Pokemon Legends: Arceus General Discussion

[Silktree]

I mean, there’s gonna be a space-controlling legendary (Palkia) in the game. Nothing is too far away or off limits. I assume we will be witnessing the legend of Arceus, right? Spacetime travel seems necessary for that already. Dialga and Palkia are ready. LOL

The region is just a boat ride away, anyway. But knowing Game Freak, we might just get another glimpse of the Sinjoh Ruins if they're generous. The Unown did the spacetime travel last time, by the way.

 

[nickdt]

I wonder if we get a day/night cycle in the game. It would make sense, since some Pokemon can come out at night, rather dan during the day (And vice versa).

 

[EmpoleonProd]

If this game takes place 100-200 years ago, the people who honored the Spear Pillar may have all migrated to the region of the Sinjoh Ruins. HGSS didn't establish that no one had stayed behind in Sinnoh, but looking at this game, that would seem to be at least mostly true.

I'll just put it out there: This game would be much more interesting if it were set in Sinjoh. We don't need a third Sinnoh game released mere months after the remakes.

Although I don’t expect Johto to be included (although I suppose it’s possible as a DLC?) I do 100% expect to see the Sinjoh Ruins make a physical appearance, and not just as a teleport event either, I want the mountain range of Mt. Coronet to be extended to the south, far enough south to reach the Sinjoh Ruins yourself, even if it’s a longer and complicated dungeon or path to get there. They went out of their way to make lore for a place exclusive to one event in one game, they might as well use what they’ve made in LA.

I know it’s a high expectation to have, but Game Freak would seriously be doing themselves a disservice if the Sinjoh Ruins didn’t appear, even as a DLC area (which, if we look at the SwSh DLC, might be exactly the route they go).

If Game Freak REALLY wants to impress me, Sinjoh Ruins in the base game and past Johto as a DLC would get the game top marks, but this is unlikely since Johto is lore-heavy enough to star in its very own Legends title, mostly with the Ho-Oh lore and the creation of the legendary beasts.

 

[Cute Charm]

I wonder if we get a day/night cycle in the game. It would make sense, since some Pokemon can come out at night, rather dan during the day (And vice versa).

The day/night cycle has been confirmed by the trailer where they shower dusk and early morning.

But the thing is, they did away with the day/night Pokemon ages ago due to kids staying up passed their bedtimes catching Hoothoot.

 

[Fan of Jarrus]

But the thing is, they did away with the day/night Pokemon ages ago due to kids staying up passed their bedtimes catching Hoothoot

That is why they stopped it.

Can Ainu history be done carefully?

 

[Phosphene]

But the thing is, they did away with the day/night Pokemon ages ago due to kids staying up passed their bedtimes catching Hoothoot.

Day/night Pokémon were a thing in gen 7. I wouldn't exactly call that "ages ago."

 

[SinnohEevee]

That is why they stopped it.

Can Ainu history be done carefully?

Some Pokémon only evolve at day or at night.

 

[BackSet]

Like Umbreon and Espeon.

They really need to change that.

 

[Joker901]

I think it would really be a wasted opportunity to remove time-based pokemon in a game like this. It would break the immersion. They could simply include a sleeping mechanic that let time pass like in BOTW. Considering that the main goal of the game is to catch pokemon, making some pokemon specific to a certain time would also increase the longevity and difficulty of the game itself.
I still remember in BOTW that waiting for the dragons early in the morning in that exact spot was one of my favorite moments.

 

[Greninjaman]

I think it would really be a wasted opportunity to remove time-based pokemon in a game like this. It would break the immersion. They could simply include a sleeping mechanic that let time pass like in BOTW. Considering that the main goal of the game is to catch pokemon, making some pokemon specific to a certain time would also increase the longevity and difficulty of the game itself.

That is assuming of course there are any Pokemon that evolve at a certain time in the game.

 

[Joker901]

That is assuming of course there are any Pokemon that evolve at a certain time in the game.

I am not talking about evolution. I'm talking about actual time based pokemon: zubat line, ghost pokemon, some fairy pokemon etc. Pokemon that you only see at night. We need to see that different pokemon appear dipending of the time of the day, like some animals only appear at night in real life.

