SPOILERS! Legends: Arceus Playthrough Discussion

I have beaten the game. Time to summarize my thoughts on it.

I started playing on February 3rd. I then beat the first part of the game on February 19th, and the second part on March 7th. It took me around 74 hours of playtime.

I was initially planning to do a big post because there is a lot I want to say about the game. I started writing on such a post, but after a while, I lost motivation because it just felt so pointless. It was about to become a big waste on time and I felt that I’d rather spend that time on doing more enjoyable things. So I scrapped it and wrote this instead: a shorter post focusing on the most important things I want to say about the game.

During the pre-release period for the game, I was unsure about whether I should get it or not. The game had many things I was looking forward to, but also many things that made me worried. I decided to not get the game on the release date, but after looking into the leaks for the new Pokémon/forms, some videos showing actual gameplay, and hearing positive words from other Pokémon fans, I decided to get it. I started playing it almost a week after the release date.

I was not expecting the game to be a flawless masterpiece. Nor was I expecting an unplayable piece of garbage. I thought it would be a fun and enjoyable game, but with some flaws. And that’s exactly what I got.

I said this back when it was revealed, but I’ll say it again: I think the cover art for the game is the best in the main series so far. It really gives me a feeling of adventure, which the covers for the other main series games don’t. Looking back now, the cover arts for the older main series games are all really boring compared to the cover for L:A. While some of them are cool, just having the main legendary on the cover is pretty boring in comparison to what L:A does.

I decided to do a comparison between the cover arts for all the Switch games I have physical copies of:



Sword is clearly the most boring, while L:A is really good and up there with the others.

Overall, I dig the cover art and I hope they will continue with more cover arts like this for future main series games.

I have seen a lot of complaints about the graphics, but personally, I don’t have a problem with them. If anything, I think the game is actually pretty good when it comes to the graphics. Most areas look pretty and I love the Pokémon models as always. It is far from the most graphically impressive game I have played on the Switch, the console is definitely capable of doing better. But while I have many problems with the game, the graphics is not one of them. I think it is worth mentioning once again that graphics, and especially 3D graphics, has never been Game Freaks strongest suit.

I like the music in the game for the most part. There are several nice remixes/remakes of various tracks from D/P/P, as well as some tracks that are either completely new or new versions of old tracks that I don’t recognize. It also seems like the game features music from some other games, I have heard something that sounds similar to Emotion from Gen 5 in certain situations, and I love it! That said, I really wish there were music everywhere instead of only in some areas/situations. Far too often, the game is quiet without any music and I don’t like that.

I really like the new Pokémon and forms. They were all really weird when I first saw them, but I have gotten used to them now… or most of them. The origin forms for Dialga/Palkia are still extremely weird. It will probably take some more time before I get used to them.

I like how they gave some spotlight to unloved/forgotten Pokémon, such as Qwilfish, Basculin, Stantler and Avalugg. But at the same time, they also gave some attention to some more popular and fan-favorite Pokémon such as Goodra, Sneasel, Braviary, Zoroark, Scyther and Arcanine. So that’s really cool.

As for my personal favorite out of the new Pokémon and forms… I’m going with Enamorus. I have absolutely no idea why they decided to create a fourth member of the Forces of Nature, one that is a Female Fairy-type which follows the pattern of having an Incarnate and Therian form like the others. But no matter the reasons, I am a big fan. It is easily my new favorite Pokémon introduced in L:A, and one of my top favorites on the whole as well.

I thought the story and characters was fine. The large amount of dialogue in the beginning did not bother me. If anything, I am glad that they thoroughly explained everything regarding the game mechanics and features. The overall story was pretty good even if some things could have been handled better. At the end of part 1, I picked the Pearl clan because Pearl was my first Sinnoh game, I like it better than Diamond, I like Palkia better than Dialga, and during the course of this game, I grew to like Irida better than Adaman.

I really like how Ingo is in the game. I have no idea why they chose him of all possible characters to bring “back”, but I’m glad they did. As for Volo, I had gotten spoiled on him being the antagonist, so no surprise there. However, I think that if I hadn’t been spoiled, I would probably have been very surprised about the fact that he is the antagonist. There was very little pointing towards that during the game, I don’t think I would have seen it coming. Speaking of which, I like is how the ancestor to Cyrus is one of your allies here, while the ancestor to Cynthia is the antagonist. That was a fun twist compared to the modern Sinnoh games.

I really miss voice acting in the game. It just feels so empty without it, especially since most other Switch games I have played feature voice acting in some way. They don’t need to go the Three Houses route and have voice acting for literally everything, but it should be in all major cutscenes at least. Minor words from NPCs when you speak to them would be neat as well. Getting rid of the "silent protagonist" archetype would be great as well, it feels like they must do that sooner or later if they are going to make more story-heavy games in the future.

There’s a lot I like about the game mechanics and features. I posted many of the things I like here, but I want to repeat some of them in this post. The thing I like the very most if how you can nickname your Pokémon directly on the party screen. It is one of the things I have wanted to see for many generations and it is one of the main reasons I actually nicknamed my team members in this game. I really hope this will be kept for all future games, it would be a huge step back if it was dropped and the idiotic “Name Rater” got his job back. He should keep looking for a new job.

