Pokemon Legends: Arceus

A fun playthrough for longtime fans who have gotten bored of the mainline Pokémon games or a good entry point for fans of open-world RPGs who want to build their first Pokémon team.

Is Arceus sort of like a fusion of what Pokemon Snap was dreaming of, and what Pokemon Go enables with augmented reality on phones, and what Breath of the Wild was to RPGs? Yes. Is it also a more traditionally open-world RPG than I'd prefer? Yes. But I can see where this is going. Whenever Nintendo leaps forward again with a next-gen console, Arceus might be a template for its future game franchises.

Inspired as much by Pokémon Go as it is Breath of the Wild, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is flimsy and compulsive - and exhilaratingly new. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It’s filled with excellent ideas aimed at changing a series that has largely grown stale. But some of the execution breeds frustration. Exploring the open world is freeing, but also awkward, until I unlock more travel options later in the game. Legends: Arceus is graphically dreadful, with flat textures and pop-in rampant in every area, but the Pokémon animate wonderfully. Still, I’ll gladly take an imperfect Pokémon game that takes a chance on something different, even if it’s not always successful. I could go on with Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ list of pros and cons for another 1,000 words only to further reinforce that the game is inconsistent. But Legends: Arceus is confident enough in its new direction that its missteps feel more like small annoyances than major issues – like a pebble in my shoe on an otherwise lovely walk.

The most important thing I can say about Arceus is that it’s a place I want to be in. As much as I loved previous Pokémon games, the worlds were very static and linear. I never really felt like I was exploring a vibrant world while walking back and forth in tall grass trying to level up my squad. Here, though — while it’s not exactly a realistic simulation of nature — it at least gives off the feeling of a real place full of danger and secrets, and all of the joy and excitement those things can bring. And it does all of that while retaining most of the best qualities of its predecessors. It’s still a Pokémon game. But with a changed perspective, it’s also something new.