Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the new preview
Pokémon Legends
The reveal of Pokémon Legends: Arceus had left us full of doubts and perplexities because on paper the new series developed by Game Freak has sensational potential, but what we had seen was definitely backward from a technical point of view and did not bode well for the release scheduled for next January.During a Pokémon Direct that seemed to be focusing on something else, and especially on the Pokémon Shining Diamond and Shining Pearl remakes, the new Pokémon Legends trailer was a very pleasant surprise, both because it reassured us about the workmanship of the title, and because it filled us with very interesting information on what could be the beginning of a new, promising brand.
Here's everything we discovered in our preview of Legends Pokémon: Arceus.
The Sinnoh of the past
Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the three starters Cyndaquil, Rowlet and Oshawott The region in which it takes place this new adventure is called Hisui, but in reality it is none other than the Sinnoh of the past, in an era in which humans and pokémon had not yet begun to live together and looked at each other with suspicion and distrust. For this reason, the player - who can choose between a male and a female character, as usual - is called to compile the first Pokédex in history, capturing the wild pokémon that roam the world.Our operational base will be the Giubilo Village, a quiet feudal Japan-style village where the headquarters of Team Galassia is located, the body that deals with studying pokémon: in the trailer we made the acquaintance of Professor Laven, who will give us our first little monster making us choose between Cyndaquil, Oshawott and Rowlet; Selina, the foreman of the Research Squad who will be our mentor despite the perpetually frowning expression; and Soruan, the mustachioed leader who built the team.
Unlike what we originally suspected, the one in Pokémon Legends does not appear to be an open world. Judging from the map that you see in the new trailer, and from the summary description of the game structure, Hisui would be divided into macrozones, that is, maps or biomes in any case very large that we can reach after selecting them on the map. In these areas we will have a small camp as a base, where we can buy consumables and other items, make various tools such as Poké Balls and rest in our tent to restore the health of our pokémon team. If all this reminds you vaguely of Monster Hunter, know that you are not alone.
The trailer showed us a series of scenarios and situations that have raised our hopes for the technical goodness of the Game Freak title. In general, however, we are far from the visual complexity of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, although it seems clear right away that the Japanese developer was strongly inspired by the masterpiece that inaugurated the Nintendo Switch library, but it is obvious that they have been made huge steps forward compared to the trailer a few months ago, and now Pokémon Legends appears much more detailed, lively and, above all, fluid.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the Jubilant Village The geographical variety of Pokémon Legends is very interesting, as well as the presence of multiple pokémon wandering around in the open air, although some glimpses seemed rather deserted not only as fauna , but also as flora: the grassy patches - both the low and the high ones where it is possible to hide and stealth - do not cover 100% of the ground, which sometimes appears bare and lazily textured. Despite this, the game would seem to allow exploration a fair amount of freedom. The trailer reveals that it will be possible to ride water and land pokémon, or hang on to flying pokémon that we can use as Link's glider in the aforementioned Breath of the Wild. Furthermore, the pokémon shown have revealed some new variants, such as those of Growlithe and Braviary, and even some exclusive evolutions of Hisui, such as Basculegion for Basculin and Wyrdeer for Stantler.
A whole new gameplay
Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the encounter with a wild Bidoof Having seen more of the gameplay of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, we can now venture that the new title Game Freak is a kind of cross between an action game in time royal and an old school turn-based JRPG. Let's try to better understand how it works. We have already said that our goal is to capture wild pokémon, and to do so we will just need to throw a Poké Ball at them. The best way to do this is to sneak up behind them, perhaps in tall grass, and take them by surprise. In fact, most pokémon will react aggressively to our attempt to catch them - and we'd love to see! - and it will start attacking our character. In these cases we will have to promptly dodge their moves, because if they were to hit us repeatedly, and reset our Health Points, we would end up losing consciousness and, presumably, find ourselves at base camp with some penalties.Pokémon Legends: Arceus , a fight between pokémon To catch the toughest pokémon we will first have to weaken them, and this is where our monsters come into play. The fight begins by simply throwing a Poké Ball at the wild pokémon that contains the pokémon we want to face it with. At this point, Pokémon Legends takes on a setting that vaguely resembles the battles of the original Pokémon, but which works in a noticeably different way. The interface at the top right shows the order in which they will attack the pokémon on the battlefield, which depends on their individual Speed, but also on the four moves available to them: this means that a pokémon could act even several times in a row. .
It is also possible to enhance every move by taking advantage of the new system of Techniques. The Power Technique increases the damage a certain move can inflict, but significantly slows down the Pokémon that uses it. The Speed Technique, on the other hand, decreases the damage inflicted, but speeds up the turns of our pokémon. By taking advantage of this system, it is possible to end a fight in one fell swoop, or to multiply the number of actions that can be performed when, for example, we want our monster to heal or combine two moves in quick sequence.
Legends Pokémon: Arceus, Mount Corona on the horizon It is a very particular system that we will have to touch firsthand to understand its strategic potential; for the moment, we must say that we find the new battles very interesting because they remain quite faithful to the original ones, but they include an additional strategic element - the order of turns focused on Speed - which brings them closer to old JRPGs like Final Fantasy X and Arc the Lad: The sunset of the spirits. At the same time, we also appreciated the fact that the pokémon physically and visually swap attack moves - seeing Lucario really kicking the opponent, instead of hitting the empty space in front of him, is a nice breath of air. cool for the series.
Unfortunately, not all animations are convincing: the pokémon seemed a little too rigid, not to mention that they literally slide on the surface of the ground when they approach to launch an attack. However, there are still six months left until the release, and it is not certain that Game Freak will not be able to file these defects in time. We certainly feel more optimistic than before.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the region of Hisui at sunset The new trailer for Pokémon Legends: Arceus has heartened us on the fate of this new project, which seemed to meet many risks and which now seems to be a title to keep an eye on. The new game dynamics, the combat system that winks at the old JRPGs and the fascinating artistic direction promise very well, net of a decidedly more fluid and refined look than the previous trailer. It goes without saying that we will be keeping an eye on the next updates on the development of the game, also because the new Pokémon Direct has not put too much weight on the narrative, which now represents the most worrying unknown.
