Pokémon Legends: Arceus (28th January 2022)

[Glen-i]

25 minutes ago, Ashley said:

We've been over this; all that matters is how a Pokémon looks. 

Yeah, and Zoroark can look like any Pokémon it wants to!

So by default, it's the coolest and the cutest Pokemon!

[Julius]

Some footage showing off Hisuian Zorua and Zoroark:

Why they'd give us a Kitsune mask to match Hisuian Zorua and Zoroark but then have the early purchase bonus outfit be based on Hisuian Growlithe I have no idea! 

Edit:

Damn, another great Pokédex entry in the making. 

 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Julius

[Julius]

Exploding Hisuian PokéBalls...

Hisuian Voltorb/Electrode inbound? 

[Julius]

23 hours ago, Julius said:

Hisuian Voltorb/Electrode inbound? 

Well, there it is: Hisuian Voltorb confirmed! 

 

[Glen-i]

So wait, Voltorb in this region and time period just happens to look like the handmade Poké Balls they use there?

I have many questions!

[MindFreak]

PokéBalls are the skin of Voltorbs. They kill Voltorbs to contain other Pokémon. Kind of dark.

[Ashley]

7 hours ago, Glen-i said:

So wait, Voltorb in this region and time period just happens to look like the handmade Poké Balls they use there?

I have many questions!

This is an ancient period that has smart phones. Let's not try and find logic in anything going on. 

[Glen-i]

11 minutes ago, Ashley said:

This is an ancient period that has smart phones. Let's not try and find logic in anything going on. 

Nope, you're talking to the guy who made threads all about stupid gaming questions that will never get an answer! You knew this was a lost cause!

I'm assuming that the reasoning for this game having Poké Balls is the fact that the series has already established that they used apricots to make them back in the olden times. (I assume that's what's going on anyway, admittedly, I haven't been following this game that much)

Anyway, Sun/Moon has also established that evolution (actual Darwin evolution) exists in this universe. So, my big issue is how the hell does Voltorb evolving to look like a modern Poké Ball help it to survive? It just makes it more likely to be touched, get angry, and then explode.

[Ashley]

Maybe pokeballs were designed to look like Voltorb because it was the first Pokémon anyone wanted to catch

[Glen-i]

7 minutes ago, Ashley said:

Maybe pokeballs were designed to look like Voltorb because it was the first Pokémon anyone wanted to catch

Then I just have to question their woeful sense of taste.

[Ashley]

3 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Then I just have to question their woeful sense of taste.

Come on, he's the original round boi

[Julius]

It's been five days, and Hisuian Voltorb is already the superior Voltorb. 

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Julius

[Jonnas]

In real life, many fruits and berries evolved to make themselves more appetizing for certain species to eat. For example, acorns evolved to become appealing to squirrels. Strawberries used to be small and yellow-ish (appetizing to birds), but once humans figured out how to properly grow strawberries, they started to evolve to look bigger, redder, shinier, and yummier to us. This is because those animals, after eating said fruit, would then spread the seeds elsewhere. Having delicious-looking fruit is a way for plants to keep propagating the species.

So, maybe the continued existence of Voltorb as a species depends on them looking like objects that trainers touch. Maybe they evolve into Electrodes by spinning a lot, and they can do that easily by looking like Pokéballs. Maybe they need to travel a lot in order to keep the species going, and the best way is to sneak into a trainer's backpack. Or maybe they absolutely need to mate with Ditto, and the best way to impress one is to shock/explode a human hand, so Pokéball fidelity is of utmost importance.

I love this new Voltorb regardless, his eyes are so blocky.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Jonnas

[Ashley]

28 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

Or maybe they absolutely need to mate with Ditto

Same

[bob]

Same

Ditto, even

[Dufniall]

After that supercute Voltorb reveal, they now come out with... this:

Good way to kill the good Voltorb vibes.