I also love the regional layout/design. Some people might consider it to be too open, others might think it is too linear, but personally, I think it is perfect. It is “linear open world”, as I call it. It is just what I wanted from Pokémon, you have a clear objective of where to go, with a functional level curve and story, but you also have large optional areas to explore if you want to. I really hope this becomes the new standard for future Pokémon games. I loved exploring the different areas in the game, it was really fun for the most part.

That said, exploring the world didn’t feel all that revolutionary after playing Sword which did a similar thing with its wild areas, the DLC areas in particular felt like sort of precursors to L:A (both when it comes to the good and the bad). I have seen some complaints about the world in L:A feeling empty, but I disagree. There’s always something to discover behind every corner, be it Pokémon or items. In fact, I almost wish it was emptier at times, giving me more chances to stop and relax on more occasions.

Hunting down all of the Unown letters was really fun, the Spiritomb Wisps was not quite as fun though. In the end, I used an external map to get all the Wisps I was missing. It was still okay though.

The ride Pokémon were good for the most part. I think there’s room for improvement, but I liked them on the whole. It was really fun when I got a new ride Pokémon and it opened up many new areas for exploration.

The game is a bit weird in terms of difficulty. I didn’t find it hard, but not exactly easy either. Nor would I say it was balanced. So on a difficulty scale from 1 to 10, I’d rank it as weird. The levels of wild Pokémon sometimes fooled me a bit as well. When I was at Coronet Highlands, I did at one point get into an optional area with Pokémon at higher levels than in the other areas, which made me stop and grind to reach their levels. Then I got to Electrode and it was at a lower level, making me suddenly overleveled. And despite running two teams during the main game, I was overleveled during the majority of the game. The opponents didn’t catch up to my levels until the end of the first part of the game.

Limited item storage was annoying at first, and the way you rank up is really “cheap”. Though I stopped ranking up after a while since I didn’t really need more space after a certain point, so that was still okay in the end. I also wish you could access your Pokémon boxes and item boxes from everywhere, but I guess the game would have been too broken if that had been possible.

There’s only 240 (or 242) Pokémon in the game, and I think that’s okay. It would have been nice to have all 905, but I can understand that they didn’t feature all of them. And since you have to complete the Pokédex in order to complete part 2 of the game, it would have been crazy if you had to catch 905 Pokémon first. I like how they had a pretty big focus on the Sinnoh Pokémon, that was great. That said, I find it a bit annoying how most of the new Pokémon/forms are rare or elusive. They did at least give some spotlight to most of them at various points during the story, so that was great.

Travelling between different areas wasn’t perfect. Not going through the gates directly feels a bit artificial. I also find it annoying how you can’t travel directly between the wild areas. Instead, you are forced to go back to Jubilife Village before you can go to another area. It would have been better if it had been like in BOTW where you can warp to anywhere no matter where you are, or in XC2 where you can freely travel between the different titans. I also wish there were more warp points in the wild areas, 1-2 more in each area would have been great. There should also have been more settlements in the game. Jubilife Village is the only big settlement, and then there’s the Diamond/Pearl clan settlements, both of which are very small and have little content. In comparison, both BOTW and XC2 had several big settlements, I think L:A should have had at least a few more as well.

Some of the button placements and controls are a bit weird. I think they could have been better, such as using B to run like in the regular games. And some of the buttons that you use to open the menus feel inconvenient too, I often pressed the wrong button when I wanted to open a menu. The overworld screen are also missing some vital things. It really needs a minimap, a compass, a clock and a weather indicator. It would make exploration a lot easier and much more convenient. I also think that the levels of wild Pokémon should be displayed on the overworld like in the Xenoblade games. That way, you won’t accidentally get into battles with Alphas at 30 levels higher than your party, which I did a few times.

I find it really annoying how wild Pokémon will attack you no matter the differences in level. It is ridiculous how I am still getting targeted by wild Shinx at level 3 when my party is at level 60+. There should be a limit here, like if you are at 5 or at the very least 10 levels higher than the wild Pokémon, they should ignore you (except for Alphas). Speaking of which, I dislike the aggressive wild Pokémon, they basically force you to run or fight them. And you can’t warp to another area while being targeted which isn’t very fun. The game really needs a way to turn their aggro “off”, so to say. I think the game needs better sneaking options as well, the ones you have are very limited. In many cases, the Pokémon I was trying to sneak up on would discover me before I had a chance to catch or start a battle with it.

I think the wild Pokémon can be separated into four different categories:
- Attack: Will target and attack you once they spot you
- Run: Will run away once spotted
- Attack+Run: Will first run away, then they might change their mind, turn around, and attack you
- Ignore: Carefree ones which don’t care either way, they will just ignore you unless you start a battle against them

Looking back, Attack, Run and Ignore were all in S/S as well, but they were somewhat different there. I think I prefer the way they worked in S/S.

