Were Pokémon Legends: Arceus' Visuals THAT Bad?

As always, this video is made in good fun for entertainment and a liiiittle bit of education if you're interested in a professional artist's POV!! Thank you for watching and let me know which game we should analyze next! 🎉❤ I really love PLA and that's why certain things frustrate me. I have almost 100 hours in the game, which I would never spend on a game I didn't like lmao

The artist behind alot of the Let's Go artwork is very likely Megumi Mizutani, who has been both a Pokemon and Character Designer since Gen 5. I think she really captures the feel of Pokemon alot along with maybe Hitoshi Ariga. She also designed Hisuian Growlithe and Arcanine for PLA. You can see more of her style in the Pokemon cards she illustrates as well as the Mikus she designed for Project Voltage.

I LOVED this game and it actually got me back into Pokemon since I was a little kid in the 90s, but it could have had more time in the oven haha

The world building part was really interesting to me, I kinda like the way legends Arceus looks (but I like Scarlet and Violet so my opinions are invalid anyway-) but world building is really fun to think about and the way the Pearl settlement looked so much better with a few items outside the tent put a lot of that into perspective, really liked your video!

You know I’m shocked the village changed so much with a campfire lol

this is actually my fav video on youtube rn, its a nice bite sized video that is packed full of good content and advice plus a lil bit of comedy

For me design and art direction is something so important to me (I have sensory issues, my ones related to sight isn’t that bad but if art detection isn’t great despite it having a good story I just can’t), like if something has line art and the background doesn’t it gets rid of the immersion a bit, how it was with the Disney experimental era (Lilo and Stitch, stuff made around that time) is something great, but it just has to make sense. Like seriously art design is something I love so much which is why I am going to do it in a way that I like and makes sense to my little brain with issues

YESSS THANK YOU. i hear a ton of people talk about the gameplay issues and the ilk with pokemon games, but aside from "trees ugly" with swsh, i don't see a ton of discussion about the art direction. legends arceus and now with sv, the solid art direction present in previous games and done so beautifully as recently as let's go is practically non-existent. like you said, the official art never misses. but the actual models in the game feel so disconnected from that official art in both execution and the actual feeling of the model, that they just tend to look bad. i saw geeta first in game and absolutely was NOT a fan of her design. i only more recently saw her official art and it looks fantastic! if i had seen the official art first, or rather, if she actually looked well executed in sv, i would probably have enjoyed her more. of course, the story in pokemon games, especially in modern pokemon games, can feel super disjointed with the execution of it. however, there is absolutely much to be said about how the game looks and how it, both legends AND sv, look isn't great. the lighting is absolutely wack, the textures are wack, and the model execution? also wack. i think there are some things that still look great in both games, in sv the crystal pool itself and the wisteria pond both in kitakami look amazing. that's because pokemon lends itself well to fantastical, beautiful scenery. a fair few places in the blueberry dome look great as well! but, those are all dlc places that still have plenty rough spots. i'm not asking for a gorgeously painted game, just for the games to spend more time in the oven and have dedicated release cycles instead of being split so wildly with surely insane crunch so the majority of the game doesn't look like the ugliest tiled textures imaginable. i'm still shocked legends was released with that cave lighting/texture issue being as obvious as it was, both i and everyone i've seen get to the cave portions are immediately taken out of the scenes because it's so bad.

9:43 HELP IM DYING OF LAUGHTER RIGHT AFTER THIS PART I GOT AN AD FOR SCARLET AND VIOLET 😭😭😭

I like the art direction, and wished they leaned in to the whole "painted" asthetic.

The more I watched the more I understood your stance on the visuals. I never thought about the light reflection like that and I'll keep an eye out on things I watch and play in the future!

By far the most frustrating and arguably damaging part of pokemon is its insistence of sticking to the business formula of gen 1. The game splitting means the team has to go back to the encounters and replace them, wasting time and resources. The tie-in games mean that not everyone in the team is working on the main games. While sometimes they can get away with Spike Chunsoft or a different third party, Legends Arceus and Scarlet and Violet clearly needed some time apart and more communication (the shoes inside the house are a japanese custom though). Last but not least, the simultaneous anime arcs. I heard the defense that SwSh was rushed because the anime had to air at the same time and all I could think of was "that sounds like a bad idea". They used Gen 2 getting delayed as an example and how Orange Islands had to be made as filler... except from what I've heard Johto Journeys was very padded out as well. Not to mention Gen 5's initially bad reputation was also influenced by how bad Best Wishes was and one of the biggest wasted opportunities was replacing Iris as the 8th gym leader for Roxie just to promote the sequels. Or how from Sun and Moon onwards Ash started going on quests that were wildly different than the game at the time so there's no reason not to have the anime studios wait until some time has passed like they do with most adaptations nowadays.

PLA is my favorite pokemon game despite its flaws. I was blessed to grow up on early janky 3D games so Im not as moved by graphical fidelity as seemingly most( though my old eyes appreciate higher fps). I like the watercolor palette and find the skyboxes very pretty. There were areas that looked good but also lots of bland repeating textures and barren landscapes. But all can be forgiven if the game is fun and thankfully I feel it delivers on that front.

One counterpoint I'd like to make is about the Pokedex images as the professor canonically takes photos of the Pokémon for it. He takes photos of the MC to show he has the camera, and there are little tabs to hold the photo in.

hearing artists talk about pokémon is my favorite thing in the world

THANK YOU for finally putting my frustration into words. The pokemon games are improving gameplay wise but god damn it hurts so much to see the visuals. People also downplaying how bad things are doesn't help

The graphics could've looked better if they kept it simmering a little instead of immediately removing it from the heat...

The environment is trying to be realistic, but the characters are super stylized and it's blatantly obvious that the two don't mix. If they had even just brightened the hue of the environment it would help, but really they should've just stylized the trees, rocks, etc. If a billion dollar company would just put in the effort, they could make everyone so much happier with the game. I know when I played Legends the gameplay was exciting and fun, but it was downplayed by the awful graphics. I want to enjoy every aspect of the games. But I can't, because they miss the mark so often...

In the first part of the video where your talking about the shading of the pokemon in the starter selection scene. Your talking about the shading of a 3d artwork from the perspective of how shading works in 2d art. I am not an expert on shading as a noob 3d modeler but from my understanding if you want a shadow to be lighter (gray) you need to put a light underneath the models of the pokemon. It appears that there are multiple lighting sources in that cutscene but they can't just put a light everywhere it needs to be realistic to what's happening in game. The 3d renderer is generating the shadows, not the artist. It's accurate to the lighting placed in game. There is no lighting underneath the Pokemon. The lighting is hitting them form the top. Their shadows appear to be black, not purplish like in the cartoon/style you use full of bright colors and lighting everywhere. Also, they are standing on the ground not high up in the air closer to the lighting source. So that's why the shadows are so dark/black. On another note, I think that the style of legends arceus is trying to mishmash relatively realistic 3d models/textures/scenery however the pokemon themselves their models are very cartoony designed and have flat textures. I think that Scarlet and violete did a much better mix of this.

Its becoming illegal how she entertains us