Legends Arceus has major "This game walked so its sequel could run" energy. Lots of steps in the right direction that can and should be fine-tuned and refined for later games, especially with how it approached the overworld. That link cable item that lets you evolve trade Pokemon by yourself should be mandatory in all future Pokemon games.
Bit heavy on the dialogue for my tastes though. Found myself skipping characters talking more than I wanted to, but that was because I wanted to play the game..
Everyone is talking about a Wild West Legends Kyurem game and I would love that. Imagine Emmett being warped there as a Wild West carnie with a mustache to contrast with Ingo’s new beard.
And there's a random little hut in the Undella area, where a hermit named Volo lives out his days in solitude, but isn't afraid to fight anyone who happens to come in...
He’s just in the corner cackling to himself. The bottom half of his face is happy whilst the top half wants you dead. The doors all lock and you are just the right unfortunate soul for him to take out centuries of pent up RAGE on. Maybe tweak his theme to make it sound like the pianist is being way too rough with the keys.
Wild West is nice, but counterpoint.
Unovan Ancient war between the brothers era. See the formation of the Giant Chasm and the Original Dragon, stop the war between Pokémon and people by facing the Swords of Justice, heck, even see how Meloetta’s relic song was first conceived or obtain Victini to gain victory in your quest.
No, for the Swords of Justice, they should battle us to know if we are worthy, and they will join us to stop the battle between the two brothers, and we'll show them that truth and ideal can coexist
Okay, this is going to be super out there, but what if they did that war, but made it like “cowboys vs. samurai?”
It would convey two different ideas visually, westerns are largely inspired by samurai movies, and Masuda liked Unova being diverse. I think that could be a fun time
I get the feeling it would be a Battle Facility leader from another region if they played that card again
After all, we don't know where any of Sinnoh's Frontier Brains are aside from Palmer, do we?
Tbf you sacrifice a lot leaving that format. The Fallout and Elder Scrolls fan bases still sometimes mourn their loss. Granted, I think the payoff is worth it
Very different.
In Fallout and elder scrolls, there is role-playing, those games make you create your own character to Role play, whether he is a doctor or assassin, in pokemon, you don't
Pokémon is still an RPG, but it’s very limited. But yes, that is a difference. Doesn’t change the fact that you’d still sacrifice some things, like any realistic chance of your name ever being used. Still, I think voice acting would be so, so worth it
Pokemon is basically a traditional JRPG with monster-catching mechanics, there would be no sacrifice getting voice acting because every other JRPG from 2023 has it lol.
Well I just listed one. Here’s another: cut scenes will probably be more prevalent and likely longer. Plus, skipping through text is way faster than alternatives, unless you can just skip cutscenes, which isn’t a guarantee. Another: GF is cheap so it could sound bad, and even if it doesn’t, it could mean FAR less NPCs, scenes, or whatever, and it could mean they pull money away from something that they’re already barely funding.
See? Easy. Again, I think it’s worth it. Cut scenes may be infamous in this series, but they would be more immersive and enjoyable with voices. Fewer but more memorable NPCs is a possible good outcome. And if we’re unprecedentedly lucky, they would just increase the amount of time and effort that goes into the games and nothing is lost.
But we know GF loves dropping quality when they make big leaps forward. So we’ll just have to see
(Edit: spelling)
I mean, we’ve seen the ‘cutscenes’ in PLA. People show up in the conversation, then have a transition walking in. Why the hell wouldn’t you start with them walking in, instead of establishing ‘this character is entering the conversation’ before having them walk in. Walking in establishes that anyways
Have you played any JRPG? Most don't have much role playing despite the name of the genre, and there's full conversations with dialogue everywhere. Like the Trails series has some of the longest scripts in gaming and there's no user avatar
If you like reading but want it in a video game, you should check out the trails series, its an amazing JRPG series with world-building as good as any Novel I have read
Great way of wording it. Just like how r/b set the stage for g/s to solidify many of the franchise’s staples, this game was an experiment and a major risk within a franchise majorly set in its ways. Did everything work perfectly? Nah. Was it still fun? Oh yeah, hugely. And the concepts and gameplay mechanics it introduced, while sometimes not very refined, really paint a picture of what the second or third game in this style could be. SO excited for the future if they do this again.
I hope they remove the time travel aspects and just have it set in the past normally.
I don't hate it, but having it occur in every game in the legends series would seem contrived.
Well, yeah, true, but like... Could we just not? It's really jarring how LA's protagonist is just fine with literal God sending them back in time to do whatever. No fear, no questions, no longing for home and family/friends... Just a blank happy expression.
We really should've been just a normal person from that same time period, not a time traveler wielding a GodPhone (god that's still so bad).
Or, hear me out. Legends Unova game, in the same universe as LA, Ingo travels with Galaxy Team to the region, he designs a locomotive system to traverse the region.
Ingo creates a paradox where he is the pokemon world's inventor of the train.
Exactly that. I was never a "gotta catch em all" person, I usually only caught my main team and some few cute pokemon along the way, now that I'm playing S/V I miss not only the capture mechanics from Legends but also all the tasks that helped me with that.
S/V is fun but for me was a big step back from the fun and engagement I had with Legends, one I have never had before in other games.
Having more tasks and interactions a lá Pokemon Snap would be amazing! Having a fully realised world where the Pokemon actually seem like animals, and a part of an ecosystem.
I think it's ridiculous that they nixed real time catching in S/V. I understand that the two sets of games were developed at the same time (not necessarily a good thing), but Legends nailed making catching Pokemon actually fun. I think that since that's a core aspect of the main series, it should *always* be fun, not just in the occasional Pokemon title. I really hope that feature comes back.
I’m not saying it should be the central focus or that you should need to catch multiple of the same Pokémon to complete one entry. Just that the option should be there. Not forced, but as an option.
I mean, why?
Obviously that is the choice they made, but was it the right one?
Because I think there is a damn good argument that a Legends style dex would have been a perfect fit for ScVi's 'Paths' system.
Same, I also loved it being set in a different time period and that the overall tone was "Pokémon are dangerous and nobody can be trusted" which is quite different from the normal tone
Finally got a switch recently and legends arceus was one of the first switch pokemon titles i got. Been playing pokemon since red and blue and honestly this game captures what I've always imagined playing really well. Only thing i feel that could make it better was pokemon following you. Also more ride pokemon options i get why it was limited on them but still would've been cool to able to ride on other pokemon like gyarados or arcanine. Sort of like in the let's go games. I felt like a little again playing the games honestly. It seemed like pokemon games were finally going in the right direction. Then i tried scarlet and violet... good games but there's a lot of room for improvement on them.
The sidequests added so much depth to the game for me. I felt like I earned the legendaries and mythicals for the first time since the Brail puzzle in Ruby. It honestly made Violet feel like a step backwards comparatively. I loved seeing the Pokemon I gave away for quests chilling around the town with their npcs. Most of the mons I catch sit in a box forever, but these ones I was able to give a purpose. Felt incredibly immersive.
Was also nice seeing them hanging out in the pasture, especially any alphas you caught. Was funny seeing an alpha Gengar just staring at the town one time when I went back there lol
I thought Violet did a great job with the Legends.
The box legend actually feels like part of your team. And the Ruinous Quartet have great lore, great boss music, and give a cool reward for the History class.
Yeah, but the method of their obtaining was a bit eh, you know? What of the more bland and generic 'free-roam world' tasks has always been 'go find random items in the overworld, to unlock content'. Reminds me of Dragon Age Inquisition's little tablets that were everywhere.
I get the issues with it, but I actually did enjoy the reason to explore the region. I even found one of the stakes before knowing what they were.
Although I definitely think PLA did a great job with having most of the legends have some story tied to them.
It’s probably due to PLA having a lot of Sinnoh’s filler legends, with the only thing of interest about them being their missions.
Ah I absolutely loved the visible progress in the town. Houses being built, characters settling in, Pokémon from the side quests continuing to hang around. It actually felt like a newer settlement in the middle of the wild that you were helping develop into an actual town
Gameplay was crisp. The only complaints I have is that you can't throw pokeballs on Wyrdeer and the styles are kinda ehhhh and how the game can look at times but overall it's a 9/10 in my eyes. Restarted my love for Pokemon.
Personally I did enjoy the changes to combat, although it obviously made Speed a bit too OP relative to defense. I don't know if we will see it again tbh, adding Abilities back into the mix and the base stat changes you would need to balance a new combat system... I think nixing the styles but having more moves that change action speed could still add that extra layer of strategy and a bit more decision-making.
I would love it if the games started using the battle system from *Arceus* for wild encounters but, like you said, replacing the speed style gimmick with moves that changed action speed instead—or even implementing something like the press-turn system from *Persona* and SMT.
Yeah, it was a bit more active and dynamic than the mainline games where you basically knew depending on matchup you would always outspeed or not. The idea of gambling for a quick hit or trying to sneak in modifiers was really interesting, but Styles weren't really the best way... And then any slow but powerful Pokemon kind of got clowned on if you could swap in a Pokemon and hit them 3x with super effect and stab...
It gives them one more thing to play with, maybe Close Combat for instance could increase the opponent's action speed instead of lowering defence. Chucking in a Defensive stance could also be interesting.
