Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the future of the series

digitaltrends.com:

Is Pokémon Legends: Arceus a mainline Pokémon game? Since the ambitious Nintendo Switch game’s reveal in February 2021, this has been a highly contested question.

On the one hand, it’s radically different from how older Pokémon games are structured and played. On the other, it’s the most innovative and refreshing Pokémon game in years. Game Freak and the Pokémon community need to decide whether it’s a glorified spin-off that tests new ideas or the next step for the series’ future.

After spending several days heads-down in playing Pokémon Legends: Arceus, it’s clear that it’s both. Game Freak has lots of room to grow and expand Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ mechanics. With several regions and a series worth of dense lore to explore, it’d be a shame if the experiment stopped here. Game Freak is only getting started.

I play and enjoy Pokémon games every year, but even I can admit that the series had standardized by the late 2000s. Since then, the series has toyed with game-exclusive gimmicks, with Pokémon Sun and Moon’s trials being the most different from the norm.

Still, Game Freak never fully committed to abandoning the series’ traditional turn-based setup until now. Pokémon Legends: Arceus features no gyms, towns interconnected by routes, Pokémon abilities, multiplayer, or Pokémon League. Players are instead thrust into an ancient Sinnoh where a lot of that doesn’t exist yet. It plays with the concepts and power of godlike legendary Pokémon in one of the series’ best narratives, alongside Pokémon Black and White, and lets players roam free across five different open biomes, capturing and battling new and old Pokémon.

Some traditional Pokémon elements are here, but it pulls from open-world and RPG games like Monster Hunter