The legendary Pokemon game series is back with its latest title, Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Get ready to be a great Pokemon trainer in this colorful and challenging open world!

Introducing Pokémon Legends: Arceus

Pokémon is one of the most popular video game series in the gaming industry. There have been more than 122 different titles officially released in this series. Originally conceived as an exclusive series on Nintendo platforms, Pokemon games are now more open to landing on other platforms.

The Pokémon Company, the creator of this series, has not hidden its ambition when they are ready to bring blockbuster Pokemon games to other platforms that are not part of Nintendo’s ecosystem. You probably remember Pokémon GO, the popular mobile game on Android and iOS with over 100 million players worldwide. Then we have other products that have been released on mobile platforms such as Pokemon Let’s Go, Pokémon UNITE, Pokémon: Magikarp Jump… They were all successful.

Recently, the developer has officially introduced a new project called Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the latest game in the series. It promises to bring a lot of improvements in gameplay and graphics. At the end of January 2022, the game was released as a limited-time exclusive on Nintendo Switch before being available on mobile platforms including Android and iOS.

From the initial quick reviews, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is definitely a blockbuster mobile game that we cannot ignore this year.

Explore new lands

As usual, in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the player becomes a Pokemon trainer on the way to conquering titles and glory. The game is set in Hisui, a land of legends, home to countless different types of Pokemon. A Pokemon ecosystem has been created. There were rivalries as these creatures rarely lived peacefully with humans.

You begin as a key member of the galactic expedition team, with the desire to explore the land of Hisui and tame legendary Pokemon. Your base is located in the village of Jubilife, a beautiful town. It’s also home to the best Pokemon trainers. This place is influenced by two big clans, Diamond and Pearl.

At the base, you take on exploration quests that target different areas of Hisui. Don’t be surprised that Hisui is divided into many different areas with unique terrain and weather patterns. Each area has opportunities to find new types of Pokemon. Your main task is to explore all the lands, catch and tame Pokemon and complete your Pokedex.

Attractive gameplay with many changes

Besides some familiar core points in traditional Gameplay, Pokémon Legends: Arceus introduces a lot of new points in gameplay.

After completing the initial setup, you decide that the main character you will incarnate in the game is Akari or Rei. Whatever your choice, it doesn’t affect the main plot of the game too much. Like every other game in the series, players start off with some basic pokemon. In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, you have choices that include Rowlet, Cyndaquil, or Oshawott. You get a strange phone named Arc. With your sixth sense, you think that this device is closely related to Arceus. This device accompanies you through the entire adventure and gives detailed instructions on the mission and how to play.

With that said, the Jubilife village is your base. This is where you meet NPCs and get new quests. Most of the missions in the game revolve around the land of Hisui. The first point that makes a difference in Pokémon Legends: Arceus comes from the open world with an extremely large map. Players move through the lands to discover new types of Pokemon. Of course, you can fight, capture and tame them to update your Pokedex.

Besides survey missions, players have the opportunity to participate in various activities such as building camps, exploring new lands, taming Pokemon…

Combat Mechanism

Pokémon Legends: Arceus introduces new battle mechanics that are much different from previous titles. You do not need to move into the bushes to find random Pokemon but can choose to catch those available in the wild. It means you will know in advance what kind of Pokemon you will face and fight.

The game builds an extremely large map with many different types of terrain, so the type of Pokemon you will encounter is very diverse. Once the target Pokemon is identified, you throw a Pokeball to catch it.

Most Pokemon in the wild are quite friendly. But there are some wild Pokemon that are very aggressive. They have red eyes and are large in size. Wild Pokemon attack you as soon as you get close to its area. Usually, the battles are very difficult but if you catch and train them successfully, you will have reliable companions.

Rules in Pokemon battle are unchanged. Each Pokemon attacks the opponent until one side’s health drops to 0. You can use up to 6 Pokemon in each battle. Your Pokemon can learn 4 special skills to activate in battle. Your Pokemon lose HP when attacked by an opponent. You can recover some of your lost HP with Potions. Besides, there are a number of other support items that you can activate in the battle to receive special effects such as respawn, cure adverse effects.

After defeating a Pokemon, you can catch them with a Poke Ball. In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, players use Poke Balls to capture wild Pokemon. You cannot use Poke Ball to catch another player’s pokemon. The game also introduces a new mechanic that allows you to instantly catch a Pokemon without fighting it.

Lots of new Pokemon introduced

Like most other titles in the series, Pokémon Legends: Arceus introduces a huge collection of Pokemon with several new varieties. Hisui is a vast expanse of land divided into several topographical forms. Each area has unique types of Pokemon. Here are some new Pokemon that you have a chance to find and train in this game.

Wyrdeer: The evolved form of Stantler in the Hisui region.
Basculegion: The evolved form of Basculin. It has great strength and endurance.
Kleavor: Scyther’s evolved form.

In addition, there are Regional Form pokemon such as Voltorb, Zorua, Zoroark, Braviary and Growlithe. And especially the Mythical Pokémon with great strength and huge size.

Conquer mounts

Pokémon Legends: Arceus has elements of an open-world game. Therefore, the world in the game is extremely large and there are many locations that you have the opportunity to explore. It is not fair that your character has to run continuously to move to locations. The game introduces a mounting system to aid you in moving faster. The key is in the Celestica flute. It is a reward when you complete a special investigation quest. With this flute, you can summon a special Pokemon amount. Currently, there are three different mounts for traveling on specific terrains, including:

Wyrdeer: It allows you to move on water. Wyrdeer has strong legs and the ability to swim like a professional athlete. It can also easily jump over obstacles on the water.
Basculegion: Great mount for moving over the ground and exploring beautiful valleys.
Hisuian Braviary: This Pokemon can fly in the sky. It is definitely a great companion for exploration missions.

Item crafting

Pokémon Legends: Arceus has a lot of different types of resources to explore. You need to collect the necessary resources then combine them to craft new items, especially Pokeballs. Pokémon Legends: Arceus unlike other traditional games in the series, it does not allow you to buy Poke Balls in the shop. If you want new ones, you have to craft them. Combine different ingredients to create different types of Poke Balls. For example, if you combine Apricorn and Tumblestone, you can create a regular Poke Ball. When you replace Tumblestone with rare materials, you will create better Pokeballs.

Besides, there are some other useful support items that you can make such as smoke bombs, electric bombs, traps. Smoke bombs are a good item to use when you want to get closer to wild Pokemon as it creates smokes that hide you.

There are desks at the stations and Jubilife Village. They are where you can craft items.

Graphics

It is difficult to evaluate the graphics of Pokémon Legends: Arceus because it received a lot of mixed reviews. Some say that the game’s graphics are really brilliant and impressive, but others have negative reviews about it. They think that changing the graphics in the game has lost the typical style of this legendary game series.

Overall, Pokémon Legends: Arceus has relatively impressive graphics. The game creates a lively open world in Hisui with countless different Pokemon biomes. Terrain types, character movements, combat effects are also well simulated.

Conclusion

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is available now on Nintendo Switch. You can also play it through an emulator called yuzu. The developer has also revealed initial information about versions for other platforms including mobile phones. So we can wait for the official version for Android in the near future.