Released back in January “Pokémon Legends Arceus” is the most recent game in the series and is easily the most ambitious Pokemon game to date. It’s completely switched up,  taking familiar elements both gameplay wise and story wise and completely flipping them on the head. It has a level of harshness in story and difficulty that has never been seen before in the series..

Pokémon has always been simple and straightforward when it comes to almost every element in its games. You travel a region with your starter, you fight strong trainers along the way, you save the world in some sort of way, and you become champion by the end of the main game. However, Legends Arceus is vastly different from the 26 years of games behind it.

It leads with Familiarity. The story of Legends Arceus takes place in the Hisui Region, which is a far distant past version of the Sinnoh region from the Diamond and Pearl games.. Hisui is in a time when humanity and pokemon did not get along, Pokémon still untamed and hostile to humanity. You, the player, get transported by Arceus (God) to this new (old) world and your job, as the protagonist, is to “Catch Em All” and complete the first ever pokedex, an encyclopedia of the Pokémon in Hisui.

“Pokémon Legends: Arceus” (PLA)’s most defining element is it’s entirely new Pokemon catching mechanics. It’s open world, mixing “the Pokémon formula” with a level of freedom not seen before. The player can either aim with an empty pokeball at the Pokemon they want to catch or they can throw their own Pokémon out to battle the wild pokemon. As you fill the pokedex, you have to do more than just merely catching a Pokémon once, you have to complete tasks and reach a certain research level in order to fill a single Pokémon’s entry to its fullest. 

Battles are also fairly different, though it is the same turn based battles the games are known for with a new layer. The game introduces agile and strong style attacks to twist the established battle system. Agile style moves do less damage but have a chance of letting your pokemon have an extra turn. Strong style moves do more damage but would allow the enemy to get their turn quickly.

Without any spoilers, PLA has broken the status quo for Pokémon. With future games seemingly following in its footsteps. Though the graphics themselves are not up to par with some of Nintendo’s other releases like “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” or “Super Mario Odyssey.” It is a refresher for Pokémon fans that have felt the series has been getting stale and the ones who have been waiting years for this. Even if you aren’t a fan of Pokémon itself, Arceus is a fun experience with a lot to do and an addicting game flow.