The newest pokemon game has been out for a couple days now. At a rather hefty price tag, players may be wondering is Pokemon Legends Arceus worth it or not. In order to help players commit to this decision, here is a breakdown of the game’s appealing qualities alongside its downsides, in hopes of helping the unclear buyers make a conclusive decision. This breakdown will analyze the game without providing any spoilers, so don’t worry about that.
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Is the game fun?
People play games for a whole bunch of different reasons, but at the end of the day, the game should be fun. But is Pokemon Legends Arceus fun?
Now, this is a bit of a loaded question. There are so many different aspects of what makes a game fun. For a lot of pokemon fans, they enjoy the turn based combat alongside the adventure of a new land. As long as there are new pokemon, these players will buy anything and everything pokemon. Then there are others who cannot get themselves to justify another buy of the same repeated formula in a pokemon game, arguing that the game has become stale due to lack of evolution.
This is easily one of the biggest criticisms to not buy a Pokemon game. Thankfully, Pokemon Legends Arceus undoubtablely changes up the pacing and traditional format of pokemon enough to satiate those looking for a fresher game experience.
How are the newer changes?
Change isn’t always good. Just because Pokemon Legends Arceus drastically shifted various gameplay elements, are these changes fun or do they feel largely forced?
As a whole, Pokemon Legends Arceus’ additions to the conventional formula directly counter many of the frequently criticized gameplay elements. Many argued that the turn by turn gameplay became too monotonous, with very little difficulty or urgency.
Legends arceus evolved the system by implementing an action based catching system alongside evolving the preexisting turn based mechanics. Therefore, the gameplay is far more engaging than before, especially with the open world format.
But not everyone likes open world games, and in addition there are already better games for an open world experience. In regards to what players can do within the open world, it’s mostly limited to crafting and catching pokemon. For players who absolutely love looking for new pokemon to catch, this will appeal to them.
On the other hand, for those hoping to get a bigger feeling of exploration and creative adventuring, Pokemon Legends Arceus falls a little short. Environments are rather simple, and interactable elements are pretty limited. It’s still a step up from the typical main line pokemon game, but it definitely doens’t stand up when compared to other switch open world counterparts like Breath of the Wild.
Is there competitive play?
PvP in pokemon games is a pretty big factor for some players. There’s a competitive scene revolving around the turn based strategy battles. And playing center in those battles is breeding, IV/EV training, and held item analysis.
Unfortunately, Pokemon Legends Arceus does not support PvP. In other words, it has little to no competitive merit. IV and EV training have been removed, replaced with effort value. And breeding alongside held items became a thing of the past, or future in this case.
For players who value the competitive side of pokemon, this game may not be for you. But for those looking for a nice casual play, Pokemon Legends Arceus vastly simplifies the tedious processes of pokemon games. To be honest, spending hours if not days attempting to breed the right nature in a pokemon isn’t very fun. And neither is finding the right pokemon to fight to maximize EVs.
By replacing these factors, Legends Arceus is far more friendly for those who hated those systems.
Graphics
The game looks pretty good overall. A lot of gamers judge a game by its graphics. If the game doesn’t show state of the art, cutting edge visuals, then they pass on the game.
When evaluating Pokemon Legends Arceus, its hard to say if the game has good graphics. The environments lose textures and the background pokemon move like slide shows. But the open world 3d is a vast improvement from its predecessors. So when comparing Legends Arceus to other pokemon games, then 100% the game’s graphics look good. And especially considering the game is on the Nintendo Switch, the visuals are perfectly fine.
But once again, there are still many games with more amazing visuals. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 handles background textures and renderings far better. Mario Odyssey looks many times better, with amazing details and depth of view.
In other words, for a pokemon game, the graphics are amazing. But for a flagship entry for the Nintendo Switch, the graphics are just okay. It really depends on what standards the player judges the game on.
In Conclusion
Pokemon Legends Arceus is huge for the overall progress for pokemon games. For those who are even remotely interested in keeping up with pokemon as a franchise, it’s a must buy. Taking part in the conversation of the evolution of pokemon games is going to be a historic moment in the progress of gaming. But for those who aren’t that interested in Pokemon, it’ll very much depend on the factors mentioned throughout this article. There is a lot of hype around the game right now, so it’s easy to buy into it without thinking mcuh about it.
The price is a steep $59.99 plus tax, and will likely never go on sale for at least the next 5 years. So, hopefully for the players wondering ‘Is Pokemon Legends Arceus worth it,’ this article provided some necessary elements to commit to a decision.
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