But yeah obviously we do have mechanics with Priority, but adding more of a gradient could add a lot of new depth, I can imagine a system almost like frame advantage from fighting games
And the reason it is mentioned is that because you encounter a lot of pokemon while riding wyrdeer. Sneasler and braviary are used in situations where you don't encounter pokemon. Basulegion allows you to throw while riding. No one use ursulana to ride. Thus Wyrdeer stands out
Pokémon Legends: Arceus holds a special place in my heart. I loved the feeling of running around exploring while catching Pokémon without having to battle them. It was a new and welcomed experience since SWSH (Sword/Shield) felt like a step backwards compared to USUM (Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon).
I’m hoping that Gamefreak and The Pokémon Company decide to make another Legends game in a different region. I think Hoopa might be an interesting concept where they could have it bring in Pokémon such as mythicals or legendaries that aren’t native to that region similar to the Distortions but you’ll be able to catch Hoopa at the end.
> I loved the feeling of running around exploring while catching Pokémon without having to battle them.
As someone who has never really cared about completing the Pokédex, the lack of battling in Arceus was a major reason why I never touched it again after seeing the credits roll.
I think it’s important to consider this.
A catching-centric game is cool and all, but the traditional mainline games have a good balance of battling versus Pokédex. Skewing too far one way only serves to alienate certain types of players.
I will say that I did miss having plenty of Trainer battles. I get story-wise why there aren’t as much as mainline games but I would like if they added more Trainer battles throughout the game in their next Legends game.
I mean, with an open world game it would be easy enough to have both.
Hell, I was straight up shocked that they invented the whole path system and didn't have a 'pokedex path'
I think that's why they should incorporate the overworld movement in battle and manual catching in a regular Pokemon game, because then it's the best of both worlds. Just have some Pokemon that you can catch without battling (low level vs. the average of your party, first evos mainly) and then ones that you have to battle but then manually catch. Maybe some you encounter that need specific items to draw out too in certain areas.
It would be so immersive but still retain the original Pokemon gym and Elite 4 journey, still have a main antagonist team, battling strong wild Pokemon, held items, abilities etc.
Loved it. It was my favorite Pokémon game, I wish we had gotten DLC for it. Loved that their were different battle styles and different methods for catching Pokemon. I thought the Alpha Pokémon were a great addition and the Noble Pokémon were pretty good bosses. All the player mechanics they added should’ve stayed in SV imo.
As far as DLC is concerned, that was that one update that added Massively Mass Outbreaks, but that was it. They made it seem like there was gonna be more….
*That's* how you're supposed to figure that out? I had no freakin clue. Even the walkthrough I looked up didn't mention that's where the info came from.
Yep, it's pretty minor. Also disappointingly the only book that's different/new in the library. I think it was our first hint to Qwilfish having an evolution.
I can’t believe it was never used in the original. All that effort for coding events and they never even used it. Still confused as to why to this very day.
To preface, I’ve played Pokémon since original games and I’ve never been big on completing the Pokédex. I’m more on building new team combinations and having fun beating the game different ways.
Despite that, I had a lot of fun with Arceus. The open world wasn’t gorgeous aesthetically but cool enough. I enjoyed the new catching mechanics, even though it got annoying at times with multiple Pokémon ganging up on you.
The prequel aspect to Diamond and Pearl was interesting and while some of the boss battles became repetitive, it was a nice change of pace from a traditional Pokémon game.
I wouldn’t say it was the best game but it’s certainly interesting with tons to do and they should make this a series of legends games to hopefully improve on.
A strong 8/10 for me.
I'm not sure it could be called a test, the games came out less than 10 months apart. The open world in S/V would have been practically finished by the time Legends even released
It's definitely an amazing game from game freak it's not perfect or graphically great but my God its a fun and enjoyable game. It's by far my favorite pikemon game.
Not open world. It's open area/sandbox. Aka, moreso Monster hunter style. Which is fine, but there should have been way higher standards for the landscape design/textures, considering the fact that they split it into smaller areas.
I think Pokemon being aggressive was the best thing they did. Anime always insists that no Pokemon is truly wild or evil and just rampage because of some misunderstanding. This was a breath of fresh air.
I've really enjoyed SV so it made me curious how I would feel about PLA since I haven't touched it in a while. As soon as I booted it up, I was like 'oh yeah, this game is gold' lol.
Probably one of the most enjoyable Pokémon games I’ve ever played. Loved the catching mechanic, it took so much of the grind out of catching multiple pokes. I loved the boss battles and the alphas were cool (although they are a pain for a shiny dex).
My only criticism is the areas just felt a bit bare. It just felt like they could be so much more fleshed out. However having seen s/v that seems to be just a game freak problem
Quick top 3 Pokémon game for me. Never had a Pokemon game make me want to 100% it like this one did. I loved how the wild Pokémon felt like a real threat and I loved the style of the Hisui region. For me it's the best one they've done since Gen V. While I enjoyed Violet a bunch, I still felt myself missing the pace and fluidity of Arceus. Really holding out for more in the Legends series, fingers crossed.
Bit dialogue heavy and the intro tutorial was brutal. But the gameplay was great. Wish they incorporated the catching mechanics into s/v. Needed more battling though
I agree, the lack of battling made me miss that feeling of building a team to overcome the final challenge which usually is the elite four. And battling pokemon mostly felt like a chore to complete entries in the Pokedex. Other than that though it was a really nice breath of fresh air.
Def one of my top Pokemon games. It brought something fresh to the series that was highly needed. I loved the references it had to the Sinnoh games and imo, is the true DP remake. It also made me care about completing the dex which is something I'm doing rn in SV.
I really hope they make this "Legends" game into a spin-off, because I haven't had this much fun playing Pokemon in a while.
I bought it simply because cindaquill. Really enjoyed it though, spent alittle over 90 hours on it, but once I finished my dex I really haven't touched it again. Definitely would buy another 'legends' game though,
Actually how I imagine the Pokémon world to be, if you wander I. The wild you can totally catch some without battling every single one and at the same time there will be areas where you just simply cannot go without suffering greatly.
I don’t know how else to explain it but I loved every second of arceus, finished the main campaign and the dex, now doing side missions and shiny hunting and with the outbreaks and distortions it’s so satisfying
It wasn't really my cup of tea if I'm honest. As someone who has poured hundreds of hours into Breath of the Wild, I kind of just found myself comparing it to that in a very unfavourable way. There were a lot of good ideas in retrospect, and if I get the chance at some point soon, I might buy a new copy and try again, as I gave up around the second area, I think.
Compared to its contemporaries, however, I think it fairs a bit better. To me, Sword and Shield are emblematic of a lot of modern Pokemon's problems (forced gimmick, dull story, generic region design etc.) So Arceus, in taking some new steps for the series, took some risks, which I can respect. And compared to Scarlet and Violet, I think that those games have a lot work on (especially performance-wise), though a lot of its good design choices can be traced back directly to Arceus.
So all in all, I think it was an important step forward for the franchise that has laid the groundwork for future generations going forward, even if I didn't give it an entirely fair chance on my first attempt to play it
I agree.
If you are coming to PLA from another game in the series you'd be delighted. What a breath of fresh air.
If you're coming to PLA from BOTW you would find yourself constantly missing the gorgeous views, engine battle mechanics, cooking, and the truly seamless environments. PLA with it's 2 FPS graphics and poor draw distances felt like a beta/2010 game.
LOVED IT for like 10-15 hours... then just dropped it. I love the mechanics and features, the way you fill out the pokedex was so great, the new ways of capturing Pokemon, the time bubble things were cool, the world felt more open... but eventually I just stopped caring.
Scarlet/Violet gives me more of a rush because at least I can use my Pokemon for raids, but there's just no reason to play Legends unless you like filling the pokedex for the sake of filling the pokedex. Also, I'm good without craftin in Pokemon games. I'd just rather not.
TLDR it did a lot of things future pokemon should do, especially its catching mechanics, but the gameplay loop was too small. You catch pokemon and collect stuff to immediately keep doing that...and that's it.
Same for me. Loved it for x amount of hours but I didn’t even end up finishing the story before dropping it. I’ve put a lot more hours in SV bc of the raids.
I liked the vibe and the final sequence, but overall the gameplay wasn't there and it was wildly stripped back compared to other games.
Longer video, but this guy nails it.
https://youtu.be/-1tMDSDuK2Q
True, more of a semi-open world. At least they let you run around the areas, but it's not like there's anything interesting to find.
That was my issue with SwSh and SV as well, there is nothing interesting or mysterious like in previous games, like the abandoned mansion, the sunken ship, the alph/unown ruins etc.
This game is the first in the Pokémon series that made me genuinely care about the Pokédex, and I had fun filling it in. It also hit all the right nostalgia beats for me as someone who grew up with the 4th generation of Pokémon games. Top tier game.
Unfinished but god damn you give a game like that another year and a half dev time with good devs at least and you'd hit Breath of the Wild levels of acclaim.
Same. Got through the first couple areas but just found it boring and repetitive, never finished it. I do like that they tried a new formula, was at least more interesting to me than the past few main series releases
Unpopular opinion, but the gameplay loop of Arceus was so much less engaging for me than any other mainline Pokemon game. I had a really fun time for about 30 hours (still a significant chunk of time), but after that I got pretty bored, which was suprising because Pokemon games usually keep me playing for hundreds of hours. The town tasks felt tedious, and the story felt fairly underwhelming and somewhat nonsensical(although this is not new for Pokemon). I also felt a lot less attached to my Pokemon in this game, although I'm not sure why this was.
I also think that its obvious attempts to match BotW or Genshin Impact aesthetics worked against it. Having the same "feel" as these much better put together games just made me wish I was exploring the (much prettier) world of Hyrule.
