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Old 01-30-2022, 05:44 AM   #1
Blastoise
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POKEMON LEGENDS ARCEUS: The Definitive Day 2 (3?) Review

THE PLOT

Uh oh, you just got hit by the Isekai Arceus! You wake up in a past version of Sinnoh and fall in with a bunch of colonizers looking to enslave study the local Pokemon as well as subjugate navigate the delicate political situation between the Hisuian People's Front and the People's Front of Hisui.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS EXACTLY

Pokemon fucked Monster Hunter on cocaine and Breath of the Wild raised the baby after they left it in a dumpster behind the Rite Aid.

I RECOGNIZE THOSE WORDS, BUT NOT IN THAT ORDER

Yeah, everyone thought "Pokemon BotW", but structurally it's closer to a Monster Hunter game: the world is split up into a town hub and with several different habitats, though the layouts are large and open-ended so you don't ever feel particularly constrained in that regard and they feature the Pokemon standard of locations that you can only get to once you have the requisite HM/ride Pokemon/etc.. Like Monster Hunter there's an emphasis on crafting items using materials you gather in the field, so it combines Pokemon's "catch everything that moves" with MH's "take everything that isn't nailed down".

However, murdering monsters is not the primary goal: only a means to it. Somehow you work with the first group of people in the history of the Pokemon world to think "I wonder how the Pikachu can shock me in the balls" and so you are tasked with compiling the first Pokedex. Since nobody knows shit about anything catching one Pokemon and then shoving it in a box somewhere won't cut it: you'll need to complete various tasks like catching multiples, battling multiples, and/or seeing them use moves (yours or wild ones) to finish each entry.

Points earned from kinetically researching the effects of blunt objects on Bidoof skulls contributes to your Galaxy Rank, your not-badge-not-Hunter-Rank equivalent. Story progression is gated behind specific ranks, but thankfully not the other way around: progressing through the story opens up more areas and therefore more opportunities for Bidoof vivisection, but it's quite possible to have more than the requisite rank before each checkpoint.

THIS SOUNDS TEDIOUS AS SHIT

Surprisingly, no.

YOU'RE A BALL WASHING GAMEFREAK FANBOY PLEASE CONSULT MY 300-VIDEO YOUTUBE SERIES MALDING OVER THE TREE TEXTURES IN SWORD AND SHIELD

Touch grass. Where was I?

Oh yeah, catching. You encounter Pokemon wandering around in the wild like in Sw/Sh rather than running around in grass, and like Monster Hunter each species behaves differently: some are skittish and will run if they see you, some are live-and-let-live, and every Mothim in Hisui inexplicably views your existence as a personal affront. However, you now have a couple different approaches to catching Pokemon:

-The standard "hit them until health bar small, then throw balls at them" strategy, which still works and is a bit more streamlined (catch rates seem to be higher across the board), but is usually the inferior option to:

-Sneaking up on them and catching them outside of combat. Assuming the Pokemon is not aggressive you can approach it and throw a raw Pokeball at it. This will catch most Pokemon faster (you can quickly throw three balls at a pack of three Pokemon and end up with three new boxwarmers) and without much fuss, and for those that are more difficult you have a few different options to tilt the odds more in your favor (bait, hitting Pokemon with balls from behind, and a Pokeball type that can only be thrown a short distance but has a much higher chance to catch Pokemon who are unaware of you).

This is also the preferred strategy for catching "Alpha" Pokemon, which are max-sized versions of a given species with scary red eyes and usually much higher level than the surrounding Pokemon: if you're patient it's much easier to catch a Pokemon 20-30 levels higher than your team without it running a train on your party, but annoyingly the "X level Pokemon obey you" aspect now applies to Pokemon you catch so don't think you'll cheese the game just because you catch the Murder Snorlax early:

BORKED

Also, 99% of the time-wasting bullshit about Pokemon battles and catching has been cut: you're not prompted to name every fodder Pokemon (you can now rename them from the party menu if/whenever you want), you don't have to press a button several times when a Pokemon levels up, and you're not asked if you're really sure that you don't want your Gardevoir to learn Double Edge. Pokeballs are easily craftable using resources in the environment, so you rarely have to go back to restock and even if you need to fast travel to friendly camps is unlocked from the start. You can catch so many Pokemon so quickly that there is an in-game mechanic that rewards you for releasing them.

