Pokemon Legends - Arceus - 28th Jan 2022 *Official Content Only*

...Dawn and Lucas aren't the main characters of Legends. At least, the Dawn and Lucas that we know and love aren't the main characters of Legends. The Legends protags are either the ancestors of Dawn and Lucas, or Dawn and Lucas are reincarnations of the Legends protags. I personally am leaning more towards the former though, as if the latter was true, it would literally be the Reincarnation Identifying Trait page on TV taken wayyyy too much to the extreme. But either way, these guys are not Dawn and Lucas.
True... they’re Dusk and Claus.


Emboar being Chinese they thought of another well known Chinese thing, Journey to the West, and since they already did Son Wukong for Infernape, they did the pig demon Zhu Bajie
Sha Gojou starter when (unless something like Swampert already fills that role)

On another note, is anyone else wondering what various past locations will be like? I figure Solaceon would be barely anything, and I doubt Lake Valor has that resort yet. Past Sunnyshore is probably gonna be treacherous to get through (unless they already have roads which just aren’t solar panels for obvious reasons)
 
anyone else noticed the Rhydon and Rhyhorn kinda look blue? or am I just colorblind?
No, I noticed that too. Crystal Rhyhorn and Rhydon confirmed? I think it's just the lighting having some weird interactions with these two.

Anyways, this thread seems a little dead right now, so lemme spark some discussion real quick. I follow a lot of Fakemon artists on Twitter and Instagram, and they've lately started this trend where they design alternate final evolutions for Rowlet, Cyndaquil, and Oshawott that fit the ancient Sinnoh theme.


This art is amazing and all, but it's made me wonder if GameFreak really will give Rowlet, Cyndaquil, and Oshawott alternate final evolutions in this game. I personally still think we'll get Decidueye, Typhlosion, and Samurott as the final evolutions because (a) they specifically picked these three starters for this game based on their final evolutions, (b) these hypothetical alternate final evolutions will only exist in Legends: Arceus, and that will make fans mad, and (c) fans of the other Johto, Unova, and Alola starters will get mad at GameFreak because their favorite "got robbed".

I still think they'll do something with Decidueye, Typhlosion, and Samurott though; maybe some kind of alternate form? What do you guys think?
 
No, I noticed that too. Crystal Rhyhorn and Rhydon confirmed? I think it's just the lighting having some weird interactions with these two.

Anyways, this thread seems a little dead right now, so lemme spark some discussion real quick. I follow a lot of Fakemon artists on Twitter and Instagram, and they've lately started this trend where they design alternate final evolutions for Rowlet, Cyndaquil, and Oshawott that fit the ancient Sinnoh theme.


This art is amazing and all, but it's made me wonder if GameFreak really will give Rowlet, Cyndaquil, and Oshawott alternate final evolutions in this game. I personally still think we'll get Decidueye, Typhlosion, and Samurott as the final evolutions because (a) they specifically picked these three starters for this game based on their final evolutions, (b) these hypothetical alternate final evolutions will only exist in Legends: Arceus, and that will make fans mad, and (c) fans of the other Johto, Unova, and Alola starters will get mad at GameFreak because their favorite "got robbed".

I still think they'll do something with Decidueye, Typhlosion, and Samurott though; maybe some kind of alternate form? What do you guys think?
If anything, and this is absolutely spitballing, the closest thing would be a Sinnoh specific form. So Sinnohian Decidueye, Typhlosion and Samurott.
 
Alright, after giving some time to think about this, I like what I see. Really, I like it a lot.

The game feels like an evolution on the Pokémon formula, bringing the series beyond the format the main games have followed since Red/Green/Blue/Yellow. Going back 25 years, the core mechanic of interacting with Pokémon (battling) has not really changed much besides the graphics. If you were to show someone who had only played RBY Sw/Sh, there would not be much difference in how the gameplay functions. You run around the overworld, and then the game cuts to the battle interface, which for better or worse has not really changed since RBY. From the trailer, Legends seems to go beyond the standard formula, with capturing Pokémon appearing to happen outside of battle! That's a decent change In my opinion, The games are moving beyond needing to do the same battle formula for everything, altering the formula to an extent.

However, the graphics still look pretty rough too be honest. I don't really mind the low framerate movement of things like the Chimecho in the trailer, I think if all the Pokémon move like the Riolu, Lucario, and the Chimecho the trailer showed, then the the Pokémon would look great. I like the style! Seriously, when I saw the Riolu scene last week I went "ok, cool, this looks sick."

The rest of the game needs some graphical work though (which is to be expected from a game that is releasing in 2022!). The overworld feels a little less polished and finished than Breath of the Wild showed in 2016, and I hope (and believe) it will be improved over the next year. Framerate drops are still concerning, I would not disregard them in the trailer at all. My go to reference is GTA 5 on the Xbox 360, if a game released on the Xbox 360 with a triple-core Power PC architecture initially announced in 2003 and released in 2005, can run a game that two console generations later is toting as being available at launch (see PS5 announcement trailer), then the Switch should have no major graphical issues or problems running a game designed for the software.

I think a lot of noticeable differences can be resolved by recognizing that these scenes are meant to be viewed in more motion than the trailer shows. In an open world game you are moving around more, so the exact textures are less important to pay attention to because they look good when you are moving. The 2016 E3 Breath of the Wild trailer I referenced had similar issues when you pause on a scene, but it's a problem when you focus on a static image in a game designed for movement. BotW works because the style is not photorealistic and the camera and game is always moving, so the individual texture issues are minor in comparison. Pokémon Legends: Arceus appears to be going for the same style, so I think it's working in it's favor, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the game has to show over the next year or so.

