SPOILERS! Legends: Arceus Playthrough Discussion

The Crusade said:
Exhibit B: Magnezone is an overworld spawn at Mt. Coronet, yet its more basic stages need a Bermuda Triangle to manifest.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's kinda weird that Magnezone is the only one that spawns outside of distortions of its line, but then theres the fact that technically, Magnezone is implied to be from Space as some of its dex entries mention it communicating into space, so it could be likely that Magnezone's just had started to come to the Pokemon equivelent of Earth and just floated around Magnetic Areas, so its plausible that Magnemite and Magneton werent even naturally in Hisui outside of Distortions. Still tedious though for Magnemite tasks
 
I could see it being a thing of... there's just parts of Hisui we haven't visited where Magnemite actually resides (though it definitely should have just been available normally; it's a criticism I'll agree with). If we are indeed getting DLC later this year then that does add up
 
It’ll be a month or two before I get a chance to play the game, are there plans to work on an in-game viability tier list, or has the removal of the majority of trainer battles obviated the need for one?
 
Klungar said:
It’ll be a month or two before I get a chance to play the game, are there plans to work on an in-game viability tier list, or has the removal of the majority of trainer battles obviated the need for one?
Click to expand...
Yeah honestly this game doesn't really feel like one that could use a tier list, per say.

Even with "good" Pokemon there's very few required battles and the ones that are there are probably going to be about as dangerous. Nobles can even be done without battling at all, though it's obviously more favorable to do a battle.
Meanwhile a tier list is kinda-sorta made with the idea that you're only catching what you need, but the way everything works in this game you'll be required to catch and use stuff anyway, so it's like...Kleavor is weak to water and you can send 6 pokemon at it every single time and you almost certainly had to capture a bunch of water types, so a good pokemon doesn't matter as much.
The math of it doesn't really matter, if that makes sense.

In Contrast something like BDSP, which also doesnt have a tier list going, even with the exp share issue, there's way s to play the game where that team composition can matter throughout the entire thing. From the boss battles to easily cleaning up the trainers as needed, and so on, and captures aren't required so you have those kind of considerations to make.
 
I genuinely think the only metric any tier list should be judged by is how well they handle the postgame final boss haha. Anything else before that you can generally handle with anything or is a boss fight where you don't actually do much fighting
 
Klungar said:
It’ll be a month or two before I get a chance to play the game, are there plans to work on an in-game viability tier list, or has the removal of the majority of trainer battles obviated the need for one?
Click to expand...

In the leak thread, we had some good, long chats about where the new Pokémon stand. However, I'm not aware of anyone making a conscientious effort to judge the whole roster, including returning staples like Gastly and Abra. I also had a Beautifly on my team for the entire game, and he managed to put in work from start to finish. That should tell you something about the pressure or lack thereof to build a "viable" team.

If anything, the game will encourage you just to pick your favorites and run with them. Items like Seeds of Mastery and Grit Dust/Gravel/Pebble/Rock will allow you to focus on improving on your closest companions rather than scouting out replacements. Also be advised that traditional minmaxing can be counterproductive in PLA: it's often more important that your Pokémon can survive enemy attacks than OHKO them instantly because the game emphasizes research over winning battles. A glass cannon like Alakazam may not hold up in a 1v4 distortion battle without significant HP or Def investment. It's a nontraditional game, so do not fret if your Pokémon develop some nontraditional survival strategies.

On that note, do not be disappointed if they don't always survive. Some battles in this game can devolve into utter bloodbaths, including most battles with alpha Pokémon of equal or higher level. Just today my Lv. 90 Enamorus (Calm, +10 SpD) got biffed by a Lv. 80 Gengar chaining Agile-style Thunder Punch. Trainer error? If so, it goes to show how harshly the game can punish an inattentive trainer. Unless your heart is set on a Nuzlocke—in which case, God help you—you're going to see some fainting no matter which Pokémon you choose. Expect the worst and persevere against it.

Kurona said:
The game just updated to 1.0.2, and it appears to have fixed the Sunny-Cherrim-Can't-Be-Caught glitch!
Click to expand...

Darn. There goes my bragging rights.
 