I didn’t like the noble battles all that much. It feels like they were ripping of the boss battles from other action games like Zelda or Metroid, but the execution here is much worse. To me, they were just not fun to play. Kleavor and Lilligant were okay, but the rest were not enjoyable. The player really needs to be capable of more actions than dodge, throw and run. A better health indicator is also a must. The health indicator reminds me of the one in Mirror’s Edge, and while that’s cool, it feels unsuitable for an action RPG. Why not just have a HP bar like for the Pokémon? Being unable to heal your trainer is annoying as well. You can use Potions on your Pokémon, why not on yourself? And Charms seem mostly pointless since it felt like they never work when you needed them the most.

I am not a big fan of the changes to the battle system. Most of them feel unnecessary and “change just for the sake of changing things” rather than change with the purpose of making things better. I hate how opponents can sometimes attack before you even get to make your decision in battle. I can live with them attacking before me (that’s how it has been in the past and how it should be) or if they use Agile Style to move twice in a row, but the fact that they can sometimes move before I get to make my decision is completely unacceptable. It is without any doubt the single worst new mechanic in the game, and I think it is the worst mechanic in the entire series so far. I consider it to be a bigger issue than dexit. If this mechanic is kept in future games, then I’m definitely quitting Pokémon. Period. This mechanic removes a lot of the strategy and fun from the battles, and since that is one of my favorite things about Pokémon, I really disapprove of it.

Other than that, I think the Strong/Agile styles aren’t all that great either. I’d remove them and take them back to the drawing board. I also dislike how wild Pokémon can gang up on you and make battles up to 4v1 (or even more? I never got more than 4 at once though) since you can never send out more than one Pokémon, creating very unfair situations. This makes me wish spread moves existed in this game, so you could defeat/damage multiple opponents at once. It also seems like you can sometimes switch out your current Pokémon without losing a turn. That is kind of broken, but I am okay with it here since it gives you an advantage.

On the whole, I prefer the traditional battle system over the new one in L:A. This new one feels sort of awkwardly stuck somewhere between traditional turn-based and a real-time system, which doesn’t really work. I think they should either keep the traditional turn-based system or go all-out in the other direction (but preferably not).

Damage calculations are also odd. It is ridiculous how a Blissey can 2HKO my Palkia with Double-Edge. Many opponents also tend to survive my most powerful moves with just a sliver of HP left, which is annoying. It feels like you need to use Supereffective STAB moves everywhere in order to win.

At first, I was annoyed by how few trainer battles there were in the game. But after a while, I realized that I don’t like the trainer battles in the game. So I am happy that there are so few trainer battles. I think this might be the first Pokémon game I have played where the actual battles aren’t enjoyable. At least not trainer battles. And that’s not a good thing at all.

I wish breeding was in the game. It would have made it a lot easier to obtain certain elusive or rare Pokémon. Notably baby Pokémon since those are often rare or uncommon, and the research tasks for them are mostly focused on catching or evolving them which makes it hard to complete the research for them.

I got the DLC since it was free, and I like it. Massive Mass Outbreaks are fun and a bit crazy. Facing multiple Alpha Pokémon at once is insane, I once got into a battle with 4 Alpha Spiritomb. I managed to catch one and defeat the others, but it was scary. I also got a horde of Ursaring with a second horde of Ursaluna appearing afterwards. Wild Ursaluna, and multiple of them too! Crazy. But really cool and fun.

I have tried Path of Solitude a little and it seems okay, I have no plans to try it with all 241 Pokémon but I will try to complete it with all members of my teams at least. I kind of want to complete the ones you need for requests as well since I wanted to complete all the requests, but seeing as many of them are for weak or trollish Pokémon (Magikarp, Bidoof, Kricketot, Wurmple, etc.) I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll try some of them but I’m not sure if I will do all of them. I tried the Eternal Battle Reverie once and got to 21 wins, but maybe I’ll try it again, not sure. I haven’t tried Path of Tenacity yet but I will definitely give it a try later on.

Looking at everything I wrote above, I realize that I am negative towards a lot of things. But I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings. I liked the game despite all of the issues I have with it. There are a lot of other things I like which I haven’t posted here, but I am going to save them for a future post in the likes thread.

As said earlier, I used two in-game teams. This was because there were so many Pokémon I wanted to use and the Exp. Share is always on like in all main series games for the Switch. And yet, I still got overleveled! In addition to my two in-game teams, I made a third team for the post-game, consisting of legendary/mythical Pokémon. I decided to name my teams as well, with the names alluding to the original Sinnoh games.

Here are the teams:

1647194134306.png
Pearls of Lutra: Samurott-H / Staraptor / Luxray / Infernape / Sylveon / Roserade

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Diamonds in the Rough: Ursaluna / Yanmega / Empoleon / Goodra-H / Lilligant-H / Zoroark-H

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Platinum Stars:
Palkia / Dialga / Giratina / Enamorus / Shaymin / Arceus

But there were a lot of other Pokémon I wanted to use as well, so choosing 18 (or at least the first 12) was not easy at all.

I wanted to post the full details for the teams somewhere, but there is no thread for in-game teams for this game. Maybe someone should start one. Maybe I should even do it myself… Or maybe I’ll make another post in this thread with the full details for my teams at some later point.

I took a bunch of pictures while playing and I decided to upload and include some of them in this post as well.

