We stopped believing it would happen. Disappointments after stampedes, Game Freak has finally achieved the impossible: make a good Pokémon game. Pokemon Legends: Arceus is even excellent, a model to follow for the rest of the series. But beware, the result is not perfect. Far from there.
Ironically, the franchise is modernizing itself by returning to the past. We play the role of a child of the present who finds himself by accident in an old version of the Sinnoh region largely inspired by feudal Japan, called Hisui. Ball.
A cataclysm threatens this world. And the Pokémon “Lords” supposed to protect him are taken with madness. To our amnesic hero, but who has an innate gift for taming pocket monsters because they come from the future, to calm them down, to put an end to the end of the world and, along the way, to bring him into modernity. Everything is in everything.
From a turn-based role-playing game in overhead view (like the clumsy remakes of Diamond and of Pearl), or in 3D but with a fixed camera Sword and Shield, we move here to an action RPG with full control of the camera in an open similiworld divided into six zones. As you walk, soar, or ride Pokémon to explore the great outdoors, you soon notice the influences of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Fantastic.
That the purists (of which we are part) calm down: the combat system, if it is modernized, remains faithful to the original concept of the franchise, but without random fights. We now see the monsters roaming freely. Some, aggressive (and sometimes giant), attack us. Others avoid us. We throw the ball containing a Pokémon from our team and the altercation begins. We even have control of our character during duels.
As our monsters evolve, they learn to master different styles to their attacks, adding to the strategic complexity. The game always informs us of our opponent’s weaknesses and the experience gained is still shared with our team, but this time it’s done in a much more elegant way.
Above all, the story ofArceus is seriously well put together. Gone are those laughable characters who regurgitate the word “Pokémon” with every sentence. The Game Freak studio finally finds the courage to respect the intelligence of its players, even the youngest, and to offer them a story that dares to tackle difficult themes.
Like our animals, Pokémon eventually die. With the arrival of Poké Balls, the clans of Hisui are forced to abandon some of their traditions. And we think back to a dark moment when our hero is exiled from his village. Faced with the threat, the leap to authoritarian governance is easy, even reassuring. Never since Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, on the GameCube, had we not been so far.
We got carried away without realizing it in our quest to fill the Pokédex (paper version!). Some 18 hours later, we had the legendary Palkia and Dialga in our pocket and the main story was complete. However, there were still plenty of side quests to complete. Shorter, then, than the usual 25 or 30 hours, but that’s for the best. We were never bored, except for the few times when our level of progress artificially blocked access to an area.
Let’s face it, we would have been dealing with a masterpiece if only the game wasn’t so ugly. And we’re not talking about an aesthetic choice here. All in Arceus, from exploring to handcrafting Poké Balls, is inspired by Breath of the Wild, the launch title for the Nintendo Switch. We are therefore forced to compare.
The world ofArceus is comparatively empty, the lighting is depressingly simple, and the textures extremely low-resolution. Worse, technical problems creep in every moment. The environments are populated about twenty meters in front of you as you advance. The refresh rate slips below thirty frames per second as soon as you perform the slightest action that could tax the processor, such as stepping into a puddle.
It’s not like Zelda is an exception. monster hunter rise, a franchise camped as Pokemon on portable consoles, recently repeated the feat.
We’re used to games from the same generation of console getting better looking as developers learn to squeeze every ounce of performance out of them. At the Game Freak studio, the opposite is obviously happening. We tore our eyes out to enjoy the adventure. There is no excuse for such technical mediocrity.