Every single noble you battle is either part Rock or Grass type (i.e. the two types with five weaknesses apiece). Granted, they have varying numbers of actual weaknesses, and it could be a coincidence, but I find it amusing.

Kleavor: Water, Rock, Steel
Lilligant: Fire, Ice, Poison, Flying (x4), Psychic, Fairy
Arcanine: Water (x4), Fighting, Ground (x4), Rock
Electrode: Fire, Ice, Poison, But
Avalugg: Water, Grass, Fighting (x4), Ground, Rock, Steel (x4)
 
We now know the item drop rates for everything, so here's all the Pokémon that drop evolution items:-

Scizor - Metal Coat (7%)
Duskull/Dusclops/Dusknoir - Reaper Cloth (8%)
Magnemite/Magneton/Magnezone - Metal Coat (7%)
Gligar/Gliscor - Razor Fang (8%)
Sneasel/Sneasler/Weavile - Razor Claw (8%)
 
Antihaxxer said:
Is it really possible to Nuzlocke this game ? :D
Click to expand...
Honestly... no. The enemy AI is good enough that they *will* KO you before you can act if given the chance, expecially in 1v2 and 1v3 fights.

However, since you have to reach certain Star ranks to proceed in the story iirc, tecnically if you were to actually catch "just enough pokemon to gain ranks", you could still have a healthy amout of sacrificial lambs reserves to make it to the end.

That said, a "permadeath" playthrough of this could definitely prove a challenge, and catching Alphas in actual combat would be pretty much out of the equation entirely unless one was willing to lose his entire team
 
If you did a nuzlocke of this game more than anything you'd need to figure out how captures for your team would work.

In SWSH nuzlockes I know they just kind of wander around blindly and run into whatever, but that doesn't really work here. THe areas are too big and pokemon are too spread out and you don't enter into a battle when you touch something. If you just went on "what you first see" then a lot of hte teams wind up being the exact same as each other. Rare spawns would basically be impossible to ever dream of getting because you have to see the dozen paras or wurmple or shinx or whatever clutters the area.

When you sort that out (maybe just use a random number generator to randomly pick among the assortment) I think it's possible up to Volo. The plan would be to avoid as many battles as possible, which isn't that hard, so then you just have to deal with the trainers. There are few of those and while revenge kills are the name of the game there's enough named areas you'd probably have some kills. And beyond that just abuse grit early, as soon as possible. And save your Lake Verity encounter as long as possible so you can get Goodra, whose Shelter and stats mean it can weather a storm of hits throughout end game.

Nobles would be safest to just...ignore their opening. Can't lose pokemon if you dont battle!

So then there's true final boss and, well....definitely want fully gritted pokemon out for it, at minimum.
 
"Fixed an issue where players could obtain certain Pokémon twice instead of once only as intended, prohibiting the player from obtaining other certain Pokémon. The relevant Pokémon will appear for players who were unable to catch those certain Pokémon due to this issue."

I'm curious what this is referring to.
 
Rarycaris said:
"Fixed an issue where players could obtain certain Pokémon twice instead of once only as intended, prohibiting the player from obtaining other certain Pokémon. The relevant Pokémon will appear for players who were unable to catch those certain Pokémon due to this issue."

I'm curious what this is referring to.
Click to expand...

From what I've heard it's the Cresselia quest. Apparently you could catch her before talking to Melli, and therefore not complete the quest. (I assume this involved climbing over the walls of Moonview Arena)
 
20220209_190847.jpg

An Alpha male Combee. Why.
 
*sighs bitterly at my shiny male combee*

can they please introduce a male combee evolution and, this is the important part, dont make it regional.
 
