Pokemon Legends: Arceus Makes Pokemon The Characters For Once

thegamer.com:

Pokemon Legends: Arceus has taken the world by storm, with players of all ages jumping into their own Pokemon stories with all the vigour of a ten-year-old choosing their very first starter. Most are drawn to the open world environments and interactive Pokemon going about their lives in the overworld, but there’s more to Legends: Arceus than just a Sinnohfied Breath of the Wild.

There’s a lot of waffle in the game, I’ll grant you that. The story does enough to keep you interested, but it would be much more interesting - not to mention more streamlined - if the Professor and countless side characters stopped yapping for a minute to let the game actually unfold. But among this waffle, there are times when smaller stories really shine, and that’s when they make the Pokemon the characters.

Related: We Don’t Need Let’s Go Johto, We Need Pokemon Legends: Celebi

The best example of this is during The Lordless Island quest - consider this your spoiler warning if you haven’t reached this point of the game yet. Those of you that have reached this point will know exactly what I’m going to talk about, and it’s a very small Hisuian Growlithe.

During the quest, you learn that a small Growlithe’s father, the previous Lord of Firespit Island and the Cobalt Coastlands, died while saving a Pokemon from drowning in the sea. The fact that this Arcanine, which is four times weak to water, jumped into an ocean to save another Pokemon is impressive in itself and tells you a lot about the monster’s character.

However, this selfless act left its child with severe emotional trauma - and who can blame it? The poor little thing watched its father die. Some trainers tried to force it to evolve and take its father’s place, but its warden Palina stood