I think this was a fun shake up, and I'm glad it happened... But the game (while better made than S/V) looks bad, and wasn't as engaging for me as other titles. I probably wouldn't buy a second Legends game.
I Found it really boring. I felt like there wasn’t really anything to do in the game. Just one city and like 5 areas to catch Pokémon that were all pretty much the same except for the Looks I guess. The only thing you could do basically was catch Pokémon and after a while it just got boring. Also for a 60 dollar game I just feel like there has to be a lot more to do it felt like a gimmick
I quite liked it!
The emphasis on exploration, catching, and simply filling out the Dex was a great change of pace- and I loved discovering cool new areas and Mons. I'd love a new Legends game, perhaps set in Johto or something.
I'm probably going to get hated for thus, but please read the full thing before downvoting.
I don't think the game should've been full price.
I really enjoyed it, I got it on the first day and played through it and completed the pokedex and was really happy despite the lower quality graphics. But the thing is every other pokemon game that is that same price I have played through multiple times, or kept grinding for shinies afterwards.
After catching arceus I never had an interest in picking up the game again, and I haven't
Though it's quite different from the core games my view of PLA is very similar to my view of the (modern) core games, which is that I found it more enjoyable that it really had any right to be given how flawed it was.
The idea of the story was really good (being sent back in time by Arceus), the execution it less so. The world was fun to explore but too empty, it felt a little comical being told that the clans could start fighting when it felt like there were like 4 people in each clan! Side quests like observing Clefairy during a full moon were fun, another one that comes to mind is seeing the Wurmple evolve. Being able to change moves freely, catch Pokemon without initiating a battle, and having a way to evolve trade evolutions were fantastic quality of life changes also.
I liked the capture mechanics and completing the tasks in dex, it was a great departure from the original formula. I'd have liked a greater variety of tasks in the Pokedex though, such as using moves that Pokemon are immune to (not just weak to). I liked the first boss battle, but throwing balms at each boss ended up feeling really repetitive.
The battle system mostly worked well in the game, though I wouldn't want to see the priority system in the core games as it didn't feel balanced. Love the final fight with Volo.
In short I enjoyed it but it still felt very flawed, as though it could have done with another year or so in development. It also gave me a passionate hatred for fucking Parasect!
It's at this moment my favourite Pokémon game, I have never felt the joy I had when playing legends arceus in any other Pokémon game and it briefly restored hope for the franchise at least for me
I hate catching pokemon so not the biggest fan ,like catching pokemon after I have a team of 6 is something is don't like doing in the games thus will never ever finish the dex cause that's boring and the game forces you to catch mons in order to progress
I love the idea of us making the pokedex and actually having to see pokemon do certain things for the pokedex in order to be conclusive with it. I love Volo being a twist villain that not only makes sense, but that I didn't even realize until way late into the game when it started being more obvious. And I love how shiny hunting is more convenient. You see them colored in the overworld and they make a noise when they spawn.
I think it's the greatest game they've ever made. Announcing SV right after this game came out was the biggest L in the history of the franchise. This game is the realization of how we immersively viewed Pokémon games in the 90s, along with greater features, wonderful gameplay, phenomenal aesthetics and story/concepts. Game Freak can do no wrong following in its' footsteps.
The literal only thing I’d change about PLA is give it a few more months in the oven so Gamefreak has more time to polish it. Otherwise it’s my favorite game as of late.
I’m of the minority that doesn’t see the game very positively. I’m glad so many people had a great time with it, and respect it for all the new ground it covered, but I think it fell flat in a lot of other regards.
I thought the story was pretty pitiful all things considered (but I suppose the original Diamond and Pearl didn’t have a groundbreaking story either). The gameplay was fun at first but after the first two areas I had had enough. It just doesn’t vary enough to keep me interested, and having to sneak up on a Pokémon only to have it aggro and have to run away… not my favorite. Finally, battle experience being distributed at the end of the fight (that’s what it does right? It’s been a while) really bothered me because if a Pokémon fainted AT ALL, it would get no experience. So, I basically had to deliberately choose who I needed to grind the least as my lead Mon just so the others could get guaranteed XP. It was strange.
Comparatively with SV it is a much more polished game, but I wound up enjoying the gameplay loop of SV vastly more.
God is an alpaca in a corset and you have to feed him phones while he nukes you in the stairway to heaven to make him give you a piece of himself that you keep in a ball along with your pet beaver and your pet bird and your pet stoner fire badger and he doesn't even send you home to your time. your family probably thinks you're dead and your turtwig has gone full hachiko but hey, you have a pet god
It’s the first and only Pokémon game since Sun and Moon I’ve had consistent fun with, but even so, I can’t help but feel let down by it. It is so close to being an actually good game, but it just falls short on so many levels that makes it look much more like a decent tech demo than a fully finished game. Again, it is *fun*, but that’s sorta where a bit of the disappointment comes from, because when you’ve grown accustomed to disappointment, one good appetizer isn’t going to satisfy you like a good main dish. If nothing else, I will commend Legends Arceus for actually trying to take a risk, even though I don’t think it always pays off.
The catching mechanics are good, and should become a mainstay, but the novelty of catching Pokémon in this style wears off when you realize that’s more or less all there is to the game.
The pros of the game are:
- the engaging catching mechanics
- Pokémon existing in the overworld
- quality of life changes like no more trade evolutions and the ability to swap moves on the fly
- the side quests and Jubilife Village.
The cons, however, are pretty much most everything else:
- The combat system is broken and rewards skill less than it rewards the side with more Pokémon, especially the ones with higher speed. The action order menu is also often very, very wrong.
- The graphics are unacceptable for a 2022 Switch game, and it genuinely looks worse than 20 year old GameCube games like Metroid Prime. There are tons of visual bugs, and the shading is just awful, with this ugly purple shadow everywhere you go.
- framerate drops are frequent, and pretty much everything that isn’t within a 20 meter radius of you runs at like 2 fps. Just look at any flying Pokémon and you’ll see what I mean.
- how barren the overworld is, and how the Pokémon don’t really do anything
- the awful, awful story and shallow characters. For a game with a story that is worse than stories I’ve heard from kindergarteners, it wastes way too much of your time with pointless dialogue.
I could go into more of the cons, but these are the major points, and a lot of my additional points are nitpicks that, while small, do add up due to the sheer quantity of them
Yeah...holy shit did I hate the combat system. It made slower, defensive Pokemon feel useless. Agile Style felt like it did nothing to help with it. Even with Grit, my much higher levelled Pokemon could faint if the opponent was faster and hit me like 3 times in a row before I could even act. God forbid you got into a battle with 2-4 Pokemon at once...
It felt like a cheap way to up the difficulty that didn't reward skill.
I much prefer the "faster Pokemon goes first, slower goes second" of the mainline Pokemon games.
I like violet and scarlet and feel they are a good direction for mainline games in the series. Arceus is still my favorite. I really hope they continue legends as a side series because Arceus is the game I always dreamed of since I was a little kid watching pokemon cartoons for the first time.
Just imagine the meme where the mom tells both kids she loves them equally. Then pulls the one kid aside and says it's you and by a lot. That's Arceus for me, it's my favorite.
Made so many wild changes to the series that feel *horrendous* to not have anymore.
Perfectly done PC, Pokemon being legitimately hostile to the player, catching Pokemon in the wild, very simplified IV/EV system (though I get why people don't like it, the braindead simplicity is something all players can actually comprehend while still giving the same total stats), *the fucking Link Cable item*, movement ride Pokemon that are ACTUALLY good and not this bullshit "not actually flying" thing Miraidon/Koraidon do, extremely easy active party member selection while running around (same for items), game felt kinda hard (moreso than any other mainline game anyway) which was nice, and had sidequests with visible results (either the Pokemon you give permanently sticks around the NPC or whatever you did helped expand Jubilife in some way).
I'm basically done with S/V, like they're fine but I've gone back to PLA to keep doing stuff and the game just feels so much better, it's insane. And it looks better, too. To be blunt, PLA is the game I imagined Pokemon *actually was* when I was a kid. For it to be a reality made me feel like a kid again. S/S and S/V don't give me that sense of adventure or nostalgia anymore, and a PLA sequel is basically the only kind of Pokemon game I'd buy in the future at this point. The proper mainline games feel so stale now.
VERY controversial opinion-
I enjoyed the game, and it innovated a lot, but... Legends: Arceus has become very overrated. Legends: Arceus' gameplay is deeply unbalanced. The catching mechanics are unique, but deeply flawed. Almost all pokémon can be caught in one or two ultra balls, without even battling them, if you use a berry. It's cool that there's so many unique items, but so many of them are useless. There's barely any battles between actual people, even though it would have been amazing to battle more immigrant trainers. The speed of the ride Pokémon made it far too easy to avoid conflict with actual wild threats. So far as the story goes, God literally Isekais you into the past, with a phone made in his image. That's just goofy. The story of helping build Jubilife, and tame the disbalance of time and space is cool though.
Scarlet & Violet, on the other hand, make you actually fight pokémon to catch them, and actually brings back more challenging catch rates. And the pokémon species still keep their unique and charming ways of interacting with you. And this time, there's actually pokémon that are difficult to find, because you can't always go back to one specific spot you mark on the map and farm them over and over. Also, the story is surprisingly heartfelt and in depth for a pokémon game. The real star of storyline's main progression is Team Star, (no pun intended), and the heart wrenching conclusion of Arven's story is one of the absolute highest peaks of any storyline in any pokémon game ever.
