Pokémon Legends Arceus Does NOT Get Enough Credit

Pokemon Legends Arceus was a great game phenomenal not really Flawless far from it and it certainly didn't reinvent the wheel but what it did manage to do is something that I don't think receives nearly enough credit I recently played and beat the game after an entire year and some change since its release date and I honestly really enjoyed the experience however within that time frame I purposely strayed away from others reviews of the game and whatnot just to avoid spoilers and to get the feel of this installment for his hand having appreciated the game as much as I a long time Pokemon fan did after seeing game freak reuse the same formula for years on end I expected to see a lot more praise for what it did on the contrary though a majority of its Praises almost felt like they were being gate kept solely on account of the fact that it didn't do enough and don't get me wrong I hardly ever defend the franchise tooth and nail just because I'm a fan and I always try to recognize flaws and faults because that's where Improvement stems from after all while yes I do agree that it could have been better I don't think it was fair for people to treat this game as a type that the developers had extensive levels of experience a sentiment that a lot of people seem to share about this game is how game freak's lack of experience was hardly a good reason for not putting more effort into it but it's important to consider that no amount of effort would have compensated for lack of experience and knowledge in this case if the game seems like a prototype then well that's because it pretty much is which isn't necessarily A Bad Thing assuming that they continue to develop this formula with future games it's only natural that they'll refine it even more but it's pretty outlandish to have expected this game to be on the level of some other AAA titles when it's really their first time doing this on such an expansive scale this was something way different than anything game freak has cooked up in the last couple decades so it was clear that it wasn't going to be some incredible open world game on par with things like God of War Ragnarok or Elden ring sure as a game overall it isn't even in the same Stratosphere as games like those but as a Nintendo game and as a Pokemon game it was a great step in a new and refreshing Direction what game freak delivered with Pokemon Legends Arceus was an experience unlike any other in their line of Pokemon games and exactly what so many of us have won from this series for a long time which was to just go out in the world of Pokemon interact with and catch them and to better immerse ourselves into the world even with their lack of experience you can very easily see the effort placed into making this game one of the greatest in the series today whether we're talking about tweaks made to the battle system in an attempt to make the turn-based aspect of the gameplay more unique and dependent on different factors such as the strength of your opponent how you engage them your choice of using strong or agile moves and even the amount of Pokemon you face at a given moment or things like the colorful cast of characters the attention capturing World design the interesting narrative new fun features like crafting researching and material collection Etc it's all just so fun about a year ago I did a review of Pokemon brilliant diamond and Shining Pearl and my thoughts on that are probably exactly what most people would think if they played The Originals which was that they were bad to say the least after refining the rough edges of The Originals with Platinum these new remix were definitely a downgrade and could have taken the page out of platinum's book The reason I bring this up is because in that video I made a point of how I was still able to enjoy the game regardless of its faults by just turning my mind off and not paying attention to its problems but that's not the case with Arceus I've never felt like I had to completely acknowledge problems to enjoy it rather I was able to accept them and still enjoy the game when it came to the Diamond and Pearl remakes I was able to enjoy them but I absolutely wouldn't have been able to without blatantly ignoring the fact that all the remix for each generation always sought to improve upon the original versions and how that was nowhere to be seen with the MP there were times that you could tell that it wasn't even optimized for playing on the switch because in pre-updated versions of the game you could just skip entire gym leader puzzles if you just use the analog stick to walk diagonally even with all that I wasn't able to be upset at game freak because I learned that they didn't actually even take part in the game at all instead it was passed off to Studio ILCA but honestly it still should have been an easy layup with the fact that the DMP remix wouldn't have been anything different from what game freak had already been doing for the last couple years minus a couple tweaks to make it a little better but Arceus on the other hand was none of that and as a new formula it actually turned out pretty well even without the devs having a prior experience in games like these I find that it really doesn't receive enough credit and that others are a little too harsh on it now you might be asking where exactly I've been seeing these over-the-top criticisms I'm talking about and honestly I can name many different people I've heard these complaints from but one that sticks out to me by far is one of my favorite YouTubers Charlie or penguin zero or however you like to say his name now I love Charlie and he's probably my top 10 creators on this platform but on occasion he drops an opinion or two that I really don't agree with like his thoughts on bleach but we're not going to get into that now and some of his opinions on Legends RCS are a few examples of this his first complaint is how the open world is very Barren in an empty lifeless husk or in his own words a Pokemon world that seems like it just experienced three nuclear Winters now I do agree with it being pretty empty for its size after all there are multiple vast areas of the game which don't do much in the way of landmarks or unique portions of the map the most you'll get is a few camps and NPCs spread thinly across the land and a singular Clan settlement depending on which area you visit but to call it lifeless is a little bit of an exaggeration in my opinion considering the many tasks there are to do around the region that keep you well occupied these can be anything from collecting materials to researching Pokemon which he also takes a problem with but we'll get into that in a second going out on quests finding and battling the newly introduced Alpha Pokemon investigating regular Pokemon outbreaks massive mass outbreaks and space-time distortions the classic shiny hunting which was made far easier for anyone to get into and the list goes on he also says that you can only see like three Pokemon at a time because of the horrible draw distance or something but that's blatant misinfo because I play this on my switch light you know that's solely handheld less powerful version of the switch and multiple times have I gotten jumped by groups of Pokemon that were a little bigger than three to say the least not to mention his statement is a direct contradiction to the mass outbreak feature which literally spawns a Million Pokemon all around you he then goes after its art Direction saying that the game just doesn't look good which is also something that I can't completely agree with to a degree I see his point with things like the water the lava the rocks and certain textures but he completely ignores some parts that look pretty great like some kinds of foliage and trees the sky the fire collectible materials that they really could have just recolored and reused the shading of a lot of the different