By Kieran Hurwood
The highly anticipated game is exactly what fans have been asking for since the release of The Legend of Zelda: BOTW, scoring big on storyline and gameplay innovation, but losing a mark for lacking coherence in some game-design choices and having very slight graphical errors.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus has undoubtedly been one of the most successful launches of any Switch game, though prior advertising and gameplay detail was scant, the anticipation was exactly what enticed so many players. The lack of information about new Pokemon species, new gameplay mechanics and the game’s story seem to have been a deliberate ploy by the Pokemon Company o enhance the sense of discovery while players navigate the game’s setting, the Hisui region. For the uninitiated, the ‘Hisui region’ is essentially a past version of Sinnoh, the regional setting of fan-favourite Pokemon games Diamond and Pearl.
Whereas previous games like Diamond and Pearl had you focus on a core storyline of winning gym badges and beating the Elite Four, Legends: Arceus is fundamentally a game about collecting Pokemon. In this time period, people and Pokemon remain separated, and so your quest is to document Pokemon in the first Pokedex so that humans can better understand them. As a result, this game focuses less on building up a team of your favourite or most powerful Pokemon, and much more on building an all-encompassing encyclopedia of Pokemon by completing ‘research tasks’. These tasks mostly comprise of catching, battling with and evolving every Pokemon in the region. Of all new features in the game, this simple aim change provides an innovative and immersive dynamic which fits in with the lore of a mysterious and undocumented world.
Though integral to finishing the game and gaining a 100% Pokedex, the storyline of the game is ultimately something that occurs while you are on this documentation quest. Whereas recent games have held the player’s hand a lot to guide them to the end (likely to appeal to younger audiences), in Legends: Arceus you are freer to explore and go beyond the confines of the story than ever before by having a more ‘open-world’ experience. It should be stressed however that Legends: Arceus is not an open-world game, instead, it allows the player to visit 5 key wild areas (unlocked progressively through the story) that are essentially of an open-world styling. Younger or less advanced players still have the option to have their hand held, and the story is certainly still very ‘guiding’, but players can easily branch off, train, complete sidequests and work towards completing the Pokedex without focusing solely on the story. In the late stages of the game, this element of the game becomes increasingly more prominent and the only way to finish the story is to catch or evolve every Pokemon.
Regarding the actual content of story, I have few criticisms. It can be enjoyed both by seasoned Pokemon veterans who know all their lore, as well as less well-versed players who simply enjoy the story for its humour and development. At times the storytelling and requirement for progression is slightly lazy. For example, there is only 1 major puzzle in the entire game, whereas for other games it has been compared to (such as BOTW) there are at least dozens of highly complex puzzles which feed directly into the story. While playing, it gave me the impression that much of the work that went into the game was focused on designing and developing their new game mechanics rather than on an expansive world to play through. At times, it did still feel as though the story was very guiding, which is unfortunately likely to be a persistent feature of Pokemon games in order to maintain a child audience. Despite these mild concerns, I thought there was more than enough effort put into the story that key points of lore were clarified, that future games were hinted at and so that this new game formula was persuasively sold to players.
Moving onto a brief discussion of mechanics, a few of my favourite new features were the graphical renovations, the ability to catch Pokemon by sneaking up on them, the creation of ‘Alpha’ (super-strong and oversized) Pokemon, the inclusion of seamless battles in an open-world setting, hairstyle and clothing customisation and very strong progress made with the concept of ‘Ride Pokemon’. The number of new Pokemon or new forms of Pokemon was less than usual (just 23), but this was not surprising as it was based on a region we had already visited. The use of these Pokemon as pseudo-legendaries without clear stories in some parts of the game was a bit odd. Fans had anticipated these new ‘Hisuian forms’ would get their own devoted side-quests and so their rather abrupt nature was disappointing. Nevertheless, their inclusion as new characters was ultimately welcome.
I did feel that there were major weaknesses in the game which were left unaddressed by developers for reasons that are currently unclear to us. Contextually, it is important to know that games of this styling on the Switch have often included swimming and climbing as key features which enhance the ‘open-world’ feel in the game. The Legend of Zelda: BOTW pioneered this feature, allowing players to climb and swim pretty much anywhere in the playable area. In Legends: Arceus, the player character drowns within 3 seconds without Basculegion (the swimming Ride Pokemon) and will find it difficult to climb any steep hills without the assistance of Sneasler (the climbing Ride Pokemon). This was a deeply puzzling design choice and detracted from the feeling of player control and seamlessness that I desired from the game. In my view, a better way to do this would’ve been to allow the player limited function to climb and swim alone (perhaps by the use of a stamina bar as utilised in BOTW) and have enhanced versions of these mechanics facilitated by the ‘Ride Pokemon’.
It is also hard to deny there weren’t graphical glitches. This was ultimately a drastically new endeavour for Pokemon as a series, and fans should hardly expect Game Freak to get it right the first time, but there were undeniably issues. Towards the end of my story play-through I caught an ‘Alpha’ Electivire, only for it to comically disappear when I threw it out during battle and reappear a few seconds later. This was not really a serious issue, but will inevitably upset some who demand an entirely smooth experience. There were also some issues with white pixellation around the player character while in caves, again, this was minor but probably warrants a future game patch if possible. Some in the community have criticised ‘simplistic’ textures used for trees and grasslands, but I didn’t feel this affected my gameplay experience at all while playing. The models for the Pokemon are what are most important, and in the vast majority of cases this has been executed almost perfectly. Finally, I did experience some slight frame-rate drops at times, but this was not a regular occurrence by any means.
Despite these minor issues the game is already one of Pokemon’s best-selling games ever, and will likely become a staple of the Switch lineup for future players. It seems very likely to me that this will be a new formula of Pokemon game in the future with a ‘Legends’ series of games on the horizon, Game Freak’s mission should now be to iron out these issues in Legends: Arceus, potentially develop DLC for it and then start work on a similar game with a new setting. I am slightly concerned that the hype for this style of game could expire if the game’s styling is essentially copy-pasted onto a new region, but given the innovation this game has provided us with, I see no reason as to why such a standard shouldn’t be our default expectation for the future.