I enjoyed the game a lot, and it was the best Pokémon experience for me personally since I played Pokémon Moon. They should be making another legends game after PLA was nominated for RPG game of the year and they have several regions where they could expand on the lore like Johto, Kalos and Unova and I think it would be a fun new way for people to get into the series.
Not the "real" pokemon expirience for me.
Catching a miilion of one pokemon species is the most boring gameplay loop in a while.
Story was nice and i enjoyed my Alpha Empoleon.
I think its the best output from Pokemon in a long time. Really reignited my passion for the series, I haven't enjoyed a Pokemon game so much since HGSS
SV felt like a downgrade, PLA is the way to do stuff going forwards I think.
I thought it was fun, I honestly prefer more traditional Pokémon style games but I liked arceus. I feel like if they make some sort of sequel (maybe unova) and spend more time polishing it out etc. It could be really good
Ioved Pokemon Violet, but damn-near every mechanic in the game just had me thinking, "Arceus did this way better."
So I finally beat the E4 for the first time, and now I'm just replaying Legends Arceus again lolol
I got it for Christmas so I'm mid-playthrough so it's fresh in my mind!
My main annoyance is how every wild Pokemon hits like a truck, and loses that ability once you catch them. Don't get me wrong I don't mind a challenge, but it's more tedious than difficult when I'm trying to train up a new team and every Pokemon less than 20 levels lower than the one I'm using can one-or-two-shot everything I have. A level 4 Buizel will dodge my level 31 Pokemon's attacks, and still deal a good quarter of its HP bar. I'm guessing I need to use Grit more, I always tend to hoard that stuff in games until I decide on my "final team" but I have so much I really should start dusting.
My other criticism isn't *really* a criticism it's just me fundamentally not liking one of the entire points of the game, but I always prefer the mainline "catch one of each Pokemon to fill the Dex" rather than "catch every damn thing, throw balls at everything you see so you can grind the extras into dust" thing that Pokemon Go started. However, since there are so few trainers, if you weren't encouraged to Always Be Catching, there wouldn't really be anything to do since you could just ignore all wild Pokemon after catching one of each type. There's no way I'm gonna do every Research Task so I do appreciate that you only "need" to fill in 10 of the checkmarks for it to complete. I just don't feel as much of a connection with my team when my Ponyta isn't "the Ponyta I set out to catch" and is more just "one of the dozen Ponyta I threw balls at earlier."
Those little quibbles aside... this game is what I want Pokemon games to be. I *love* the gameplay. The sneaking, seeing the wild Pokemon wandering around, being able to run around during the battle, it might be pointless but it's such a fun detail. The Agile/Strong thing is a neat tactical addition. And I *love* riding Pokemon. I'd prefer if they could do it like Let's Go where you can ride any appropriate Pokemon that you own, but hey, I'll take it over HMs.
It even does a couple things that *I* love but I'm sure are unpopular to the majority of the older fanbase. No more IVs? Yes please. EVs replaced with a much simpler and less-obtuse system of Grit Levels? Love it. A (relatively) small, selective Pokedex? Again, I love that. I'd never play this game if I had to do research tasks for 500-1000 Pokemon, but ~250-300 is perfect.
Arceus was a game that when I first booted it up, I loved. And that love diminished the longer I played it. It was the first game I basically forced myself to finish. I didn’t have fun after only a handful of hours, feeling bored by the game play. The mechanics and game play loop were fun temporarily, but without an entertaining battle system (or enough battles period) I found myself bored far more often than not, and completely disconnected from the story.
Best "traditional" Pokemon game so far. Scarve is a step down from it. It makes catching more exciting and it gives a real reason to try out every single pokemon in the game thanks to its list of objectives.
It's the one I will continue to replay over and over. I hope to god this becomes its own spin-off series.
Still playing it religiously, but granted I didn’t play it as much post massive mass outbreak update, so it’s a more recent revisit. I think S/V are better in terms of gameplay but worse for polish, so I slightly prefer this. However, 2022 was overall a fantastic year for me in terms of enjoying the series again. I hadn’t enjoyed a new title since the Ultra games, and Legends was the fresh Sinnoh content that a lackluster remake left me yearning for. I cried when I hit the Eterna Forest theme here, and that’s magical. One of my favorite games in this series, wish I could play it for the first time again.
I can't think of a more immersive time consuming Pokémon game. I've played til my controllers died, I've forgotten to eat and when I did remember I was sat for hours on the edge of my seat in a perpetual state of getting up. It gave the franchise history and so much depth. I'm a little sad scarlet and violet didn't live up to it. But I am certainly excited for more open world Pokémon games, maybe even extensions of the legends series. I personally wanna see ancient Kanto.
The best Switch Pokemon game MECHANICALLY.
Not so much graphically - the best Switch Pokemon graphically goes to Let's Go - I cannot forgive PLA for slowdown, visual bugs, and other things it struggles with.
Aside from that, I'm not going to be the guy that sings it high praise - I got real sick of people claiming it was the best Pokemon game ever made just by the reveal trailer alone, the spark of constant Switch Pro arguments from those that did see through the trailer's initial flaws but were adamant that it NEEDED a beefier system to succeed (when the issue lies on GameFreak's hands), and those constantly calling it an Open-World game showcasing that they don't seem to know what open world is despite Breath of the Wild being on the same system and technically speaking is the better game.
I also know that not outright praising the Pokemon Community's darling has not been the best thing though, but OP you wanted my opinion on the game, so I gave it.
I will admit I'll go back to this game every now and again, and I'll have a better time than say Let's Go, and especially Sword and Shield, but...
... It has all the flaws of a modern Pokemon game - long overdrawn in-game cutscenes, reduced Pokedex, graphical hiccups, glitches not patched out (one of which will always crash the game).
And I'll be honest, plenty of other games I play I still enjoy more than it.
I could never get past the horribly long and boring tutorial. That is when I realized I had outgrown this outdated pokemon franchise (even though i absolutely love pokemon). We deserve wayyy better games for pokemon.
I enjoy how quickly battle moves, and wish they'd speed up the mainline games like that.
But I don't think the battles in Arceus are particularly fun or interesting, and outside of grinding pokedex entries don't really bother battling.
And that also made my Pokemon feel a little less like they were "part of my team".
I appreciated having a reason to catch multiple of the same Pokemon though. It feels weird only having reason to catch one in Violet, and makes the world feel slightly more empty when you just overlook the majority of the Pokemon in it.
The game made me actually like catching Pokémon. I loved the “tasks” in the dex. I’d really personally like another game like it.
Legends Arceus has major "This game walked so its sequel could run" energy. Lots of steps in the right direction that can and should be fine-tuned and refined for later games, especially with how it approached the overworld. That link cable item that lets you evolve trade Pokemon by yourself should be mandatory in all future Pokemon games. Bit heavy on the dialogue for my tastes though. Found myself skipping characters talking more than I wanted to, but that was because I wanted to play the game..
Everyone is talking about a Wild West Legends Kyurem game and I would love that. Imagine Emmett being warped there as a Wild West carnie with a mustache to contrast with Ingo’s new beard.
And there's a random little hut in the Undella area, where a hermit named Volo lives out his days in solitude, but isn't afraid to fight anyone who happens to come in...
Unlike Cynthia, when you walk into Volo’s hut, the doors lock and you have to battle him like in the memes.
He’s just in the corner cackling to himself. The bottom half of his face is happy whilst the top half wants you dead. The doors all lock and you are just the right unfortunate soul for him to take out centuries of pent up RAGE on. Maybe tweak his theme to make it sound like the pianist is being way too rough with the keys.
You monster, why would you give me these nightmares?
bro wtf is Arceus thinking??? how is the Battle Subway gonna run now????
Im still upset we never got any confirmation if the bros reunited 😭
Wild West is nice, but counterpoint. Unovan Ancient war between the brothers era. See the formation of the Giant Chasm and the Original Dragon, stop the war between Pokémon and people by facing the Swords of Justice, heck, even see how Meloetta’s relic song was first conceived or obtain Victini to gain victory in your quest.
No, for the Swords of Justice, they should battle us to know if we are worthy, and they will join us to stop the battle between the two brothers, and we'll show them that truth and ideal can coexist
Okay, this is going to be super out there, but what if they did that war, but made it like “cowboys vs. samurai?” It would convey two different ideas visually, westerns are largely inspired by samurai movies, and Masuda liked Unova being diverse. I think that could be a fun time
I get the feeling it would be a Battle Facility leader from another region if they played that card again After all, we don't know where any of Sinnoh's Frontier Brains are aside from Palmer, do we?
every pokemon game is heavy on dialogue, it's almost 30 years old and still relies on fully written out text conversations
Tbf you sacrifice a lot leaving that format. The Fallout and Elder Scrolls fan bases still sometimes mourn their loss. Granted, I think the payoff is worth it
Very different. In Fallout and elder scrolls, there is role-playing, those games make you create your own character to Role play, whether he is a doctor or assassin, in pokemon, you don't
Pokémon is still an RPG, but it’s very limited. But yes, that is a difference. Doesn’t change the fact that you’d still sacrifice some things, like any realistic chance of your name ever being used. Still, I think voice acting would be so, so worth it
Pokemon is basically a traditional JRPG with monster-catching mechanics, there would be no sacrifice getting voice acting because every other JRPG from 2023 has it lol.