Pokemon and even things like the character design which is especially cool looking for the main characters and of course the countless outfits and hairstyles that you can mix and match with your own character they even go out of their way to make history invariants of the already existing Pokemon giving them dramatically different looks some of which he also doesn't like for example the history and Typhlosion which I can never forgive him for calling goofy looking like come on look at this at least it doesn't look angry 24 7 like the regular version and the wavy lean Flames come on now you can't convince me that they miss with stone and Typhlosion I even recall him on stream at some point saying that this game looked about the same as Pokemon Guild of darkness which yeah you get the point he over exaggerates how similar each area looks saying that they're all the same just with snow scattered and different water placement which is another sort of disingenuous claim each area has its own individualistic theme with the fill lands being a more open area with planes the meyerlands being more swamp and Forest like the coastlands having way more water than any other location basically leading out to sea the highlands being a more rugged terrain and the Iceland is basically being Alaska with them all leaning towards a certain color Hue to match the area better this is further backed up by how some of the mounts you can ride in the game generally work better for a traversing respective areas due to their geography with some regions being far more mountainous or filled with water than others continuing on he says that he absolutely hated the research system because of how there were specific things that need to be done for different Pokemon in order to complete their research tasks which ultimately made the process basic not fun and a chore to him I really don't know what else they could have done to make this better in his opinion though as it's pretty clear that the reason they chose to make the task so different between Pokemon is to emphasize that not all Pokemon are the same and to give us some variety with what we're doing he made it sound as if he would have enjoyed it way more if all he had to do was just catch and battle Pokemon to complete their research but I'm absolutely positive that it would have only led him and many others from thinking it was a chore to thinking it was repetitive which clearly doesn't solve the problem it creates sort of a discrepancy simply because he wants more from the game not less but this would pretty obviously mean that there would be less to do in the game if game freak took this route I don't know personally I thought the research system was fine but I guess I can see it not being Dynamic enough for others to an extent lastly the final take that I really couldn't see myself agreeing with him on is his thoughts on the story which is another big one he pretty much said that he thought it was completely terrible with no redeeming qualities whatsoever which is a huge exaggeration in my opinion he continues saying that it was outright incoherent and that by the end of the story he was feeling very confused at everything that had happened now I don't agree with this for multiple reasons but for starters immediately after his talk about the story being something that felt like it was written by a four-year-old and how nonsensical it was he says that it was clearly a story meant for children now this is a little contradictory because why would the devs make a story that was for children insanely hard to follow I'd understand a little more of his point was that a story this bad is something only children would like but it wasn't it was that this story was incoherent and confusing and obviously yes a story can be bad because of those things but all the same it doesn't need those things to be bad and can instead just have a weak narrative either way though I really don't understand his point here because I was able to follow it just fine as a story while I didn't think it was anything groundbreaking and pretty simple it was actually pretty good and different from what we typically get due to having such a different Foundation from the other games the gist of the whole thing is that you're somehow sent across time and space finding yourself in an older version of the Sinnoh region from Gen 4 now called Hisui after falling from a mysterious real shift in the skies above Mount Coronet to regain Consciousness as a man named Professor lavington stumbles upon you after three of his Pokemon run loose you proceed to help him recollect his lost Pokemon after which lavington and yourself make a deal to assist each other in your goals of completing the first Pokedex and investigating the anomaly that is your existence in this world and the rift which you came from you go on a series of missions and Adventures to prove your worth and trustworthiness to the Galaxy team and Jubilee Village which inevitably leads you to new encounters events and phenomena all this leads you to learning more about everything there is to know about the story now maybe I'm just crazy but that doesn't seem too hard to follow to me I even dare say that it can be pretty nuanced sometimes both in the main story and the side quests and I like how it gives us a look at the darker side of the Pokemon world a lot of emphasis is placed on how this is a world in which we don't yet know all there is to know about these creatures and it's a harsh environment where one should remain wary if they value their life countless times the players told that if they can't pull their way as a member of the Galaxy team survey corps that they'll be left for dead out in the wild it's not afraid to touch on those darker topics as opposed to many of the other games and I really appreciate that he says he at least appreciates it doing something different from the usual battling Gym Leaders the Elite Four and becoming Champion but that's also ignoring subplots that exist in the other games that entail things like the different teams and the lore of the legendaries there are also some extra points he makes about cutscenes and voice acting which I do agree with but overall I do think he could have been a little more lenient in his criticisms and this isn't just Charlie I've seen a lot of people give these exact same takes and it just feels misrepresentative of what the game actually is once again I can't stress enough that it isn't a perfect game and that this isn't just me being a fanboy because trust me if it was you would be able to tell I wouldn't have even dared giving this game the slightest bit of slack it's just actually not all there but nevertheless we can't let that stand as a reason to not give credit where it's rightfully due for everything it did right and for becoming a Pokemon game the likes of which we've never before experienced for becoming a game called Pokemon Legends Arceus and with that thank you guys so much for watching as per usual it means the world to me and I'm glad to always have any level of support on these videos that I make just rambling about whatever if you enjoyed or have a different point of view feel free to let me know down in the comments as I'm always down for discussion and love replying to you guys also check out the Twitter because that's where I'm most active and maybe even my twitch because I do plan on streaming more alternating between there and right here on YouTube I'm planning on getting a little more active in the near future so stay tuned for that but as always this has been tenta stay easy guys [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: TensaShinra

Views: 9,623

Keywords: Anime, Manga, Pokemon, Legends Arceus, Arceus, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Pokemon Game, Pokemon Games, Games

Id: OF8E5RCKqGY

Length: 13min 9sec (789 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023