 

[Greninjaman]

I am not talking about evolution. I'm talking about actual time based pokemon: zubat line, ghost pokemon, some fairy pokemon etc. Pokemon that you only see at night. We need to see that different pokemon appear dipending of the time of the day, like some animals only appear at night in real life.

Oh, I see.

They could have the Day-night cycle be independent of the switch clock, much like in Breath of the Wild.

 

[Joker901]

Oh. They could have the Day-night cycle be independent of the switch clock, much like in Breath of the Wild.

Exactly. This is a smart way to increase the longevity of the game. If you know that different pokemon appear dipending on time, you have a reason to go back to places you already visited to see if anything different happens at night for example. If you see (let's say) an abandoned chateau during the day, you may want to come back at night to see if any ghost pokemon appear there.

 

[Greninjaman]

Exactly. This is a smart way to increase the longevity of the game. If you know that different pokemon appear dipending on time, you have a reason to go back to places you already visited to see if anything different happens at night for example. If you see (let's say) an abandoned chateau during the day, you may want to come back at night to see if any ghost pokemon appear there.

Yeah, it might have some weak bug and ghosts types during the day. At night, some of the scarier ones, like Gengar, or Ariados, comes out.

 

[Joker901]

Yeah, it might have some weak bug and ghosts types during the day. At night, some of the scarier ones, like Gengar, or Ariados, comes out.

I just hope they don't mess things up like in the wild area. Cause that was a real mess. I guess the dlcs showed that they actually realized that but I really hope that the weather doesn't change every 10 steps. I also hope popping animations are locked to the past of this franchise cause they were really bad and would totally ruin this game.

 

[Puddle]

I've been having a closer look at the Legends: Arceus trailer and screenshots. The graphics don't actually appear to be a huge step up from Sword and Shield, but I'm fine with that because I was actually really impressed with how those games looked. And I love the art style in Legends: Arceus. The scenery has this soft, natural look to it, almost as if it were painted with watercolours. It has an olde worlde storybook vibe which is perfect for the setting.

When I first saw the trailer on Pokemon Day, the thing that stuck out to me the most was how beautiful the clouds look.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

I'm not sure why so many people are worried about these games being "super empty" just based on one trailer. I'm sure everyone noticed that most of the shots seemed to only involve the village and the adjacent route outside the village besides the one clip on a beach with Piplup. You can even tell in some shots that they are just different view angles of the same location, the river with the bridge in particular is shown from two or three different angles, almost as if you could connect the different angles to create a more full version of the route. We haven't seen any of the more mountainous routes, or any of the many ruins that exist in Sinnoh, etc.

For example, this shot

and this shot

are basically almost looking straight at each other, you can tell in the first screenshot that the path goes down to the river and, most likely, a bridge off to the right, and then the first screenshot is looking at the same path from the other side of the bridge, you can tell because Mt. Coronet is in the background in one, looking up into a darker brown, more mountainous landscape, and in the other shot, you are standing within that more mountainous landscape, and in the background is a greener, more lowlands type of landscape.

In fact, in the first screenshot, if you look behind the closer dark tree on the right, you're basically looking in the same area of the background that I believe the protagonist is standing at in the second screenshot.

The point I'm trying to make is that, people are nitpicking what we've been shown so far when it's literally just one area, most likely the barren, tutorial/beginner route, Route X01 in every game basically has nothing in it, XY's was quite literally a path with no grass lol. So don't worry about there being content, there will definitely be a ton of content to explore, the game isn't going to be just a giant Route X01.

 

[Joker901]

I'm not sure why so many people are worried about these games being "super empty" just based on one trailer. I'm sure everyone noticed that most of the shots seemed to only involve the village and the adjacent route outside the village besides the one clip on a beach with Piplup. You can even tell in some shots that they are just different view angles of the same location, the river with the bridge in particular is shown from two or three different angles, almost as if you could connect the different angles to create a more full version of the route. We haven't seen any of the more mountainous routes, or any of the many ruins that exist in Sinnoh, etc.

For example, this shot

and this shot

are basically almost looking straight at each other, you can tell in the first screenshot that the path goes down to the river and, most likely, a bridge off to the right, and then the first screenshot is looking at the same path from the other side of the bridge, you can tell because Mt. Coronet is in the background in one, looking up into a darker brown, more mountainous landscape, and in the other shot, you are standing within that more mountainous landscape, and in the background is a greener, more lowlands type of landscape.

