Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a messy, worthwhile experiment

polygon.com:

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a bit of a mess — but all first drafts are.

It stumbles often on its way to innovation (it’s trying to evolve a nearly 24-year-old series, after all) and brings equal parts brilliance and frustration in its updated systems. But the good bits in Pokémon Legends: Arceus outweigh the bad, rounding out a successful first attempt at an action-centric Pokémon game.

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Legends: Arceus takes place in the Hisui region — an ancient version of the Sinnoh continent first introduced in Pokémon Generation 4, Diamond and Pearl — and I play as a young trainer with skills far beyond my age. My goal is to complete the first ever Pokédex and “catch them all.” It’s a familiar concept for a Pokémon game, albeit in a feudal Japan-inspired setting, but Pokémon Legends: Arceus does away with some of the series’ staples. There are no trainers waiting to lock eyes with me on the road, and random Pokémon don’t challenge me to battle if I step in tall grass.

I do, however, still spend my time hunting around various biomes, looking to catch and battle a wide variety of wild Pokémon. And that’s where Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ biggest strength lies: It seems to know just how tedious the Pokémon series can be, so it offers a transformative take on battling and capturing Pokémon, the historically slowest, yet most important features in the series.

Hisui functions as a semi-open