Does that glitch in SwSh still work that allows male Combee and Salandit to evolve? You should be able to transfer it there once HOME compatibility becomes a thing
 
It took me a bit but I just completed a Living Dex in my first file; with the exception of Palkia who I used on my team (and Alolan Vulpix I guess)! 100% ready for when HOME updates happen and I can just transfer everything to file 2 for an easy second Arceus. Quick note; I like how everything fits neatly into 8 boxes perfectly except Shaymin and Darkrai... who also happen to be the only Pokémon you cannot get with only your copy of Legends Arceus
 
By the by, Serebii have worked out the mechanics for the Space-Time distortions forming:-

- The game does a spawn check every 5 minutes you're in the area, with the chances going up at certain amounts of time spent
- Battling or being in the menu pauses that timer
- Resetting the state of the area by timeskipping (and presumably entering caves like Wayward and Heatran's) will reset the timer

BFuSB3u.png
 
So my thoughts on the game:

Overall it was definitely an interesting experience.
World stuff & systems:
  • Overworld catching. I enjoy the speed at which catching works, back shots are nice, meshes well with what is clearly a changed capture formula. The tasks are a mixed bag; on the one hand I think it's a nice way to encourage progress on the other hand damn are they tedious especially when a pokemon will have like 20 tasks all dealing with captures and they're rare and ya'll. Gamefreak keeps trying to make captures "a thing" and it is just not happening for me. If every game kept trying to emphasize captures like this, it'd be miserable. But for here it's....fine. I find that there's all these mechanics for stunning and such but I only ever used oran berries, I don't think all the other options are really needed. Speaking of...
  • Crafting: This sure exists. It definitely is a thing you can do. They usre added a load of garbage items to do this thing that I stopped doing several hours into the game, and when I did use it I only used it for Balls and Potions. The million cakes felt superflous when I can just throw an Oran Berry which will work approximately as well and is effectively unlimited. The "vendor fodder" stuff takes way too much stuff. Balls & potions eventually became available to just buy and that was way easier once you get over the cash hump. To be clear I'd rather this happen than crafting being the primary way of doing anything. Just one of those...things I keep seeing in games and I wish they weren't there.
  • Overworld exploring. Mmmmmmmmm, well. So I think the areas are for hte most part fine! Fine little areas, really; they've come a long way from the Wild Area and you can tell the SWSH DLC helped find their legs more. If this were a traditional zelda game I'd probably not think twice. But at the same time this is meant to be a ~explore and disover the Hisui region~ and there's no real...how do I put this..."excitement"? There's a couple of fun spots here & there, but nothing really amazing. At best you might find an alpha pokemon, or a surprise field of flowers. Maybe an unown was tucked away. There's nothing to really draw you places so they all kind of blend together...like yeah that little corner with a Turtwig by a pond is cute but it's just a pond. It's just a turtwig. I ran into an alpha torterra just wandering around, the area itself is nothing really special. There's no real settlements, you rarely see people, there's nothing about hwo the environment is set up to make you put together a little story outside of a very few select spots. Also sometimes you DO find something, like a cave, and in addition to there being nothing interesting to the cave itself you go through it and come out at.....a spot you could have just walked too normally? Cool...? AND SPEAKING OF CAVES
  • GOD I WISH THIS GAME HAD DUNGEONS. I know that Pokemon dungeons have always been kind of all over the place, but I think they got better as time went on and dungeons being meh before doesnt meant they should just boot them entirely and i am BEGGING for something more than a hallway. In this game at best we have Wayward Cave, which does at least have a few twists and turns and a back room but Ingo leads you through it and then sets up the torches for return trips, and Snowpoint Temple which was actually a fun little time.
  • I think hate the battle system. They tweaked a bunch of things and it just doesn't really work for me. Strong moves are difficult to actually find time to use, a focus revenge kills aren't great, agile moves vary WAY too wildly in if they actually do anything or give you 3 turns in a row (and by you i mean the opponent). I get, I think, why from both a gameplay perspective and a thematic perspective, why they're like this, and I respect that but god I do not understand how people think this is a breath of fresh air. Ironically if it was kept exactly the same but it had items, abilities and maybe some more moves it'd probably be a lot more usable for me...thankfully battles are infrequent.