IS THIS THE OPEN-WORLD POKEMON GAME I'VE WRITTEN EROTIC FANFICTION ABOUT

No, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. It turns out "what's over that next hill?" is a good combo with Pokemon's "I wonder what new creatures I'll encounter?". The fact that your battles don't take place in a pocket dimension and that your trainer can walk around while a battle is in progress (including being hit by Pokemon attacks if they wander too close) don't really change the battles for the most part*, but they help sell the world.

THIS SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, LIKE WHEN MY DAD SAID HE'D BE BACK AFTER GETTING CIGARETTES FROM THE GAS STATION

Yeah, there are some good ideas here, but this game is...rough in several areas.

I CANNOT GET AN ERECTION UNLESS I AM RED-ASSED ANGRY ABOUT 3D POKEMON GAME PERFORMANCE

Good news for you, not so much the body pillow that endures your existence.

This game has some obvious performance jank in terms of texture quality, pop-in, and character models using their low-poly/reduced frame animations even when the player is close enough for those to be quite noticeable. If you're someone who views Gamefreak's religious aversion to "basic optimization" as a dealbreaker, this game isn't for you.

GRAPHICS ARE EPHEMERAL, GAMEPLAY IS ETERNAL

Yeah, that's the other thing: they've made some changes to how battles and stats work, and while some are interesting, some...uh...need work in the execution.

They're...you know what, I'm out of funny headers at the moment, so let's just go down the list:
  • Since there's no breeding, Pokemon stats across a given species are now differentiated only by nature (which you can change via items), and an IV-EV combo stat called Effort Level (which you can only increase using specific items with differing items required for each tier, though most Pokemon you catch will have a 0-3 points in each stat already). If I had an objection is that-like RBYGS-you can max every single stat so there's no real reason not to do so outside of the Grit item grind. I don't know if this is the game where you want to get real sweaty maxing out Pokemon, though.

  • Level discrepancies seemed to have been flattened a bit, so your Pokemon are often still quite mortal unless they have a massive level advantage above their opponent. Another change that is, again, not inherently a problem in a vacuum, given that a lot of more recent Pokemon games will have you drastically overleveled unless you specifically go out of your way to avoid that. This is also one of the ways you're incentivized to catch Pokemon via stealth rather than combat, since your Pokemon can take a serious beating even in relatively short battles with no type disadvantage.

  • No held items or abilities, which I'm not exactly convinced were parts of the Pokemon battle formula that needed to be stripped out.

  • Some general streamlining of moves: moves that increase attack and defense affect both stats on the physical/special split, and all stat buffs/debuffs decay over time. I'm split on this one: neat idea, but if you get 6 DD's under your belt you're either cheesing the Elite 4 or putting some dumb kid in an online battle simulator out of his misery.

  • No entry hazards: Stealth Rock is a 40 strength attack with a non-status DoT component. Another split for me: I like entry hazards as a concept, but hate that Stealth Rock fucks over 95% of the Pokemon that have the audacity to be weak to rock in some fashion.

  • Status effects now naturally wear off, Sleep changed to Drowsy (reduced chance to move ala Paralyze, take more damage). Good idea, wouldn't mind seeing it go mainline given how powerful status effects are in Pokemon and the limited non-item options to deal with them.

  • Battles are...you know what, fuck it, new header.

IT'S POKEMON, HOW COULD THEY POSSIBLY FUCK BATTLES UP

Trainer battles exist, but compared to a mainline Pokemon game they're fairly sparse and even most of the trainers you fight at the end of the main story aren't running full teams. It's kind of like Breath of the Wild forgoing the standard dungeon formula, but in BotW that was a calculated, deliberate choice that served the game for the better in the end.

In Pokemon Legends you kind of get the sense that trainer battles are sparse because everybody at Gamefreak realized the battle system is kinda jank, but you kind of have to have them because they carry a Pokemon game in a way that Yet Another Water Temple doesn't carry a Zelda game.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: everybody bitches about how GameFreak hasn't really evolved the battle formula in 25 years, and it's clear that they're using a side-series game to test new ideas without risking their bread and butter. I like some of them, but as a whole the changes needed more time in the oven.

Really, the biggest change is (and biggest issues arise from) the turn order changes:



Unlike a mainline game, turn orders are no longer fixed: Arceus uses a timeline-based turn system as opposed to the double-blind orders format of the mainline games. You can only give orders (or take other actions like using items or switching Pokemon) when it is your turn, and it is possible to take multiple turns in a row (or vice versa) in a couple ways:

-Speed seems to play a part, so beyond initial turn order faster Pokemon will naturally get more turns in a row.

-Priority moves (Quick Attack et. al) now increase your Pokemon's subsequent turns on the timeline. Moves like Hyper Beam have the opposite effect.