I think this game provides a nice alternative over the traditional main series formula, and I am highly interested the game itself. I'm glad to see something take more of a risk, in terms of mainline Pokémon games, an open world Pokémon honestly makes the most sense in my opinion.

To give a different explanation relating to my mention of GTA 5, the hardware of a console should not be a restriction on how the console runs games completely. A massive, open world game was released on hardware available to consumers in 2005. The Nintendo Switch as a console is competing against modern consoles, and should be able to compete in 2021/2022 against something released in 2005. Personally, I don't look at perfect graphical fidelity, but something where I can ignore the flaws. BotW pulls it off by looking great in motion, and the style helps. I guess the main point of this is that if people are able to make 2005/03 tech run a 2013 game, and make that game look good, then games developed for the Switch have little excuse running worse. I am holding off on a more concrete opinion until the game is released an I can play it, but GTA 5 provides a standard that I can look to. GTA 5 was able to push a great looking game on older hardware, so I don not believe the Switch's hardware is holding much back.
 
To give a different explanation relating to my mention of GTA 5, the hardware of a console should not be a restriction on how the console runs games completely. A massive, open world game was released on hardware available to consumers in 2005.
You can find even earlier examples than that.

It boils down to programming competence... which we know Game Freak is not exactly very good at.
 
Not sure what can be discussed, except the Box Art looking like meh.
Perhaps it's because of the image quality that I get the feeling.
 

Codraroll

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Not sure what can be discussed, except the Box Art looking like meh.
Perhaps it's because of the image quality that I get the feeling.
I rather think it's the fact that all the 12 characters in the picture have their backs turned to you. I think they are going for a "you're standing there and watching Mt. Coronet alongside them" feeling, but it still feels like you're at the back of a group that doesn't care about your presence.
 
I rather think it's the fact that all the 12 characters in the picture have their backs turned to you. I think they are going for a "you're standing there and watching Mt. Coronet alongside them" feeling, but it still feels like you're at the back of a group that doesn't care about your presence.
I think that too. And the focus in on a mountain. Maybe they didn't want to add Arceus looking down from the mountain or something because it would be similar to movie 12. And I am not sure if I would like it as well. Not having Arceus on the image would give the mountain a certain mystery and being in the center towering over the characters shows its importance.

But there are two problems.
1. We know Arceus is in the game because the title
2. It's still just a mountain.
 
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Codraroll

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Maybe they didn't want to add Arceus looking down from the mountain or something because it would be similar to movie 12.
I don't think this would be a particular concern. But adding Arceus might mess with the perspective: It would either be tiny and unrecognizable, or make the mountain look like a small mound a few steps away. It's meant to be a huge mountain in the far distance, you wouldn't be able to make out Arceus at all.

Overall, I think it's an interesting piece of art, but I'm not sure how suitable it is for a game cover. None of the characters are facing you, the titular character isn't even in the picture, and as you said, the focal point of the picture is "still just a mountain". It's not really bringing out the wow factor compared to other game covers. Time will tell how well that works. After all, the cover is the "sales poster" for the game. It's the reason why the Pokémon games tend to slap the biggest and coolest monster on the cover of each game, with the most shiny and noticeable background that matches the game's thematic colour. It's meant to be noticeable, and look cool and recognisable. This cover just features a bunch of characters looking at a generic mountain, and you can't even see their faces.

Then again, it is certainly breaking conventions, which is somewhat interesting. If you look at any large collection of game covers (Metacritic's top games for 2021 page provides a handy example), almost all of them show the game's logo and main characters posing to the camera. There is some precedent for showing a main character from behind looking at something big in the distance (prominent example: FFVII Remake), but PLA doesn't quite pull off the same imposing angle or cool character silhouettes. I'm afraid this one won't really be remembered in history as a noteworthy cover, not in a positive light, at least.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

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I've said it in other places but the release date is earlier than I anticipated. Still, my main hope in this time is that the game will get a good deal of polish before it releases. The game does look like it could use some polish, even though I absolutely love the concept.

The idea is so cool and I love the idea of Sinnoh becoming a full on explorable world in full 3D and catching Pokemon while exploring all of Sinnoh, and possibly some fun and engaging battles too along the way from what we saw a long time ago. Mt. Coronet in full 3D is such a cool prospect too.

I hope more trailers come around E3 or somewhere along those lines so we can know even more about this game before it fully releases. It's such a cool and promising prospect.
 
The timing is a little shocking, so close to a remake. how are kids gonna convince their parents to double up on the christmas gifts?!

but in all seriousness, I think the extra time alotted after the release of SwSh and the dlc passes may have worked in their favor. I expect we'll get some more juicy details during E3 that can give us a better idea of what we're dealing with. But even more curious is that I cant exacty see BDSP becoming the new "meta" game for VGC, but in that case its going to be an odd gap for the years to come, unless they still have SWSH plans we arent aware of.

GF is shaking things up, and are still very tight lipped. lets hope they learned their lesson from the last media cycle tho, cause that was awful for all involved.
 

SidTheShuckle

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ok so box art looks cool to me (except no background of Arceus in the distance but that's prob a secret) release date is worrying to me. they have to fix the frame rate completely and the grass in a certain area before they can release the games. but i am still on that hopium.
 
Surprised how early this game is being released to BDSP, only roughly two months after the remakes. Most other games have at least a year apart before the official release. What could this mean?
Likely because BDSP is being primarily handled by another studio and also, while Legends Arceus is a primary GameFreak joint, it isnt a mainline game so they don't care about it releasing close by.

e: Put another way imagine if Ranger was done by Gamefreak but Diamond & Pearl were done by HAL
 

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