For the first time in a long time, Pokémon has gotten a game in a brand new flavor of gameplay. Pokémon Legends: Arceus isn’t exactly innovative, but it is working with a lot of ambition-requiring components that Game Freak has never even dipped their toes into before. My biggest question going into this game was how much of this would feel arbitrary, and how the gameplay loop compares to previous games. It took me about 20 hours to beat the game, but you could have a 40 hour playthrough as well. With blockbuster mechanics and runtime brings new challenges for the series to overcome.
Going over the presentation of the game, Pokémon Legends takes place in Meiji era Sinnoh, a change in style for the series. The graphics are bad! The art direction is fine. The music is shockingly good for a modern Pokémon game. The soundtrack is still comprised of MIDI, but with much nicer sample choice and fantastic composition. Rather than focusing on straightforward remixes, the bulk of the soundtrack uses abstracted isolated melodies from the original material of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. The identity to how it uses leitmotifs is unique, you can sense a strong understanding of the original source material through it. The storytelling is lightweight and minimal without emphasis on a singular villain, and the campaign ends abruptly. Despite that, the script is fun; the writers have gotten good at writing these shonen filler episode-flavored miniature character arcs. There’s a bit too much dialogue in some places, though. You have to go through the motions a lot in this game – you don’t just rank up when you get enough points, you have to talk to the professor, and then talk to Cyllene. Overall, I enjoyed the setting and thought it fit the gameplay. This game feels a bit like a spiritual remake. Abstractly revisiting the feelings, aesthetics, and inspirations behind the original Diamond and Pearl, while tiptoeing around directly repeating setpieces or plot.
Pokémon Legends has switched up the formula to take place on huge sprawling maps, and the resulting game design is surprisingly clean. The maps themselves are decent, with a lot of verticality, caves, and secret pathways. Traversing them on the game’s various mounts also felt good, they all have good game feel. This game’s strengths lie in how it rewards the player. These maps are covered with collectibles that trickle down into the content and attributes of your team. Pokémon function both as diverse collectibles and interactive obstacles. The game manages to create a variety of interactions out of surprisingly little; simple formations of Pokémon can heavily encourage specific ways of playing. Sometimes rare shy Pokémon will surround a powerful aggressive Pokémon, and being noticed by just one Pokémon can disrupt the chain of events fast. You get a lot of items to make certain play styles easier, but inventory limitation puts weight on which you bring.
At the center of all the best changes this game makes to the format is the new third person aiming. The seamless nature of catching in this game allows for you to spend exactly as much time as you want on every single Pokémon you see. You can run into a crowd of shy Pokémon like Starly — and if you throw pokéballs at them fast enough, you’ll catch around 3/5ths of them. This is good game math, as it encourages the player to put a little effort into trying to catch everything, but a lot of effort into trying to catch something they really want. The catching of Pokémon Legends has a unique relationship with patience. You can make the game a lot easier for yourself if you catch every single thing in your path, clearing obstacles one at a time. The game rewards this through the new Pokédex system filling out after multiple interactions with a Pokémon, and those entries contribute to your rank. However, playing fast means you’ll find new Pokémon quicker.
Combat has also been massively adjusted to fit the pacing of the game, and how quick each interaction with each Pokémon can go. Pokémon at lower levels have much more HP, and don’t scale as much with each level-up. Catching also seems to only take 1-2 pokéballs as long as a Pokémon is at low health; meaning catching in battle has the same pace as catching in the overworld. You can also adjust how much damage you’ll do with your next attack through styles. These traits in combination empower the player to do as much damage as they want, making catching in battles a whole lot more natural. Trainer battles are still around, but much more sparse, and the mechanical changes don’t show improvement here. The early trainers will only use 1 Pokémon, and with how low HP is, it just felt like the later trainer battles were one-hit KO wars. Defeating higher level wild Pokémon 1 on 1 isn’t very engaging either, since outspeeding has been replaced. Where the combat functions its best is in tense 1 vs 3 situations where you have to catch multiple Pokémon at once. Even if the mechanics behind the combat itself aren’t great, it manages to get some interesting things out of having turn based and overworld combat being separated. This game sets a whole new standard for overworld encounters in modern turn-based RPGs as well, there’s a lot of fun risk and reward between choosing to engage with them or avoid them.
There are also “Noble” Pokémon boss fights, which are entirely action-based boss fights. The first 3 feel like baby Monster Hunter attack patterns, and the rest feel like baby bullet-hell attack patterns. If there were full games of these, they wouldn’t be very fun (but the baby bullet-hell game would be x10 better than the baby Monster Hunter game), but they worked well as refreshing changes of pace. The post-game has a lot of half-action half-combat fights where you have to avoid waves of projectiles in order to start a battle, and catch the Pokémon from there. There should be more of those in the sequel! This isn’t exactly a game I’d replay for the combat, but the combat works fine enough to compliment the collecting.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a big step forward, but steps aren’t everything; it’s important to remember where we stand now. And where we stand now happens to be pretty good this time around! From these new mechanics, as well as the new style system, it’s clear that Pokémon is willing to learn from contemporary adventure games and JRPGs. The gameplay also carries the DNA of Pokémon Snap, showing introspection from the developers as well. The most surprising part of that is how naturally it involves big selling point mechanics like crafting and open worlds. New mechanics and world design are tastefully implemented and acknowledge long-time series flaws regarding the unengaging side of catching, and improve upon it. This is the best Pokémon has ever been at monster collection, its tagline mechanic. The new mechanics aren’t actually the part of the game that needs iteration; it’s more about broad aspects like storyline, graphics, and combat. Pokémon’s mainline games have been in 3D for about 8 years, and I found those games to use 3D rather superficially. This game uses 3D with purpose, and it’s a strong purpose too.
