Pokemon Legends: Arceus General Discussion

[Joker901]

GameFreak should outsource the tree-making.

Jokes aside, thoughts on the battle UI and stuff?

Spoiler

I dislike the black bands, but the placement of the health bars on the top and bottom seems less intrusive, which I like. The offset placement of the move boxes bothers me more than it should. Looks like the type icons are different than the ones in SwSh/GO too, which is interesting to me because I thought they'd be standardized considering their use in SwSh, GO, and HOME. Battles overall seem a little more cinematic, now with physical contact (yes!), which I'm really excited about. Also, I'm assuming that we're no longer going to be transported to a special battle arena and instead fights take place in the overworld. Curious to see what the transition will look like.

Now, let's talk about the graphics of this game. It has severe frame drops and other graphical issues, true, BUT we are totally in a different situation here compared to sw/sh. Let's be honest, sw/sh were games that just followed s/m, maybe they were even smaller than gen 7 games from a certain point of view. So, honestly, seeing those trees and the wild area in that condition was just a shame because I still don't understand where the effort was put in those games. Clearly not in the graphics, clearly not in the plot, clearly not in the new mechanic (yeah, they are big now).
Legends graphics are kinda meh but today we can say that graphics are not that important. What's important is that finally we see some sort of ambition from pokemon, that they really decided to try their best and considering the sales of sw/sh and Let's go p/e they didn't really have to. I really care about graphics but today I choose to focus on that ambition.

 

[lucarioknight56]

With an open world, overworld catching, seamless battle transitions, and rumors of something more like an active battle system, along with the trainers actually being more involved in the battles, this is actually looking really similar to an idea I had for reinventing the series some months back! A lot of the other ideas I had would probably have changed the battle system too much, but here's some I had that I hope could be implemented:

Spoiler: Ideas

• Rideable party Pokemon
• HMs tied to Pokemon abilities/typing rather than a move.
• NPCs wandering the world randomly to purchase items and battle with.
• Finding eggs in the wild and using incubators to hatch them

If we had these with a decent story and plenty of objectives to work toward, this could easily be the greatest Pokemon game of all time. Though, I think many of these might have to wait for later entries if they continue with Pokemon Legends.

 

[BackSet]

but today we can say that graphics are not that important.

Don’t know why we can only say that today. I say that every day, sometimes even multiple times a day.

 

[techitisJ]

(I woke up from a nap and started browsing my phone to still be surprised that we have entered this new era for Pokemon)

Some other things I grew curious about after seeing the trailer were the story and the world. It makes sense that we don't know much of them yet, and it will be interesting to see what the news cycle is like for this same. I have a good feeling we won't even see it again for 6 months at least, but I would like to see it sooner. Until then though, all we can do is speculate on what the story of the game can be like. We do know that the village area will be our little hub, and we are going to be building the first Pokedex.

I just wanna say that I am so excited to see them going this route with building the Pokedex ourselves. In earlier games (well, in SM and SwSh), I filled up the dex just because I wanted the shiny charm. These games put a lot more focus on the dex, and because of that, I think I'll find that I have more of a drive to complete it. I wonder if after we catch some new Pokemon we'll have to go back to the Professor to report our findings? That could lead to some cool gameplay directions. For example, maybe the Professor would see that we caught a Minun and would say "Oh, this Pokemon has minus symbols on its cheeks, I wonder if there is a Pokemon that's opposite of that?" and then we would be given a quest to look out for a Pokemon that looks similar to Minun with plus size symbols on its cheeks.

I wonder if we'll meet a lot of characters on our journey, or if we are really the first ones exploring the area. The trailer makes it seem like the village is one of the only inhabited areas of Sinnoh, but maybe it's not. Maybe on our journey, we will discover civilizations elsewhere. if people have actually lived in Sinnoh for a long time at this point, maybe we'll get to find ancient ruins that tie back to the legends around Arceus?

Speaking of the village and the possibilities of other civilizations, I wonder where this place is, compared to the location of the village.

Spoiler: Large Image

We can't really know where the player is coming from in this screenshot, but if you look in the distance you can see two lit torches. Is this nearby the main village? Is this near another village? Has there already been someone who has explored this area who has set up torches for when night hits? Did we set them up? It's little things like this that make me want to speculate endlessly. There are just so many different directions these games can go.

 

[BackSet]

I just saw a YouTube comment suggest that Cyndaquill is a firework or firecracker.

 

[Cute Charm]

So looking at the Sinnoh map and the relative location of Mt. Coronet....

The game is probably set in either Eternia City, Solaceon Town or Celestic Town.

 

[Joker901]

Don’t know why we can only say that today. I say that every day, sometimes even multiple times a day.

Because graphics are an important aspect of a game. If this was just another traditional pokemon game, another game they just made copy-pasting the last one then graphics would have been important to me. Because if I have to buy a game that basically is the same thing from the last one, I at least pretend that game to look better than the last one. Sw/Sh is red and blue, same thing with bigger pokemon here and there. The only good thing those games added to this franchise was the wild area and they made the only real good thing of those games look awful. So yes, no excuse from me for those shameful trees.
Today I see an open world game, with a really big map, free look camera, with a new catching system, a hybrid battle system, new animations and possibly a more mature plot. Yes, now I can forgive GF for not making the game look perfect because now the old lie "we have cut the dex for better things" may be true. Next time cut 800 pokemon and give me even better graphics, I'll be on board.