The adventure begins!


Hello horses, I've come to see you again.
I am really happy about the one request that gives you a shiny Ponyta. Partly because shiny Ponyta is really cool with the blue flames, but also because Ponyta was one of the first random shinies I found, back in Crystal. Probably 20 years ago at this point. After that, I had gotten another one through RNG abuse in Gen 5, but now L:A was kind enough to give me yet one more!


Every game needs a bit of comic relief, and those three girls do it well. I just wish we had seen more of them.


Lilligant is always cute and amazing, no matter what form it has.


Just what is going on at the top of Mount Coronet?


And this is when Irida became one of my favorite characters.


How unexpected, I didn’t think Dynamax would be in the game!


During the battle against Volo. His Garchomp is strong, but I have the advantage in terms of type and level.


If I hadn’t been spoiled on Enamorus existing, this would have been an insane surprise. Easily my new favorite Pokémon introduced in the game.


At the end, about to face the final Pokémon in the game.


Daybreakin’ with my friends!


I didn’t use character customization that much at first since I really like the default designs for the characters, but then I decided to give it a try. There were a lot of cool clothes to choose from, but this ended up being the final design for my character. I realize he is a bit of a Riley rip-off, but Riley is so cool that it can’t be helped. Plus, a white hat! I have wanted my character to wear that ever since X/Y and now I finally got it! Yay!


The reward for showing gratitude. I am very thankful for the fact that you get a Shaymin for having save data for S/S. If it had been the other way around, with S/S giving you Darkrai and BD/SP giving you Shaymin, I wouldn’t have been nearly as happy. I like Darkrai, but not nearly as much as Shaymin. So I want to give my gratitude to Game Freak for making it this way.


I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get to rank 10, but I managed to do it without even trying. Right before going to Arceus, after completing the research for the 240 other Pokémon (missing Darkrai), I got it. The reward for it was really nice too.

Since people have posted pictures of their teams, I wanted to do that as well.

Pearls of Lutra:

The more balanced of my in-game teams. It features five old Pokémon I like, as well as one new form.

Diamonds in the Rough:

Not as balanced as the previous team, it doesn’t feature a Fairy-type either. But it features one new Pokémon, two old ones, and three new forms.

Platinum Stars:


The final team. Two images because they can all take on new forms. It features four old Pokémon I have used before, one new Pokémon and one old I had never used before, which was Arceus. This team is incredibly powerful but a bit unbalanced in terms of types.
In conclusion, I enjoyed the game. Just like with Sword, it was very fun and enjoyable despite its many flaws. However, I think it could have been a lot better if it hadn’t failed at so many of the things it is trying to do.

It is my second main series game for the Switch. 7 has been released so far, but I have only bought 2 of them. I said in the past that Sword was the beginning of the end when it comes to my interest in Pokémon, and that still stands. L:A is simply the beginning of the end – part 2.

I wanted to say that this game was the most fun I have had with Pokémon with Sword, but I realized that it isn’t true. Because I actually enjoyed Sword more. While Sword might not have been as revolutionary, it did at least not change battles for the worse. And L:A didn’t give me the same “WOW!” feeling that I got when I played Sword. Before starting on L:A, I had already played a main series game in full HD on my TV, one which also featured more open and large areas to explore. Still, I liked L:A, just not as much as Sword.

I made a new tier list for how I rank the main series games, find it below:



Since my last one, I have changed “Unranked” to “Never played” just to make it clearer what I mean.

The template I used can be found here.

L:A is a very solid B-tier game for me. I’d rank it below S/M but above D/P. Now, B-tier should not be seen as a bad placement. It means that I think the game is fun, but it has some big issues which drag it down. On my tier list, C and above are the games I consider good. L:A is definitely not my dream Pokémon game, but it is still good and fun to play. I am never going to replay it, one playthrough feels like it is more than enough for me. I hope that they can improve on the concept of this game if they choose to do more Legends games in the future. Or even better, if they were to take the best parts of both Legends and the regular main series games and combine them to make the ultimate Pokémon game! I’m not expecting that to happen though.

As for the future, I still have a few things I want to do in L:A, so I’ll keep playing it for a bit longer. After that, I have other Switch games to play. Once I am done with L:A, I’ll go back to Smash Ultimate and do all the things I have planned in it which I haven’t done yet. Then I need to play through NEO:TWEWY which I haven’t gotten started on yet. I am also planning to do a second playthrough of Sword, hopefully during the summer if all goes to plan. Then XC3 is coming out in September, and then we have Scarlet/Violet after that… I had really hoped they would wait with the next main series game until next year, but sadly, that didn’t happen. I already wrote all my thoughts on those games (or rather, what we know so far) and their release in the thread we have for them, so I’m not going to say anything more about them here.

So yeah, those are my thoughts on Legends: Arceus. I said in the beginning that this post would become short, but looking back now, it became quite long in the end anyway. But it is nowhere near as long as the post I originally had in mind. I think I said most of the important things I wanted to include at least. If you read all or any of this, thanks for reading. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear or if there is anything you want me to elaborate on.

Edit: Fixed some language mistakes.
 
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I love Legends Arceus, but I must say there are some interesting bits.

