SPOILERS! Legends: Arceus Playthrough Discussion

[Eriorguez]

I'm not very keen on regional formes for stuff that has been shown to be native to Sinnoh; while Growlithe and Voltorb make sense (one is a domesticated animal with breeds, like Meowth; while the other is based on tech and this one reflects ancient tech), last time I evolved a Quilava next to Lake Valor it didn't gain a Ghost typing; personally I think a Kalos starter would had worked better than a Johto one.

Same with Hisuian Qwilfish and specially Sneasel (which is more common in Sinnoh than in Johto, and Weavile was one of the faces of gen IV); Overqwil would have worked just fine evolving from regular Qwilfish, and Sneasler evolving from regular Sneasel (and being, say, Ice/Poison to not step on Toxicroak's toes) would had been IMO better choices. There is even precedent for that approach with Wyrdeer and Kleavor.

(Also Ursaluna would work better as Mega Ursaring, and Wyrdeer may had been better as Mega Stantler, or as anything that didn't make it lose speed just because).


On the other hand, I absolutely love being able to catch mythicals with sidequests once again. I'm tired of having to go grab stuff on Cherish Balls in the Pokemon Center.

 

[Bakugames]

Also Ursaluna would work better as Mega Ursaring, and Wyrdeer may had been better as Mega Stantler, or as anything that didn't make it lose speed just because).

1. Megas can lose speed
2. Direct evolutions are objectively better for the line than megas. They both could evolve, so its good that they did than mega evolve

 

[Eriorguez]

A Mega would be a 100 BST boost rather than a 50 BST boost. And giving an evolution to something that is pretty much Normal Machamp is not objectively better. Evolve Parasect before something like Ursaring, Rhydon or Porygon2.

 

[R_N]

a mega is also temporary and has to be used in place of a different mega.
I will always take Ursaluna over Mega Ursaring every single day of the week.

 

[Worldie]

Plus, megas are always at risk of being discontinued. Evolutions are permanent.
(Outside of BDSP and Let's Go which decided to not include any pokemon past the pokedex limit of that gen.. and Melmetal, I guess, every game where a pokemon has shown in also had all of its evolutions, crossgen or not)

 

[Eriorguez]

So, evolutions are also at risk of being discontinued as well.


I will take Megas for stuff over 450 BST, and regular evolutions for stuff below that, with exceptions such as Beedrill and Medicham. To each their own I guess, but, frankly, Rhydon, Porygon2 and Ursaring IMO have no business being NFE, while Mawile and Sableye IMO have no business taking a mega slot and being highly optimized to do so, ending in Ubers with Raichu stats.

 

[R_N]

Plus, megas are always at risk of being discontinued. Evolutions are permanent.
(Outside of BDSP and Let's Go which decided to not include any pokemon past the pokedex limit of that gen.. and Melmetal, I guess, every game where a pokemon has shown in also had all of its evolutions, crossgen or not)

The other issue being shown in Legends Arceus, where we didn't get access to regional versions (beyond vulpix & sneasel) and so we don't get Mr Rime. And I suspect the only reason we got Weavile is because it's a gen 4 Pokemon and you kind of need that in your big gen 4 throw back. & i'm not convinced we'll see Wydeer, Ursaluna or Kleavor as "normal" moving forward, but that's a discussion for a different day.


Despite that specific brand of annoyance, I will still take Ursaluna and even Obstagoon over Mega Ursaring and Mega Linoone.

 

[CPU]

Essentially having a "free camera" during battles is a nice change, even if the game naturally forces you into a mockup of the standard "backsprite/frontsprite" position. Even in future mainline titles, it would be nice to have a free camera.

 

[Eriorguez]

Remember that Steelix is the largest species seen in this game (numerically; I'd say the Origin formes take up more space). Wailord is 1.5 times longer than Steelix, far wider and taller, and cannot curl up. And Eternatus is twice as long as Steelix, and, due to being serpentine as well, by square-cube law we can see it takes up as much space as 8 Steelix.

 

[Kurona]

And I suspect the only reason we got Weavile is because it's a gen 4 Pokemon and you kind of need that in your big gen 4 throw back.

I suppose it's worth noting on that point that we did get all 107 Pokémon introduced by Generation 4 in the game; all in their original forms too (even Sneasel). I almost want to say this is the true Sinnoh 'celebration' return game since BDSP stuck so close to the original and didn't introduce anything new or expand upon anything, which is pretty typical of remakes -- meanwhile this game gave us new forms for the legendaries, new pseudo-signature moves for the starters, a new storyline about the region...