-Pokemon have the option to use alternate styles for each move: Agile, which reduces the moves power and/or effect of the move in exchange for a boost in priority, and Strong which increases Power and accuracy in exchange for lower priority. The design intent here seems to be to use priority/agile moves to give yourself a chance to setup, then a strong attack (preferably something like Fire Blast, Thunder, etc.) to swing for the fences. Both styles consume more PP than just using the move normally (and there are no PP Ups), so you're meant to use these styles sparingly.

So, nothing too bad from a conceptual standpoint, but it feels like nobody at GameFreak considered that mainline Pokemon battles are turn-based rocket tag: 1-2HKOs are the baseline, 3HKOs are barely acceptable depending on the circumstance. Take a wild guess what happens when you put this sort of TTK in a system where you can attack multiple turns in a row without your opponent being able to react.

Trainer battles in Arceus wind up being what people with no Pokemon experience assume the mainline games are like: I KO your Pokemon, you swap in yours with a type advantage that KOs mine, repeat until battle ends. Switching has a high opportunity cost and you can't rely on using prediction to switch in on a safe move (since your opponent will see what you switched to before they pick their move), so trainer battles largely come down to getting an early lead and bludgeoning your opponent into submission from there.

It also doesn't help that the AI sometimes get multiple turns in a row for unclear reasons (e.g. not using styles or priority moves): probably at least partly system ignorance on my end, but there's always the niggling sense that you're never being given all the information you need to make informed decisions or calculated risks.

So yeah, interesting ideas in the battle system, but it's clear it was put in without considering how the rest of the framework had to be shaped to accommodate it.

THIS IS A LOT OF FUCKING WORDS, PLEASE GIVE ME A SHORT QUOTE FOR METACRITIC

Hisui is a land of contrasts.

FUCK YOU

Sorry, your mom's already helping me with that.

*
Spoiler: show
One example is that multiple Pokemon can join the same battle if you've aggroed them all at once: this is usually a bad idea.
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Last edited by Blastoise; 01-30-2022 at 06:34 AM.
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Old 01-30-2022, 04:40 PM   #2
Loki
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Watching my friend's stream of it, I definitely think the first hour of the gameplay looks bad even if the visuals look good. As the game went forward, it definitely got better and better.

I never saw a stat change move we typically see, i.e. Growl or Leer. Have they been removed?

Also, my friend endlessly complained about his ponytail clipping through his hat. It was kind of funny, but I can understand how immersion breaking details like that are.
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Old 01-30-2022, 05:21 PM   #3
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The vast majority of moves are gone, including most status moves yes.

Other big changes include buffs not stacking, and the generalisation to "offensive" and "defensive" buffs that just hit both stats.

Also wrt Blastoise's spoiler:
Spoiler: show
They're not the worst part really, the worst part is the scripted 3v1s in the story.
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Old 01-31-2022, 09:49 PM   #4
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Blastoise, you forgot to mention a oft-overlooked aspect of PLA, the part where your player character seduces all the Hisuian men or women and becomes the progenitor of all modern Sinnoh inhabitants seen in DPP.

On a more serious note, the turn order attempt at battles has me wonder what Pokemon would look like with Sengoku Rance style scheduling. It seems like it would be too complex to support serious competitive play, but what do I know, I'm a caveman.
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Old 02-10-2022, 12:57 AM   #5
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I didn't stop reading at "closer to a Monster Hunter game" but its certainly the point I lost any interest I mighta had lol. The demos I played of those were tedious & unfun and unsurprisingly thats what most of what the rest of the post made this game sound like!
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Old 02-10-2022, 05:13 AM   #6
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tbh it's less like monster hunter because bluntly the combat in the game is almost intentionally dire. It's a genuinely decent game, but yes it gets tedious post-credits. There's only so much to do before you start grinding out the shiny charm and dex perfects. Which is another thing Blastoise didn't mention: Catching something is not an auto dex entry, you have to complete mon-specific tasks (usually see it use X move, catch so many of them, defeat so many, etc etc) to unlock the dex entry. Which is... A bit of a grind when you realise you need to do this for all 240+ mons.
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Old 02-10-2022, 04:11 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironthunder View Post
Which is another thing Blastoise didn't mention: Catching something is not an auto dex entry, you have to complete mon-specific tasks (usually see it use X move, catch so many of them, defeat so many, etc etc) to unlock the dex entry. Which is... A bit of a grind when you realise you need to do this for all 240+ mons.
I did, but yeah: I would classify PL:A as a "decent" game, but whether you agree or disagree with "I like filling out the Pokedex in every Pokemon game" is going to be a good predictor of how much the game appeals to you.
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Old 02-10-2022, 08:21 PM   #8
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What clans did y'all join with?
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Old 02-11-2022, 05:35 PM   #9
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Just wanted to say I enjoyed reading this review; it was informative and also amusing. Thanks for writing and posting! ^^
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Old 02-12-2022, 06:26 PM   #10
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A great Blastoise post
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Old 02-13-2022, 10:21 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Blastoise View Post
I did, but yeah: I would classify PL:A as a "decent" game, but whether you agree or disagree with "I like filling out the Pokedex in every Pokemon game" is going to be a good predictor of how much the game appeals to you.
I always liked filling up the pokédex but to do that ya only had ta catch 1 of each pokémon. Catching 30 or w/e of the same one doesn't have the same appeal. They're delaying the reward of playing for no good reason. In-universe lore be damned - its just filler.
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Old 02-14-2022, 05:26 AM   #12
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Well catching 1 is enough for the regular endgame, beyond that is just personal completionism and Shiny Charm. But tbh entirely understandable.
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Old 02-16-2022, 07:56 PM   #13
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I'm like 60 hours in and really like the game a lot. This was a nice read after the fact though lol

