SPOILERS! Legends: Arceus Playthrough Discussion

[Inspirited]

I finished my very slowly not long ago and I am fairly impressed with the game overall. It is generally what I have wanted from a Pokemon game for a long time now and I hope they keep what was great about it and build on it in the future. This was a great experiment from Gamefreak.

My general team right before we entered the highlands:

The last two slots were reserved for registering whatever I could register. Before the Spheal line was there, I had an alpha Octillery in the slot and it was more than ok. The problem with it is that it isn't of the Spheal line and I went with my favorite a bit later after the novelty of having an enormous octopus on my team died off. Shinx was caught because I was fairly positive that it would learn twave by level up at some point in order to help with catches for registering. I used to have a Stantler in slot 5, but because of how slow registering Pokemon was going with just one slot dedicated to it, I decided to reserve two slots for it and one of Stantler or Staravia had to go. I'm glad I kept Staravia because both it and Dartrix routinely ran out of flying move PP due to the silly amount of Para/Parasect and Carnivine I was routinely getting attacked by (this game drastically shifted my opinion on Carnivine and the Paras line to the point where I want to set fire to them whenever I see them now). I was pleasantly shocked by Dartrix evolving into something I didn't recognize and the signature move is really neat. I'm glad they made Hisuian Decidueye a thing.

For Kleavor, I first had to figure out the typing though this didn't take too long and once I did, I used a Graveler in slot 6 to damage it in the traditional battle phase after I got KOed once. Lilligant was bird food. Arcanine was probably the toughest boss in the game for me due to its arena and focus on area denial. It KOed me many times before I actually planned my movements across its arena out but in the traditional battling phase, it was Octillery cannon fodder. Electrode KOed me once but wasn't all that bad overall with Decidueye's Triple Arrows + Aura Sphere being good enough to get through its battling phase reliably.

The team moving into the icelands:

This definitely was against any sort of better judgement I have but I saw a Gible in the highlands and immediately knew what I must do. The team now has a nasty ice weakness which made the hyper aggressive Glalie that was annoyingly barely lived through my fighting moves for awhile a pretty big issue. Through sheer stubbornness and the Pokemon I was trying to register being somewhat useful, I was able to get to Sabi who I am very glad I kept the Garchomp for. Avalugg was a bit of a pushover, though an awesome-looking one, and I found it really funny that Decidueye just 1HKOed something that enormous with Aura Sphere in the battling phase.

Beni actually nearly KOed Garchomp as the four I have don't handle Gardevoir (or just fairies in general) very well. This would also be true of Kamado's Clefable but Staraptor crit it so it didn't get to do anything.

After capturing Dialga:

I added Dialga because I have a majority of the Pokemon registered now and I'm glad I did because it made the Palkia battle phase pretty straightforward. It did KO me once though.


Heatran: was one of my favorite fights in the game up to this point and it KOed me once
Thundurus: KOed me four times but the whole chase and line up the shot sequences were really cool.
Tornadus: Koed me once and was less cool than Thundurus' before-battle puzzle chase thing because it is on land mostly.
Landorus: I tried some theory I thoguht up and it ended up cheesing Landorus' approach sequence. It KOed me 0 times as a result.
Enamorus: Same as Landorus

Before moving to finish the plate quest:

While registering Manaphy, I realized just how good Take Heart and its Water + Fairy move combo was and finally decided to retire the Garchomp in order to make registering the final Pokemon in the icelands more manageable. It also was really helpful against Volo + Giratina with its toolset being mighty helpful against that combination of Pokemon.

Before Arceus:

3d Giratina-O with the right proportions and free control of the camera looks amazing in this game and it felt right bringing the being of antimatter into what was probably going to be a battle with the being of matter; something Volo says it has wanted to do for a long time.


Arceus player KO count: 7

This fight was really cool and a really nice way to round off the game. Seeing it change type in battle, before knowing what the Legend Plate was, is a really neat touch for this postgame boss as it does what I thought it should be able to do when I first learned about what it was over a decade ago now. Being able to name the moves it was using (outside of 2) was cool as well. This fight is definitely the best the game has with Heatran and Arcanine coming close so it is fitting that it is in the postgame.