[MindFreak]

Surprised no one has posted this yet:

Spoiler

Quote

- Can increase stats similarly to LGPE, with candies
- All legendary Pokémon battles are boss battles.
- They will be hard for people who aren't used to action games.
- Some Pokémon will be hard to find and alert to your actions like Goomy fam (who is getting a Hisuian form btw)

If this is true, they seem to be going more back to basics like with Let's Go. Hopefully, this doesn't impact the gameplay much but it might make some fans quite angry. I've never enjoyed catching them all as that more seems like a chore than a challenge.

 

[Glen-i]

If there's one thing about Legends: Arceus that I'm absolutely certain of, is that catching thousands of Pokémon is going to be how you progress. Battling itself is going to play second fiddle, just like Let's Go.

So I can believe that IV's are going to be replaced by that candy system. You know, the candy system that made competitive battling in that game die on it's arse stupidly quick. But then, I don't expect multiplayer to be a thing in Legends, so meh.

But yeah, the game is defo gonna be solely about capturing a stupid amount of Pokémon over and over again.

[Dcubed]

So... it's basically Pokemon Go without the IRL walking?

[Julius]

A number of "insiders" and smaller gaming outlets seem to think that previews for the game are due to go up within the next week:

Quote

It looks like some influencers are previewing Pokémon Legends: Arceus at the end of this week. Can't wait to see what it will give. 

It's about damn time. I can't remember the last time that something marketing itself as an open world game left it until the month of release to show off a stretch of unedited gameplay and have it's mechanics and gameplay loop clearly explained. 

And I still think the decision to release this after Christmas and just two months after Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl was a silly idea. 

7 hours ago, MindFreak said:

Surprised no one has posted this yet:

  Leaked info (Reveal hidden contents)

If this is true, they seem to be going more back to basics like with Let's Go. Hopefully, this doesn't impact the gameplay much but it might make some fans quite angry. I've never enjoyed catching them all as that more seems like a chore than a challenge.

 

To be fair, Centro Leaks are very hit and miss with Pokémon and aren't exactly a reliable source, to the point that I think even Serebii has called them out on a number of occasions for spouting nonsense. They basically aggregate any and all leaks that come out, act like they've heard something similar, throw in a few educated guesses based on details other people pick up, and then kind of gaslight followers when it comes to previous "leaks" of theirs that turned out to be wrong. An example of this is how they have been sharing the versions of the Chinese Riddler leaks, which in turn they are taking from the translations put out there by some attention seeker who seems to be getting off on the attention he gets from sharing the translations of the Chinese Riddler leaks. It's so bizarre. 

I mean, everything in the spoiler tag doesn't seem at all that surprising to be honest, so I think it's more an educated guess based on what we've seen. I've definitely seen a lot of people speculate on similar things based on the menus we've seen from the game so far, so hopefully we'll get a better idea soon! 

2 hours ago, Glen-i said:

If there's one thing about Legends: Arceus that I'm absolutely certain of, is that catching thousands of Pokémon is going to be how you progress. Battling itself is going to play second fiddle, just like Let's Go.

So I can believe that IV's are going to be replaced by that candy system. You know, the candy system that made competitive battling in that game die on it's arse stupidly quick. But then, I don't expect multiplayer to be a thing in Legends, so meh.

But yeah, the game is defo gonna be solely about capturing a stupid amount of Pokémon over and over again.

Yeah, the whole game being about how this is about the Sinnoh Dex being completed for the first time leads me to agree with you. On the one hand, it's Pokémon, so catching/recruitment is going to likely be involved to some extent, but there are very few "open world" games which make being a completionist the core of the game's structure. 

This being Game Freak, I'll admit I'm nervous to see how they've handled it. Burnout in an open world game is very hard to avoid, even in games which have a variety for you to do adjacent to the critical path of the game, but that could be compounded here by the repetition of having to catch all of the Pokémon, if that's the angle that they're taking with this. 

I look around and at best I think people are just interested to see what this first "open world" Pokémon game is going to be like - I know that's the case for me - but I think Legends: Arceus has already lost the war, when the first battle hasn't even begun. People with baggage from playing bad open world games don't really want this to begin with, and people who have played good open world games are going to find that this isn't anything like how an open world game for Pokémon has the potential to be.

