Review: Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the funniest and ugliest Pokémon game in years

Of Pokémon Legends: Arceus the creator of the popular game series is trying something really new for the first time. The result is a very fun game that at the same time looks quite ugly.

Since the release of the first Pokémon games, developer Game Freak has done little to really shake up the formula. Each subsequent part mainly built on what already existed: new monsters and additional game systems, but the core remained the same.

Of Pokémon Legends: Arceus Game Freak is now really trying to change that. This new part is set in the distant past, in a time when the titular monsters are still seen as wild beasts that people should mainly fear.

You are an aspiring explorer trying to map all the monsters in the region and also try to capture them with the new invention Pokéball. You are sent on missions to specific areas, where you roam freely to find the right monsters.

Capturing 'real' in the game world

Where in old games you had to click on objects during battles to capture a monster, you do so in Legends by throwing a ball in the game world. You hold down the right trigger to aim and can, for example, sneak through grass to remain unseen. Sometimes you have to roll out of the way of aggressive monsters that attack you.

It makes the game feel more like a 'real' world. You see creatures walking around and reacting to your presence, as if you have spotted a deer on the Veluwe. Something that in old titles was only captured in cold menus full of statistics.

The world also feels more alive due to the addition of so-called Alpha Pokémon: much stronger variants that are difficult to catch. It makes the environment more dangerous, which adds to the feeling that you are exploring a wild environment.

Combat is faster and more streamlined

You can go in Pokémon Legends also fighting, which is usually against wild monsters. Combat is still turn-based, but now much more streamlined. Gone are the endless text fields with information about level-ups and learned attacks: this is now shown in a much smarter way in the interface.

For example, you can choose when you let a monster transform, which keeps the pace a lot faster.

Nice, but also very ugly

All these factors make Pokémon Legends one of the most groundbreaking Pokémon games of recent years. There is one achievement in return: it is also one of the ugliest Nintendo Switch games we have seen in years.

The environment and characters are enveloped in woolly textures, you see jagged edges between different 3D models and sometimes you can even count the pixels on the screen. Pokémon Legends looks like an early prototype of a game that was actually supposed to be released in 2006. Bizarre, especially when you consider that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with its open world in 2017, it was much more beautiful on the Nintendo Switch.

This is even more noticeable in the village where the game starts. That village is not only ugly, but also consists of houses that have been copied without inspiration and placed next to each other. As soon as you are allowed to go, it all becomes a little less shocking, but this game never becomes really beautiful.

Conclusion

We can blame the developer for that downer, although we would still advise you to try to see through it. If you do that, you will have the best Pokémon game in years. It feels like Legends as if you were roaming through real nature in search of creatures, which harkens back to that primal feeling with which Pokémon became so great in the late 1990s.

Let's hope that Game Freak builds on this in a sequel and that the game does look good. Then the studio really has gold in its hands.