Pokémon Legends Arceus is Overrated

I went through hell to make this video. I contracted covid-19 while making it, so please understand if my voice sounds coarse or weak in some parts! Covid is also the reason why this video took long to get out, so sorry for the delay. 0:00 Intro 2:29 Part 1: What Makes a Pokemon Game? 6:28 Part 2: The Catching Mechanic 10:09 Part 3: Breath of the Exploration 17:40 Part 4: Jubdead Village 22:02 Part 5: Story and Ultra Cutscenes PTSD 29:15 Part 6: Farfetch’d Quests 32:17 Part 7: Minor Things 35:06 Conclusion

Biggest issue is that since Pokemon has transitioned to 3D, much of the abstraction from sprite models simply doesn't work anymore because it'll cause the environment to become bland and flat ironically. Much of the world needs npcs, objects to loop or have something more than just standing around. Such world building is not possible with the current timed releases. For a game to be good, the environment has to be damn near GTA levels of intractability

My brain has been broken down by so many bad Pokémon games that Legends just feels so good. It’ll go down as one of my guiltiest pleasures to date.

"Why can't we have BOTH?" I ask myself questions to that effect about Pokémon every day.

Good points in general, but 1 quick correction: The unown side quest does take thought. While the whisps are mostly scattered, the unowns have secret clues in the pokedex that reward you for paying attention to the map. It's pretty well implemented in my opinion

I don’t think having a lifeless village is a good thing and I believe they should’ve made the characters move around and interact with each other. However, something I like about the village that wasn’t mentioned in the video was getting the villagers more accustomed to pokemon. Sure, many of the side quests were nothing to write home about, but the thing that a lot of them achieve is introducing people to pokemon. At first, the village is under the impression that many pokemon are dangerous monsters (which, they can be), but when you give people pokemon or show them completed dex entries, they start to understand the pokemon more and start coexisting. Your pokemon help in the farm, a man learns about how to take care of an eevee and have it evolve into umbreon by accident, the 3 bidoofs you helped find sleep on a house at night, the security guard learns of wurmple’s evolutions, and an old lady learns how to accept a chimeco as a friend. There are some more examples I didn’t list, but they all serve the purpose of changing the village’s perspective on pokemon. A place where the idea of interacting with pokemon is dangerous starts becoming similar to the modern pokemon world where people and pokemon learn to help each other. I am in no means defending how lifeless the village can be at times, but I think Gamefreak should be given credit for making the villagers’ relationships with pokemon evolve over time. Also, this has nothing to do with this, but I love how the village theme changes over time. In the beginning, the theme is very plain and forgettable. However, near the end, the village theme evolves and is reminiscent of Jubilife City’s theme. Hearing the tune would always make me happy and is something that made me enjoy the village a lot more.

I think it would be cool if after you quell the noble pokemon the area became lively with people, like you explore it once and see the area empty, and then you're encouraged to see how what you did improved the area. Imagine if people started exploring the areas after you, following in your footsteps to explore the lands. You could battle people, have fun interactions, and generally see more actual NPC's while playing the game.

Volo was suspicious right from the beginning. It was obvious that he was the villain given how involved he was in the post game quests when he was just a merchant.

I actually liked Volo and the twist. Volo doesn't hate god, if anything he worshipped him, He desired his power to create his new world and used Giratina's hatred of Arceus to tear open a rift and provoke him (Arceus), when that plan failed he sought the plates, he wanted you to get the plates so that he could take them all and summon Arceus. And the thing about Volo is that you know nothing much about him throughout the main story, this Merchant Cynthia followed us without us really knowing much about why, he hardly approached you as a merchant that's for sure, thinking about it he was suspicious and mysterious from the very beginning.

If we get a Legends: Kyurem I hope it'll keep the catching mechanic and add in stuff for other people. Unova's a pretty interesting region with a lot to explore in the past like the Relic Castle, teh dreamyard, the entralink, the past conflict involving the swords of justice, the buried city on route 4, abyssal ruins, Kyurem's complete form, and the conflict between Unova's twin princes. With old timey Unova being set in a kingdom instead of a frontier we could have more trainer battles, maybe contests in Nimbasa city if people actually want that, and wild areas in between towns with caves and dungeons to explore. I'd be pretty disappointed if they did dragonspiral tower like turnback cave in Legends:Arceus where it is just a boss room.

14:14 I think you're right about the spiritomb and wrong about the unowns. Unowns are "a collectible" but aren't randomly placed, each one of the unown letters has a hint as to where to find them right in the pokèdex, which is also written in the unown alphabet!

the ammount of insanity this guy has probably been driven into by these games is proof he's a real pokemon fan

Oh my gosh… I HAAATE when you criticize anything about a game and suddenly it’s “Well I guess you must hate innovation! Why don’t you go and play RBY, Genwunner?!” Like… People can have legitimate complaints about more innovative games. It’s not impossible. Innovation doesn’t automatically mean flawless.

It makes me sad that Sinnoh of all regions was the experimental ground since it's my favorite. I enjoyed the game but there's definitely a loooot of room for improvement. Great review!

"Your first instinct when seeing a volcano is to jump into the volcano" - Gireum 2022

13:05 Those random ruins were built by the ancient peoples that Cogita and Volo claim to belong to. The reason why they are based more off Rome and Greece is due to those civilizations being renowned for their giant super structures and their mystic practices to the old gods. The Ainu didn't really build anything of that grand scale and stuff like Regiggas is directly based of Mediterranean mythology (titans and golems).

Man looking at modern pokemon is just depressing. I WANT to be an avid pokemon fan, because conceptually it is amazing, what with the designs and battle mechanics and all that, but then they churn out these hollow shells that I WANT to like, but can't. Doesn't help that I'm kinda alone in wanting to like pokemon, as almost everyone I know has shallow experience or knowledge with it. I get sad thinking about the franchise sometimes

I don’t think Pokémon should go completely back to the traditional formula. Game Freak needs to blend the best parts of PLA and the traditional formula for Gen 9.

In short the jump should've been a bigger leap but I still love the game.

The drip was lacking in this game. Only a few outfits made me happy.