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Legends Arceus


Kpnut

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Yep going to be "reviewing" the new pokemon game and sorry no images in this one I've got some from the game itself but I'm too busy actually playing it to upload them to my PC. Anyway on with the review.

 

I'll start with the negatives and by negatives I mean the major ones that aren't just purely down to personal preference (or are but to a lesser degree.) The biggest of these are the graphics while they're not necessarily bad per se but they could definitely have done with some extra polishing before release additionally the frame rate for some pokemon and characters in the distance ends up being in single digits almost. Additionally the draw distance isn't that great either so you end up with barren looking terrain until you get close enough for the trees, grass and flowers to render. Additionally the fog barriers that denote the edge of the maps are very disorientating, although this is a minor gripe all things considered.

Additionally the fact that certain pokemon lines are locked behind space time distortions is another mark against it, I had to look up the entire pokedex to find out what I was missing because these events are random and there's no guarantee that the pokemon you need will spawn inside them. Locking 11 pokemon from the pokedex behind these is an incredibly poor choice in my opinion and they'd have been better off not including these lines at all especially since 2 of them are fossil pokemon lines which are rare spawns within the distortions. Why am I complaining about this? Well it's because you need to have caught or owned at least one of every pokemon in the pokedex to finish the game.

 

So that's the stuff I consider to be objectively bad what about the subjective stuff? Well it's mostly some of the hisuian forms and new evolutions. I already liked Hisuian Zorua and Zoroark, Hisuian Avalugg, Voltorb and Electrode grew on me and I still disliked Hisuian Arcanine but not as much as when I first saw it but it's the final forms of the starters that I really dislike. Samurott is fine it's an edgier version of regular Samurott, Decidueye looks weird but it's with Typhlosion that they really fucked up. Normal Typhlosion (with its flames out) is one of the best looking starters in the franchise but they decided to turn it into a stoned, dopey looking thing and I do not like it. Hell I don't like the fact the starters got regional forms in the first place, yes the gen 1 and 3 starters got mega evolutions but I feel regional forms should be restricted to more common pokemon. Just a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things but I still think it's worth mentioning.

 

That's all the bad, what about the good? Well everything else. The fact that what I consider to be fairly inconsequential (the graphics and new forms) are the two of the worst parts of the game means it's easily one of the best games I've played. The core gameplay loop is actually incredibly solid and this game has had some of the toughest fights in any pokemon I've played. They made catching pokemon, ya know the core aspect of the entire franchise, incredibly satisfying and fun additionally they managed to make wild pokemon an actual threat (at least the aggressive ones) rather than a mild nuisance (although with a team of pokemon in the level 80-90 range they go back to being a nuisance, but that's still pretty good. I need a team of incredibly high level pokemon to not feel threatened by wild ones) and the AI for them also seems a lot smarter for example I was fighting a Crobat and it wiped out my fairly powerful Espeon without giving me a chance to respond through smart use of the new style system where it used a weaker Agile Style move first to weaken Espeon before hitting with a regular move to finish it off. On top of that at night when ghost pokemon start spawning the game gains an almost horror game element as they'll suddenly appear behind you. As for catching them, the catch rates have definitely been tweaked as it's easier to catch pokemon in this game which is understandable as there's really only three pokeball variations in this game and the other two variations modifiers aren't all that spectacular one being essentially a sniper pokeball whilst the other is a high risk high reward one but they have the same base catch rate as their equivalents however the act of exploring and catching pokemon is incredibly satisfying, engaging and fun.

 

Now lets talk about the Alpha pokemon, these are pokemon that are incredibly aggressive and with increased size (they're the biggest specimens of their species) as well as having reduced (supposedly) catch rates. They also have glowing red eyes when in the wild, which varies from looking intimidating (Alpha Garchomp) to unintentionally funny (Alpha Ralts) but these don't have any actual affect on gameplay if you catch one since the only difference between an Alpha and a regular pokemon is that the Alpha will have more EVs (effort values, more on that later) initially but regular pokemon can and will catch up. Really the only reason to use them is for the increased size and the cool symbol next to their gender indicator.

 

As for other gameplay features a big one is the new battle system, it resembles the battle system from the Legends of Heroes series of games where you have a turn order rather than the game being strictly turn based your pokemon's speed dictates whether or not it attacks first but other than that certain moves can alter the turn order as well is which style you select, the agile style makes the move weaker but allows your pokemon to attack again sooner whereas the strong style increases the move's power but makes it move later so utilising these styles properly is the key to victory. I mentioned EVs earlier, these are basically modifiers to a pokemon's stats, in fact the EV/IV system is much simpler in this game, a pokemon's nature only affects which EVs it starts out with having points in but with enough of the EV boosting items this doesn't matter. This is a change I really like as it means a pokemon isn't completely hamstrung by its potentially bad nature so all pokemon of the same species with full 10/10 EVs and the same level will have the same stats which isn't a bad thing and makes battles less frustrating. The other thing natures determine is whether or not certain pokemon are dicks or not (I've been tagged in the back by a Budew only for the fucking thing to run away) which is a nice touch. Actually as an example of stuff like this (and something that endeared Hisuian Voltorb to me) was when I decided to feed some Voltorbs some berries and the little fuckers started following me around it was adorable.

 

As for the story, it's actually an Isekai story with the MC getting transported to Hisui by Arceus in order to avert a disaster and you're found on the beach by the professor after which he helps you join the Galaxy team's survey corps. I won't spoil much more but the story is easily one of the strongest Pokemon story lines. The sidequests also add much more depth to the world where if you hand over a pokemon they stick around the village with their new owners, they even touch on some of the folklore you find in the pokedex in other games.

 

So what's my score? It's a solid 8/10 pushing a 9/10. Obviously it has its issues and annoyances but I can forgive those with how well done the rest of it is. I've had to force myself to stop playing this game in order to go to work or bed, there hasn't been any recently released game that has managed to have that effect on me. As for how I'd improve on some of those annoyances, I'd remove the Porygon, Magnemite and two fossil lines from the pokedex I'd then add in the Phanpy, Wingull, Feebas, Marill and Houndour lines which could be added to various locations that make sense in the world rather than locking 11 pokemon behind the space time distortions. You'll notice that I've left Weavile in but that leads onto my next point; have the space time distortions give the player the regular forms of the Hisuian pokemon (including the starters,) this is already done with the Sneasel line and could easily be done with the Growlithe and Voltorb lines as well.

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