Like how professor Laventon has evidently problems with hearing:
Me: Hey, professor, I caught this Togetic, it was flying by the rocks over there.
Laventon: Splendid, let me make note in the Pokedex!
Note in a Pokedex: Togetic has never been seen in the wild...
Me: DIDN´T YOU HEAR WHAT I JUST SAID???

As a side note, did you notice the pattern on the ground in the Hall of Origin? Looks familiar? It should be! It´s the pattern that was in the temple in the Sinjoh ruins in HGSS, where you could bring your event Arceus and he created baby Dialga/Palkia/Giratina for you.
 
Lmao imagine putting Sword in B+ but HGSS in F. I get that this is all subjective but wow.

Anyway Legends Arceus sucks. 5/10 game. All you do is run around a bland world that looks like a college student's first unity project. Gameplay almost 100% consists of grinding for Pokeballs and Potions, spamming super effective attacks on wild Pokemon, and tossing balls. You have to do this to complete the Pokedex entries which allows you to level your Pokemon up. This is required and it takes fucking hours. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing really wrong with repeated grinding tasks if they're fun. And it is fun in Legends Arceus... for the first time. After playing through the game once I have no desire to ever play it again. The grinding gameplay is really good for a Pokemon game but good god that is a low bar to clear.

Pokemon have slightly better animation and effects in this game but they fucking better since the game has barely over 240 Pokemon. Oh and the new Pokemon are some of the worst designs I have ever seen. How can anyone look at the Dialga / Palkia primals and think "yes, this is good." A few are okay but imo most are awful lazy designs just getting by because of the nostalgia attached. Oh look it's a boring looking bear BUT it's an evolution of a bear from a previous game!!! Do you care now?? Oh yeah, throwing balls manually is fantastic and should be a permanent addition to the franchise. However the mechanics absolutely need to be expanded. Pokémon either sit there, run, or attack you. There's virtually no variation. Hide in the grass, throw some beans. Not much else to say. Oh and boss battles are a welcome addition but again you literally just dodge and throw beans. It would have been cool if I could craft some basic weapons. Like, even a stick or something. Also in addition you can release your Pokemon from their balls and talk to them which is really neat. But that's ALL they do. Literally the perfect game for them to walk around and be interactable Camp / Amie style yet they just sit there and make sounds like a printer from 1998.

Story is terrible. No voice acting makes this game play like one from the Gamecube (it has the same visuals as well!). Watching characters talk but only hearing the sound of me mashing A in 2022 is... pathetic. This is the world's most profitable franchise and there isn't any excuse for this. None of the characters are memorable and the plot is... weird? They almost had something interesting going with the rival clans except it basically didn't matter at all. I did enjoy the part where they kicked me out of their village so to get revenge I enslaved their god and made him work on a farm. Fucking based.

Also despite all the focus on capturing these battle slaves you don't really use them much outside of killing wild animals. The damage formula makes lower level Pokemon do more damage, which is cool because it prevents me from letting my guard down, but stupid because it barely matters what Pokemon I use. After a while I just picked 6 Pokemon I liked. Stats and level are virtually irrelevant. It's better than the old "if you are 5 levels higher than the boss you crush them" but it still needs work. I know this game is built around single player but the lack of PvP is very odd and possibly the first in the franchise.

Imo this game is a step in the right direction for Pokemon, and if judged solely among Pokemon games I'd rank it pretty high. But if I ignore nostalgia and my own enjoyment of the Pokemon franchise, and compare it to other games (like Breath of the Wild, Skyrim, even Tem Tem etc) it really doesn't do much other games don't besides having a Pikachu. I want to be happy because this is probably the best, most ambitious Pokemon title in nearly a decade but the bar has just been lowered so much I find it hard to celebrate what is technically still a failure.
 
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Also in addition you can release your Pokemon from their balls and talk to them which is really neat. But that's ALL they do. Literally the perfect game for them to walk around and be interactable Camp / Amie style yet they just sit there and make sounds like a printer from 1998.

Also despite all the focus on capturing these battle slaves you don't really use them much outside of killing wild animals.
Hard disagree. It's not required to use Pokémon for much more than killing wild animals, but have some imagination. They interact with the overworld wherever you throw them, whether it's to break to rock, smack a tree, or engage an enemy. In space-time distortions especially, you can have almost your whole team rotating through various tasks in the span of seconds.
  • There's a King's Leaf on that ledge. I'm not flying up there. Enamorus, go!
  • There's a Dubious Disc in the water/mud. If I go in there, I'll be a sitting duck. Arceus, deploy!
  • I'm not collecting all those shards at once. Roserade, you grab those two! I'll go the other way!
  • Christsakes, a Nugget just spawned. Umm. Lopunny? Yes, you!
  • [Gets cornered by Octillery or something with stupid shot accuracy. Yeets out Beautifly because the previous two Pokémon are still in laser space.]
In moments like these, the ability to plunk Pokémon on the floor comes in handy. With quick fingers and a full party, it becomes possible to loot a distortion much more efficiently than with just a trainer and Braviary. It's easy to overlook because (1) it happens to fast and (2) it is reasonable to focus on the trainer's safety to the exclusion of all else, but the ability to task Pokemon with collection and coordinate them as a team is something I think is really underrated here.