People are going to say that Breath of the Wild x Pokémon is impossible to deliver on, but I do think that there are ways that a great open world Pokémon game could be made with the right team on it and drawing from the right inspirations - ahem, Monolith Soft and Xenoblade Chronicles - and unfortunately I think this Monster Hunter-lite experience thanks to its marketing is already heading down the wrong path. I can already envision the blowback Game Freak gets from this game - I mean, they get blowback with every game, to be fair - and it potentially putting them and fans off altogether when it comes to making open world Pokémon games, when what we know of it so far is zonal open world design at best, probably based on Monster Hunter World. 

Time to go back to my cave I guess. My optimism fades more every time I talk about this game..

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

So... it's basically Pokemon Go without the IRL walking?

You mean to tell me you don't walk around by pushing forward a left analogue stick? 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Julius

[Ashley]

24 minutes ago, Julius said:

You mean to tell me you don't walk around by pushing forward a left analogue stick? 

Maybe he's suffering from drift and doesn't need to

[Ike]

The leaks aren't that surprising considering it's a different style game. The stats screen was shown so most of it was known already anyway. Seem like pretty safe "leaks" to me. I want to know if Pokémon Home support is planned at some point.

BDSP were disappointing so hoping this is better, I think it looks like it might be fun.

2 hours ago, Julius said:

And I still think the decision to release this after Christmas and just two months after Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl was a silly idea.

Not really, they get to rid the hype of BDSP, since they are heavy related so the game will be more familiar (with locations, etc). They were lucky BDSP sold pretty well, in my opinion. Might be an issue for kids(/adults) who can't afford both so close together. But they might have Christmas money, etc.

I think the main issue was the opposite and it had a negative impact on BDSP not being ready as they obviously wanted that out before Christmas and this launching.

[BowserBasher]

I know next to nothing of this really but it was one I was interested in when I saw the first trailer for it. I've gone and preordered it from the Nintendo store as I wanted to. From what I've read on these last few pages, if it plays like people are suggesting, then I may like it more than others. I like the collecting aspect of the games more that the constant battles. I like them, but when the games have a huge following and you need the best mon with the best move, and everyone has that one only, I just don't find that appealing. So if it's more about collecting to complete a dex then I may like this.

I see Pokemon Go comparisons and well I still enjoy that game, but again I enjoy the collecting part. I do the occasional gym battle to get in and get some coins, but I just can't be bothered with the Rocket battles of PVP stuff. So this Pokémon game may be what brings me back into it.

[MindFreak]

2 hours ago, Julius said:

To be fair, Centro Leaks are very hit and miss with Pokémon and aren't exactly a reliable source, to the point that I think even Serebii has called them out on a number of occasions for spouting nonsense. They basically aggregate any and all leaks that come out, act like they've heard something similar, throw in a few educated guesses based on details other people pick up, and then kind of gaslight followers when it comes to previous "leaks" of theirs that turned out to be wrong. An example of this is how they have been sharing the versions of the Chinese Riddler leaks, which in turn they are taking from the translations put out there by some attention seeker who seems to be getting off on the attention he gets from sharing the translations of the Chinese Riddler leaks. It's so bizarre. 

I posted it as a rumor but I didn't include the spoiler tag. That's fair enough, didn't think of it as something that would spoil. I don't know Centro Leaks so didn't think much abiut it. 

 

Anyhow, I think you are right. This game is going to be hard to review on its own merits. And I really hope that despite what the game looks like, it is still fun to play and has a lot of variation. I don't want to find a specific Pokémon by just waiting around the right spot and waiting for RNG. It should include some sort of action and including that, could make the game fun to play. 

I'm really, really hoping this game has more to it than it seems. But I'm sceptical. 

[Ashley]

14 minutes ago, MindFreak said:

I posted it as a rumor but I didn't include the spoiler tag. That's fair enough, didn't think of it as something that would spoil. I don't know Centro Leaks so didn't think much abiut it. 

FWIW I added it in case it turns out to be true and I know some people have a different spoiler threshold than me so I tend to play it safe just in case.