Pokémon Legends: Arceus

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is an action role playing game developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo alongside The Pokémon Company for the Nintendo Switch, the game serves as a prequel to Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum and is released on January 28, 2022 as part of the eighth generation of Pokémon.

Gameplay
It takes a more different & unfamiliar approach to the formula than previous titles with more free roaming & open world environments to explore, and removing some key aspects such as EVs and abilities for the Pokémon to have, as it is set in Hisui during the ancient times, thus some features are revamped or taken out as a result of the new and fresh setting the game takes place in.

Why It's Seeking Legend

 * 1) The game uses a more active combat cooldown system instead of the series' traditional turn-based combat, has a stronger and more lore-relevant story, offers an expansive overworld that allows for more open exploration, and provides sidequests that give players more to do outside of the main story.
 * 2) It introduces evolutions and regional forms of many forgotten and obscure Pokémon from the past that help them out in a lot of ways such as the starter Pokémon's final evolution, which turn into Hisuian final evolution starters, Stantler with Wydeer, Ursaring to Ursaluna, Sneasel to Sneasler, and a regional form of Qwilfish with a new regional evolution for itself to boot called Overqwil.
 * 3) The gameplay is pretty innovative for Pokémon standards, as it's more of a linear version of Breath of the Wild with Pokémon mechanics, which hasn't been seen in the series yet, and the way they did it was truly amazing and well executed with tons of paths and routes to travel through, and fun missions that feel pretty satisfying to play through, especially the ones involving the Noble Pokémon.
 * 4) The Hisui region is extremely big with large free roaming environments, and a large amount of Pokémon to be able to catch and battle with, and there are also a nice amount of forests and icy mountains to explore with the right amount of Pokémon to use for those requirements, and since you can battle anywhere in either the icy or wooden environments of Hisui, it makes the region feel very fresh and nice to roam around in, and since it's an ancient version of the Sinnoh region with more limited spaces but has different gameplay than the new Sinnoh region with more fresh spaces to go to, and the world being more complex and interesting than the original Sinnoh region which is a nice feature to change the lore of the Sinnoh region and it's purpose in the Pokémon world.
 * 5) The boss battles with the Noble Pokémon are extremely challenging and tough yet still rather fair and fun to play, since they have strategies for the Pokémon to attack you and some of them are tough to avoid with very slick and pixel perfect attack patterns, and with the Pokémon being defeated by throwing a Pokéball at them just so their heal meter can drain and be caught very easily just from the mechanic alone, which makes this the best part of the game.
 * 6) The characters are very well developed and all of them are important in the story and have fantastic personalities to go along with their characters, which gives them a lot more likable charm than previous trainers where they were instead more battle focused in comparison to the more drama driven characters of this game.
 * 7) *While many characters are implied to be ancestors (outside of Kamado, who is officially confirmed to be an ancestor of Professor Rowan), Ingo is actually himself from the modern day Unova region.
 * 8) The concept of an ancient version of Sinnoh is actually very interesting since the region has a lot of lore behind it and would be great to explore on how it was back many years when things weren't as advanced as they are now, which makes the Hisui region feel unique when compared to past regions such as Kanto or Johto where they felt more basic in terms of narrative and lore.
 * 9) The missions are generally fun and very enjoyable thanks to the layer of strategy implemented into the game that makes it very entertaining to do, since a few of the missions either involve the new amount of Pokémon or are completely different entirely but all of them are well designed and can feel satisfying to complete them which hasn't been seen in previous titles before, and feels like a breath of fresh air for the series as a whole.
 * 10) The controls are actually pretty smooth and feel to tight to move, since the way how the character moves is actually nice since there is a right amount of flow to the character that they have an amazing amount of movement to them, and since the mechanics are actually programmed in a fantastic way with good physics and collision detection, it makes the game a dream to control and fun to play which is great for Game Freak standards.
