For the first time in a very long time, this is a Pokémon game which is genuinely challenging. While battles are still turn-based, a few minor tweaks to the system (new status conditions, strong and agile attacks switch up the turn order, switching to a different Pokémon mid-battle doesn’t use up a turn, trying to catch a Pokémon mid-battle annoys it enough to give it a major stat boost if you fail) have a domino effect, making it feel like a totally different game even to a veteran like myself.
And that’s just the first of the major changes present in Legends: Arceus. Series staples which have lasted a quarter of a century are polished to the point of being unrecognisable or ripped up entirely.
Instead of buying equipment to help on your adventure, players must forage the wilderness to find crafting materials to make their own healing potions and Pokéballs. Instead of tapping a button to blindly toss a Pokéball at your intended capture, you must sneak up on it, hiding in the grass to smack it in the back of the head at the opportune moment. No longer do your Pokédex entries fill themselves with one capture, now you have to observe Pokémon using particular moves or behaving in certain ways if you want to fill it up.
The overall storyline is familiar enough but the setting brings a fresh twist. You are a young trainer recruited to join the Galaxy Team, an expeditionary force who’ve recently set up Jubilife Village (which, in hundreds of years will grow into the Jubilife City from last year’s Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl games) and are tasked with researching the landscape and Pokémon of Hisui to compile the world’s first Pokédex – in this game, a paper binder rather than the neater handheld computer depicted later in the series.
As you learn more about the region you come into contact with the rival Diamond and Pearl clans who revere and worship various powerful Pokémon. An unknown force is driving these Pokémon to violent rampages and it’s up to you to quell their tantrums (not, as you might expect, in Pokémon battles but in thrilling, edge-of-your-seat action segments where you chuck stuff at them) and uncover what’s causing it. Perhaps the title of the game may provide a clue.
It’s broad stuff but it works. The major background characters are lovingly drawn and feel distinct and memorable, far more so than in any other game in the series’ history. This being set in the past, long term fans will have fun spotting the ancestors of recognisable trainers from the series’ history. It’s handled in a surprisingly mature way too, not all those whose descendants will become villains are baddies themselves and vice versa.