Final Team:

Overall: I had a really good time with this game. Was it perfect? Goodness no with a couple of the character and story elements needing some attention. The gameplay loop was neat and actually doing research on mons was a really cool way of keeping me invested for awhile even if it did get a lil repetitive. The big bosses were all good-great for their own reasons though which is the most impressive thing to me. The different areas and landscapes were also a highlight as well as all of the new forms introduced. It got many things right. 8/10 to me.

 

[RocketSurgery]

I never got around to posting my overall impressions on the game, as I claimed I would do in this post... 6 months ago... because I got very sidetracked by shiny hunting...

Ok, I have a post about my thoughts on the game in progress, but before I get around to finishing writing that, I just want to say that the outbreak shiny hunting method is amazing. (If you are at dex level 10 for the mon, at least).

Fortunately, I saved the draft of the post I was writing...

My in-game team ended up being

The Kricketune wasn't for the memes, it was because it was a random shiny alpha I got early in the adventure, and I never caught anything cool enough to replace it. It wasn't exactly the star member of the team or anything, but it looked pretty at least. Other notable mons early on in the playthrough were Staraptor, Drifblim, and Luxray, which I was glad to use for a bit at least, because I didn't pick up BDSP and my original Pearl team was lackluster, so it never really felt like I had a "canon" Sinnoh team for myself, the way I did for some other gens.


Gameplay: I enjoyed the game a lot. To be honest the game felt a bit quick to me, but I also mistakenly thought I spent less time playing that I actually did. For the most part I didn't mind the new battle system. It was a fine variation for a different branch of the main series. I did come to hate it during massive mass outbreaks, as when you're up against four alphas at once who take 6-8 turns before you get to do anything, the system is the opposite of fun. I am looking forward to the standard turn-based battles in SV.

Distribution of mons: As someone that likes to focus on the new mons a game brings, this game was a bit frustrating in terms of its distribution of Pokemon. It seemed like nearly a lot of the new mons were gated behind completing their corresponding nobles/getting the corresponding rides. I am not sure if any of the rides/nobles are possible to catch ahead of time, except for Braviary and Avalugg, whose prevos were readily available. Maybe the others are possible and you just really have to go out of your way and explore to find and get them. I get that for story and lore purposes they might not want to make the new mons too common and available, but it felt rather frustrating at times, especially when I finally found and caught a ton of Basculin only to find that they were all females, and the males---which evolve into the form you ride on---were tucked away around the corner of the island the story is driving you towards.

Even a lot of the OG Sinnoh mons that I would have been happy to use as temporary members while building my endgame team were often late game. In particular, I would have liked to use Mismagius over Drifblim, but while Drifloon is everywhere, Misdreavus isn't available until area 4 (where I missed it entirely because once I got Sneasler ride I just climbed straight to the Nobel fight), and I never ended up using it. Shellos and Gastrodon are another example of a mon I would have liked to use, but while West sea is in area 1 you need Basculegion to get it (I think) and East side is in area 3, also accessible after getting Basculegion, so it never made it onto the team. Really hoping it will be possible to beeline to and catch some typically late-game mons in SV (even if you have to stock up on pokedolls to not get mauled by high level wild mons).


Graphics: Personally I like the style of the graphics and overall I think they look fine, not ugly to me. My main issue with the graphics is that everything seems to have this purple-ish reflection that just seems out of place? The pop-in definitely needs some polish, and the low frame rate of mons far away is noticeable on occasion, but I'm not sure if I would even have paid much attention to those things if people hadn't devoted the last 3 years making complaining about graphics in Pokemon games part of their personality. To be honest, I'm really not sure what some people are looking for in terms of graphics---people have posted examples of other games, but a lot of them look worse in my opinion outside of still shots, or are in a style that looked unsuited for a Pokemon game.


Alphas: For my tastes the alphas weren't balanced in a way that made me want to interact with them during the main campaign; I would usually just avoid, especially later on when Luxray and Drifblim got shelved and my team had less status moves. The main alphas I bothered with of my own volition were the shiny alpha kricketune I came across before I even got Wydeer and alpha Sligoo (which took a few tries to catch).