In fact, in the first screenshot, if you look behind the closer dark tree on the right, you're basically looking in the same area of the background that I believe the protagonist is standing at in the second screenshot.

The point I'm trying to make is that, people are nitpicking what we've been shown so far when it's literally just one area, most likely the barren, tutorial/beginner route, Route X01 in every game basically has nothing in it, XY's was quite literally a path with no grass lol. So don't worry about there being content, there will definitely be a ton of content to explore, the game isn't going to be just a giant Route X01.

Everything shown in the trailer is set in the same area/route (maybe only the Piplup and the Garchomp shots ar set somewhere else). Let me explain why people are justly concerned and why on the other hand you may be right too.

1) We are talking about GF and GF is known for not being that great with 3D. After SW/SH you cannot blame people for being concerned about the emptiness of the world. The Wild Area was presented in the first trailer as a huge open world full of different environments with daily events that would make it interesting, but basically they made different shots of the same places over and over just changing the point of view and the weather, to make it look better than it was. In the end the wild area was just a big flat safari zone with nothing to do apart from catching pokemon. Pokemon has also become famous in time for its huge caves where the player could easly get lost but the caves in Galar are short, empty and incredibly linear. Probably the DLCs were a good step in the right direction, but nothing compared to past dungeons. What I'm saying is that GF has shown less care in world-building in gen 8 with empty places, short caves and huge cities (take Hammerlocke and Wyndon) that are actually way smaller than Lumiose city in Kalos, with just a few house accessible and nothing to do.
I would take a moment to talk about the graphics too. While it's true that something changed from the first trailer to release, it is also true that sw/sh kept many of the low quality textures and frame rate drops shown in June, not counting that nothing new/interesting was added to the Wild Area compared to what they showed us in June.

2) Now, I have to admit that what you say is true in part. Pokemon Legends was announced 3-4 months before any other Pokemon game that is not Diamond/Pearl and it's obvious that, talking about graphics, this is probably the biggest project they have ever worked on. So yeah, while I think it's not to blame people for being concerned, I also think it's too ealry for being really concerned. I would like to provide some evidence:
- In the first trailer of sw/sh there's litterally a single npc in the overworld apart from the main character in the entire Galar. GF deleted the entire population of Galar, including overworld pokemon, from cities/routes/caves etc. It's clear that they had npc and overworld pokemon ready in the game at that time but they decided to not include them in the first trailer. This tells me that GF intends the first trailer as a "world presentation", they just want to show what the region looks like and how the game feels graphically (usually bad). Pokemon Legends may not be that early in development as the first trailer suggests. There will be people in the village for sure and there will be pokemon flying, roaming around in the lands and in the rivers. I mean, if we have places in the wild area with 10-12 pokemon moving around, I think it's safe to assume we could have 5-6 here.

In the end, this trailer was clearly intended as a show of intent, a way to say "yes, we are going open world". The second trailer, that will probably feature the ability of riding, flying and climbing with pokemon, will present this game in a more immersive way and the graphics will look more polished. This said, I would be cautious with the expectations, because the severe frame rate drops are something I'm actually worried about considering what we saw was probably the most polished shots they had at that time and this is not really promising for an early 2022 release, not counting of course that GF is not really famous for optimization capabilities.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

Another thing I noticed is that, since the Battle Zone isn’t shown at all on the region map, it’s possible Game Freak will make that a DLC revolving around Heatran (shocking prediction, I know).

Similarly, if the Sinjoh Ruins aren’t included in the base game, I could see your trek to study the Sinjoh Ruins also being a DLC.

That’s two relatively expansive DLC regions, if they choose to go that route.

 

[nickdt]

Another thing I noticed is that, since the Battle Zone isn’t shown at all on the region map, it’s possible Game Freak will make that a DLC revolving around Heatran (shocking prediction, I know).

Similarly, if the Sinjoh Ruins aren’t included in the base game, I could see your trek to study the Sinjoh Ruins also being a DLC.

That’s two relatively expansive DLC regions, if they choose to go that route.

I don't think they will do DLC for Arceus Legends, since they won't know how well it will do compared to traditional Mainline games. Imagine if Arces Legends flops sales wise, then they basically need to shelve the DLC that is already produced. I think Arceus Legends is more a test game to see if the concept is viable in the long rung sales wise.