u/Dorianscale

I’d like to see if other people feel the same way. I hope future legends titles fix these issues.

So I’m not some stickler for unimportant things that people get hung up on. I couldn’t care less about balconies or tree fidelity.

But I was a HUGE fan of Pokemon Legends Arceus. I thought the stealth and throwing mechanics of it made the game a lot of fun and feel very fresh. Getting around was a fun challenge avoiding hostile pokemon while trying to do stuff. Then the lore of everything and the isekai concept made it go up another level. I also liked the big maps and graduated exploration as you unlock more abilities.

There are things I do like about ZA, the new battle mechanics are interesting. But overall being stuck in the city and the wild areas being pretty small is kinda disappointing. Prelaunch I had thought they’d solve this similar to tears of the kingdom with three layers to the map, the sky, the ground, and an expansive underground. But rooftops are hard to get to and not very populated, the underground is pretty tiny. All the wild zones are pretty much the same. Only a couple have unique feels. The aiming and stealth mechanics are either gone or toned down a lot. No ride pokemon. I can’t even send my pokemon to grab items for me.

The story is also pretty grating. I’m not invested in hardly anyone, and Taunie/Urbain is infuriating. The isekai aspect of PLA and new forms made me care a lot more about the different areas, the side characters, the society, and how everything functions. It also makes me think about being in the time of legends rather than just part of the urban planning department.

I even held out hope that the DLC would fix some of the issues but it wasn’t very fun. The donut mechanic is frustrating, and the hyper zones just feel like a grind in a bad way it’s the same bland areas but painted white.

TLDR

This game took out the best parts of Arceus and is pretty bland.

I know people have speculated or confirmed based on previous leaks that pokopia had originally been planned for release with another area that got scrapped.

I suspect that the pokemon dolls hint at this. Rocky ridges has two dolls for dream islands with materials found there, clefairy and arcanine. Every other area only has one dedicated doll.

I imagine they had all the resources set and pretty far in development when they decided to scrap one area and had to merge them together. If I had to guess arcanine was originally more geared towards an entire volcanic area since Clefairy, Pewter City, and Mt. Moon seem to be more related to each other.

Thoughts?