A Lapsed Pokemon Player Tries Pokemon Legends: Arceus

It’s been a very long time since I’ve played Pokemon. Aside from trying out Let’s Go, Eevee for a couple hours on stream when it came out, I haven’t played since 4th gen, and only even then because it included a remake of Gold/Silver.

The reasons I burned out of Pokemon has already been written about at length, so I won’t get into it here. But each generation I skipped had at least one thing that piqued my interest, and I would have been playing Sword had the Scottish trainer memes been part of the game.

But now we have reached not just a new Pokemon game, but a new kind of one. It’s one of the many games this generation blatantly inspired visually by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (other comers including, but are not limited to, Genshin Impact, Kirby and the Forgotten World, Horizon Zero Dawn, Sonic Frontier and an honorable mention to the graphical upgrades the remake of Xenoblade Chronicles received).

I first became interested in Pokemon Legends: Arceus when I saw the Pokemon Presents video. The new setting, visual style and implied changes to the game mechanics seemed like a proper kick in the pants that I felt the series sorely needed. I felt the mainline games’ method of tepidly adding in one new gimmick each time did little to make things fresh again. Arceus seemed to have the promise of a more complete makeover, at least for one outing.

That interest lasted until release, so this post isn’t just a Shaggy Dog Story. Once Gamefly delivered (sponsor me, cowards), I saw for myself that it is just about what I expected it to be. Which works, as that’s also what I wanted it to be.

The game’s setting rolls back the clock to when the first settlement was established in Sinnoh, then a vast wilderness overrun by wild pokemon mostly unknown to humans. It’s a setting ripe for new forms of gameplay and interesting buts of lore as to how mankind’s use and knowledge of pokemon changed to create the world we know from the previous games. And also ripe for an experienced pokemon trainer from the contemporary era to showboat their ordinary skills having Isekai’d their way there just in time for the first pokeballs to have been invented.

We’re treated to a bizarre piece of lore early on; apparently the pokeballs don’t really require any technology at all; it’s the pokemon themselves that can shrink to fit into them. Though that only raises the question of where all their mass goes when they’re physically sitting in a ball.

Being an apparent savant at throwing pokeballs and having no fear of the wild pokemon themselves (been there, done that), your character is quickly pressed into service helping research the local pokemon in order to make the area safe for further settlement. Which gels with Arceus’ requirement for you to return home: complete the pokedex Study every pokemon species in the region.

And this is where the gameplay gets brilliant.

The game gives you a wide variety of ways to complete the pokedex entries that feel a lot more like researching the pokemon instead of just mindlessly capturing everything you see. Granded, mindlessly capturing everything you see DOES get the job done, but you don’t need pokeballs to make progress. Each pokemon has a series of research tasks that all push you toward your goals. You can make progress not only by capturing them, but also by battling them, evolving them, watching them use certain moves in battle, finishing sidequests involving that pokemon, and much more. For the first time in the series, it actually feels like you are helping a pokemon researcher.

Battles occur seamlessly in the overworld, where spacing is paramount if you don’t want any extra wild pokemon intruding on your mano-a-mano scuffle. You’ll even have to watch your own step, as particularly aggressive pokemon will be attacking you if you haven’t summoned a dance partner for them.

Trainer battles do exist in this era, but with the low population and even lower than typical proportion of the population being able to use pokemon partners, they are infrequent and momentous rather than the long gauntlets of trainers that awaited you on every path in other games. The focus is very much on the wild pokemon and exploration. You’ll also tackle some light crafting and resource gathering to keep yourself stocked with the basics, given the non-industrialized nature of the era.

You do still get money in the game, but it doesn’t seem to be all that useful. You can get new clothing and pick up some crafting supplies in a pinch, but you won’t be buying TMs or supplements here. You’re a pioneer, so get used to roughing it. Lucky for you, there’s no dysentery to contend with. At least not on-camera.

There’s not too much more I can say about it with so little time clocked in-game, but I’m opting to continue on. I couldn’t possibly tell you how many of these changes I’m toting are genuinely new and how many existed in at least one previous generation after the fourth, but no matter. What I’m experiencing is exactly the shakeup I needed to enjoy the series again.

It’s almost poetic. My journey stopped in Sinnoh, and now starts anew there.