The damage formula makes lower level Pokemon do more damage, which is cool because it prevents me from letting my guard down, but stupid because it barely matters what Pokemon I use. After a while I just picked 6 Pokemon I liked.
So... You're doing it right. The casual experience is meant to be played with the Pokémon you like. You should not be torturing yourself like a VGC competitor in casual play. If you're not using your favorites, you're just denying yourself good fun.

And if you can't let your guard down, would that not mean your choices matter more than ever? Grit investment is a choice too.
 
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Bull Of Heaven

99 Pounders / 4'3" Feet
is a Pre-Contributor
Oh and the new Pokemon are some of the worst designs I have ever seen. How can anyone look at the Dialga / Palkia primals and think "yes, this is good."
I'm probably beating a dead god-horse at this point, but... have you guys seen Palkia's other forme? I truly, unmemingly don't understand how someone can think that Palkia-O doesn't look better.

Either way, put me in the camp that thinks the Origin formes are fine enough designs for intentionally weird divine cosmic beings.

While I'm rehashing old posts of mine, I never once even thought about the lack of voice acting in Pokemon games until I started to see complaints about it here, and I still don't really understand why it matters. But I can accept that one as a matter of personal taste.
 
While I'm rehashing old posts of mine, I never once even thought about the lack of voice acting in Pokemon games until I started to see complaints about it here, and I still don't really understand why it matters. But I can accept that one as a matter of personal taste.
It didn't really matter until they started to put some scenes that really feel... awkard without it.
Pier's concert in SwSh is one of the biggest offenders, but also pretty much any of the sequences in the stadium for example.

In L.A., honestly, it wouldn't be a huge issue if it wasnt for the fact that expecially in the tutorial, you have these sections of 15-20 minutes of "plot exposure" that are just a huge slog with just mashing textboxes. I made a post somewhere back at the release.

It's not a huge deal really BUUUT if they keep wanting to have big plot exposure moments in their games, the lack of voice acting will hurt more and more.
Older pokemon games usually rarely had more than some small bits of dialogue between characters, but starting with SM they started to actually try to give some depth to the events that happen and it slowly but surely started to hurt.
 
I wonder how voice-acting would work with custom protagonists names? Are there any other games that do this?

Also, can someone give me advice on how to efficiently catch all those damn wisps? They're the main reason I put down PLA but I wanna finish it lol
 
I wonder how voice-acting would work with custom protagonists names? Are there any other games that do this?

Also, can someone give me advice on how to efficiently catch all those damn wisps? They're the main reason I put down PLA but I wanna finish it lol
In my experience, the NPCs usually address the player by a title or nickname. Using FE:3H as an example, most voice lines call the player "Professor."
 

Bull Of Heaven

99 Pounders / 4'3" Feet
is a Pre-Contributor
Also, can someone give me advice on how to efficiently catch all those damn wisps? They're the main reason I put down PLA but I wanna finish it lol
1) Serebii has a list of all locations, with map and screenshot references.
2) They're easier to see at night.
 
I wonder how voice-acting would work with custom protagonists names? Are there any other games that do this?

Also, can someone give me advice on how to efficiently catch all those damn wisps? They're the main reason I put down PLA but I wanna finish it lol
there's plenty of games that do this, the usual work around is to either:
1. write around the name. The notable example here being FFX's Tidus, where it was extremely awkward, but I think in general if you pay attention to it...you don't really hear names of the main protagonist said aloud even when there's a specific name.
2. give a nickname. Ironmage's 3H example is spot on, Byleth can be freely named but in dialog (all dialog is voiced, by the way) is referred to as "Teach" or "Professor" or "Teacher"
3. Some games have mixed acting, ie they'll use voice acting for important bits and non-voiced text for unimportant dialog. In those cases you tend to just not bring up the name in voiced but can use it freely in text. Fire Emblem Fates comes to mind here.
4. The text will display the name, but the dialog omits it. Persona 4 did this iirc, where the name would come up but if it was the end of the sentence it would just end or there'd be a slight beat in the middle

While nameable protagonists kind of fall by the wayside as time goes on I think that's more towards trending away from certain kinds of protagonists in general. There's absolutely been games with VO and nameable protags that have worked aournd htis already.
 
In space-time distortions especially, you can have almost your whole team rotating through various tasks in the span of seconds.
  • There's a King's Leaf on that ledge. I'm not flying up there. Enamorus, go!
  • There's a Dubious Disc in the water/mud. If I go in there, I'll be a sitting duck. Arceus, deploy!
  • I'm not collecting all those shards at once. Roserade, you grab those two! I'll go the other way!
  • Christsakes, a Nugget just spawned. Umm. Lopunny? Yes, you!
  • [Gets cornered by Octillery or something with stupid shot accuracy. Yeets out Beautifly because the previous two Pokémon are still in laser space.]
Or, instead of massively overthinking it like this, you can do what most players do, hop on Wyrdeer, and run around collecting everything that way while also being too fast for the wild Pokemon to attack. Much easier and less carpal tunnel.
 