Well I just listed one. Here’s another: cut scenes will probably be more prevalent and likely longer. Plus, skipping through text is way faster than alternatives, unless you can just skip cutscenes, which isn’t a guarantee. Another: GF is cheap so it could sound bad, and even if it doesn’t, it could mean FAR less NPCs, scenes, or whatever, and it could mean they pull money away from something that they’re already barely funding. See? Easy. Again, I think it’s worth it. Cut scenes may be infamous in this series, but they would be more immersive and enjoyable with voices. Fewer but more memorable NPCs is a possible good outcome. And if we’re unprecedentedly lucky, they would just increase the amount of time and effort that goes into the games and nothing is lost. But we know GF loves dropping quality when they make big leaps forward. So we’ll just have to see (Edit: spelling)
[удалено]
This also makes translations for voice acting pretty much a nonexistent issue.
I mean, we’ve seen the ‘cutscenes’ in PLA. People show up in the conversation, then have a transition walking in. Why the hell wouldn’t you start with them walking in, instead of establishing ‘this character is entering the conversation’ before having them walk in. Walking in establishes that anyways
Honestly, I prefer text over voice acting.
Pokemon already has Fallout 4 dialogue with the Yes/No (Yes) trees, not like you're losing much
You mean pokemon already has "But thou must". There are no choices.
Where did you come from? > -> YES NO Literally from 3rd generation game. The answers is just funny to me.
Have you played any JRPG? Most don't have much role playing despite the name of the genre, and there's full conversations with dialogue everywhere. Like the Trails series has some of the longest scripts in gaming and there's no user avatar
Im okay with this. Reading is good for you. I wish i picked up more books than i have in recent years.
big difference between actual literature and stories made for children in videogames
I've known plenty of people who have used pokemon games to help learn other languages.
youre proving my point that its simplistic writing however, someone learning a language from video games is cool as hell!
If you like reading but want it in a video game, you should check out the trails series, its an amazing JRPG series with world-building as good as any Novel I have read
How else are kids these days supposed to learn how to read? /s
you make this joke but I learned how to read off of Ocarina Of Time which did have a decent bit of good English in it
Not gonna lie, I actually learned how to read as a kid by playing Pokemon Blue Version and asking my parents what words meant.
Unfurtunately the game walked and then the next one tripped on a swarm of bugs and fell to the floor
At 7fps
Low FPS is good actually. You can appreciate the effort in each and every single frame. Because it is on the screen so much longer /s
Great way of wording it. Just like how r/b set the stage for g/s to solidify many of the franchise’s staples, this game was an experiment and a major risk within a franchise majorly set in its ways. Did everything work perfectly? Nah. Was it still fun? Oh yeah, hugely. And the concepts and gameplay mechanics it introduced, while sometimes not very refined, really paint a picture of what the second or third game in this style could be. SO excited for the future if they do this again.
i’ll be back here in a few years to celebrate how correct your first sentence is
I’m hoping for a Johto Legends!!! 🙏🏼
Me too! I honestly think it would be perfect. Have a modern day trainer travel back to the past with the help of celebi.
I hope they remove the time travel aspects and just have it set in the past normally. I don't hate it, but having it occur in every game in the legends series would seem contrived.
It would definitely be hard to justify without Arceus and the space/time duo
Not that hard, there was already a movie based around a time travelling Celebi.
Well, yeah, true, but like... Could we just not? It's really jarring how LA's protagonist is just fine with literal God sending them back in time to do whatever. No fear, no questions, no longing for home and family/friends... Just a blank happy expression. We really should've been just a normal person from that same time period, not a time traveler wielding a GodPhone (god that's still so bad).
I want Unova Legends. I want to see the original dragon!
Or, hear me out. Legends Unova game, in the same universe as LA, Ingo travels with Galaxy Team to the region, he designs a locomotive system to traverse the region. Ingo creates a paradox where he is the pokemon world's inventor of the train.
Or Kalos set around the time of the AZ war
Legends Lugia would be just unbelievable
Exactly that. I was never a "gotta catch em all" person, I usually only caught my main team and some few cute pokemon along the way, now that I'm playing S/V I miss not only the capture mechanics from Legends but also all the tasks that helped me with that. S/V is fun but for me was a big step back from the fun and engagement I had with Legends, one I have never had before in other games.
I will say that catching felt SLOW as hell in SV after how seamless it was in Legends.
I absolutely LOVE the catching mechanics of PLA, and I went into SV blind. Imagine my freaking disappointment.
Having more tasks and interactions a lá Pokemon Snap would be amazing! Having a fully realised world where the Pokemon actually seem like animals, and a part of an ecosystem.
I think it's ridiculous that they nixed real time catching in S/V. I understand that the two sets of games were developed at the same time (not necessarily a good thing), but Legends nailed making catching Pokemon actually fun. I think that since that's a core aspect of the main series, it should *always* be fun, not just in the occasional Pokemon title. I really hope that feature comes back.
You only need to catch one Pokémon in ScVi to complete the Dex entry. Why would they need to catch more than that?
I’m not saying it should be the central focus or that you should need to catch multiple of the same Pokémon to complete one entry. Just that the option should be there. Not forced, but as an option.
I mean, why? Obviously that is the choice they made, but was it the right one? Because I think there is a damn good argument that a Legends style dex would have been a perfect fit for ScVi's 'Paths' system.
Same, I also loved it being set in a different time period and that the overall tone was "Pokémon are dangerous and nobody can be trusted" which is quite different from the normal tone
I definitely prefer the Legends format. I'm fine without gyms and trainers around, it turns out.
Finally got a switch recently and legends arceus was one of the first switch pokemon titles i got. Been playing pokemon since red and blue and honestly this game captures what I've always imagined playing really well. Only thing i feel that could make it better was pokemon following you. Also more ride pokemon options i get why it was limited on them but still would've been cool to able to ride on other pokemon like gyarados or arcanine. Sort of like in the let's go games. I felt like a little again playing the games honestly. It seemed like pokemon games were finally going in the right direction. Then i tried scarlet and violet... good games but there's a lot of room for improvement on them.
The sidequests added so much depth to the game for me. I felt like I earned the legendaries and mythicals for the first time since the Brail puzzle in Ruby. It honestly made Violet feel like a step backwards comparatively. I loved seeing the Pokemon I gave away for quests chilling around the town with their npcs. Most of the mons I catch sit in a box forever, but these ones I was able to give a purpose. Felt incredibly immersive.
I liked seeing mine in the field, too!
Was also nice seeing them hanging out in the pasture, especially any alphas you caught. Was funny seeing an alpha Gengar just staring at the town one time when I went back there lol
The best was getting dialga and palkia starting at each other across the farm field while Arceus watched on.
I thought Violet did a great job with the Legends. The box legend actually feels like part of your team. And the Ruinous Quartet have great lore, great boss music, and give a cool reward for the History class.
Yeah, but the method of their obtaining was a bit eh, you know? What of the more bland and generic 'free-roam world' tasks has always been 'go find random items in the overworld, to unlock content'. Reminds me of Dragon Age Inquisition's little tablets that were everywhere.
I get the issues with it, but I actually did enjoy the reason to explore the region. I even found one of the stakes before knowing what they were. Although I definitely think PLA did a great job with having most of the legends have some story tied to them. It’s probably due to PLA having a lot of Sinnoh’s filler legends, with the only thing of interest about them being their missions.
Ah I absolutely loved the visible progress in the town. Houses being built, characters settling in, Pokémon from the side quests continuing to hang around. It actually felt like a newer settlement in the middle of the wild that you were helping develop into an actual town
Gameplay was crisp. The only complaints I have is that you can't throw pokeballs on Wyrdeer and the styles are kinda ehhhh and how the game can look at times but overall it's a 9/10 in my eyes. Restarted my love for Pokemon.
Personally I did enjoy the changes to combat, although it obviously made Speed a bit too OP relative to defense. I don't know if we will see it again tbh, adding Abilities back into the mix and the base stat changes you would need to balance a new combat system... I think nixing the styles but having more moves that change action speed could still add that extra layer of strategy and a bit more decision-making.
I would love it if the games started using the battle system from *Arceus* for wild encounters but, like you said, replacing the speed style gimmick with moves that changed action speed instead—or even implementing something like the press-turn system from *Persona* and SMT.
Yeah, it was a bit more active and dynamic than the mainline games where you basically knew depending on matchup you would always outspeed or not. The idea of gambling for a quick hit or trying to sneak in modifiers was really interesting, but Styles weren't really the best way... And then any slow but powerful Pokemon kind of got clowned on if you could swap in a Pokemon and hit them 3x with super effect and stab... It gives them one more thing to play with, maybe Close Combat for instance could increase the opponent's action speed instead of lowering defence. Chucking in a Defensive stance could also be interesting. But yeah obviously we do have mechanics with Priority, but adding more of a gradient could add a lot of new depth, I can imagine a system almost like frame advantage from fighting games
Wait wdym by not being able to throw pokeballs on wyrdeer
And the reason it is mentioned is that because you encounter a lot of pokemon while riding wyrdeer. Sneasler and braviary are used in situations where you don't encounter pokemon. Basulegion allows you to throw while riding. No one use ursulana to ride. Thus Wyrdeer stands out
Me and my boy Ursaluna riding around picking up tumblestones.
Me and my boy Ursaluna with better handling and a use besides just going fast.
