Pokemon Legends Arceus Could Breathe New Life Into the Pokemon Franchise

Creatively speaking, Pokemon has been a dead franchise for a while now. The last great Pokemon games were Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (released in 2014), but even those were mostly good because the original Ruby and Sapphire were solid. Alpha and Omega did add new elements and actually told one of the few good Pokemon storylines in existence, so I don’t want to sell them short. Since then, Pokemon has been about churning out bland, linear garbage with some kind of new gimmick each time. With the success of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017), Nintendo now understands the power of open world exploration. They tested it out a bit with the Wild Area in Pokemon Sword and Shield (2019) and those few open regions were the only interesting things Sword and Shield had to offer.

The Pokemon Company confirmed that Pokemon Legends Arceus will be open world, so that’s a big deal. I’d expect there will be areas in the game that aren’t completely open world, but this is still a huge step forward. In being the first Pokemon game with this combination of open exploration, unique new battle adjustments (attack style shifting), Pokemon riding, and out-of-battle Pokemon catching, I expect the first installment of Pokemon Arceus Legends to be a little basic and bit rough around the edges when it’s released. That said, it will likely be the start of a new amazing franchise that may eventually eclipse the new generations of main Pokemon game releases. Pokemon Snap helps with immersion into the world of Pokemon and what it would be like to see Pokemon living life in the wild, but Pokemon Legends Arceus has the potential to do that and still be an exciting, battle-oriented game. Check out the trailer below to get a glimpse of how well the new creative elements seem to fit the Pokemon franchise:

It seems like there will be a return of shadow Pokemon, which has the potential to be interesting. Odds are the story will be terrible, like a typical Pokemon storyline, but we can still dream. If this game ends up being even remotely good, its success is going to have a dramatic impact on Pokemon game development going forward, and I can’t wait to see the way it will make the Pokemon franchise evolve. Hopefully they a lot more to the environment designs because I’m very excited to explore an interesting world while riding around on different Pokemon. The release date is currently set for January 22, 2022. It could get pushed back, but I think this game will actually be released on time. Without many good games in the development pipeline, Nintendo really needs this game to be a win, so delaying it would have to be a last resort for them.

Author username: Tessa Vanesla