Pokémon Legends: Arceus (NSW) Review

A journey through time.

  It's no surprise that the Pokemon series has been getting stale in recent years, which is why the newest spin-off, Pokemon Legends: Arceus is aiming to be a fresh take on the series, offering a new prequel story and gameplay additions. I've been interested in playing the game after reading lots of praise for it and since I've been feeling burnt-out by the series. So after having played it, did it manage to live up to expectations? 

 You take the role of a young trainer who fell from a rift in the sky that appeared in the Hisui region, the ancient land before Pokemon Pearl and Diamond's Sinnoh. With no recollection of your past, you join Professor Laventon and the Galaxy Expedition Team to research and collect data on Hisui's Pokemon while also aiding the Pearl and Diamond clans that inhabit the region. Being a prequel to the aforementioned games, expect to see many Pokemon and references from that generation as well. The story was a surprisingly good one as the mysteries behind Hisui and the legendary Pokemon Arceus were engaging and I rarely felt bored throughout the journey. As for the characters, they were plentiful and decently-written with the likes of Akari, Professor Laventon, Irida, Adaman, Cyllene, and Volo being my favorites.

Explore a new region with a few familiar faces.

 Pokemon Legends: Arceus is an adventure game where you aim to catch and battle Pokemon while taking the chance to explore your surroundings. Arceus changes up the stagnating gameplay by taking influences from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as you get to explore semi-open areas, where you must craft items like healing items and Poke Balls to catch Pokemon. Battles still center around type match-ups where fire types are stronger than grass type and water types being weak to thunder. 

Gotta catch 'em all yet again.

 This time, you can buff your normal attacks for a "strong-style" one at the cost of the enemy gaining more turns or debuff said attack with "agile-style" and gain more turns to act instead. These new features aren't entirely gameplay-changing, but did come handy when facing large groups of Pokemon. It's worth noting is that you can now freely move around in battles and control the camera, which are small but long-awaited additions. 

Battles remain much of the same,
but with some new changes.

 Pokemon wander around in the fields, so catching them now requires strategy as they'll often attack you when spotted. You'll need to hide in bushes and strike them when they're off-guard as well as use helpful items to stun them to increase the chances of a successful catch. It's by far the most fun part of the gameplay as the Pokemon variety doesn't disappoint and catching the more powerful "Alpha" Pokemon was a decent challenge. However, if you're knocked-out, you'll lose some of your items and will be sent back to camp. 

 Annoyingly, recovering lost items is tied to Nintendo's online subscription as you need to be online for other players to recover your items for you. As for the areas you'll be exploring, they aren't entirely empty as they're filled with NPCs with side-quests, secret caves packed with precious materials, and occasional space-time distortions that spawn rare, hard-to-find Pokemon. 

The exploration and side-quests were
a fun distraction from the main story.

 You can rest in camps, where you can rest and pass time, buy stuff at the merchant, sort your equipment, and track your Pokedex progress at Professor Laventon. I enjoyed the gameplay loop as soon as you're dropped into an area, you can immediately start running around the area and catch Pokemon. Post-game content is abundant with character-driven quests to start, more Pokemon to find, and new epilogue quests. I wasn't a huge fan of the fetch-quests but their rewards were good enough to tolerate the huge abundance of them. It took me around 25 hours to beat the main story and I'm currently at 40 hrs trying to catch all 242 Pokemon to see the final scene. Needless to say, the amount of content here won't disappoint. 

 Visually, Arceus is a good-looking game though with some issues. The artstyle and character designs were great and fit the eastern theme of the setting. I liked the stage designs too with Jubilife Village and Cobalt Coastlands being my favorite areas. However, there were some low-quality textures on clothing, frequent pop-ins when exploring, and weird, white outlines on models when in dark caves and water, all of which were distracting. That said, the loading between areas was surprisingly fast. The soundtrack is great, packing chill and relaxing tracks that were nice to listen. Jubilife's theme, Laventon's theme, Battle theme, and Obsidian Fieldlands theme were my faves.

Visual issues aside, the game looks nice.

 I had lots of fun playing Pokemon Legends: Arceus and it's among my favorites in the series. The story was good and the gameplay was entertaining, with the open areas and exploration being standouts. Glaring shortcomings aside, it's a breath of fresh air and I hope developer GameFreak builds upon it for future Pokemon games. There's a good amount of new revamps that fans of the series should look into Pokemon: Legends Arceus and it's also accommodating for newcomers as well.