Pokémon Legends Arceus: A fun spin on the Pokémon franchise
Another review, huh? Let's get right into it! This is spoiler free and will only cover how far I went into the game (spoiler free will be highlighted in green while spoilers will be red when I update this post). I haven't gotten near the end yet, so please no spoilers! Once I beat the game, I will come back to this post, update it and may post spoilers with a spoiler warning. NOTE: The game arrived at 5PM, and it was my dad's birthday, so I wanted to hang with dad and eat some dinner. I'll only cover what I played before I went to bed.
Spoiler-Free Review:
On Friday, my copy of Legends Arceus arrived and boy, I was excited to play. I popped in the cartridge in my Nintendo Switch, updated the software and got in.
From the start, you may think a professor or someone will introduce you to the world of Pokémon, right? Wrong. God. Literally, God talks to you. I'm not joking. Something about the intro reminded me of Mystery Dungeon. He still introduces you to the world and after choosing your looks and name, a cutscene plays out.
I have to say, Game Freak did an amazing job with the cutscene here. While Sword and Shield's cutscenes weren't that great, I can see improvement and hopefully future Pokémon games put more animated cutscenes. I was literally laughing at myself saying, "Yeah, this is 100% BotW" and "Can't wait to see mods of this game!".
And then you, the protagonist meets a man named Laventon. After going through some dialogue, you learn how to catch Pokémon.
Your goal: to have a complete Pokedex. Sounds easy right? Well, I will tell you later.
There's a lot of dialogue before you even interact with some of the game. I understand its a new spinoff and a new breath of fresh air to the Pokémon series and that new players will have to get familiar with the game, but we've seen it with Sun and Moon and all the dialogue. But I'm pretty sure it's important, and I'm taking my time understanding the stuff. Also, did they mentioned death in Pokémon? Is that the first time we've talked about death in Pokémon games now? I must be missing out. I know some dark/creepy Pokedex entries, but wow.
Okay, never mind, the games has mentioned death.
Finally, I got to choose my starter and while all 3 starters are great, I chose Oshawott cause one, Oshawott's is voiced by my favorite English VA in the anime (Lisa Ortiz), two its evolutions deserve more love, especially Samurott and three, I feel like Samurott fits well with the region. You know, I was really expecting we would get starters with different types, but oh well, guess we're still stuck with the fire, water and grass types. I have yet to see Hisuian Samurott though. Bet its evolution is good.
I got to head out and catch some Pokémon that's a part of my task. It was simple and easy. I'm trying to get used to the controls since now, in order to bring up the menu, you have to press the up arrow on the Switch. Most Pokémon games let you pause pressing X (I think?). Got to get used to that. Overall, I was getting the hang of it and yeah, it's still BotW (I really don't want to compare this game to Zelda) even though I've never played a Zelda game before. Also, joycon drift is the worst for me. I'm sneaking in the grass and my character goes forward. Yeesh.
Wow... wasn't expecting trainer battles to be in this. Of course, it's not a Pokémon game without trainer battles.
Halfway, I had a task to catch a Wurmple and complete a Pokedex entry for Starly. Boy... I had frustrations.
2 Starly escaped out of my Pokeball. I then looked around for Wurmple. Found one sleeping and tried to catch it by throwing a Pokeball, but the Pokeball missed and ran away. I also battled one but that one escaped out of my ball and used poison sting on my Oshawott and immediately, Oshawott got poisoned. I found an Eevee and tried catching it, it kept running away or escaping out of my ball. Luckily I saved and I thought it wouldn't reappear after loading my save, but it was still there and after so many attempts, I caught one. Why does every Pokémon or why does the game hate me? I was almost about to rage quit, but I know I shouldn't get mad at a new Pokémon game. I forgot to add, Eevee now has it's Gen 6/7 cry back instead of it's Let's Go/Sword and Shield cry. I don't know if the Gen 6 cry is present in the Sinnoh remakes (pretty sure it is), let me know in the comments.
Also, in order to get info for Starly, I must complete lots of tasks in order to get its Pokedex entry. I like it and it's a good challenge in order to fill up the Pokedex and to keep you addicted. Might get challenging later on. You do need to report your findings to the professor to earn points.
Of course, there's a day and night cycle. While trying to get out of the area, a couple of Drifloon appeared and scared the mess out of me. They were gonna attack me too since some Pokémon will attack if you get caught, but luckily I didn’t get hit and got away using dodge. You can rest and skip to the morning to continue with your research.
I forgot to mention, while the game plays and looks fine, something about the graphics aren't looking great. When you get close to a Pokémon, you will notice that the shading changes or gets weird. I don't know much about video games and their technology, but the only thing I'm familiar with is draw distance. Please teach me in the comments.
I noticed during a cutscene, while Cyllene was talking, the framerate on Abra was laggy. I thought in the first trailer that the framerate for the Pokémon in the areas shown was bad and Game Freak fixed it (Chingling's was easily noticeable), but it looks like it's present in the actual game.
But can we just talk about Cyllene's design? At first, I thought I was seeing a guy. I remember Ilima from the Sun and Moon games and thought he was a girl. It's the reverse here. Cyllene is a girl, not a guy (you can tell by the outfit and her lips), but the face makes her look like Team Galactic's Cyrus. It's the only thing that bothers me and she's probably my least favorite Pokémon trainer/character design. She looks like one of those celebrities who got plastic surgery.
And if you like Cyllene, I'm not mad at you.
I was really expecting this game to go for a cel-shaded look, something like near the end of the trailer shown here:
But I guess we're still stuck with the SW&SH graphics. And something about the colors.. I don't know but it feels... washed out. Like with Sword and Shield, I'm pretty sure there are mods that fix the game.
You can also talk to your Pokémon when not battling. Sadly, they don’t follow you when you move away from them (unless it’s later on in the game when they start to get close to you the more you use them). I miss Pokémon Amie, petting your mons on the 3DS was really cool. Sword and Shield’s camp is a bit similar, but you don’t pet your Pokémon in it. This… well, you just talk to them and that’s it :/. You can throw all of your team and they can interact with the other Pokémon.
I love the expressions Game Freak gave the player trainer, especially when you meet Laventon for the first time, it's adorable. Also, I pointed out on Twitter, in one of the trailers, it looks like the player trainer has voice acting. It's confirmed! When I tried out the dodging mechanic, I can hear a voice coming from the trainer, but it's only "hups" and "huhs" and not full words. I think that's the only voice acting we'll get sadly.
A bit off-topic, but I remember a rumor with Sword and Shield having voice acting, but as soon as the final game came out, cutscenes were... awkward. There is an article explaining why there's no voice acting, but still, these are modern Pokémon games on the Switch. They should have voice acting.
And why do you have to unlock Mystery Gift when you play 2 hours of the game? Mystery Gift was always unlocked when you start your journey halfway (depends on the game though), and maybe I understand why. They don't want you using powerful legendaries or something in the middle of the game. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl's was a problem because one of the codes expired on Christmas and a lot of people get their games on that day. In order to unlock Mystery Gift, you have to talk to a guy in Jubilife City or get the third gym badge. Worst day to end your code distribution. The code was special Pokémon statues for the Underground, but you can still get them in game. I didn't get mine in my Shining Pearl game, because I was still shiny hunting for a Piplup at the beginning (which by the way, has been a pain on the Switch than the DS games since there's no soft resetting) but claimed it in my Diamond game.
PLEASE DON'T SPOIL IN THE COMMENTS, THANK YOU!
SPOILER REVIEW: