[Review] Pokemon Legends: Arceus — charting a new and exciting course for the series

It’s hard to imagine that Pokemon RPGs will ever be the same again following Pokemon Legends: Arceus. After more than two decades of incremental change across multiple mainline entries, the series has made a dramatic leap forward with the latest outing on Nintendo Switch. Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a bold and ambitious entry that the franchise has long deserved, expanding the scope of what the video games can offer while elevating the classic experience of training and raising our own Pokemon.

Making great strides for the franchise’s foundations

You have never played a Pokemon title quite like Pokemon Legends: Arceus. The adventure drops us to an ancient era of the Sinnoh Region, known at the time as the Hisui Region, where Pokemon and humans were only just beginning to coexist. This is long before the existence of Gyms or any kind of Pokemon League. Trainers are few in number, and many people see Pokemon as terrifying monsters to be feared and respected instead of treated as companions.

The journey is not to become the region’s most elite trainer by surpassing all competition but to shed light on the many species of Pokemon. In addition to being tasked with compiling the region’s very first Pokedex through exhaustive research, there are strange happenings throughout Hisui that are driving Pokemon into maddened frenzies. It’s a refreshing premise that flips the script on how we interact with Pokemon, from their narrative purpose to the reimagined game mechanics that make catching and battling Pokemon more entertaining than ever before.

Gone are the narrow routes that funneled you between towns and other points of interest, where wild Pokemon waited for you all in the tall grass, and a gauntlet of overmatched trainers waited to challenge you. Pokemon Legends: Arceus directs you to explore the sprawling sandbox environments of the Hisui Region, gathering as much information as you can about the many species of Pokemon who roam about. Capturing can now be accomplished in real-time without the need for a battle, and it’s especially satisfying when you manage to catch a Pokemon off guard and peg it with a Poke Ball before it can react. Wild Pokemon are wary of (if not hostile toward) humans, so it will take patience and a knack for using the environment to your advantage to approach a Pokemon without it noticing you.

When battles do occur, fans will be thrilled to find just how fast they are compared to previous Pokemon games. The turn-based battles now move at a rapid pace, yet they find the perfect sweet spot to avoid being too hard to follow. Thanks to faster animations and a reduction in the text bubbles, which are known to bombard us about stat changes, exp gain, item usage, etc., they’re positively fluid.

The ability to attack using Agile Style and Strong Style techniques also add some new strategy elements to battles. Choosing Agile Style will weaken your Pokemon’s move but increase their speed (and thus increase priority in turns). Strong Style, on the other hand, will slow your Pokemon down a bit but increase their damage output. These techniques are a welcome wrinkle to Pokemon’s tried-and-true turn-based battles, and their risk/reward nature means you often have to pick your spots carefully while using them. Different Pokemon may benefit from one more than the other as well. Those with low-speed stats, but high defense and can eat their fair share of attacks will probably relish the opportunity to attack more often using Agile Style. Glass cannons, meanwhile, might stand a better chance to one-shot the opposing Pokemon before they get hit with the added damage from Strong Style.

If one gameplay change stands above the rest, it has to be that Pokemon no longer permanently forget moves. You won’t even be interrupted during battles to decide whether you want them to learn a move or not. The moves that a Pokemon learns as they level up (or are tutored for a small fee at the training grounds) get compiled into a list on their summary menu, similar to a spell list in Dungeons & Dragons. You can open this list at any time outside of battle to pick and choose what four moves you want your Pokemon to have at the ready, allowing you to piece together the most effective arsenal for different encounters. Maybe a status-inflicting move isn’t viable for the entire duration of the game but is very helpful for wearing down a boss-esque Legendary Pokemon. Or, perhaps your Fire-type Pokemon could really benefit from having a Grass-type move to counter any Ground-type Pokemon they have to square off against.

Battling is key to filling out your Pokedex, which alone should signal just how different the Pokedex works from previous games. It’s no longer about simply seeing a Pokemon or catching them. Every Pokemon has a unique set of research tasks assigned to them, which can be something as traditional as how many you capture or how many you defeat, but also more specific criteria. This can include anything from how many times you command them to use a certain move in battle, how many you’ve caught without being seen, witnessing them exhibiting certain behaviors out in the wild, among a whole host of other varieties. By completing these tasks enough times, you’ll raise the Pokemon’s research level until it’s deemed a “completed” entry.

From the outside looking in, this all may sound very grind-heavy, and to an extent it is busywork. But for Pokemon fans, it’s a form of academic gameplay that goes a long way toward making it feel like you’re studying the nuances of each Pokemon species. It takes dedication to reach the thresholds for each research category, and it requires that you become familiar with the Pokemon in many different areas. To get through Pokemon Legends: Arceus, you’re going to need to be adept at training a wide array of Pokemon. This isn’t a game where you can get by with a limited party.

