was expecting, this game is surprisingly fun.

A fun experiment for Pokemon that I find just as viable as normal Pokemon, and I definitely recommend it. Check it out for sure.

I wouldn’t mind if this got Monster Hunter-style title updates.