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With its release only a few weeks away, Nintendo has dropped a new overview trailer for Pokémon Legends: Arceus. While the trailer is only in Japanese, it still gives us a good look at the world and some game mechanics, like battling, catching Pokémon, and filling out the Pokédex.

While many have assumed that this would be the first open-world Pokémon game, this trailer shows that it will work more like a Monster Hunter game, with a base camp for preparation, and a small open-ended area where missions take place. This was also confirmed in a statement to Kotaku a few months ago.

In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Jubilife Village will serve as the base for surveying missions. After receiving an assignment or a request and preparing for their next excursion, players will set out from the village to study one of the various open areas of the Hisui region. After they finish the survey work, players will need to return once more to prepare for their next task. We look forward to sharing more information about exploring the Hisui region soon.​

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Pokémon Legends: Arceus will release January 28, 2022 for the Nintendo Switch.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

Still not sold on the art style, at all.
I just hope the actual Pokémon mechanics have some depth, in a Pokémon game; @Valwinz's comment has me concerned. At the very least, this thing won't have bullshit motion-controlled catching, so it'd be better than LGPE in that regard.

I also wonder how many moves will make the cut for this, considering every previous mainline Switch game has idiotically left quite a few out. Yeah, I can't expect every move in this not-mainline game, but that makes me wonder which ones can be used; LGPE had a severe shortage of Dragon-type moves (literally just Dragon Pulse and Outrage; not even Dragon Claw or Dragon Dance).

Oh, and will party-wide EXP still be a thing in this? Hopefully they finally re-add the toggle.

 

[Valwinz]

• 
  

• Still not sold on the art style, at all.
  I just hope the actual Pokémon mechanics have some depth, in a Pokémon game; @Valwinz's comment has me concerned. At the very least, this thing won't have bullshit motion-controlled catching, so it'd be better than LGPE in that regard.
  
  I also wonder how many moves will make the cut for this, considering every previous mainline Switch game has idiotically left quite a few out. Yeah, I can't expect every move in this not-mainline game, but that makes me wonder which ones can be used; LGPE had a severe shortage of Dragon-type moves (literally just Dragon Pulse and Outrage; not even Dragon Claw or Dragon Dance).
  
  Oh, and will party-wide EXP still be a thing in this? Hopefully they finally re-add the toggle.

will party-wide EXP was confirmed on a video when the character catch a pkm the party receive XP

 

[Rikua]

For what i hear

No Eggs
No held items
No abilities
No IV

a game somehow more dumb down that lets go

Where did you hear this? Supposed data leaks? I would absolutely take that with a grain of salt if I were you. If they remove 3 out of the 4 things you listed, then there is ZERO chance that it is Pokemon Home compatible, and yet, according to Nintendo themselves "Pokémon Legends Arceus will be compatible with Pokémon HOME in 2022". I highly doubt anyone would transfer their mons to a game where everything they trained for would be for moot. No eggs? I can see it...if they decide to not include other mons that have baby versions. As for Held Items, several mons require them to evolve. No abilities is on the same track as no IVs, what's the point in training/breeding at all then? I'm not saying they are wrong...buuuuut everything points to that being incorrect.

 

[Clydefrosch]

oh god, it looks boring and if all you can do on the overworld is run too slow, do the same dodgeroll to avoid every action and throw things (possibly jump a little) then man...
like, this is is not enough to warrant this whole eating up your time with needless travel open world gimmick

 

[Noctosphere]

oh god, it looks boring and if all you can do on the overworld is run too slow, do the same dodgeroll to avoid every action and throw things (possibly jump a little) then man...
like, this is is not enough to warrant this whole eating up your time with needless travel open world gimmick

then dont buy it

 

[Esdeath]

concept would have been interesting, but it looks ugly af. Nothing there that makes me want to explore the world. It looks like after Sword / Shield, once again, they were ok with delivering the bare minimum and that only up to 50%.

They even made the first trailers in reference to Botw, if I were some of the devs that made Zelda, I would give gamefreak a slap.

Also shout out to the unsmoothed polygons at 4:23 which were there since the first trailer.

 

[subcon959]

No lie, I genuinely fell asleep halfway through that trailer

 

[Xzi]

I give this one as a prototype for better things to come.

No guarantee of that unless it sells very well. I'm sure GameFreak would instead be perfectly content to just recycle the DS chibi sprites for the rest of time.

 

[N10A]

It looks so scuffed lol
gameplay looks like it has some interesting ideas but looks really slow. I feel like that one boss character is gonna be copypasted around and you're just gonna have to dodge roll around him while throwing little satchels to whittle down his hp.
The terrain graphics are blatantly terrible.