 

[R_N]

I suppose it's worth noting on that point that we did get all 107 Pokémon introduced by Generation 4 in the game; all in their original forms too (even Sneasel). I almost want to say this is the true Sinnoh 'celebration' return game since BDSP stuck so close to the original and didn't introduce anything new or expand upon anything, which is pretty typical of remakes -- meanwhile this game gave us new forms for the legendaries, new pseudo-signature moves for the starters, a new storyline about the region...

on the other hand literally everything about the game is different so I think LA was concieved as a starting poitn since they also wanted to do something different and Sinnoh let itself be, then BDSP as a more traditional game was greenlit alongside it to have their cake and eat it too.

 

[Kurona]

on the other hand literally everything about the game is different so I think LA was concieved as a starting poitn since they also wanted to do something different and Sinnoh let itself be, then BDSP as a more traditional game was greenlit alongside it to have their cake and eat it too.

Yeah, I just mean that all the usual 'new' things a remake would give about the region and its Pokémon are in LA while BDSP is very straight-laced. It's obviously not directly comparable but I do find it interesting

 

[Goodra]

First shiny I caught and what a combo haha

 

[Steel With It]

Remember that Steelix is the largest species seen in this game (numerically; I'd say the Origin formes take up more space). Wailord is 1.5 times longer than Steelix, far wider and taller, and cannot curl up. And Eternatus is twice as long as Steelix, and, due to being serpentine as well, by square-cube law we can see it takes up as much space as 8 Steelix.

On which note... Has anybody else noticed that Steelix and Onix (or at least wild ones, they seem okay in battle) are rigged wrong? They keep twitching and spasming like their heads are connected to their tails, and I think it's because their heads are literally connected to their tails. =P

 

[Rarycaris]

The thing that gets me about all the crafting items is it really highlights how mismanaged the inventory space mechanic is in this game. The fact there are so many different variants of essentially the same cake item for different strengths, and different cakes for different types... but realistically there is no need to engage with any of it, it doesn't help with most of the things that are annoying to catch, it's not obvious when it will work at all, and generally the items just end up clogging your inventory and stop you using the space for items that are more generally useful. (On which note, would it kill them to have discarded items appear on the ground like they do in BOTW?)

The optimal option is basically always to carry balls, healing potions and the items necessary to craft them, and just gather materials to use later for specific missions. It mostly serves to further limit what is already difficult to use content; any time I tried carrying anything else, it just got thrown away to make space for xp candies or something, or used in a situation where it ended up having no effect.

It also annoys me that wood is almost useless except for crafting vendor trash and one late game quest that basically asks for it as a joke, and is ridiculously hard to get despite trees being abundant.

 

[R_N]

On which note... Has anybody else noticed that Steelix and Onix (or at least wild ones, they seem okay in battle) are rigged wrong? They keep twitching and spasming like their heads are connected to their tails, and I think it's because their heads are literally connected to their tails. =P

Yeah I noticed that a LOT with Onix, which is funny considering Onix has been in the past 3 games, complete with intro animation, and not had this problem. I'm guessing something got set wrong when they were tweaking the animation since it also plays with the agile/strong.

I thik Barboach also has something wrong with its rig, it flips upside down when it does an agile or strong move, though it otherwise never does this even during attacks.

The thing that gets me about all the crafting items is it really highlights how mismanaged the inventory space mechanic is in this game. The fact there are so many different variants of essentially the same cake item for different strengths, and different cakes for different types... but realistically there is no need to engage with any of it, it doesn't help with most of the things that are annoying to catch, it's not obvious when it will work at all, and generally the items just end up clogging your inventory and stop you using the space for items that are more generally useful. (On which note, would it kill them to have discarded items appear on the ground like they do in BOTW?)

The optimal option is basically always to carry balls, healing potions and the items necessary to craft them, and just gather materials to use later for specific missions. It mostly serves to further limit what is already difficult to use content; any time I tried carrying anything else, it just got thrown away to make space for xp candies or something, or used in a situation where it ended up having no effect.

It also annoys me that wood is almost useless except for crafting vendor trash and one late game quest that basically asks for it as a joke, and is ridiculously hard to get despite trees being abundant.