I wonder how voice-acting would work with custom protagonists names? Are there any other games that do this?
Games that have custom named VC + voice acting usually purposely ignore the player's name in voiced dialogues, either by replacing it by "this guy/him/our friend" (replace with feminine if applicable) in the voicing, or straight up never having the player's name show up in voiced dialogues (YOUNG MAN ptsd)
 
... So, apparently, special outbreaks aren't always marked with the sparkle icon; I just cleared a "Normal" Rowlet swarm and had an unexpected alpha swarm pop up in my face. Genuinely did not know that could happen. (I probably should've saved the video just in case I'm not the last one to figure this out, but I was too busy screaming like an idiot about the surprise shalpha.)

EDIT: Oh Christ, I just realised the damn date. =_= I promise this isn't some shitty April Fool's joke, ugh.
 
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I'm probably beating a dead god-horse at this point, but... have you guys seen Palkia's other forme? I truly, unmemingly don't understand how someone can think that Palkia-O doesn't look better.
I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I never noticed that Palkia was " Phallic" in design until I began hanging out in this forum. Even now, I don't think its phallic in design and any resemblance is purely coincidental. To me, Palkia's head always resembled a Goblin Shark, which makes sense since its a Water Type. Design wise, Altered Palkia over Origin Palkia.

mitsukurina-owstoni-goblin-shark-registration-no-a-24744-180056-large_2_copy.jpg
 
Alright. I made a second attempt at the Eternal Battle Reverie, and we managed to pull it off (win streak: 51).

The team:
1649070186871.png
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1649066245163.png
1649066262141.png
1649066280034.png
1649066202210.png
Stygia
(Enamorus) (F)
Calm Nature
- Springtide Storm
- Draining Kiss
- Mystical Fire
- Earth Power
Big Lindsay
(Lopunny) (F)
Brave Nature
- Double Hit
- Quick Attack
- Close Combat
- Shadow Ball
Giant Royce
(Roserade) (F)
Hasty Nature
- Stun Spore
- Energy Ball
- Sludge Bomb
- Spikes
Beaugene(+)
(Beautifly)* (M)
Timid Nature
- Bug Buzz
- Air Slash
- Venoshock
- Stun Spore
Prince Ploop
(Manaphy)
Modest Nature
- Water Pulse
- Moonblast
- Psychic
- Take Heart
Original One
(Arceus-Dragon)
Adamant Nature
- Recover
- Bulldoze
- Iron Head
- Outrage

Usage notes:
  • All six party members are Lv. 100 and gritted to the max.
  • I strongly considered using Shaymin, but my dude Beautifly does all of the same things and packs Venoshock to boot.
  • I also left my Cresselia at home because her movepool bothers me. That is all.
  • Beautifly carried the early game (battles 10-15) by picking off Hisuian starters with his STAB moves, stun-locking Spiritomb, sniping fairies with status plus Venoshock, etc. The Bug type is also good for capitalizing on Unown and the Lake Trio when they appear. Only Azelf's coverage is threatening.
  • Manaphy carried the midgame (battles 16-35). His moves have a lot of PP, so he can reap scores upon scores of points all by himself. In particular, the challenge Spear & Shield is a smorgasbord for Take Heart + Water Pulse.
  • The late game (battles 36-50+) is where the rest of the party came into play and where the cheapness really mounted.
    • Cresselia is awful (see below).
    • Dustox is a sleeper threat. I drew it a total of four or five times somehow. It has Energy Ball, so Manaphy should not risk it.
    • Giratina appeared twice. He's RNG hell, especially in Origin Form. Enamorus can keep up with his DPS if Draining Kiss connects enough.
    • Rotom-Wash was a godsend in battle 49. I sacrificed my Arceus-Dragon's HP for double points, and he needed an easy win.
      • With the points from this battle, we reached the exact 80 needed to revive Lopunny.
  • So we entered the Arceus battle with three Pokémon: Arceus-Dragon (no PP), Enamorus, and Lopunny.
    • My Arceus-Dragon opened with his final Outrage and fainted instantly to Judgment (Fairy).
    • Enamorus entered and opened with a strong Springtide Storm. This dealt heavy damage and won us an omniboost.
      • Then the enemy Arceus chained two Judgments (Steel), the second of which killed by virtue of crit mattered.
    • Finally, I sent out Lopunny and bet everything on Double Hit + strong Close Combat. This was the winning play.
  • Soon after this, Lopunny got walloped by Ninetales-Alola. This ended the run.
Other notes:
  • Never pick the Dragon-type challenge.
    • Most of the Dragon-types in this game are the Creation Trio, and they are statistically broken.
    • Enemy Palkia ate a strong-style STAB Outrage from Adamant Arceus and then OHKO'd back with crit Spacial Rend. I call BS.
    • Giratina also sucks to fight because Shadow Force will eat your PP even if it doesn't automatically kill.
  • Be wary of the challenges Female Pokémon and Strong Defense.
    • Cresselia can be drawn randomly, and it is a bloody nightmare. I drew it twice in my run.
      • The first bout had to be settled by Outrage spam because Double hit + Shadow Ball didn't cut it.
      • The second bout had to be settled by Springtide Storm spam because Manaphy had no PP and everyone else was dead. My Enamorus was the only survivor of this battle. Cresselia is the run-killer.
  • Primordial Chaos and Space & Time are generally not worth the hassle.
    • In general, 1v2 and 1v3 battles are not worth the hassle unless you know you are entering at a considerable type advantage.
  • Therian forms can be threatening due to their new signature moves. They are also deceptively bulky. Approach with caution.
    • I did once lose Manaphy to a Bleakwind Storm, but that was yet another monster crit.
  • You can do everything right and still fail. Moves will miss the obscured Pokémon. An unlucky crit will pierce your setup. Giratina will randomly appear just to waste your time and resources. I am shocked I did manage to creak over the finish line on my first serious run, and on some level it did come down to luck of the draw.
  • In the late game, the double points wish is an invaluable asset. Drawing Rotom-Wash with double points active is what carried me to victory.
 
