Alright, Is Pokemon Legends: Arceus Really That Good?

In addition to all of the other improvements, making it so that pokemon moves are treated as equippable abilities from a total catalog of learned moves is an incredible upgrade compared to the old system.

This game straight up feels like playing through an episode of the anime. A old school Pokemon fans dream come true.

Been playing this game almost 20 hours and have barely even explored the 2nd area… just enjoying running around catching little mons and taking my sweet sweet time

I am a long time single player, I really love that you don't have to trade with anyone to compete the pokedex, but having both options would be nice to in future

despite it’s flaws (graphics, pop in, no voice acting, etc) i had an absolute blast with this game. this feels like the alpha for a new style of game, so if gamefreak sticks with this style, it can be further improved

Gonna be completely honest, one of the most appealing aspects of this game for me is the quality of life changes. There's been so much downtime in mainline Pokemon that it's been way too slow for me. Here, they fixed basically all of that. Pokemon battles start and end faster, all Pokemon earn experience on the side after battles, catching Pokemon is much faster (which is very important for a game like this), Pokemon can swap moves that they learned without talking to a specific person, and there's probably more I'm forgetting. Basically, this game saves a lot of time and that is actually a very appealing part of this game.

Maybe a spoiler… But watching jubilife fill with Pokémon and the citizens growing accustomed to them has been really neat. It’s more subtle than the main story, but really feels good to watch.

Would love a Legends series that take place at different eras & regions. Kind of like how Pokemon Generations/ Evolutions focuses on key moments. A game that takes place in Kanto during the war predating Red/Blue where you work as a research intern, cataloguing Pokemon to help the researchers in their cloning process to create an ultimate weapon to win the war. A Johto game where you work for the ancient Sprout Tower, with a story all centered around the Unown and the events of Ecruteak city, culminating in the people learning a dark truth and swearing themselves to monkhood. Unova has the long ago war started by the twin brothers, there could be a game featuring Ultra Megalopolis, the ideas write themselves. Hell, if its retreating too much ground they could tie in an anime location for the first time, taking place in Arborville or the Kingdom of Rota. There's so much potential for this as an ongoing series and I hope they really let themselves take more risks.

I gotta say I'm so glad it is challenging. My team regularly takes hard hits even from pokemon of lower level. I'm forced to swap and think on the fly. I just love this

I like that this WASN'T a huge open seamless open world. This feels very much like Monster Hunter and I think that formula lends itself very well to Pokemon!

I’ve gotten incredibly bored with mainline Pokémon. Haven’t truly loved a game since Black. But after New Snap and Legends, I can say those two are the best releases in a long time. The graphics and world of Snap! is great, and Arceus is really cool. I absolutely love the SPEED of the game. I’ve gotten very tired with pokemons slowness

About continuing this series, I'm really curious what a game in this style set in the present would be like. I hope, at the very least, they keep this sort of style when they do the gen 5 remakes. Id love to see Castelia City in its full glory.

Throwing poké balls, dodging and sneaking up on pokémon is amazing. I also adore that side quests can actually change the village

I’m with Alex. This style, but in the old gym to gym format. But I’d like a true open-world.

I think a highlight for me has been the fact that you can take things at your own pace, and there's a HUGE wealth of content to explore. Usually I find myself absolutely blasting through each new Pokémon game, but with this I'm about 45 hours in and still only on the 3rd area, which is so wild to me. Each new Pokémon - even one's I've caught, or evolved before - have been so exciting for me to see in the wild, watch how they react, see their new moves, fill out their Pokédex entry, etc. Also, I feel like I've spent so much time even with Pokémon I usually just skip over?? I've never been invested in doing much other than acquiring a team of 5 or 6 party members, but this time I've had multiple boxes full of Pokémon I've had on rotation! I also think having the world be less densely packed has made it easier for me to get into it - I've found a lot of modern open world games stifling with how much content that is packed everywhere that you can't avoid (it makes it feel like a job to me). With the long-term content here relegated mostly to isolated locations in-game - the Pokédex, the village, your boxes, etc - there's nothing in the way of just having a fun time exploring and catching or battling anything I come across. It's definitely flawed and a little messy in places, but if they tighten things up in a sequel or successor I think it would be the best entry in the series, without question. Also catching with motion controls a la Splatoon has been seriously fun for me!

I thought gathering resources was going to be such a burden, especially in previous games where it could only be a specific pokemon and the animation was so slow, in this game, I LOVE IT, I can throw out any pokemon I want to see to do anything I want, which is incredible. I hope they are secretly working on an expansion. I want to be able to mount the alpha pokemon

I just love how it respects the player's intelligence so much more than past games, it really feels like the first game in a while that wasn't trying to be baby's first Pokémon game (though it's still very accessible to new players). One of the first things I do in any game is go in the settings and change text speed to fast. In this game, text speed is set to fast by default - it immediately made me feel like it was meant for people above a 2nd grade reading level.

I wish the environments were more varied, and exploration had more substance. Some areas feel a bit…empty. This is a really good foundation for future iterations, though.

Absolutely adoring the game so far! I'm so glad it came out at a time when I can dedicate so much time to it

It’s honestly so much better than I ever expected. I was afraid the hype was undeserving but holy cow I love this game