Games I Beat in the Year 2024: Pokémon Legends Arceus (Switch)

Games I Beat in the Year 2024: Pokémon Legends Arceus (Switch)

Overview:

The first game I beat this year in my mountainous backlog of video games was Pokémon Legends Arceus on the Nintendo Switch. Pokémon Blue was one of the games that turned me into the person that I am now, playing every main title from gen 1 to gen 6 and a few of the spin-offs. I even tried getting into competitive Pokémon battling in gen 4, which… didn’t work because I didn’t want to play SkarmBliss.

Despite being a Poké-fan for a good part of my life, I have fallen off of my blind love for the franchise as each generation adds a lot to the competitive landscape, but the gameplay loop and the story feel safe and stagnant. They went from games I used to be excited about to what I call a “junk food game” - a game that I’d play in between games I’m more interested in playing. In this case, Pokémon Legends Arceus was in between Days Gone and Yakuza 3. I do enjoy the spin-offs that try new things like Rumble and Mystery Dungeon, but I can’t put the effort into these games as I did back with Diamond and Pearl.

So what pulled me into playing Arceus was that it looked like Breath of the Wild with Monster Hunter, and I wanted to give it a go.

Gameplay:

As mentioned in the intro, I really appreciate whenever Pokémon does something new.

Taking a page out of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the maps here are bigger and with a little more intrigue. It’s not fully open-world, but you have multiple semi-open world maps with different biomes and you can now roll, climb, glide, fish, and deer around. These new mobility options allow you to explore and access more of the maps which is fun, but the maps themselves are kinda disappointing. Honestly, there’s not much reason to explore as all you can find are different Pokémon, crafting items, and Spiritomb… spirits.

In these maps, Pokémon are roaming around the world and you can catch them without battling. You can hide in the grass, lure them with food they like (which is a stat), throw some Poké-balls… the usual. If you get caught and they start attacking you, your options are to die pathetically, run away like a coward, use an item that helps you run away like a coward, or murder them in cold blood (initiate a Poké-battle).

Speaking of Poké-battling, a lot of the mechanics have been simplified as you no longer have as many options as you do in the main games. For example, Stealth Rock no longer damages Pokémon when they get brought onto the field - it acts more as a damage over time effect. Same thing with Poké-progression - some Pokémon have simpler evolution methods, and there’s a robust move tutor who can give your Pokémon those fun moves that used to be TMs. They got rid of Poké-abilities and Poké-personalities, and there’s no EV training - replacing it with a flat stat growth up to 10… thing.

The change that I liked to the battle system was the strong/agile moves. Battles are no longer “my turn, your turn” - it’s more like a Final Fantasy X turn based system. So if your Pokémon is fast enough, they could actually attack two times before the opponent can attack. So with that change in mind, any move you make can be Strong or Agile. My strategy would be to do a buff to my attack as an Agile move, then when I go next, I’d do a Strong power move to do MASSIVE DAMAGE.

And while the gameplay is exciting at first, it can get repetitive; by the time you reach the 3rd map, you already get a handle on what the map is going to be like. They do have Poké-hoards and Space-time Distortions that can break up the monotony. When these happen, it allows you to catch more Pokémon, catch or fight unique Pokémon, and find some rare materials. There’s also boss battles, but they turn into your basic “dodge, dodge, they’re stunned, GET EM” type of boss battle.

Story:

There’s not much to say about the story because it’s pretty much just a Pokémon-themed Isekai with a hint of Braveheart - the isekai’d falls in a portal and ends up in the past, finds out they’re a Poké-pro, unites two clans who argue about the dumbest stuff, then saves the world. To its credit, there are 2 cool things here:

1. The story is darker than previous Poké-stories; it’s hinted that some people die in their encounters with Pokémon

2. The setting of Sinnoh (Diamond and Pearl), but in the past was really cool. You get to see the ancestors of some of the characters from Diamond and Pearl, and visit familiar landmarks and locales

But overall, the story follows a predictable isekai plot and is kind of just there for filling in the purpose of having a story.

The good news is that there's a lot of playable content to get into. In addition to the sidequests, there is a pretty robust post-game. These quests become available at the end where you can catch all the pseudo-legendaries and legendaries, and there's even a new-ending to achieve after you've caught 'em all. I haven’t seen that ending though - I got a job and need to pay bills.

Conclusion:

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Pokémon Legends Arceus - it’s a fun spinoff that at first feels like a breath of fresh air and it’s currently the closest gameplay-wise to a mainline Pokémon game we’ve ever gotten so far.

Because of the repetition, I'm not sure if I'll be picking up the sequel they announced a few months ago unless they make it a whole new experience. All I could recommend is filling each map with more activities or reasons to explore - copy that part of Breath of the Wild.

Despite its flaws, I will always appreciate whenever a game company tries new things and hope that the Pokémon team keeps trying these new side projects.

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