Yeah it's so weird there's this whole system that no doubt took a long time to iron out for each pokemon and its just like
use an oran berry. Or any berry, berries aren't "special" so literally every single pokemon likes them and you get so many of them that you can pretty freely just throw them around. Did they take too long to nocie & get over there? Just...throw another one, you have a ton of them.
And the berries seem to have more effects, too. I mean I didn't mess with those either because Orans were in so much more abundance, but...


ALSO
it is insane to me that Teddiursa & Ursaring don't like the honeycomb. It's a specific type of food item and it was liek the one thing I tried to intuit like, aha, they are bears, teddiursa in particular literally had honey gather, and their dex entries can't stop talking about how much they love honey! Ergo, honey comb. And no they do not like it, it is a specifically marked (or unamrked, rather; the icon is blank) so you know what i did do thats right I THREW BERRIES

 

[Vengeance417]

Trying to find a Combee on Ramanas Island for a quest, got a Shiny Full Odds (1/4096) Chimchar instead! Apparently, he's a comedian.

 

[R_N]

Every step in this game I am constantly stepping on rakes. I've been slowly goign through and getting the dex entries, down to the last 31, and i see that Magby & Elekid are, of course, rare encounters and do, of course, require more captures.
If I were to do this game again I would have a giant sticky note that is just: GIVE BERRIES TO EVERY SINGLE BABY YOU SEE

Since a living dex is just...so up to RNG as it is, since I need 1 rowlet, 2 oshawott, 1 cranidos & a cherubi as it is I can just give up THAT nonsense and jsut evolve the pari but that STILL requires 25 uses of their respective moves. It's so awful. I'll just shove them towards the end of this endeavor, i plan to spend some extra time in the icelands so we'll see how the oshawotts and elekids pan out.

 

[Nokocchi]

Apparently trading a Pokemon back and forth makes you count as catching more of them, so the easiest way to increase a catch number on a rare spawn without having to actually look for more than one is trade it back and forth the number of times you need to reach the max for that dex entry. Unfortunately there is no similar way to cheese defeat/feed tasks

 

[Samtendo09]

*sighs bitterly at my shiny male combee*

can they please introduce a male combee evolution and, this is the important part, dont make it regional.

That makes male Combee and Salandit effectively single-staged, and very weak ones at that. The male-female ratio rate (majorly male) is not helping at all either.

Since cross-gen evos came back as a concept, it’s not out-of-question of the males getting a new evolution, though likely slightly less good or slightly more difficult to evolve to balance how easily obtainable they are compared to females.

 

[R_N]

Apparently trading a Pokemon back and forth makes you count as catching more of them, so the easiest way to increase a catch number on a rare spawn without having to actually look for more than one is trade it back and forth the number of times you need to reach the max for that dex entry. Unfortunately there is no similar way to cheese defeat/feed tasks

so I roped a friend into trying this and while trying to set it up I have learned that this is the WORST POSSIBLE TRADING EXPERIENCE I'VE EVER DONE
you have one entire minute to connect before it forcibly closes and you have to put the link code in again

how on EARTH have they managed to make this worse with each passing game.

 

[Nokocchi]

so I roped a friend into trying this and while trying to set it up I have learned that this is the WORST POSSIBLE TRADING EXPERIENCE I'VE EVER DONE
you have one entire minute to connect before it forcibly closes and you have to put the link code in again

how on EARTH have they managed to make this worse with each passing game.

I wouldn't know about that part, since I just used 2 Switches sitting right next to each other, one with my copy and the other with my wife's copy

 

[R_N]

I wouldn't know about that part, since I just used 2 Switches sitting right next to each other, one with my copy and the other with my wife's copy

You've avoided true hell

 

[MrHands]

ALSO
it is insane to me that Teddiursa & Ursaring don't like the honeycomb. It's a specific type of food item and it was liek the one thing I tried to intuit like, aha, they are bears, teddiursa in particular literally had honey gather, and their dex entries can't stop talking about how much they love honey! Ergo, honey comb. And no they do not like it, it is a specifically marked (or unamrked, rather; the icon is blank) so you know what i did do thats right I THREW BERRIES

RIGHT? I threw a honeycomb at a group of Teddiursa and walked in, completely confident I was about to win their hearts. The little bastards just turned around and started mauling me. WHY.

 

[Worldie]

RIGHT? I threw a honeycomb at a group of Teddiursa and walked in, completely confident I was about to win their hearts. The little bastards just turned around and started mauling me. WHY.

I read this after reading the shiny combee complaint and my brain read this as "I threw a Combee at a group of Teddiursa" and figured you had suddently became a poke-murder