Good to know that for endgame content you actually only need to catch one of everything. I have one of most things so far, and most dex entries completed. Some of them are going to be difficult though, like some of these Pokemon I know exist but I haven't seen them yet even though I've spent a lot of time looking for them. Wish there were breeding because most of them are baby Pokemon (and the ridiculous stuff like Spiritomb).

Overall though I really think this game is refreshing when it comes to Pokemon. I think my favorite spin-off is still PMD2 but this is definitely up there.
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Old 03-07-2022, 04:49 PM   #14
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I emerge from the shadows of the Fizzy Bubbles pit to have opinions about a video game. Fear me. Or not, I'm not the boss of you.

So, first off: yeah, the new battle system definitely needs work, and I'm hoping that they did improve on it in Scarlet/Violet because I'm one of those people that actually likes the agile/strong move mechanic (gasp!). There were a lot of cool ideas introduced in Legends: Arceus that could have worked provided Game Freak gave it a little more time in the oven and weren't subjected to the capitalist death march that is the marketing department. Of course, I could just be speaking from a place of inexperience after all; my familiarity with the various nuances of the Pokémon franchise, as well as JRPGs in general, are rather sporadic and I might have been missing the true majesty of the old regimented battle system with all the bells and whistles and abilities and IVs and what have you.

Speaking of lack of JRPG experience, PLA's more action-oriented focus is a boon for me, as someone who played many a platformer in their youth. This isn't to downplay the combat system itself, which still remains a very important pillar of the game, but I found myself really enjoying the new capture/stealth mechanics and seeing what sorts of inventive ways I can get the jump on an unsuspecting mon without ever landing an attack on it. It also makes encounters not occasionally suck: you actually get to decide whether you want to engage with something, and battling feels way snappier than before (although I don't really have a frame of reference with any games past Gen 5, so the jury is out on that one). The exploration is also fun as hell and I genuinely had a few "oh, what's in here" and "no way" moments myself.

I think my biggest gripe with this game is how monotonous it gets at times. While pushing for dex completion feels like a fun challenge to tackle, eventually you'll get bored because it's just the same thing over and over again several hundred times in a row. Catch a Pokémon, mess around with its attacks for a bit, wash, rinse, repeat. The main story also gets pretty formulaic, but at least the boss battles are interesting enough for me to give it a pass. There are also a few missions in the postgame that are downright infuriating (one of them requires you to be aware of something in BDSP without dropping so much as a hint as to the fact that the solution isn't even within the game itself in a stunning display that would make Hideo Kojima blush), but for the most part they're over and done with within a few hours maximum and maybe a few tears shed.

In general, despite the general jank that Pokémon Legends: Arceus hands you on a silver platter, I think it's a great start towards the future of the franchise, and I'm excited to see how it plays into future mainline entries. It's got all the hallmarks of a standard Pokémon game, which is definitely saying something considering the fact that it's probably nothing more than a glorified tech demo for the new open-world engine that we're going to see in Gen 9, and doesn't really bite off more than it can chew by introducing fifteen different gimmicks and only giving them to the starters from this game's region the ones from Kanto (which don't even exist in this game), and Pikachu/Eevee. I pretty much wholeheartedly agree with Blastoise here, but I want to add that it's definitely worth the $60 if you're thinking about picking it up.
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