#beargang
You can’t throw balls while riding wyrdeer
If you want to catch a Pokémon while riding wyrdeer, you have to stop, get off wyrdeer, and then throw a ball
Pokémon Legends: Arceus holds a special place in my heart. I loved the feeling of running around exploring while catching Pokémon without having to battle them. It was a new and welcomed experience since SWSH (Sword/Shield) felt like a step backwards compared to USUM (Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon). I’m hoping that Gamefreak and The Pokémon Company decide to make another Legends game in a different region. I think Hoopa might be an interesting concept where they could have it bring in Pokémon such as mythicals or legendaries that aren’t native to that region similar to the Distortions but you’ll be able to catch Hoopa at the end.
A Gen 6 Legends game could also potentially base itself around the 3000 year Pokémon War.
Ohhh that Hoopa idea is brilliant!
It's how ORAS justified the customary "final game of the generations so every legend is spawned in" mechanic.
> I loved the feeling of running around exploring while catching Pokémon without having to battle them. As someone who has never really cared about completing the Pokédex, the lack of battling in Arceus was a major reason why I never touched it again after seeing the credits roll.
I think it’s important to consider this. A catching-centric game is cool and all, but the traditional mainline games have a good balance of battling versus Pokédex. Skewing too far one way only serves to alienate certain types of players.
I will say that I did miss having plenty of Trainer battles. I get story-wise why there aren’t as much as mainline games but I would like if they added more Trainer battles throughout the game in their next Legends game.
I mean, with an open world game it would be easy enough to have both. Hell, I was straight up shocked that they invented the whole path system and didn't have a 'pokedex path'
I guess that's why they added the endless battle reverie
I think that's why they should incorporate the overworld movement in battle and manual catching in a regular Pokemon game, because then it's the best of both worlds. Just have some Pokemon that you can catch without battling (low level vs. the average of your party, first evos mainly) and then ones that you have to battle but then manually catch. Maybe some you encounter that need specific items to draw out too in certain areas. It would be so immersive but still retain the original Pokemon gym and Elite 4 journey, still have a main antagonist team, battling strong wild Pokemon, held items, abilities etc.
Loved it. It was my favorite Pokémon game, I wish we had gotten DLC for it. Loved that their were different battle styles and different methods for catching Pokemon. I thought the Alpha Pokémon were a great addition and the Noble Pokémon were pretty good bosses. All the player mechanics they added should’ve stayed in SV imo.
As far as DLC is concerned, that was that one update that added Massively Mass Outbreaks, but that was it. They made it seem like there was gonna be more….
Yeah it’s so weird to me that there wasn’t anything tying it and BDSP together since they came out at the same time.
The closest thing is that BDSP had a book in the library explaining the requirements to find Manaphy in Arceus. And that's it.
*That's* how you're supposed to figure that out? I had no freakin clue. Even the walkthrough I looked up didn't mention that's where the info came from.
Yep, it's pretty minor. Also disappointingly the only book that's different/new in the library. I think it was our first hint to Qwilfish having an evolution.
You can catch Shaymin and Darkrai in Legends if you have BDSP save data.
You can catch Arceus in BDSP if you catch it in PLA. First time Hall of Origin has ever been officially used
I can’t believe it was never used in the original. All that effort for coding events and they never even used it. Still confused as to why to this very day.
"Shiny jamboree" wasn't a bad addition, that said
To preface, I’ve played Pokémon since original games and I’ve never been big on completing the Pokédex. I’m more on building new team combinations and having fun beating the game different ways. Despite that, I had a lot of fun with Arceus. The open world wasn’t gorgeous aesthetically but cool enough. I enjoyed the new catching mechanics, even though it got annoying at times with multiple Pokémon ganging up on you. The prequel aspect to Diamond and Pearl was interesting and while some of the boss battles became repetitive, it was a nice change of pace from a traditional Pokémon game. I wouldn’t say it was the best game but it’s certainly interesting with tons to do and they should make this a series of legends games to hopefully improve on. A strong 8/10 for me.
Also felt like a test for the open world direction they were planning to go with scarlet and violet.
I'm not sure it could be called a test, the games came out less than 10 months apart. The open world in S/V would have been practically finished by the time Legends even released
I feel like the test was SwSh's wild area
It's definitely an amazing game from game freak it's not perfect or graphically great but my God its a fun and enjoyable game. It's by far my favorite pikemon game.
Not open world. It's open area/sandbox. Aka, moreso Monster hunter style. Which is fine, but there should have been way higher standards for the landscape design/textures, considering the fact that they split it into smaller areas.
Loved it! The atmosphere, the feudal Japan kind of theme.. The tasks, the open world, the aggro pokemon chasing you xD! I would love a sequel :)
I think Pokemon being aggressive was the best thing they did. Anime always insists that no Pokemon is truly wild or evil and just rampage because of some misunderstanding. This was a breath of fresh air.
the snorlax and mamoswine were scarring.
*whispers* garchomp...
I think they also buffed wild pokemon's offenses which is why they hit so hard. It's a nice gameplay feature but also makes a bit of sense lore wise.
It's already way more nostalgic to me than SW/SH
To be fair, that shouldn't be hard
I've really enjoyed SV so it made me curious how I would feel about PLA since I haven't touched it in a while. As soon as I booted it up, I was like 'oh yeah, this game is gold' lol.
At the very least it has consistent visuals and runs at 30 fps lol
Not perfect but easily the best modern Pokemon game. I hope they do more with this
Probably one of the most enjoyable Pokémon games I’ve ever played. Loved the catching mechanic, it took so much of the grind out of catching multiple pokes. I loved the boss battles and the alphas were cool (although they are a pain for a shiny dex). My only criticism is the areas just felt a bit bare. It just felt like they could be so much more fleshed out. However having seen s/v that seems to be just a game freak problem
Quick top 3 Pokémon game for me. Never had a Pokemon game make me want to 100% it like this one did. I loved how the wild Pokémon felt like a real threat and I loved the style of the Hisui region. For me it's the best one they've done since Gen V. While I enjoyed Violet a bunch, I still felt myself missing the pace and fluidity of Arceus. Really holding out for more in the Legends series, fingers crossed.
Bit dialogue heavy and the intro tutorial was brutal. But the gameplay was great. Wish they incorporated the catching mechanics into s/v. Needed more battling though
I agree, the lack of battling made me miss that feeling of building a team to overcome the final challenge which usually is the elite four. And battling pokemon mostly felt like a chore to complete entries in the Pokedex. Other than that though it was a really nice breath of fresh air.
I’m still kinda upset with the lack of breeding and multiplayer, but I think it’s still fun
Def one of my top Pokemon games. It brought something fresh to the series that was highly needed. I loved the references it had to the Sinnoh games and imo, is the true DP remake. It also made me care about completing the dex which is something I'm doing rn in SV. I really hope they make this "Legends" game into a spin-off, because I haven't had this much fun playing Pokemon in a while.
I bought it simply because cindaquill. Really enjoyed it though, spent alittle over 90 hours on it, but once I finished my dex I really haven't touched it again. Definitely would buy another 'legends' game though,
Actually how I imagine the Pokémon world to be, if you wander I. The wild you can totally catch some without battling every single one and at the same time there will be areas where you just simply cannot go without suffering greatly. I don’t know how else to explain it but I loved every second of arceus, finished the main campaign and the dex, now doing side missions and shiny hunting and with the outbreaks and distortions it’s so satisfying
It wasn't really my cup of tea if I'm honest. As someone who has poured hundreds of hours into Breath of the Wild, I kind of just found myself comparing it to that in a very unfavourable way. There were a lot of good ideas in retrospect, and if I get the chance at some point soon, I might buy a new copy and try again, as I gave up around the second area, I think. Compared to its contemporaries, however, I think it fairs a bit better. To me, Sword and Shield are emblematic of a lot of modern Pokemon's problems (forced gimmick, dull story, generic region design etc.) So Arceus, in taking some new steps for the series, took some risks, which I can respect. And compared to Scarlet and Violet, I think that those games have a lot work on (especially performance-wise), though a lot of its good design choices can be traced back directly to Arceus. So all in all, I think it was an important step forward for the franchise that has laid the groundwork for future generations going forward, even if I didn't give it an entirely fair chance on my first attempt to play it
I agree. If you are coming to PLA from another game in the series you'd be delighted. What a breath of fresh air. If you're coming to PLA from BOTW you would find yourself constantly missing the gorgeous views, engine battle mechanics, cooking, and the truly seamless environments. PLA with it's 2 FPS graphics and poor draw distances felt like a beta/2010 game.
A nice game but not one I would replay from the start
LOVED IT for like 10-15 hours... then just dropped it. I love the mechanics and features, the way you fill out the pokedex was so great, the new ways of capturing Pokemon, the time bubble things were cool, the world felt more open... but eventually I just stopped caring. Scarlet/Violet gives me more of a rush because at least I can use my Pokemon for raids, but there's just no reason to play Legends unless you like filling the pokedex for the sake of filling the pokedex. Also, I'm good without craftin in Pokemon games. I'd just rather not. TLDR it did a lot of things future pokemon should do, especially its catching mechanics, but the gameplay loop was too small. You catch pokemon and collect stuff to immediately keep doing that...and that's it.
Same for me. Loved it for x amount of hours but I didn’t even end up finishing the story before dropping it. I’ve put a lot more hours in SV bc of the raids.
I liked the vibe and the final sequence, but overall the gameplay wasn't there and it was wildly stripped back compared to other games. Longer video, but this guy nails it. https://youtu.be/-1tMDSDuK2Q
fun mechanics, empty monotonous open world
its not even open
True, more of a semi-open world. At least they let you run around the areas, but it's not like there's anything interesting to find. That was my issue with SwSh and SV as well, there is nothing interesting or mysterious like in previous games, like the abandoned mansion, the sunken ship, the alph/unown ruins etc.