 * 11) The moveset system has been altered to the new mechanics in a very smart and innovative way that it makes the game more balanced and strategic with the formula, as moves now have lowered power to make them less broken and more decently powerful and some moves have been given buffs to make them a lot more stronger and decently powerful for the formula to work with, which is rather revolutionary for the series and makes the game more unique and distinctive in comparison to previous entries.
 * 12) A overall good and well-written story that feels fresh and on-par with Black & White in how deep and pretty complex it is, as it's about the player going back in time to ancient Hisui and getting into a lot of situations with the townspeople and this will be where the plot gets a lot of depth, as there is a lot of drama happening and it explains the lore of Arceus and how he created the entire world of Pokémon, and that he is the strongest Pokémon of all time (note that Mega Evolution doesn't exist in this timeline and Pokèmon such as Eternatus weren't around back then).
 * 13) The Ride feature from Sun & Moon returns and is still just as good as it was in those games if not better since it is now more three dimensional and now as a new feature where if you go to a different environment with a Ride Pokémon, then that Ride Pokémon will swap with another in a jiffy and makes controlling the game a lot more fun and enjoyable as a result.
 * 14) The animations for the new Pokémon are very funny and cute, with lots of expressive emotions and a wide range of facial features that look adorable, such as with Hisuian Typhlosion with it's flames coming out of the back of it's neck which are now magenta instead of pure orange, which makes look cute and goofy at the same name.
 * 15) Great soundtrack composed by Go Ichinose, who did an amazing job at composing many of the tracks in this game, as they have this pretty ancient-esque and wispy sound to them that fits the time period that the game is set in, and many of the older tracks now have new remixes to fit with the game's setting and they do sound decent but it's the instrumentation that makes them good with excellent usage of orchestral music with a bit of Japanese music and synth music too, making it one of the best qualities of the entire game and easily one of the best soundtracks in the series to date.
 * 16) There are certain gimmicks that mimic the mechanics from the previous entries that were removed in this game in a way that's faithful to what they were in the old titles, such as the Sunshine Form of Cherrim now having different stats than the Overcast Form with a Higher Attack stat and Higher Sp Defense stat, as this was done to mimic the Flower Gift ability that Cherrim had as it's signature ability, which was a nice way of changing the mechanics of past games around like this.
 * 17) You can evolve Pokémon that evolve by trading with the item linking cord.
 * 18) You can finally battle and catch Arceus legally as in the original Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum & the remakes Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, where you can only battle it and catch it through an event which was scrapped in the former games.
 * 19) It served as the basis for the upcoming Gen 9 titles, Scarlet & Violet, which seem to be fully open world and implementing several mechanics and features from Legends but also mixing them with the previous gimmicks that were in previous games, which shows that the series is finally changing it's core gameplay after several years of wasted potential/stagnation (like all Pokémon and moves).
 * 20) The game actually allows you to catch Pokémon outside of battles with even battling them in general for the first time, as you can throw a type of ball at them and sometimes, they actually might have the catch to be successfully caught, giving the game a more fresh experience and improving upon the dated mechanics of past titles which many fans have wanted to happen for years at this point.
 * 21) It retains the day and night system from Gold & Sliver and does a lot of unique things with it that make it seem fresh and well-implemented, such as having a full moon to be able to evolve Ursaring into Ursaluna with the Peat Block, and some Pokémon going Alpha and becoming more savage and deadly, as they try to attack you and you can even battle them as well, which adds more replay value and overall content to the game.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The region's Pokédex is still extremely limited with only 242 species implemented into the game, which is extremely disappointing as Gen 6 and 7 had all the Pokemon and SWSH had more than 600 Pokémon and even if the dex was still missing some iconic creatures, it still had some consistency with the roster, which for this game there isn't, as the Magnemite and Porygon lines and Rotom appear in the dex (except the Type: Null line) despite not being made in the past and being futuristic objects from the modern times, which makes no sense for them to be in the Hisui Pokédex at all and feels nonsensical to have then implemented into the game.
 * 2) Just like the previous game, many Pokémon use the same animation as the 3DS games, which is lazy, although it's justified since the animations look decent and due to the game being either made with a low budget, but they could've at least made some new animations instead.
