I don't know much about this game because I don't follow Pokémon but reviews are out.

Averaging 86 out of 41 reviews at the moment. "By tearing up the rule book and breaking new ground, Game Freak has created the best Pokémon title in decades."

Wow! That first teaser they showed looked rough, but I watched some gameplay footage and I thought it looked pretty good. I decided that I'd be picking this up if critics ended up liking it, looks like this will be fun!

My nephew is going to be all over this.

I'm intrigued, too! I've still never been completely hooked by the franchise. I usually fade away after an hour or two. But the changes in Arceus seem positive.

Damn, I'm on the fence here. I was initially sold until I heard this wasn't actually Poke of the Wild but now I want it again. The thing is I know I'd probably put in a number of hours before just dropping it but I do that with most games honestly. But I still like to buy them and enjoy what I can out of them if I don't finish.

Look, I get it looks rough or whatever but I rather enjoy how this looks. I don't need every game to be up to this weird standard that doesn't really exist. I honestly like when some games have a bit of a barren look.

For example I vastly prefer the style of the Beta Zelda 64 compared to the finished OOT.

If the performance is reeeeeally bad that would probably suck but then lately I've been a lot less bothered by that as well. I don't expect perfect framerates, even if I appreciate it when it's there. Not necessarily a deal breaker for me.

My only experience with the games are like 2 hours of Red back in the day, Snap (and now Snap 2!), and then maybe half way ish through Sword, which I really enjoyed.

This looks like something I'd enjoy and the visuals will definitely bother me much less than a lot of people out there.

Even with the flaws, it sounds good enough to warrant a serious look? And I know how 'Capcom Test' this sounds, but you have to figure if you don't support them when they finally do something new with a stale formula then they're not going to bother trying again.

This might not be *exactly* what I've been screaming for for over 15 years, but it sounds like a solid attempt. I think I'll end up pulling the trigger on this tomorrow for sure.

Really hoping that I'll like this. Even if it's a bit rough in areas, hopefully it's still good enough to get improved and refined upon, and the mechanics brought into Generation 9. Generation 8 was the only generation I ever skipped because it just looked so lacklustre.

I’m really digging this game so far. Especially the “Chrono Trigger-esque” battles that happen right there on the field. No more screen-swipe transition to a battle scene. Feels way faster and more organic. If the main line games adopt this, I wouldn’t be upset. The kinda non-linear mission progression is a nice change of pace as well.

I’ve been pretty happy with these Pokémon spin-offs lately. Between this, New Snap and Unite, it’s a great time to be a fan of the franchise.

@GameDadGrant

Little disappointed that the battles are still effectively the same static turnbased battles as always. (albiet with a few tweaks.)

One day my dream of having dynamic anime style battles that utilize the environment and other clever strategies ('Rhyhorn may be resistant to electricity normally, but hit his horn!') may come to pass.

I hit the credits for the game yesterday. It is really good. There is a sort of postgame campaign that I can work on but I am mostly just catching stuff.

@Shadowlink

Myself, I really like the gameplay of turn-based combat and I feel a lot of devs are trying to move to action-based systems because they assume that's better (Final Fantasy, looking at you!), so I'm glad Pokemon still sticks with it. But that said, I do think more dynamism and variations like you mention would be more than welcome since Pokemon battles are often very dry.

This game is fun! It reminds me of other big map RPGs like DQXI and Xenoblade.

There's a lot of cutscene fodder fetch quest stuff though. The absolute best parts of the game are when I'm not paying attention to the story and am just wandering around catching and fighting Pokemon. Then, it's the best Pokemon game ever.

But I think for me, the whole fundamental concept of not being able to beat an enemy just because it's a higher level than me turns me off even from the exploration aspects. This happened to me with Octopath Traveler too; the hollowness and arbitrariness of these EXP based games has really stuck out to me every since Breath of the Wild blew those shackles away entirely.

Pokemon's combat is so good though. Simple to wrap your mind around the basics, with a TON of complexity emerging from the massive amount of options. It's like, the one RPG where customizing your party is more complex than "swap out their armor every few hours for armor that makes the numbers go higher." And it seems like they're giving you a lot of options for faster team composition in this game than in previous games! And I've heard that this game gets really hard! So part of me wants to stick with it to get to the endgame stuff where I'll supposedly be restricted by my actual skill level and planning ability... buuut I don't know if I'll stick with it that long, I'm six hours in and the game is starting to feel a little samey and grindy and repetitive. Just open the full map and let me explore! I don't want to ride the bear!

(The bear is kinda fun though.)

I ended up getting this in Target's buy 2 get 1 free sale a couple of weeks ago.

It's pretty good! My expectations were only moderate considering the series and the dev, so it's managed to impress me. Finally, everything is so streamlined and quick now, including some ideas I thought up a long time ago like a Mon being able to know all its moves and be able to "equip" four for battle. Battles are so much faster-paced now and are much less of a pain to breeze through for grinding or catching purposes, and they have a better sense of place in the world with things like not being swept away to a generic battle scene and the trainer(s) always on camera. I can only hope that the next mainline games at least copy or build on these mechanics even if they keep the old style of world design.