  • That said, they did a good job of tricking you into thinking they're more dynamic. Putting them up close and having them go more forward with a static camera had things feel more lively even though it's not THAT much different (purugly does full body slams for every physical move but no one complains about it because its so up close and covered in visual effects). I would actually like this to carry over to the main line games, especially if it kept respective placement of everyone in tack.
    • Side note for as much as we talk about Dexit and how oh, you know, the pokemon are so much work I am just going to say that moves are probably a bigger pain in the ass that keeps secretly killing them. Even here, where they tweaked a few animations for various POkemon to be more smooth or added a couple extra here & there, they're still using the same models and the bulk of the same animations and rigs and I imagine the textures are handled primarily by an algorithm (followed by manual clean up). But moves? They gotta keep making new animations & visual effects every game....honestly Gen 9 should cut more moves but LA I think cut a little too many for my liking. Balancing act!
  • I love how smooth all the rides are! Super easy to switch (especially going from sea to land or air!), very responsive, very little complaints. They could sometimes be a LITTLE clunky in Alola so they've improved them here. Flying in particular is very fun, but so is rock climbing. I do think they could have improved the acmear work when dashing around with wydeer & basculegion, though. My complaint about Ursaluna is more a general "stop having item finder stuff with pinpoint precision in 3D worlds" and not the ride itself; i like its radar way mroe than stoutland and i like how once he picks up a scent he just BOOKS IT.
Pokemon, visuals, audio:
  • All the hisui forms are pretty fun, same with...most of...the evolutions. I think Overqwil looks goofy out of the water but otherwise fine. But then there's Sneasler and mannnnnn I just don't like it. It's so close! I've talked about this before so I'll leave it be.
  • Visuals are sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Well they're better than SWSH in a number of ways, so that's something. But god some of the textures aint great. The water is real bad in most instances. It just FEELS a little mucky at all times. Also I think the textures on the Pokemon are starting to age a little...
  • However, character animations have much improved. You could tell they got better as they went through SWSH and it shows here too, nice lively animations and moved away from a bunch of canned animations. That said there's not THAT many characters and they dont have that many animations, but, well, oh well.
  • I generally liked the music but nothing really stuck out to me aside from the various legend themes. I dunno, just something about the style.
  • This is not unique to this game, but I don't like when a game decides to be "atmospheric" silent. It's dull to me. The music would sometimes cut in to be a little interesting but it wasn't often, and when it was there it was short. Could god not give the god phone a god music player
Story...I'll put all this under spoilers:
  • I like the set up of the game more than I thought. The thing that sells it is the protagonist is constantly put upon and sad about everything. If the alola kids are best defined by : ) , LA's kids are : (
  • And they're rightfully sad because the game does a good job of showing the state of Pokemon in this world. Very few partners, a lot of fear, but also kind of excitement and I like the development everyone in the town goes through as the game goes on and quests are filled out.
  • Cyllene being like "if you fail we're throwing you to the wolves and you're going to fuckin die" is still hilariously blunt to me
  • It was a smart idea to have this be 2 years into the expedition. We paper over what sounds like a LOT of negotiation and turmoil that's onyl recently reached the uneasy status it starts out, and you can feel it. And then we get to see that final push, it's nice.
  • In particular I like that we see Diamond/Pearl clashes but also internal people trying to help each other and accept the help. It's not just us or galactic forcing them to get along, it's a natural reconciliation.
  • That said it is funny how the climax has them go "well fuck i guess we were both right about Sinnoh?? Wild." and doesnt linger on that big drama bomb at ALL. But to be fair there was a billion things going on so, you know.
  • Adaman in particular I find interesting because he seems to be leading the charge on allying with Galactic because of his focus on time, while Iridia needs a lot more time (OR SPACE, IF YOU WILL) to see and come to similar conclusions. It's a big deal that Adamn allows the base camp near Wydeer (and Wydeer allowing it) and you get the feeling that took a lot of time to allow; meanwhile Iridia needed to have the Kleavor incident and the Ursaluna incident to truly be on our sides and trust.
  • The "episodic" wardens were nice, too. Learn just enough about them, what they think, the interactions in play and then resolve and leave. Palia and Iscan in particular a highlight, but Ingo & Meli were surprisingly enjoyable as well.