I found the alphas more fun in post-game, when it was as much of a chore to fight them. For the ones I wanted to catch, though, trying to catch them in battle is still rather annoying, so when possible I try to sneak catch them. One of my favorite catches was when I first came across that level 85 Garchomp from the trailer, and I started approaching it, and... it just... it just took a nap. So I snuck up on it from behind and nailed it with a Gigaton ball. Easiest catch of my life.

Shiny hunting: PLA is the best game for casual shiny hunting, but my god can it become awful when you try to hunt specific things. As I said, this is basically why it took me so long to finish.

I forget if I got sidetracked before or after I beat the main story. At any rate, soon after the original mass outbreak shiny hunting method was figured out I rolled a Zoroark outbreak and spent a few hours on that before I screwed it up. Then, I got back to the story but pretty quickly rolled a zorua outbreak and became obsessed trying to hunt a shiny alpha zorua. I don't even want to estimate how many hours I sunk into that before the daybreak outbreak ruined the original mass outbreak method.

Then, shortly after the massive mass outbreak shiny hunting method was figured out I rolled a mass outbreak with a two-round alpha typhlosion, so I tried my luck at getting a shiny alpha typhlosion. I had no luck. After grinding through 49 permutations of 7 alpha typhlosions over the course of a few months I came up empty handed. No shiny alpha, no shiny at all. This wouldn't have been as disappointing if dealing with 4 alphas at a time weren't so awful. For the love of Arceus any future iterations in this series need some spread moves.

In the meantime, HOME compatibility finally released, which meant I could just drop in a Spiritomb instead of finding the rest of those damned wisps.

So, once my Typhlosion hunt ended in failure I finally got around to beating Arceus. It took me a few tries because I figured if I was going to earn PokeGod I should do it the legit way, starting over after I was smited, instead of just continuing on like I did with the Nobels.

Once I earned PokeGod's respect, there was just the one burning hole in my Pokedex, that shiny alpha zorua/zoroark. I decided to grind out the rest of the level 10's I needed to get the shiny charm, so that I would have max shiny odds available if I ever encountered an alpha zoro outbreak, which I vowed was the only massive mass outbreak shiny hunt I would ever do again. I got that outbreak tonight, and...

Thank Arceus that this time it only took me 3 permutations to get this beautiful creature:

I can rest now.

(Well, I still need to go catch Shaymin and Manaphy, but otherwise I will bide my time until SV trying to climb the ladder in SwSh series 13 to get Marshadow the master rank ribbon).

 

[ArchaeusXolotl]

5 shinies after month of playing xdd
the others are bibarel, golduck and rapidash

 

[ArchaeusXolotl]

Well someone went a bit overkill

Well someone went a bit Overqwil

 

[doipy hooves]

Tonight I saw daybreak, fought Arceus, and completed the pokedex. Now I can do it again in Brilliant Diamond, but first I'll talk about the game because I've been playing it on and off for a while and I'm glad I saw it through. I'll also fill in a few screenshots I uploaded, though most are recent and from endgame anyway.

I was satisfied with the main goal of getting tasks done to fill up the pokedex to make it feel more engaging, and I got to Full Star in the middle of the postgame dex grind, which I thought would be longer than it was but most of the tasks go by in just a few combats. I felt like I was able to make good progress on a lot of the optional/collection aspects like requests and tasks over the course of the game thanks to the variety of pokemon and task options, though my pastures are pretty much full at this point as a result. I stumbled upon quite a few wisps and verses on my own but I did end up using maps to clean up those and most of the Unown. I have to say that the Google results for Legends content are full of random sites trying to get clicks, but I was pleasantly surprised that "gamerguides" actually has some pretty solid directions and interactive maps. I was waiting to use the Ingo release glitch to grind grit and money but at this point I might not need it unless I want to go for the last Path of Solitude requests, so I might just leave mons there for possible SV transfers.