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The Crusade I think I can see why you struggled a bit; only two of your 'Mons have recovery moves. Slap Mastered Rest on everything else and it'll become a lot easier (Rest is fucking broken in this game, LOL).
I did strongly consider Rest + Take Heart on Manaphy, but I found it to be one roll of the dice too many. If Manaphy is too drowsy to act even once, it just gets clobbered. There's also the matter of retaining enough PP to actually kill stuff, which is less a problem for Water Pulse Manaphy but a glaring filter for almost everyone else—note the inclusion of moves like Quick Attack over Giga Impact. Rest has no business on the likes of Lopunny and Beautifly.

My struggles came down to unwise or unlucky draws (e.g. Cresselia) and critical hits (e.g. Spacial Rend). Recovery does nothing versus a random OHKO.
 

bdt2002

Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs superfan
is a Pre-Contributor
I haven't posted in this thread until now, as I've been wanting to get to a point in this game where I can speak for at least a larger portion of it. As a busy college kid with conflicting interests at the moment, I often times don't have a reason to play any Pokémon game outright when I could be doing something else like homework or whatever. That being said, I've been keeping an extremely sharp eye on how the Hisui region was handled in comparison to the more conventional Sinnoh remakes everyone was expecting (and at the time, hoping for). I've made it to the Alabaster Icelands as of the time of typing this, and any parts of the game I haven't played through yet I've already seen others go through. With all of this in mind, how would I rate this game and my first playthrough of it?

I must say, at first glance I didn't have high hopes for Game Freak's inability to make consistent decisions anymore. This is a claim that still somewhat bothers me going as far back as 2017 with the release of Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon on the 3DS. I've been known to say in person that the 2016 iterations of Alola were the last "good Pokémon games" in the core series, and that every game since then has been significantly less enjoyable, to say nothing of how they aren't taking gap years anymore between generations... or are they?

Legends: Arceus is in this really weird spot where, on paper, they've taken a gap year to work on the next Pokémon games again, thanks to 2021's Sinnoh remakes being outsourced to ILCA. That, however, is counteracted by 2022 having two separate core series installments, the first time this has happened since 2004, believe it or not. However, they also didn't necessarily make a new game in 2020 either, as that time frame was taken up by the core series' first dive into paid downloadable content packs replacing definitive game version(s) of Sword & Shield. The reason I bring all of these statistics up is because Hisui is, whether we want to admit it or not, technically the real ninth core series region. (This, in turn, would make Scarlet & Violet the 10th region, if such a thing is even believable.) I have my own little theories about the future of Hisui, too, but it would appear that these theories may fall into OI's rule violations for wishlisting and thread creation so I'll keep my mouth shut.

For now, let's just say what I was going to say before I typed those last two paragraphs out. Hisui isn't over yet, and there's a reason why Scarlet & Violet were announced so soon after its release a month prior. As for Legends: Arceus itself, and what we've seen so far of it... I think I've convinced myself that it's my favorite Pokémon game we've seen since that 2016 mark with Sun & Moon I mentioned earlier. A game of a new style could not have come at a better time for me, with Hisui's emphasis on missions, requests, and character building feeling less like something Game Freak would normally make and more like something out of a golden-age spinoff title compared to the disappointment I've had for the past four and a half years by comparison. I firmly believe that my growing dislike of the games in 2017, 2018, 2019, technically 2020, and 2021 set my expectations up to be shattered once again, but that the new style of the playthrough in tandem with using species of Pokémon on my team I rarely use in other regions allowed my expectations to be significantly surpassed.
 

Berks

has a Calm Mind
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I think it’s kinda lame that we have to have SS data for Shaymin… anyone wanna trade?

for my thoughts on the game, I spent an ungodly amount of time catching alphas and making sure I was always strong enough for the game! I had 30 hours in the game before the first ending because it was so fun for me!
When I got to the Giratina battle, I thought I’d have the opportunity to go get different mons and I didn’t, so I went in with my Liligant, a Wyrdeer, and four mons I was trying to level up jaja. Victory Dance is broken, and I basically had to pp stall Gira, craziest battle I’ve ever had playing Pokémon, so awesome!

but yeah if there’s anyone willing to trade me a shaymin, I’d love you forever
 

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