Pokemon Legends: Arceus Review (Spoiler Free)
4This review has no spoilers. Footage is from the Overview Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4RynqpahT8
My first scripted video! Here's the script if you want to read along (I didn't read it verbatim, fwiw).
INTRO
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a terrible video game with more bad decisions than the Atlanta Falcons in 2017, with clunky controls, a bland story, and the same kind of repetitive grinding that just about every game in this series requires.
But I love it anyway.
There are many small things I love about this game, but they all have the same stem: For all its objective flaws, Pokemon Legends: Arceus nails down the most important part: It’s overwhelmingly fun to play.
OVERVIEW
Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which I’ll just call “Arceus” if that’s okay, is a rather ambitious game, by Pokemon standards at least. Game Freak has been calling it a main-series title, but its core gameplay loop is different from that of all other main games thus far. Instead of sending your Pokemon against wild creatures, you can throw balls directly at most of them if you’re careful enough. Instead of fighting gym leaders in turn-based battles, you must calm fierce Noble Pokemon in real-time brawls. There are barely any trainers in this game, and you’ll be crafting Poke Balls rather than buying them most of the time.
FLAWS
However, the game does have some similarities to its brother titles, and many of the downsides of other Pokemon games show up here. The game forces you to catch and battle a lot of Pokemon for research tasks to progress the story, which itself has a simple, cookie-cutter vibe that may turn many off. Most of your time will be spent grinding for items or research tasks, or doing sidequests that lead nowhere, or just running back to your base camp to heal your team. The graphics are nothing special, either, looking closer to Sword and Shield’s drab, uninspired areas than to Breath of the Wild’s vivid scenery.
Many of the new additions come with problems, too. Throwing Poke Balls almost never feels quite right, and even Feather Balls, which are meant to be thrown far, tend to fall below the reticle, even when you’re locked on to a wild Pokemon. Most Pokemon are impossible to catch unless you fight them with your own team, thus taking away the whole point of the game—unless you’re incredibly stealthy. But even if you do sneak up on a Pokemon perfectly, and even if you throw a ball perfectly, the Pokemon you’re trying to catch may just snap out to spite you. Ride Pokemon are very clunky to use in this game, especially the Dowsing Machine replacement and one used for scaling cliffs.
THE GOOD
However, Arceus does so much right that I’m willing to look past all these flaws and play the game for hours at a time. Sneaking up on Pokemon is hard, but it’s so fun, and gathering materials has given at least me a Minecraft-like joy in exploration. There’s always something to do in the vicinity, whether that’s trying to catch or fight a rare Pokemon, completing one of the many small sidequests, a nearby set of berries or ores, or, if the game allows it, continuing the game’s story. If you’ve ever heard of the “One More Block” mentality when people talk about Minecraft, that idea is alive and well in Hisui. And speaking of Hisui, the game’s story is another bit of fun, at least for me, if I may admit it’s not to everyone’s taste. It’s no Fallout: New Vegas, but the characters are certainly deeper than most Pokemon characters to date. Even characters that only appear for a chapter or two have much in the way of morals and humor to offer, and there are a lot of morally ambiguous characters which put N from Black and White to shame. The level curve is rather steep, but battles are forgiving—you don’t lose anything if you run out of Pokemon—so being underleveled is a common occurrence, but not a problem at all. It just makes the few trainer battles the game has a little bit more challenging—challenging enough to be fun, just like the rest of the game.
CONCLUSION
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a mix of old and new from Pokemon. It’s far from perfect, and many old flaws are still present, but I’m hopeful for this series’ future for the first time in a while.
0:00 Intro
0:26 Overview
0:55 Flaws
1:54 The Good
2:56 Conclusion
3:06 Outro
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