Let's get the obvious out of the way. This game looks really bad. And it runs bad, too. It would be right at home with games released a literal decade before it was.
With that said, it's still really fun. Running around in Sinnoh, slinging pokeballs and riding pokémon all with surprisingly fluidity(transitioning from ground to water to air all without ever dismounting is amazing), the satisfying sound and effect of hitting a back strike on a wild pokemon, the nerve wracking self-imposed stealth moments when the Alpha or Shiny you're trying to get the jump on moves erratically - it's all really engaging in a way I feel I hadn't experienced from Pokémon since... Gosh, it might say Gen I. Gen V was my favorite, but Arceus feels like what 5 or 6 year old me imagined was going on when I looked at that tiny Gameboy Colour screen. That's something that's hard to beat.
With that said, it's still really fun. Running around in Sinnoh, slinging pokeballs and riding pokémon all with surprisingly fluidity(transitioning from ground to water to air all without ever dismounting is amazing), the satisfying sound and effect of hitting a back strike on a wild pokemon, the nerve wracking self-imposed stealth moments when the Alpha or Shiny you're trying to get the jump on moves erratically - it's all really engaging in a way I feel I hadn't experienced from Pokémon since... Gosh, it might say Gen I. Gen V was my favorite, but Arceus feels like what 5 or 6 year old me imagined was going on when I looked at that tiny Gameboy Colour screen. That's something that's hard to beat.