  • However...Laventon, Akari & especially Cyllene I have problems with. The early game really sets them up as more important than they kind of wind up being. Akari falls off for the bulk of the game, Laventon does keep making appearences and having little dabs of input throughout but he feels like he should be more important and finaly Cylenne...is barely a character. She has that bit at the start and then a wurmple scene in the middle and then her big moment for the climax. That's it. That's a real shame, I wanted to know more about her, why she joined, what she truly thinks of all this, etc. She's Cyrus' ancestor...she should be more relevant like Kamado & Volo are.
  • In general I'd have liked some sort of social links in this game lol. It's very silly i know but i dunno! Something about the game makes me want to know more about them and hang out!
  • In particular Kamado feels like we're missing a chunk of context. You get a good feel for his personality otherwise.
  • Cogita is the beeeeeesssssssstttttt. She is a good way of having a mysterious character give just enough to understand but still have mysteries. I also love how she just trashes Volo constantly. You get just enough to make some assumptions about their relationship, but enough to make you wonder what else happened with them.
  • Volo...they do a good job of making him sus in the lead up to the climax and stuff. He's clearly a little TOO interested. But I think the post-game climax is kind of...badly paced. Like he goes fro mkind of reasonably frenzied to Insane in the span of like, 2 sentences. It's too quick, then he exposits at you the entire plot to the game and im just going "o-oh? okay..." and his motivation to redo the entire world which ???? well i mean okay but i JUST learned this can we have sometime to breathe? Some foreshadowing? hello??
  • WHILE IM AT IT the Giratina stuff all being contined to the last 10 minutes of the game sucks ass. I wanted more foreshadowing, I wanted more info on what Giratina did, I wanted...anything! At all! The little bit where Volo tellingly compares to an unwanted child is really interesting, as is the story in the plates, and the fact that Volo fed giratina what I presume is the griseous ore...i would like more of that.
    • That said, I enjoy how this kind of finalizes the missing link between "Giratina is full of rage and rebelled and cast into the distortion world" and "Giratina seems to be actively trying to keep the balance now, and is crying out".
    • But also that said it is hilarious that we tell everyone what happened at spear pillar and then volo comes back and goes "yeah i tried to kill your guy and take the plates and remake the whole world. anyway giratina's probably fine now. bye i guess" off screen.
    • But also also that final battle was preeeeeetty cooool with that rad visual & audio transition to the proper theme.
    • Side note but Gingko landing is in the same area as Giratina's spring and their logo is very reminsicent. It feels like a missed opportunity to give absolutely no backstory on the Gingko corps beyond "they travel all over the region".
  • Weirdly related to the "not enough info" thing is Mai. We don't really learn anything about her, beyond a brief aside on how she feels about us at the start, that worn bridge is important to her, and she apparently still has a connection to Shaymin as mentioned in the shaymin quest at the very end. We're sent to her at the Worn Bridge, which is apparently important to her, but we don't get...anything else about that. Or her. We go there and she goes "cant help, good luck tho." You could remove that entire segment or just have Lian send us to Volo and lose NOTHING. There's also, going back to my earlier complaint about the world, nothing you can gleam about Worn Bridge. There's nothing in the environment, I don't think anyone talks about it, anything. It's the worst kind of mystery to put on a character, it's one with nothing to go on.
  • Still on the whole I generally liked the story. Kept a brisk pace, the main story had decent pacing, I liked the characters, etc.

Wait I nearly forgot 2 things, both dealing with post game
1. I am not going to begrudge people who liked it, and I enjoyed it myself as well, but the post game kind of felt missing something. Like when you take a step back it's go to about 7 places you already went and capture a pokemon, then you get a bunch of exposition in the span of 5 minutes, and then its done. Then you can finish up the dex and grab Arceus. And again that's fun, I liked it, I also enjoyed my time in the various post games in the series, but to me it felt like it was still kinda lesser....I'd have liked a proper new area, or just more i dunno stuff happening at the areas. We talk with the wardens at each one but honestly it feels lesser than us doing the same thing in SM. I dunno. Just that little something extra that I wanted, but wasn't there. This also goes back to m ydisappointment in how they handled Giratina & Volo.

2. The Arceus fight is really rad but I don't like that there's just no real resolution or acknowledgement that hey we're uhhhhhhhh stuck in the past. Do we care about that? Didn't we want to get home? Was this not something we thought would happen? God? Hello? Dont leave my texts on read
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top