When Pokémon Legends: Arceus came out a couple years ago, I heard a lot about it. It seemed primitive, without all the quality of life updates that have come to the Pokémon games over the decades. The screen shots seemed low poly. People were throwing around words like “MMO-like” and “open world”, but that was said about Pokémon Scarlet/Violet, too, and those were very much like open world MMOs.
I came across the game at a used game store. It was affordable, I’d been working through the other Gen 8 games, and I figured I’d give it a shot.
Arceus might be the best of its generation, actually.
Here’s the setup: You are a Pokémon trainer from the present day who finds themselves dropped through a portal six hundred years in the past, into a time where Pokémon and people haven’t learned to work together. Pokeballs have just been invented. Soon after you land, you are handed the first ever Pokedex, and a mysterious voice tells you that your mission is to meet every Pokémon in the Hisui region.
This game works as sort of a prequel to Pokémon Pearl and Diamond — Palkia, Dialga and Arceus all return here — and there are newer (or, I guess, older) versions of some Pokémon found commonly in the Kanto/Gen 1 region, such as Growlithe and Vulpix, among others.
Two warring cults — the Pearl Clan and Diamond Clan — each think the mysterious sky portal is the work of their deity (Palkia or Dialga). You’re asked to solve the mysteries surrounding the Time and Space Pokémon while also going to all the Hisuian regions and calming the regional Noble Lords that have been influenced by the sky portal. You were taken to a nearby colony when you were found, but your familiarity with Pokémon (and clear memories of a future world) make you mistrusted. By taking on missions and requests, you rise in the ranks of the Scouts and gain the trust of the villagers while showing all you meet how helpful and friendly Pokémon can be.
It’s a lot to unpack.
There are a lot of differences between Arceus and any other game in the series.
- No random encounters. You can see every Pokémon in the world. You can avoid them, run from them, and participate in the battles.
- You can be attacked by Pokémon. In this time, Pokémon are not friendly toward humans. They will attack you and can — and will — kill you. They may team up. It’s not uncommon to be fighting three Pokémon at once.
- There are no gyms. Your ability to capture and control Pokémon depends on your rank in the Scouts, which is raised by filling your Pokedex.
- The boss battles (the six Noble Lords and the Legendary Pokémon, including Arceus) are not primarily Pokémon battles. You will be battling the Pokémon as your own character, dodging their attacks while trying to calm them down by throwing medicinal balms at them. Once they have calmed down sufficiently, you can send a Pokémon in to continue the fight for awhile. You can die during this.
- Capturing a Pokemon doesn’t complete the Pokedex entry. Once captured, you have to observe it in the wild or in your party while it battles to bring the research level up to max, which finally completes its entry.
- Just gotta mention again — you have never been in a boss battle in any Pokemon game that are like the boss battles in Arceus.
- Crafting is pretty important, as new types of Pokemon balls are being invented during your adventure and you have to learn how to make them in the field.
- There’s no breeding or IVs. You can get mystic grits that increase their stats.
- Big Pokémon are big. You can see them in the world and in your party. You can ride them, too. Some of them.
The game rolls credits once you have defeated and perhaps captured Palkia and Dialga. That happens about thirty hours in. But to fight the ultimate boss, Arceus, you have to complete the entire Pokedex. And some of those critters are rare.
Space-time distortions are hemispherical force fields that pop up occasionally. Inside them, you can find rare Pokémon that can’t be found in any other way. The rarest of those, for me, was the lowly Magnemite. A Gen 1 Pokémon. I camped distortions and could not get it. My son had it, in Pokémon GO!, so I got him to trade it to me, I sent it to Pokémon Home, logged into Pokémon Home and sent it into Arceus, boom, Pokedex completed.
This wasn’t the first or even the tenth time I had to import Pokémon from other games to fill the Pokedex. I would find Pokémon on Pokémon GO! and ship them right to Arceus. I’d scour the fields of Violet and Shield for ‘mons that I could ship over. But I still had to do a lot of work in Arceus itself, getting the research done, trying to figure out how to evolve mons (one evolved only by damaging itself with recoil moves), waiting for outbreaks to grab baby Pokémon…
It’s a deep game. It’s a different game. It’s a dangerous world and you’ve got to save it — very different from the mainline games, where all you have to do is be your best.
I’m not sure who needs to play Arceus. If you played Diamond/Pearl, you might already have the mythical Pokémon you’ll find here. You should play Arceus if you’re a fan of the games, but want to try a different take on the catching game. I’d love to see a mainline game on this model. Each game tries new things with its settings, but this is the first one where I really felt I was in an entirely new and deadly world. The first one where you aren’t playing as a child.
Loved it.