Going over the presentation of the game, Pokémon Legends takes place in Meiji era Sinnoh, a change in style for the series. The graphics are bad! The art direction is fine. The music is shockingly good for a modern Pokémon game. The soundtrack is still comprised of MIDI, but with much nicer sample choice and fantastic composition. Rather than focusing on straightforward remixes, the bulk of the soundtrack uses abstracted isolated melodies from the original material of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. The identity to how it uses leitmotifs is unique, you can sense a strong understanding of the original source material through it. The storytelling is lightweight and minimal without emphasis on a singular villain, and the campaign ends abruptly. Despite that, the script is fun; the writers have gotten good at writing these shonen filler episode-flavored miniature character arcs. There’s a bit too much dialogue in some places, though. You have to go through the motions a lot in this game – you don’t just rank up when you get enough points, you have to talk to the professor, and then talk to Cyllene. Overall, I enjoyed the setting and thought it fit the gameplay. This game feels a bit like a spiritual remake. Abstractly revisiting the feelings, aesthetics, and inspirations behind the original Diamond and Pearl, while tiptoeing around directly repeating setpieces or plot.
Pokémon Legends has switched up the formula to take place on huge sprawling maps, and the resulting game design is surprisingly clean. The maps themselves are decent, with a lot of verticality, caves, and secret pathways. Traversing them on the game’s various mounts also felt good, they all have good game feel. This game’s strengths lie in how it rewards the player. These maps are covered with collectibles that trickle down into the content and attributes of your team. Pokémon function both as diverse collectibles and interactive obstacles. The game manages to create a variety of interactions out of surprisingly little; simple formations of Pokémon can heavily encourage specific ways of playing. Sometimes rare shy Pokémon will surround a powerful aggressive Pokémon, and being noticed by just one Pokémon can disrupt the chain of events fast. You get a lot of items to make certain play styles easier, but inventory limitation puts weight on which you bring.
At the center of all the best changes this game makes to the format is the new third person aiming. The seamless nature of catching in this game allows for you to spend exactly as much time as you want on every single Pokémon you see. You can run into a crowd of shy Pokémon like Starly — and if you throw pokéballs at them fast enough, you’ll catch around 3/5ths of them. This is good game math, as it encourages the player to put a little effort into trying to catch everything, but a lot of effort into trying to catch something they really want. The catching of Pokémon Legends has a unique relationship with patience. You can make the game a lot easier for yourself if you catch every single thing in your path, clearing obstacles one at a time. The game rewards this through the new Pokédex system filling out after multiple interactions with a Pokémon, and those entries contribute to your rank. However, playing fast means you’ll find new Pokémon quicker.
Combat has also been massively adjusted to fit the pacing of the game, and how quick each interaction with each Pokémon can go. Pokémon at lower levels have much more HP, and don’t scale as much with each level-up. Catching also seems to only take 1-2 pokéballs as long as a Pokémon is at low health; meaning catching in battle has the same pace as catching in the overworld. You can also adjust how much damage you’ll do with your next attack through styles. These traits in combination empower the player to do as much damage as they want, making catching in battles a whole lot more natural. Trainer battles are still around, but much more sparse, and the mechanical changes don’t show improvement here. The early trainers will only use 1 Pokémon, and with how low HP is, it just felt like the later trainer battles were one-hit KO wars. Defeating higher level wild Pokémon 1 on 1 isn’t very engaging either, since outspeeding has been replaced. Where the combat functions its best is in tense 1 vs 3 situations where you have to catch multiple Pokémon at once. Even if the mechanics behind the combat itself aren’t great, it manages to get some interesting things out of having turn based and overworld combat being separated. This game sets a whole new standard for overworld encounters in modern turn-based RPGs as well, there’s a lot of fun risk and reward between choosing to engage with them or avoid them.
There are also “Noble” Pokémon boss fights, which are entirely action-based boss fights. The first 3 feel like baby Monster Hunter attack patterns, and the rest feel like baby bullet-hell attack patterns. If there were full games of these, they wouldn’t be very fun (but the baby bullet-hell game would be x10 better than the baby Monster Hunter game), but they worked well as refreshing changes of pace. The post-game has a lot of half-action half-combat fights where you have to avoid waves of projectiles in order to start a battle, and catch the Pokémon from there. There should be more of those in the sequel! This isn’t exactly a game I’d replay for the combat, but the combat works fine enough to compliment the collecting.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a big step forward, but steps aren’t everything; it’s important to remember where we stand now. And where we stand now happens to be pretty good this time around! From these new mechanics, as well as the new style system, it’s clear that Pokémon is willing to learn from contemporary adventure games and JRPGs. The gameplay also carries the DNA of Pokémon Snap, showing introspection from the developers as well. The most surprising part of that is how naturally it involves big selling point mechanics like crafting and open worlds. New mechanics and world design are tastefully implemented and acknowledge long-time series flaws regarding the unengaging side of catching, and improve upon it. This is the best Pokémon has ever been at monster collection, its tagline mechanic. The new mechanics aren’t actually the part of the game that needs iteration; it’s more about broad aspects like storyline, graphics, and combat. Pokémon’s mainline games have been in 3D for about 8 years, and I found those games to use 3D rather superficially. This game uses 3D with purpose, and it’s a strong purpose too.