Pokémon Pokémon Legends: Arceus - Your initial impressions? [potential spoilers]

[S.J.]

It's been out less than a day, but I want to know your initial impressions of Pokémon Legends: Arceus!

What do you love? What's disappointing? How are you feeling?!


No real spoilers from me, but I'll spoiler tag my initial impressions anyway!

Spoiler

Things I love:
The seamless transitioning between actions! E.g. catching Pokémon, and collecting materials and berries. I can get my Pokémon to hit a tree, and not have to go through several dialogue boxes to tell me which berries were collected!

I really like being able to trigger my Pokémon out of their Pokéball just to look at them be cute.

When the NPC mentioned crafting I was apprehensive, but it's not too bad!

I'm enjoying the "side quests"! It can be an opportunity to level your Pokémon instead of grinding. I'm finding it makes the game feel "full".

I really like the open world! I enjoy not having to stick to a path, and I like being able to climb up hills or jump down!

I love seeing the Pokémon in the pasture. ❤

Things I don't love:
There's nothing particularly important to mention really! The photo studio seems a bit awkward to use?

I don't love the hairstyles so far.

 

[S.J.]

I'm curious if anyone's used the lost and found yet? Have you dropped any satchels?

I decided to see how far I could push it with the jumping down hills/platforms, and I pushed it too far, and dropped a bunch of stuff! It was returned though! I've also found a satchel too.

Anyone else blacked out yet too?

 

[daringred_]

i've used the lost and found a lot! haven't blacked out yet, but i've found around maybe 10 satchels so far. it's not the most rewarding it, but it's getting me closer to that water stone lol. it's actually lowkey one of my favorite parts of the game though.

as for my other impressions, i feel pretty much the same as you do. the only things i don't like thus far are the hairstyles, clothing options and most of the new pokemon designs. (yes, i looked at the leaks.) i don't know if an option for red hair or red-ish hair will become available, but it sucks that it doesn't exist at the start when all other hair colors do. not that they've ever done an actual auburn shade before. i'm not keen on the styles either, though i've heard more unlock after a specific quest. hopefully some of them are cute. at the moment, i'm just using the hat one because it's the best looking. the clothes so far haven't been very diverse, although i admittedly haven't progressed very far because my perfectionist butt is running around the wild completing the pokedex. i've just got the default sandals, shaymin kimono and white kimono trousers on. it's the only thing that looks halfway decent to me

oh, the other thing i don't like, although it might change: that you have to report to the professor before going back to town. can't just travel there or resume my findings when i return and report them in full. no, have to tell him i found two pokemon or whatever just to go back to the town smh.

 

[S.J.]

i've used the lost and found a lot! haven't blacked out yet, but i've found around maybe 10 satchels so far. it's not the most rewarding it, but it's getting me closer to that water stone lol. it's actually lowkey one of my favorite parts of the game though.

as for my other impressions, i feel pretty much the same as you do. the only things i don't like thus far are the hairstyles, clothing options and most of the new pokemon designs. (yes, i looked at the leaks.) i don't know if an option for red hair or red-ish hair will become available, but it sucks that it doesn't exist at the start when all other hair colors do. not that they've ever done an actual auburn shade before. i'm not keen on the styles either, though i've heard more unlock after a specific quest. hopefully some of them are cute. at the moment, i'm just using the hat one because it's the best looking. the clothes so far haven't been very diverse, although i admittedly haven't progressed very far because my perfectionist butt is running around the wild completing the pokedex. i've just got the default sandals, shaymin kimono and white kimono trousers on. it's the only thing that looks halfway decent to me

oh, the other thing i don't like, although it might change: that you have to report to the professor before going back to town. can't just travel there or resume my findings when i return and report them in full. no, have to tell him i found two pokemon or whatever just to go back to the town smh.

The shaymin kimono is really cute! ❤

I did notice there was no red shade for hair colour. I heard there were more hair styles too, so looking forward to seeing if there's a cute long hair style! We'll see!

 

[Romaki]

It's soooooooooooo good. Completing the Pokédex for each mon may become a real drag, but for now every encounter still feels meaningful. Also strong Mystery Dungeon vibes for me, love that.

Also really enjoy the regular battles, I'd love a main game in the same style. Like the first gyms and elite four ever? It almost writes itself. But the idea of taking the series to the olden times is sooo good.

It's really the perfect spinoff in my eyes. I'm a Mystery Dungeon gal, but this just has it all.

 

[Holla]

i've used the lost and found a lot! haven't blacked out yet, but i've found around maybe 10 satchels so far. it's not the most rewarding it, but it's getting me closer to that water stone lol. it's actually lowkey one of my favorite parts of the game though.

as for my other impressions, i feel pretty much the same as you do. the only things i don't like thus far are the hairstyles, clothing options and most of the new pokemon designs. (yes, i looked at the leaks.) i don't know if an option for red hair or red-ish hair will become available, but it sucks that it doesn't exist at the start when all other hair colors do. not that they've ever done an actual auburn shade before. i'm not keen on the styles either, though i've heard more unlock after a specific quest. hopefully some of them are cute. at the moment, i'm just using the hat one because it's the best looking. the clothes so far haven't been very diverse, although i admittedly haven't progressed very far because my perfectionist butt is running around the wild completing the pokedex. i've just got the default sandals, shaymin kimono and white kimono trousers on. it's the only thing that looks halfway decent to me

oh, the other thing i don't like, although it might change: that you have to report to the professor before going back to town. can't just travel there or resume my findings when i return and report them in full. no, have to tell him i found two pokemon or whatever just to go back to the town smh.