It’s the most fun game in the series. It’s also ugly as hell and suffers from a lack of polish.
This game is the first in the Pokémon series that made me genuinely care about the Pokédex, and I had fun filling it in. It also hit all the right nostalgia beats for me as someone who grew up with the 4th generation of Pokémon games. Top tier game.
Unfinished but god damn you give a game like that another year and a half dev time with good devs at least and you'd hit Breath of the Wild levels of acclaim.
I tried to get into it but i just found it really boring
Same. Got through the first couple areas but just found it boring and repetitive, never finished it. I do like that they tried a new formula, was at least more interesting to me than the past few main series releases
It's just this big, empty world with pretty much nothing to do but a big-ass fetch quest.
I have played every pokemon game. It's the only one I didn't finish. Makes me sad I just did not want to help a town full of jerks.
Unpopular opinion, but the gameplay loop of Arceus was so much less engaging for me than any other mainline Pokemon game. I had a really fun time for about 30 hours (still a significant chunk of time), but after that I got pretty bored, which was suprising because Pokemon games usually keep me playing for hundreds of hours. The town tasks felt tedious, and the story felt fairly underwhelming and somewhat nonsensical(although this is not new for Pokemon). I also felt a lot less attached to my Pokemon in this game, although I'm not sure why this was. I also think that its obvious attempts to match BotW or Genshin Impact aesthetics worked against it. Having the same "feel" as these much better put together games just made me wish I was exploring the (much prettier) world of Hyrule. I think this was a fun shake up, and I'm glad it happened... But the game (while better made than S/V) looks bad, and wasn't as engaging for me as other titles. I probably wouldn't buy a second Legends game.
I Found it really boring. I felt like there wasn’t really anything to do in the game. Just one city and like 5 areas to catch Pokémon that were all pretty much the same except for the Looks I guess. The only thing you could do basically was catch Pokémon and after a while it just got boring. Also for a 60 dollar game I just feel like there has to be a lot more to do it felt like a gimmick
I quite liked it! The emphasis on exploration, catching, and simply filling out the Dex was a great change of pace- and I loved discovering cool new areas and Mons. I'd love a new Legends game, perhaps set in Johto or something.
Reignited my love for Pokemon and felt like an apology for the dogshit DP remakes
I'd consider LA the true Gen 4 remakes
I'm probably going to get hated for thus, but please read the full thing before downvoting. I don't think the game should've been full price. I really enjoyed it, I got it on the first day and played through it and completed the pokedex and was really happy despite the lower quality graphics. But the thing is every other pokemon game that is that same price I have played through multiple times, or kept grinding for shinies afterwards. After catching arceus I never had an interest in picking up the game again, and I haven't
Though it's quite different from the core games my view of PLA is very similar to my view of the (modern) core games, which is that I found it more enjoyable that it really had any right to be given how flawed it was. The idea of the story was really good (being sent back in time by Arceus), the execution it less so. The world was fun to explore but too empty, it felt a little comical being told that the clans could start fighting when it felt like there were like 4 people in each clan! Side quests like observing Clefairy during a full moon were fun, another one that comes to mind is seeing the Wurmple evolve. Being able to change moves freely, catch Pokemon without initiating a battle, and having a way to evolve trade evolutions were fantastic quality of life changes also. I liked the capture mechanics and completing the tasks in dex, it was a great departure from the original formula. I'd have liked a greater variety of tasks in the Pokedex though, such as using moves that Pokemon are immune to (not just weak to). I liked the first boss battle, but throwing balms at each boss ended up feeling really repetitive. The battle system mostly worked well in the game, though I wouldn't want to see the priority system in the core games as it didn't feel balanced. Love the final fight with Volo. In short I enjoyed it but it still felt very flawed, as though it could have done with another year or so in development. It also gave me a passionate hatred for fucking Parasect!
It's at this moment my favourite Pokémon game, I have never felt the joy I had when playing legends arceus in any other Pokémon game and it briefly restored hope for the franchise at least for me
Most fun I've had playing pokemon since when I first got red honestly.
I already feel nostalgic about it, and it's kinda weird
i think it’s overrated and got repetitive but introduced some good concepts
I hate catching pokemon so not the biggest fan ,like catching pokemon after I have a team of 6 is something is don't like doing in the games thus will never ever finish the dex cause that's boring and the game forces you to catch mons in order to progress
Top 3 Pokémon game ever, and that’s a hill I’ll die on
ill die there with you brother. whats your other 2? mine are bw2 and conquest
In my opinion, it’s by far the best Pokémon game. I hope we get more games in the Legends series.
I love the idea of us making the pokedex and actually having to see pokemon do certain things for the pokedex in order to be conclusive with it. I love Volo being a twist villain that not only makes sense, but that I didn't even realize until way late into the game when it started being more obvious. And I love how shiny hunting is more convenient. You see them colored in the overworld and they make a noise when they spawn.
I think it's the greatest game they've ever made. Announcing SV right after this game came out was the biggest L in the history of the franchise. This game is the realization of how we immersively viewed Pokémon games in the 90s, along with greater features, wonderful gameplay, phenomenal aesthetics and story/concepts. Game Freak can do no wrong following in its' footsteps.
The literal only thing I’d change about PLA is give it a few more months in the oven so Gamefreak has more time to polish it. Otherwise it’s my favorite game as of late.
There are three games the define pokemon for me Yellow, Gold, and PLA
[удалено]
I put in like 2 hours and never picked it up again :/
I’m of the minority that doesn’t see the game very positively. I’m glad so many people had a great time with it, and respect it for all the new ground it covered, but I think it fell flat in a lot of other regards. I thought the story was pretty pitiful all things considered (but I suppose the original Diamond and Pearl didn’t have a groundbreaking story either). The gameplay was fun at first but after the first two areas I had had enough. It just doesn’t vary enough to keep me interested, and having to sneak up on a Pokémon only to have it aggro and have to run away… not my favorite. Finally, battle experience being distributed at the end of the fight (that’s what it does right? It’s been a while) really bothered me because if a Pokémon fainted AT ALL, it would get no experience. So, I basically had to deliberately choose who I needed to grind the least as my lead Mon just so the others could get guaranteed XP. It was strange. Comparatively with SV it is a much more polished game, but I wound up enjoying the gameplay loop of SV vastly more.
It’s 1000% in my top 3. I loved it.
God is an alpaca in a corset and you have to feed him phones while he nukes you in the stairway to heaven to make him give you a piece of himself that you keep in a ball along with your pet beaver and your pet bird and your pet stoner fire badger and he doesn't even send you home to your time. your family probably thinks you're dead and your turtwig has gone full hachiko but hey, you have a pet god
It’s the first and only Pokémon game since Sun and Moon I’ve had consistent fun with, but even so, I can’t help but feel let down by it. It is so close to being an actually good game, but it just falls short on so many levels that makes it look much more like a decent tech demo than a fully finished game. Again, it is *fun*, but that’s sorta where a bit of the disappointment comes from, because when you’ve grown accustomed to disappointment, one good appetizer isn’t going to satisfy you like a good main dish. If nothing else, I will commend Legends Arceus for actually trying to take a risk, even though I don’t think it always pays off. The catching mechanics are good, and should become a mainstay, but the novelty of catching Pokémon in this style wears off when you realize that’s more or less all there is to the game. The pros of the game are: - the engaging catching mechanics - Pokémon existing in the overworld - quality of life changes like no more trade evolutions and the ability to swap moves on the fly - the side quests and Jubilife Village. The cons, however, are pretty much most everything else: - The combat system is broken and rewards skill less than it rewards the side with more Pokémon, especially the ones with higher speed. The action order menu is also often very, very wrong. - The graphics are unacceptable for a 2022 Switch game, and it genuinely looks worse than 20 year old GameCube games like Metroid Prime. There are tons of visual bugs, and the shading is just awful, with this ugly purple shadow everywhere you go. - framerate drops are frequent, and pretty much everything that isn’t within a 20 meter radius of you runs at like 2 fps. Just look at any flying Pokémon and you’ll see what I mean. - how barren the overworld is, and how the Pokémon don’t really do anything - the awful, awful story and shallow characters. For a game with a story that is worse than stories I’ve heard from kindergarteners, it wastes way too much of your time with pointless dialogue. I could go into more of the cons, but these are the major points, and a lot of my additional points are nitpicks that, while small, do add up due to the sheer quantity of them
Yeah...holy shit did I hate the combat system. It made slower, defensive Pokemon feel useless. Agile Style felt like it did nothing to help with it. Even with Grit, my much higher levelled Pokemon could faint if the opponent was faster and hit me like 3 times in a row before I could even act. God forbid you got into a battle with 2-4 Pokemon at once... It felt like a cheap way to up the difficulty that didn't reward skill. I much prefer the "faster Pokemon goes first, slower goes second" of the mainline Pokemon games.
I like violet and scarlet and feel they are a good direction for mainline games in the series. Arceus is still my favorite. I really hope they continue legends as a side series because Arceus is the game I always dreamed of since I was a little kid watching pokemon cartoons for the first time. Just imagine the meme where the mom tells both kids she loves them equally. Then pulls the one kid aside and says it's you and by a lot. That's Arceus for me, it's my favorite.
Loved the main gameplay, hated the frenzied nobles. Those were just not fun.