 

[Phosphene]

So looking at the Sinnoh map and the relative location of Mt. Coronet....

The game is probably set in either Eternia City, Solaceon Town or Celestic Town.

I'm guessing either Eterna or Celestic as both have an emphasis on history and the past, see: their slogans and historical art pieces. Considering that Celestic is said to exist before Sinnoh was created, I think it has a higher possibility of being the center town.

 

[R1ke]

I absolutely love this idea! A fully open world prequel game for Sinnoh!! As a region Sinnoh has the most mythology and folklore, so an ancient/prehistoric setting for it is simply perfect. Wow, and all the starters are from different generations (2,5,7 are all evenly spaced out too). I genuinely didn’t think this would happen. I literally remember posting about an open world concept I had and prefacing it with ‘this would never happen’ lmao. This concept has opened up so many possibilities for the actual game, it’s world building/lore and even future titles! I would be 100% down if legends became it’s own series, even at the expense of the DP remakes. This definitely looks like the main project GF was working on for pokemon’s 25th anniversary, whilst BDSP were kinda just there. As someone who doesn’t have a switch I’m starting to regret it now lol.

Wow, they could do so much with this (with even Sinnohian forms!). Also hell yeah, they’re just one main game. This has basically revitalised my interest for the main series again. So glad it looks like GF is pursuing projects that they’re actually interested in this time. Definitely keeping my eyes peeled for this, and looking forward to future developments.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

I will say this. One thing I'm NOT looking forward to in these games is manually aiming the Poke Ball in order to catch the Mon you want. That gives me Gen 1 PTSD flashbacks of how the ball could "miss" if it wasn't strong enough. It was bad enough back then, and now we'll have to manually aim our throws is almost terrifying to me, as I've got terrible aim, especially without a targeting marker to at least let me know I'm somewhat aligned to hit the mark. If the prehistorical Poke Balls have some loose homing ability then that'll mitigate my worry to a degree, but if we have to effectively gauge everything about our throw then that's gonna be the bane of any playthrough I have. It's one of the reason I hate GO so much (among other reasons). Hopefully more information will be revealed, like if the balls have a loose homing ability or the throw will automatically adjust itself to the distance/angle of the target. If that's part of the mechanics then I can live with that.

(migrating over to this thread lol)

I don't think manually aiming is going to be a thing- in the trailer, there was no reticle or anything as the player aimed. I think it's just going to be a thing where you aim a Poke Ball, and the game makes it snap into place for throwing at the closest Pokemon.

 

[RC821]

I felt pretty bad for Game Freak right now since they take so much risks and faced some challenges when it comes to making Switch games especially Sword and Shield.

 

[badwolf1234]

I wanna take a guess what if Dialga makes the REAL DAWN AND LUCAS travel back in time and Galactic travels with you and that is the reason why there is a galactic symbol in the players clothes?

 

[venusboi79]

I’m so hyped for this game; I’m not usually a huge fan of completely open-world games (my sense of direction in real life is horrible, and that’s without a camera spinning around combined with random battles). But even in its unpolished state, it looks amazing.

I think what I’m most excited for is the potential for a deep-dive into the lore. Sinnoh has some of the most unique lore in the games (followed by Johto, which has canon ties to Sinnoh). I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high, but I’d love to see them explore some of the mysteries behind the Unown, and the Ruins of Alph.

The starters are also intriguing; I get why they used a mix of old starters, and they make sense contextually. But other than Cyndaquil, none of them are in my top three for their types.

 

[NealIRC]

I felt pretty bad for Game Freak right now since they take so much risks and faced some challenges when it comes to making Switch games especially Sword and Shield.

Same, I feel bad that Nintendo already talked about making the next Switch, which could potentially mean GameFreak have to start over for the post-gen games. Hoping the next Switch is such that they can just copy/paste source codes and images.

 

[charlycicero]

To me it is THE POKEMON GAME I have been waiting for years, Sinnoh or not. I just love Breath of the Wild, and the strong similar vibes I get from this game makes me be very hyped about the finished game. The concept is so refreshing, and I love the fact that it is finally completely open world. Also, I have indeed wondered what would be like to play a Pokemon game in another time period, and now I will have the chance.

I just want to play and enjoy it, next year. A must buy for me.

 

[R1ke]

Game Freak take as much time as you want on this, just please don’t rush this one out. BoTW got delayed several times and look how it turned out. I really don’t mind waiting till end of 2022 or early 2023 even if it means the final product is even better.

 

[Almonds]

Game Freak take as much time as you want on this, just please don’t rush this one out. BoTW got delayed several times and look how it turned out. I really don’t mind waiting till end of 2022 or early 2023 even if it means the final product is even better.

"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad"

 

[RC821]

Oh god, that quote....I remember playing that delayed Star Fox game....and....

 

[Johtoo]

I felt pretty bad for Game Freak right now since they take so much risks and faced some challenges when it comes to making Switch games especially Sword and Shield.

I don't. They're selling us a diamond and pearl remaster with shoddy graphics for $60. They deserve everything they get, as sad as it is to say.

 

[swiftgallade46]

I don't. They're selling us a diamond and pearl remaster with shoddy graphics for $60. They deserve everything they get, as sad as it is to say.

I felt it bears repeating in this thread as well that GF did not develop BDSP. Furthermore, I’m baffled how you can look at LA (which GameFreak did develop), and immediately go back to scapegoating them as bad/lazy/greedy developers. Like what more do you really want?