 * 3) Like Sun and Moon/Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Sword and Shield, the first three Paper Mario games, and Mario & Luigi games, the tutorials can get a bit repetitive and tiresome at some point in the game, though this game is still better than those.
 * 4) Once everything is done (catching all Pokémon, getting them to research level 10 and the missions), there's nothing much to do except for shiny hunting.
 * 5) The reward for reaching Full Star (20 Rare Candies and 10 Grit Rocks) is disappointing and it's nothing really special.
 * 6) The character of Melli is extremely unlikeable, going as far as to believe the Frenzied Nobles is a good thing, sabotaging your journey through the Coronet Highlands and pretty much wanting you dead.
 * 7) Unfortunately, whenever you complete a research task, you have to report into Professor Laventon. In fact, whenever you want to leave the area after completing a research task, you also have to report into him, you can't leave until reporting. This would make sense if you had enough points to rank up but after reaching 10 Stars and becoming a Full Star Member, you still have to report to Laventon just to leave the area.
 * 8) No Multiplayer this time, which could have been even more fun.
 * 9) The voice clips used for the Pokemon are sometimes played at the wrong pitch.
 * 10) Also, Pikachu's voice clips are reused from gens 1-3.
 * 11) Difficulty Spike: Compared to the fairly low difficulty curves of most mainline Pokémon games, Legends: Arceus can be surprisingly rough for players expecting the same old curbstomp parade. The level curve for the main questline is balanced around the player going off and training their Pokémon by filling out the Pokédex and doing sidequests to some degree; attempting to barrel through the main questline as quickly as possible will likely render your Pokémon severely underleveled, and without taking the time to grind for Ranks you won't be able to offset this by catching higher level Pokémon, as they just won't obey you. The under-the-hood rebalance to the stat system also means that type advantage now matters just as much as (if not more than) levels, making the old strategy of relying on a single overleveled Pokémon unfeasible. That opposing Trainer with a single Pokémon looks much less like a pushover when, despite being seven levels under you, still one-shots your starter... and under the new battle system, goes on to take advantage of Styles to potentially repeat the act with your next Pokémon (or two) before you can even register that you're on the other side of the usual curbstomp.
 * 12) Missed Opportunities:
 * 13) *The Miss Fortune sisters appear to be opposed to every major group in Hisui, which could have made for some interesting interactions after the player gets exiled from the Galaxy Team and can't turn to either clan for aid; however, they never rise to any sort of relevance during that part of the game. Additionally, Clover and Coin's backstories are only barely fleshed out, and Charm's backstory is completely unexplored, giving us no proper explanation as to why they became dissatisfied with the clans and the Galaxy Team.
 * 14) *In a similar vein, after the player is turned away from everyone, the Miss Fortune sisters could have offered them a position with them, which would have made for an interesting moral dilemma—even if you're not feeling vengeful against the clans for abandoning you, you're odds of survival on your own are low. It would also call Cyllene's earlier words about holding firm to your values even in the face of abuse into question. Unfortunately, when they do show up during that plotline, the idea never comes up; in fact the player has already found aid with others, so they'd be less likely to consider the option anyway.


 * 1) *Some older forgotten Pokémon from previous generations such as Dunsparce, Girafarig & Spinda didn't receive any regional evolutions or forms in this title despite so many fans requesting Game Freak to make new regional evolutions to most of them for so many years due to their weak stats and overall lack of power, especially a lot majority of the single stage Pokémon in Gens 2 & 3.
 * 2) **In fact, the only single staged Pokémon with stats below 500 that got an evolution is Stantler, and that's it, with Qwilfish only having an evolution through a brand new regional form, and Basculin getting a new form to then later receive an evolution and that's it, which is a shame since there are many other weak Pokémon that need an evolution very badly and could do with a bit of expanding upon their designs and their concepts that they are based on.
 * 3) Connectivity with Pokémon HOME was not available until May 18, 2022 (3 months, 2 weeks and 6 days after the game's release).

Reception
The game received positive reviews from fans for its wild amount of changes to the Pokémon formula and overall being a really fun and enjoyable game, as Metacritic gave it an 84 with an audience score of 7.9. IGN gave the a 7/10, and Nintendo Life gave the game a 9/10.

Videos
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