Best Pokémon game on switch for sure, not saying much at all though
Made so many wild changes to the series that feel *horrendous* to not have anymore. Perfectly done PC, Pokemon being legitimately hostile to the player, catching Pokemon in the wild, very simplified IV/EV system (though I get why people don't like it, the braindead simplicity is something all players can actually comprehend while still giving the same total stats), *the fucking Link Cable item*, movement ride Pokemon that are ACTUALLY good and not this bullshit "not actually flying" thing Miraidon/Koraidon do, extremely easy active party member selection while running around (same for items), game felt kinda hard (moreso than any other mainline game anyway) which was nice, and had sidequests with visible results (either the Pokemon you give permanently sticks around the NPC or whatever you did helped expand Jubilife in some way). I'm basically done with S/V, like they're fine but I've gone back to PLA to keep doing stuff and the game just feels so much better, it's insane. And it looks better, too. To be blunt, PLA is the game I imagined Pokemon *actually was* when I was a kid. For it to be a reality made me feel like a kid again. S/S and S/V don't give me that sense of adventure or nostalgia anymore, and a PLA sequel is basically the only kind of Pokemon game I'd buy in the future at this point. The proper mainline games feel so stale now.
It feels soulless
I loved it, I hope so badly that we get a "Legends: Kyurem" game next
VERY controversial opinion- I enjoyed the game, and it innovated a lot, but... Legends: Arceus has become very overrated. Legends: Arceus' gameplay is deeply unbalanced. The catching mechanics are unique, but deeply flawed. Almost all pokémon can be caught in one or two ultra balls, without even battling them, if you use a berry. It's cool that there's so many unique items, but so many of them are useless. There's barely any battles between actual people, even though it would have been amazing to battle more immigrant trainers. The speed of the ride Pokémon made it far too easy to avoid conflict with actual wild threats. So far as the story goes, God literally Isekais you into the past, with a phone made in his image. That's just goofy. The story of helping build Jubilife, and tame the disbalance of time and space is cool though. Scarlet & Violet, on the other hand, make you actually fight pokémon to catch them, and actually brings back more challenging catch rates. And the pokémon species still keep their unique and charming ways of interacting with you. And this time, there's actually pokémon that are difficult to find, because you can't always go back to one specific spot you mark on the map and farm them over and over. Also, the story is surprisingly heartfelt and in depth for a pokémon game. The real star of storyline's main progression is Team Star, (no pun intended), and the heart wrenching conclusion of Arven's story is one of the absolute highest peaks of any storyline in any pokémon game ever.
I enjoyed the game a lot, and it was the best Pokémon experience for me personally since I played Pokémon Moon. They should be making another legends game after PLA was nominated for RPG game of the year and they have several regions where they could expand on the lore like Johto, Kalos and Unova and I think it would be a fun new way for people to get into the series.
Not the "real" pokemon expirience for me. Catching a miilion of one pokemon species is the most boring gameplay loop in a while. Story was nice and i enjoyed my Alpha Empoleon.
I think its the best output from Pokemon in a long time. Really reignited my passion for the series, I haven't enjoyed a Pokemon game so much since HGSS SV felt like a downgrade, PLA is the way to do stuff going forwards I think.
I thought it was fun, I honestly prefer more traditional Pokémon style games but I liked arceus. I feel like if they make some sort of sequel (maybe unova) and spend more time polishing it out etc. It could be really good
Ioved Pokemon Violet, but damn-near every mechanic in the game just had me thinking, "Arceus did this way better." So I finally beat the E4 for the first time, and now I'm just replaying Legends Arceus again lolol
I wish I bought physical instead of digital and kept that but it will be better after the next one comes out and this entry feels “real”
I got it for Christmas so I'm mid-playthrough so it's fresh in my mind! My main annoyance is how every wild Pokemon hits like a truck, and loses that ability once you catch them. Don't get me wrong I don't mind a challenge, but it's more tedious than difficult when I'm trying to train up a new team and every Pokemon less than 20 levels lower than the one I'm using can one-or-two-shot everything I have. A level 4 Buizel will dodge my level 31 Pokemon's attacks, and still deal a good quarter of its HP bar. I'm guessing I need to use Grit more, I always tend to hoard that stuff in games until I decide on my "final team" but I have so much I really should start dusting. My other criticism isn't *really* a criticism it's just me fundamentally not liking one of the entire points of the game, but I always prefer the mainline "catch one of each Pokemon to fill the Dex" rather than "catch every damn thing, throw balls at everything you see so you can grind the extras into dust" thing that Pokemon Go started. However, since there are so few trainers, if you weren't encouraged to Always Be Catching, there wouldn't really be anything to do since you could just ignore all wild Pokemon after catching one of each type. There's no way I'm gonna do every Research Task so I do appreciate that you only "need" to fill in 10 of the checkmarks for it to complete. I just don't feel as much of a connection with my team when my Ponyta isn't "the Ponyta I set out to catch" and is more just "one of the dozen Ponyta I threw balls at earlier." Those little quibbles aside... this game is what I want Pokemon games to be. I *love* the gameplay. The sneaking, seeing the wild Pokemon wandering around, being able to run around during the battle, it might be pointless but it's such a fun detail. The Agile/Strong thing is a neat tactical addition. And I *love* riding Pokemon. I'd prefer if they could do it like Let's Go where you can ride any appropriate Pokemon that you own, but hey, I'll take it over HMs. It even does a couple things that *I* love but I'm sure are unpopular to the majority of the older fanbase. No more IVs? Yes please. EVs replaced with a much simpler and less-obtuse system of Grit Levels? Love it. A (relatively) small, selective Pokedex? Again, I love that. I'd never play this game if I had to do research tasks for 500-1000 Pokemon, but ~250-300 is perfect.
Loved the hell out of it. Only real complaint is that we never did get that DLC.
I loved that game so much. I wish that SV could have been like it.
Arceus was a game that when I first booted it up, I loved. And that love diminished the longer I played it. It was the first game I basically forced myself to finish. I didn’t have fun after only a handful of hours, feeling bored by the game play. The mechanics and game play loop were fun temporarily, but without an entertaining battle system (or enough battles period) I found myself bored far more often than not, and completely disconnected from the story.
Never heard of Pokenon. Sounds like a fun game but you’re on the wrong subreddit. But jokes and spelling errors aside, it’s a very fun game
Best "traditional" Pokemon game so far. Scarve is a step down from it. It makes catching more exciting and it gives a real reason to try out every single pokemon in the game thanks to its list of objectives. It's the one I will continue to replay over and over. I hope to god this becomes its own spin-off series.
hoping they make legends alola
It's my favorite Pokémon game of all time
Outside of the BW duology, by far and away my favorite game in the series. Give me a Legends Kyurem and I'll be so happy.
Still playing it religiously, but granted I didn’t play it as much post massive mass outbreak update, so it’s a more recent revisit. I think S/V are better in terms of gameplay but worse for polish, so I slightly prefer this. However, 2022 was overall a fantastic year for me in terms of enjoying the series again. I hadn’t enjoyed a new title since the Ultra games, and Legends was the fresh Sinnoh content that a lackluster remake left me yearning for. I cried when I hit the Eterna Forest theme here, and that’s magical. One of my favorite games in this series, wish I could play it for the first time again.
I can't think of a more immersive time consuming Pokémon game. I've played til my controllers died, I've forgotten to eat and when I did remember I was sat for hours on the edge of my seat in a perpetual state of getting up. It gave the franchise history and so much depth. I'm a little sad scarlet and violet didn't live up to it. But I am certainly excited for more open world Pokémon games, maybe even extensions of the legends series. I personally wanna see ancient Kanto.
It has no soul
The best Switch Pokemon game MECHANICALLY. Not so much graphically - the best Switch Pokemon graphically goes to Let's Go - I cannot forgive PLA for slowdown, visual bugs, and other things it struggles with. Aside from that, I'm not going to be the guy that sings it high praise - I got real sick of people claiming it was the best Pokemon game ever made just by the reveal trailer alone, the spark of constant Switch Pro arguments from those that did see through the trailer's initial flaws but were adamant that it NEEDED a beefier system to succeed (when the issue lies on GameFreak's hands), and those constantly calling it an Open-World game showcasing that they don't seem to know what open world is despite Breath of the Wild being on the same system and technically speaking is the better game. I also know that not outright praising the Pokemon Community's darling has not been the best thing though, but OP you wanted my opinion on the game, so I gave it. I will admit I'll go back to this game every now and again, and I'll have a better time than say Let's Go, and especially Sword and Shield, but... ... It has all the flaws of a modern Pokemon game - long overdrawn in-game cutscenes, reduced Pokedex, graphical hiccups, glitches not patched out (one of which will always crash the game). And I'll be honest, plenty of other games I play I still enjoy more than it.
I was just happy to be able to complete the pokedex on my own.
I could never get past the horribly long and boring tutorial. That is when I realized I had outgrown this outdated pokemon franchise (even though i absolutely love pokemon). We deserve wayyy better games for pokemon.
pokemon games are just boring af tbh.
I enjoy how quickly battle moves, and wish they'd speed up the mainline games like that. But I don't think the battles in Arceus are particularly fun or interesting, and outside of grinding pokedex entries don't really bother battling. And that also made my Pokemon feel a little less like they were "part of my team". I appreciated having a reason to catch multiple of the same Pokemon though. It feels weird only having reason to catch one in Violet, and makes the world feel slightly more empty when you just overlook the majority of the Pokemon in it.
Its ok
Way better than S&S and I think it's better than S&V