Pokémon Legends: Arceus - Is This A Good Game?

When I first heard about Pokémon Legends: Arceus, I could not believe that Game Freak was going to move away from the formula that they have always used to create their mainline Pokémon games and sell millions of copies, despite their fleeting quality. I was critical of Pokémon Sword and Shield, and I thought that because Game Freak was still making huge profits off terrible Pokémon games and the overall Pokémon marketing machine, they would have no reason to innovate. Imagine my surprise when Game Freak announced this new game which is going to be a brand-new Pokémon experience, where the focus is on discovering all the Pokémon in the Hisui region, rather than win a bunch of gym badges and challenge a region's Elite Four and Champion. I still had low expectations, and the lack of marketing told me that Game Freak was not sure how the audience was going to receive this game upon its release.

Game Freak somehow created a fun Pokémon game, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus feels like the reinvention that the Pokémon video game franchise badly needed. This game is not without its significant flaws, so I am going to talk about those first.

Let us get the obvious flaw out of the way first. The graphics are atrocious, and I do not believe there was even a marginal improvement over the graphics in Pokémon Sword and Shield. These kinds of graphics may have been acceptable on the GameCube, but not today on the Switch. I cannot look at the tree and grass textures without wanting to vomit. I also found the storyline to be not any better than any other Pokémon game. For a game that still does not have voice acting, there were many dialogue bubbles to go through, especially during the tutorial portion of the game. I found reading the dialogue bubbles and understanding the story to be a bit of a chore and not engaging at all.

However, the gameplay is where Pokémon Legends: Arceus really shines, and the gameplay is what truly matters to me over the graphics and the story. I love exploring all the environments finding Pokémon, and I felt a sense of accomplishment filling out my Pokédex by catching Pokémon, defeating them in battle, or using them in battle. There was a faster pace to the battling compared to other Pokémon games, and the battling felt rather challenging. Pokémon 10-15 levels under you can legitimately knock your Pokémon out with a super-effective move. One other thing about this game that I appreciate is that because I want to complete my Pokédex, I found myself regularly using Pokémon that I would never use in a mainline Pokémon game. Overall, I found this game to be smooth in its transitions, such as catching Pokémon, to collecting items, to battling, to traversing the areas. The whole gameplay experience never felt boring.

Is Pokémon Legends: Arceus a good video game? Shockingly, my answer is yes. I would have never expected Game Freak to bring a breath a fresh air and provide a unique Pokémon experience for the player. The graphics and story need massive improvements, but I thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay. I considered the Pokémon video game franchise to be dead in the water, but there may be some life in the old girl after all.