Pokemon Legends Arceus Review: Is the New Open World Pokemon Game Worth it?

Since their creation, Pokémon games have more or less been the same plot and adventure. You start in a small town in a new region, meet a professor, and go on the adventure of a lifetime, collecting and training Pokémon, defeating eight gym leaders and then taking down the elite four and becoming the Pokémon league champion.

But now, the RPG series has been giving a breath of fresh air with the new open world Pokémon game; Pokémon: Legends Arceus, which sends players on an adventure, set in the Hisui Region (Sinnoh Region), 100 years before the events of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl.

Players are tasked with assisting the Survey Corps in learning about different Pokémon throughout the region.

Table of Contents:

1. Capturing pokemon and their reactions
2. Pokemon Legends Arceus: Gameplay Review
3. Wild Pokémon can attack you
4. Status effects, learning moves, and evolution has changed
5. Pokédex Overhaul
6. Legends Arceus is truly an Open-World Pokemon Game, but it’s an Empty One
7. Legends Arceus is truly an Open-World Pokemon Game, but it’s an Empty One
8. Repetition can get stale after a while
9. Final score

Capturing Pokémon and their reactions:

The gameplay mechanics of capturing Pokémon has had the largest overhaul. The way Pokémon react in the wild when you approach them is something we’ve never seen, for example Sudowoodo will freeze and act like a tree if it thinks you’ve spotted it.

Magikarp will flop over to you, no matter how strong your team is. There are even the more simple reactions, Starly is a timid Pokémon so it’ll run away if it notices you getting too close.

The new mechanics almost bring in a sense of skill when trying to capture your desired Pokémon, sneaking up behind one gives a boost to the chances of capturing one successfully, there are also things like berries and items you can use to distract or stun Pokémon to increase your chances, which is completely different to the days of old where you had to rely on luck alone.

Pokemon Legends Arceus: Gameplay Review

Battles have received an overhaul as well, with some moves receiving an agile and strong style, alongside the normal attacks you’ve always been able to do. You can choose to use an agile style with a move if you want to get your turn back faster or use a strong style to do more damage at the expense of losing future turns. 

The new battling system is great and breathes new life into battling, but there are questionable elements. Wild Pokémon battles last one to two turns, so it’s almost useless to use an agile style.

You can also switch Pokémon in and out after using a strong style, which essentially resets the turn order, meaning you can use a strong style move with minimal penalty to your turns.

Looking at the full picture of their idea, it’s a great one, but needs some tweaks and changes if they want it to be a permanent element in Pokémon games in the future.

Wild Pokémon Can Attack You:

That’s right, with aggressive Pokémon, there’s the chance you can be attacked when not in  battle if you take too long to escape or throw a Pokémon into battle. 

There’s a chance of a Chansey sending a hyperbeam or a Shinx sending a thunderbolt your way, but you have a chance to avoid it with the new dodge mechanic that’s been added into the game. It’s another great addition.

For every previous game, you’ve been able to scrape together difficult battle victories and then selecting “run” from random encounters will keep you alive until you reach a Pokémon center, but now you’ve got to be on your toes at all times as Pokemon can attack your character with moves when they spot you, which can cause damage to you rather than your party.

Status effects, learning moves, and evolution has changed:

Status effects have changed for the better, to match the fast paced battle setting. It might not be noticeable to the casual/part-time player, but for the hardcore fans, you’ll notice certain moves haven’t worked in the ways they have done in the past.

Moves have had an overhaul as well; no longer do you need to relearn moves at a cost, players can change a Pokémon’s move set as they please. Additionally, Pokémon can be held back from evolution, and you don’t even have to do anything to hold them back either.

If you want to evolve a Pokémon you just need to go into your Pokémon menu, select the Pokémon and evolve it. Another great idea, which gives players the choice of whether they want to train a Pikachu to level 100 or evolve it to a Raichu and train that instead.

Pokédex Overhaul:

This isn’t the Pokédex everyone has come to know over the past decades, the Pokédex in this game has become more of an encyclopedia, where catching a Pokémon isn’t enough to finish a certain species’ entry.

Each Pokémon has different tasks to complete, where you’ll have to catch a certain amount of each species, defeat them in battle, witness them use certain moves multiple times, defeat Pokémon with different type moves (which are normally a species’ weakness). The list really goes on and what’s great about all the tasks is that they can keep you entertained for hours.

Legends Arceus is truly an Open-World Pokemon Game, but it’s an Empty One

Yes, the game is set 100 years in the past so there won’t be the big bustling cities we’ve seen in previous titles, but there are certain areas, fields, caves where there’s just nothing there or there’s the common Pokémon we see all over the game, rather than the rare ones.

It’s been great seeing Pokémon roam around freely where you don’t have to capture them by entering long grass and battling them, but the idea of creating roaming Pokémon has come with a lot of open space.

Too many times have I been roaming around a field and there’s nothing in sight while I’m trying to complete a species’ entry, however, the idea is a good one, but needs more care and attention to make it really pop in future titles.

Repetition can get stale after a while:

Repetition and grinding is a thing in most games, which for casual players is the bane of their existence.

It’s understandable that there are grinding elements in this game, catching the illustrious Pokémon such as Arceus requires a ton of work, but you’d never expect repetitive and grinding moments in the main story which is a bit of a letdown and should’ve been avoided from the start.

Pokemon Legends Arceus - Review Score: 8/10

On a whole, the new capturing and battling systems have given a breath of fresh air to the Pokémon series, as they ditch the old-fashioned battling and level grinding systems that we have dealt with for decades. 

Having different interactions with wild Pokémon and seeing them run around in an open world has also been a refreshing change, but with that has brought a vast and empty world, where you can venture into the different lands and encounter Pokémon in small pockets. 

All in all, the new release has promoted repetitive gameplay when grinding out Pokédex entries, but the fun will continue on as you’ll play for hours and still be completely invested in the game. This raises the question, is Pokémon Legends: Arceus worth buying? In my opinion, yes it is and you should give it a chance.