My main problems are the same as any Pokémon game: mediocre presentation and story. With that said, given all the complaints I've seen, I was actually expecting the graphics to be something worse than they are; I thought it was going to be something on the level of the wild areas from Sword and Shield, but fortunately it's much better than those. There is one gameplay issue with the graphics which is how the draw distance for objects and Monz isn't all that far out, making for some noticeable popup and an inability to see Monz and items that are located far off, but it isn't a big deal.

Overall, I'm glad this game was successful, and hope it means there's more big changes and ambition in store for the franchise.

That quest for the big Buizel is pretty mean to have as an early one! I dunno if it's a glitch or what but I actually got a 2'8" Buizel early on, but he still refused to take it despite him saying he wanted 2'8" and above. I had over a pasture full of Buizel and still no luck, eventually I got a 2'7" that I decided to try just to see and the guy ended up accepting that one! This guy right here, a real pain in my Buizel let me tell you...

Open world games could learn a thing or two from Pokémon Legends. One of the best things about this game is how mounts work. There's no extraneous tasks with taming, stabling, or care, no having to retrieve them from certain spots or limits on where they can go. All I have to do is press a button and puff, it's there, time to zoom across the land with ease. I know that ride Monz were introduced in Sun and Moon so credit goes to them, but they're even better implemented here. Nintendo has been catching wind of the idea from how Plessie works in Bowser's Fury, so hopefully they at least do something similar to that in BotW2 if not being like ride Monz.

I borrowed this game from the local library a long while back, shortly after it came out. Really liked what I played (just 20 or 30 minutes, probably) so I decided to return it and just buy a copy some day in the future. Well it is THE FUTURE! I picked it up with one of the two Game Vouchers.

I have to say, this is probably the Pokemon experience I've been wanting for many, many years. Maybe not the "ideal" one (because let's be honest, the potential of this franchise is so "through the roof" it would be nearly impossible to live up to what it COULD be) but rather it changes enough of the old (dare I say "tired") formula that it feels fresh, inviting, and just plain FUN again. I could wander around for hours just chucking Pokeballs at 'mons, sneaking in the grass, and collecting berries and such. And I probably will. I expect this is the kind of game I will at least "catch 'em all" with, if not complete every entry of the Pokedex. 100%? We'll have to see, but I love the fact that each Pokemon has different mini-goals in the entries. I mean, I really love that. I hope they always have that sort of thing.

And I really hope we get another Legends game, building on this one, set in the past like this. This is the kind of world I adore, rather than big ugly cities filled with pointless buildings that don't even have interesting things in them.

Plus them limiting it to 200 some Pokemon is exactly what I want. I'm sure I'll be sad some of my favorites didn't make the cut, but the Gold/Silver level number of creatures to collect was - to me - exactly right. More is too much, and 1008 (ONE THOUSAND AND EIGHT?! I looked it up because I was going to say "800 some" holy crap 1008) is WAAAAAAAAAY too much.

@J.K. Riki Glad to see you're enjoying it! For a lot of the same reasons I did as well. It's possible to obtain every Mon without trades, so you really are able to catch 'em all in this game. Last I checked Legends sold over 12 million copies, so I think a sequel is all but guaranteed, just a question of when.

@Mop it up

I hope so! I'd love to see a sequel that continues in this direction.

. . .

One thing about the game that keeps striking me is just how cool it is to have the "danger" element. I mean, since this is prior to Pokemon becoming essentially "noramlized" in the world (oh, yeah, they just ride the bus with you, no big deal) it makes it feel like a much richer world. I've taken screen shots of all the times characters have said (or implied) you could totally die out there in the wilds, and that is thrilling to have in a Pokemon game. Sure, you won't/can't die, but it still adds such flavor to the experience that the characters don't just act like a soccer-ball sized rat with magic electricity powers isn't A REALLY BIG DEAL. I always thought Pokemon got that aspect a little wrong, and especially as the series went on. There's an excitement to the fact that these are living creatures who could totally cut you in half if you're not careful.

Another thing I just found out about is that if you have saves from other Pokemon games on Switch you can get alternate costumes. I really like little touches like that. It's fun. And I like the Sword/Shield outfit better than anything else I've found so far, too, which only makes it sweeter.

@J.K. Riki Yeah, it was an aspect I liked as well. I can see why people wouldn't want Monz attacking the kid in the main games, but even without that element, they could still do a better job of making the Monz feel less like pets and tools and more like creatures. My fave thing is how you can still move your character during battles, though getting hit there doesn't hurt.

By the way, here's a photo of my team!

@Mop it up

Love it! I was going to do some fan-art later today of my character avatar, ha ha. Maybe toss a Bidoof in there, I dunno.

As stated above, I DID do some fan art and DID throw a Bidoof in there!



Six hours of work so far, and I still need to do more polish phases before I'm ready to call it "done" and move on to something new. It was good practice. Not where I want it to be just yet, but that's exactly why you practice...

Still having a ball with this game. I play for an hour or so each night before bed, which I think is a terrific way to approach it. Some days I will keep going on story, some days I'll wander in new areas, some days I'll try to complete (100%) a single Pokedex entry... It has really kept things fresh and fun and I look forward to it every evening.

Also sometimes I just make 100 Pokeballs and run around chucking them at Pokemon for fun. It is such a blast. And throwing Pokeballs to have the Pokemon collect berries or items from a distance is GREAT. If that isn't in every game ever made from now on I'm going to be disappointed.