 

[BlackZero500]

For what i hear

No Eggs
No held items
No abilities
No IV

a game somehow more dumb down that lets go

I dont think there is any Pokemon Game thats actually worse then the Lets Go Disaster. The Eggs do not really interest me if there are no IV's and im pretty glad there are no IV's because that system kinda forces me into the whole minmaxing thing which always tend to ruin my fun. No Abilitys and Items to hold though thats lame. Those were always really cool features for tactical reasons.

But still. Im very Worried about this whole Mission build gameplay. I kinda fear its gonna ruin the gameflow but i will let it surprise me. The battles at least look cool and the setting too.

 

[emilin_rose]

i'm so excited

 

[gamer765]

Also, apart me being a cynical bastard and hating on craptendo and all them games companies now... like, even if I put aside my bias and such, the game doesn't really feel anything special? Mean, if you think about it, every pokèmon game was an open world, what do you do in an rpg if not travel in a big world? Suppose it's just the matter that this plays more 3d-like than top down, dunno. shrugs

Every Pokemon game was not an open world, an open world would imply you're free to take any path to get anywhere without restrictions. This is not possible in any Pokemon game, if you want to get anywhere, you must follow the predetermined path and you'd be lucky if they gave you an option for an alternative path (which is rare except for those puzzle routes). So your statement is false, every Pokemon game has a linear progression format, everyone takes the same path to reach the end.

 

[codezer0]

I was hoping for something more involved, to be honest. The side games are about the only place where game freak can take risks with what they do with a given formula, and lord knows the core games desperately need it.

As much as I enjoyed what Gen VII tried to do, it's just going to be a hard regression from there because whiners in Japan couldn't hack it. And we know GF learned nothing from Gen 8 because idiots bout six copies for everyone and their literal dogs.

 

[Marc_LFD]

preordered the game on the eshop. I was going to preorder the physical release of the valis collection as well, being a big fan of the series, but I'm going with the eshop there too, since all of my games are digital.

At least you won't be trying to find the cartridge if it gets lost. Think they're comparable to the Vita ones, but Vita's carts were thinner.

 

[DarkCoffe64]

Every Pokemon game was not an open world, an open world would imply you're free to take any path to get anywhere without restrictions. This is not possible in any Pokemon game, if you want to get anywhere, you must follow the predetermined path and you'd be lucky if they gave you an option for an alternative path (which is rare except for those puzzle routes). So your statement is false, every Pokemon game has a linear progression format, everyone takes the same path to reach the end.

Ya still exploring a big world nonetheless? And, well, mean, every open world game is also linear if ya think about it.
If there's a narrative, then you eventually end down the same path as the others, even if you take some detours or not beforehand. If you wanna proceed with the game, you gotta get to them story beats or mission or what.
Even BotW, like, as much as you can skip directly to the end of the game after you're done with the plateau... mean, it literally becomes a straight line from start to end, skipping everything, lol?
Maybe I'm generalizing a bit too much. Still, I consider RPGs open world games, you don't, no problem in that I'd say.

Would bet you'd probably have still to do some things and go to certain places in a specific order in this game, old habits are hard to die, especially when it comes to Nintendo's stuff, eh. But who knows, until it leaks, we won't know.


Heh, just for funsies, was thinking like "How can an open world game be actually free to do wtf you want with no restrictions whatsoever" and came to the conclusion that... it would have to have no goal or story, lol. Basically if Animal Crossing had an entire world you could explore instead of just your town/village?
shrugs

 

[ertaboy356b]

preordered the game on the eshop. I was going to preorder the physical release of the valis collection as well, being a big fan of the series, but I'm going with the eshop there too, since all of my games are digital.

Valis collection? They have that physical in Japan for a while now.

 

[SilverWah]

So they are essentially copying Monster Hunter.
I mean gotta do what you need to for more cashflow innit.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

So they are essentially copying Monster Hunter.
I mean gotta do what you need to for more cashflow innit.

...Oh god Arceus no, now I'll have nightmares of loot boxes and NFTs being crammed into Pokémon games, in order to 'boost cashflow'. Shiver

 

[Ampersound]

The barren wasteland was not made with love, clearly. The UI is though, pretty stellar, especially the profile pictures of each Pokemon, love the look of them. I think I'll get this just for its UI and inventory management; that thrill of getting the best of each item class and all that is something I enjoy, and this has that feel I think.

Yeah i totally agree. Was thinking that especially the textures look pretty bad. Going back to ps2 levels or worse.
The models are alright, but they're using some weird shading definitely.
Actually a lot of modern games use weird plastic looking light shaders (many Unity games haha).

 

[Holybond]

No guarantee of that unless it sells very well. I'm sure GameFreak would instead be perfectly content to just recycle the DS chibi sprites for the rest of time.

Yeah most likely. Who would've thought that the golden age of pokemon was the sprite art. Everyone was hyped with Pokemon coliseum and how the 3D was amazing for its time.