A huge and perilous land to explore

It must be noted that although Pokemon Legends: Arceus takes cues from modern open-world video games, its environments aren’t truly open. There is no free travel between Hisui’s various regions. Instead, the peaceful Jubilife Village serves as your hub setting, from which you can venture out into any of the regions to do as you please before returning. It takes after the sandbox format of such games like those in the Monster Hunter series, or even Super Mario Odyssey. No matter the wilderness’s size, it’s always a bummer to run into an invisible wall at the edge of the map.

For all that Pokemon Legends: Arceus gets right, there are parts that definitely needed more polish, and the environments are arguably the leading candidate. The game may sport a charming art direction and sleek battle animations for Pokemon, but the world around those character models is usually stuck with muddy textures and poor draw distances. Pop-in is frequent when you’re using a faster means of travel, such as one of the mountable Pokemon.

Aside from the droves of Pokemon which inhabit them, most environments unfortunately feel flat and empty. The earlier areas in particular lack memorable landmarks, natural or man-made. You won’t find too many points of interest like what Sheikah Towers, Fort Hateno, the Dueling Peaks, or Floria Falls brought to Breath of the Wild. More ruins, temples, caverns, and human settlements across the board would have done a lot to spruce up the environments.

Despite being rough around the edges, the Hisui landscape is a lot of fun to trek through. It’s very easy for a few minutes of play to quickly turn into an hour as you hunt for Pokemon and forage for resources (netting a bit of exp by deploying a Pokemon to gather berries or minerals is a neat new trick). Hisui’s environments are pretty massive, not far off from the regions in Breath of the Wild. Even when using one of the mounts, it will take a while to get from one edge of the map to the other.

After a fairly lengthy run of tutorials to start the game, Pokemon Legends: Arceus opens up and offers plenty of freedom to the player. At a certain point, you’ll be able to explore a region and catch as many Pokemon as you please, provided you have progressed enough to unlock the next segment of the story. You can move on right away if you prefer, or you can spend more time completing villager requests and training your Pokemon. Later on, several of the key missions can be completed in any order you choose, much like the Crown Tundra’s quests from Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield. The choice is all yours.

In fact, it’s encouraged that you set aside time to bolster your Pokemon and fill up your inventory. Pokemon Legends: Arceus marks a considerable difficulty spike from previous games, and it’s no longer just your Pokemon who might accrue a few scrapes and bruises. The trainer you control can and will be attacked by wild Pokemon. If you take enough damage, you’ll black out and be returned to the Jubilife Village, and with a few items missing from your bag to boot.

The Noble Pokemon are without doubt the most fearsome. Once acting as guardians of the land, they now rampage uncontrollably after being afflicted by a celestial phenomenon. The encounters with them are unlike anything you’ve seen in a Pokemon game, mixing traditional turn-based combat with third-person shooter-esque mechanics as your character pelts them with special balms to subdue their frenzied states. The controls for your trainer are a bit stiff and could have used some fine-tuning, but the fights still manage to be exhilarating and fair at the same time.

Your Pokemon are going to get KO’d, a lot. No matter how much you level grind, you’re bound to run into other Pokemon who have the type advantage and can annihilate your starter in one hit. Alpha Pokemon — larger, enraged, and more powerful versions of their species — can be several levels lower than your Pokemon and still do a number on you. Contrary to some speculation prior to the game’s release, Pokemon Legends: Arceus does have battles against other trainers. They might not be as common as in the past, but they do pop up from time to time, and those that occur later in the game are no joke.

A Rich mythology builds a memorable adventure

Going back to a bygone age of the Sinnoh Region makes for a very different setting than what we’re used to in Pokemon games. In this era, the furthest that technology has come is the Poke Ball. There are no computers, televisions, or modern cities with towering skyscrapers.

Sinnoh’s rich mythology made it the perfect land for developer GameFreak to experiment with a time period like this. Generation IV of Pokemon was well known for going all out on Legendary Pokemon, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus indulges in that supernal background. The story has plenty of clever nods to the original Diamond and Pearl games that fans will pick up on, but it often goes a step further and expands on the history of Sinnoh’s many fabled Pokemon. Down the stretch, the stakes feel as high as they ever have been in a Pokemon game, and the adventure solidifies its decidedly mythical quality.

As Sinnoh is modeled after Japan (its geography is essentially the Hokkaido prefecture, after all), Pokemon Legends: Arceus appropriately evokes ancient Japan with many of its aesthetics, between clothing, architecture, and especially the new Pokemon. Most of the brand-new species and regional variants take inspiration from creatures and beings of Japanese folklore, resulting in several fascinating designs.

There is a lot to take in with Pokemon Legends: Arceus, but you’re always allowed to proceed at your own pace. The main story, alone, will last you at least 20 hours or so, and the ample post-game content will dive deeper into Sinnoh’s rich lore. Even if completing each and every last research task on the Pokedex is much too daunting for you, there is more than enough in Pokemon Legends: Arceus to give every Pokemon fan their fill of a thrilling adventure. A few refinements on the technical end of things are necessary for this concept to reach its pinnacle, but for now, Pokemon Legends: Arceus has navigated the series into refreshing and exciting territory.

Score: 8.5/10