If it helps I’ve seen leaks of several more hair colours that unlock later and red is definitely one of them. There’s also a blue, orange, purple, pink (though it’s more peach/cream imo) plus probably a few others I’m forgetting.

 

[DarkDesertFox]

I'll admit I was wrong about this game. My Grinch heart has grown in size. I'm having a really good time with it so far and played it for most of my Saturday. This is the most immersive the combat has ever felt. The difficulty also feels just right, not being too easy or too difficult. The characters (including the protag) are much more expressive and interesting this time around. The Space-Time Distortion fields are really cool and challenging to jump in. I caught an Umbreon in one earlier at the last second which was really satisfying. Biggest complaint so far is definitely the graphics. Graphics aren't everything, but a big open world game like this they are kind of important since you're looking at the scenery A LOT. I don't find myself stopping and admiring it like I would in a game such as Genshin Impact. Going back to the positives, I like how you rank up by exploring, catching Pokemon, battling, etc. since it gives a lot of incentive to go back out and do more. I give this game a thumbs up so far. I'll make a new post if I start to feel differently.

 

[Dim]

I'm really enjoying it so far~

 

[LittleMissPanda]

So I'm in the part of the game (still in the early segments) where you have the freedom to explore the Obsidian Fieldlands. I'm running around exploring to my heart's content when in the distance I encountered my first super Pokémon, as I like to call them. A beautiful, majestic Rapidash and what's the first thing I do? Go take it on, of course! Needless to say we got our butts handed to us but as a dedicated, budding researcher I simply had to try catching it. No regrets.

I can't even begin to tell you how exhilarating it was to find and battle such a powerful Pokémon so early in the game. My Oshawott didn't stand a chance but he tried his best and took that Fire Blast in the name of research at least we've seen it use Fire Blast, which is required data for Rapidash in the Pokédex.

I know something like this, where you can encounter a really high leveled Pokémon out in the field, was introduced in SwSh but since I skipped those games it's my first time experiencing this feature. I love it, it's amazing! You're not restricted to just finding low level guys, no, it lets you know early on just what kinds of bigger and badder challenges are out there for you to discover. Pokémon are also not restricted. They're not afraid to remind you the world belongs to them.

That's it. I want PLA to be the new norm for the main games

 

[amemome]

I think it's a good first step in a truly different, immersive Pokemon experience.

I'm struggling with being underleveled (?) out in the wild and generally being disoriented since there isn't an arrow on the overworld to point me in the right direction, but this is closer to how I imagined Pokemon would look like "in real life."

This is the kind of Pokemon playstyle my friends and I used to imagine while hanging out on the playground, pretending to be a group of eeveelutions freely running around the world and exploring all over our little "Pokemon" world.

 

[sleepydreepy]

my expectations for this game were literally underground since I did not like SW/SH at all (aside from the DLCs) but thank god I was pleasantly surprised and really love this game. I think its a step in the right direction for pokemon as a whole and I sincerely hope they don't go back to the old game style because this open world style with new game mechanics just make more sense in my mind for the current age of video games and is way more fun for me. for example, crafting is amazing and the fact that you the play don't "black out" after losing all your pokemon in a battle is way more realistic. I love how you can dodge pokemon attacks in the over world and how you can "fight" the "lord" pokemon yourself, and lastly I enjoyed the quests. I hope they keep building on all of these features in future games

 

[Disneyfangirl23]

It looks so good I do plan to get this game eventually

 

[Tao]

My expectations for the game were absolute minimum and...Honestly, they didn't need to be, it's a pretty good game.

To get the negatives out of the way:
- I did initially think "damn, the game is pretty ugly" until I kind of just got used to it. I don't mean the art style, moreso technical limitations, issue and a dash of laziness. Pop in is quite noticeable as are the lower resolutions and frame rates of distant objects. I found it quite jarring initially to see about 3 "tufts" of grass sat on top of an obvious JPEG of grass. I just visually expect a bit better on the Switch since other games have shown how beautiful games can be on the system and this is really a game where I would have liked to have been visually stunned.
- Lack of trainer battles. I understand it from a narrative point of view but I really wish they were a bit more frequent. I feel it would help ease the repetition as the method for catching different Pokemon is basically the same 2 things throughout the game (sneak up and throw a ball or classic battle and catch). It gets a bit tedious just catching and one shotting all the wild Pokemon.
- Not fond of the trainer customisation options. I usually don't with Pokemon games, but I'm in particular not a fan here.

Other than that:
- I do love the seamless catching of Pokemon and the way you can just sneak up and throw a ball at them. I love how you can run around whilst your Pokemon battle even if it's totally pointless.
- Having more incentive to catch and evolve all the Pokemon. Literally never had a real reason to do this outside of filling the dex for...reasons, thus I never did, I would catch like 9 Pokemon in earlier games. Now I'm catching at least 2 of everything I see and taking a bit of time to evolve them too.
- The 'Lord' Pokemon. It's just kind of neat that the replacement of Gym leaders is kinda just you, the trainer, battling a Pokemon.
- The freedom. I do plan on starting a second playthrough with this (which I don't usually think about so soon) because I just didn't realise how much freedom I actually had, so there's areas I didn't initially explore with Pokemon I didn't initially find that I would love to try and catch a bit earlier than I did. I'm just not used to a Pokemon game telling me to go and explore the world and actually letting me do so.
- You can do it all solo. So glad they put in an item to evolve trade only Pokemon.

I hope future games follow this format more. The battle system really isn't all that different from regular games, so it does feel like they're testing the waters to make this the main format moving forwards. I just hope they reintroduce more regular trainer battles in a future entry.