For the most part I appreciated the availability of most (non-noble) evolved mons being available as static alphas to catch while the others required actual evolutions, but finding some mons were just pure RNG, especially the babies and rare distortion ones and in postgame the starters take up spawn slots as well, so I ended up just waiting it out for another Shieldon for its tasks and Porygon2 or Z to save an Upgrade.

The 3D gameplay was alright for a pokemon game and I wonder what SV will do with its own parallel approach. I always liked running around the world and now they give you tools to do it in different ways. Wyrdeer alone opens up so much with the jump button and infinite dash. Ursaluna is pretty free and there are a lot of dig spots to keep it relevant though it kind of got tripped up in the icelands with the underground holes. A fun trick I noticed is that you can double jump with Basculegion and if you jump right as you dip into the water you can get another double jump and keep skipping on water. Sneasler is funny but I wish I could swap to Wyrdeer out of it though I guess flying off of a cliff can be nice. Braviary kind of disappointed me at first because I thought it would have flying but it was pretty good for going from point A to B after doing all the exploring normally. I didn't bother to perfect the balloon races though.

I liked the throwing items and I wonder if those will come back in any form. The balls are always nice to have and each has their own merit in different situations, though I don't know if it really matters which you use in battle. The stunning items also help to deal with half the mons that are aggressive. Smoke bombs are cool and helpful against the genies and scatter bangs are actually pretty fun against large groups of random mons. However a lot of the random evolution items being exclusive to distortions or merit points or Ginter seemed like a problem, though I ended up accumulating a fair share of them anyway. Getting things like dawn stones from breaking blue rocks can be fun, and speaking of which the obtainable resources are neat but you can end up just buying them anyway. At least they're fast to pick up ingame. I didn't really see a use for a lot of battle items with how many niche ones they came up with, but I wouldn't mind seeing some of those ideas in more main games.

My core team was mainly Typhlosion, Umbreon, and Lopunny for most of the game because of favoritism/bulk/speed/priority working well in the PLA battle system, as well as Calm Mind and Baby-Doll Eyes being relatively spammable status moves. Over the main game I used Lumineon, Weavile, Scyther, Luxray, Staraptor, Rapidash, Unown-A, and Gabite for some time. (EDIT: I forgot about my trusty alpha Empoleon, the Big Penguin. It was pretty solid as a 6th man for the lategame bosses.) Most of the other mons in this box didn't end up being used that much after the early game. I picked the game back up around the start of postgame after backing up my Switch album, and decided to train the other starters to round out the team and they got a nice jump start of experience from the Kamado rematch.

Battles were cool. Damage being based on power and defenses and multipliers moreso than attack stats helps put weight on higher power moves feeling more powerful and defensive mons feeling tanky, though it is kind of weird seeing level 4 mons survive random attacks while going for tasks. I think having an understanding of how action speed and turn order worked was helpful early on in my approach. The alpha/trainer AI using styles was neat and opportunistic, like one time I got Agile Giga Impacted by a Purugly and then a Glameow also agiled which lowered my speed enough to get Giga Impacted again. Wild encounters are very smooth with how you can approach them and move around, and they still feel engaging despite the relatively simpler battles, though huge trainer battles do feel more shallow as a result. Fighting multiple enemies can be tough and I wish you got to have multiple mons on the field yourself, but it did help some scenarios feel more threatening. Statuses and passive effects like weather are mostly simplified, and also more common but all temporary and didn't last out of battle which I was a fan of. You can also stack them so you can spam some status moves for free tasks, but on that topic missed moves not counting for tasks felt annoying.

I knew what happens in the endgame from leaks and people talking about it, but I hadn't actually seen the final fights for myself yet so it was pretty interesting to watch that play out, though I was grinding for the pokedex in each region before actually progressing the plate quest (that I didn't realize would be that short) so it ended up being a pretty chill experience. On the other hand Arceus was a pretty tough fight to end on, but it was really cool and worth the time it took to find all the pokemon and finally meet Arceus in its very own game. Too bad Volo didn't get to see it. I ended up also doing the massive mass outbreaks for a while too though I was encroaching on box space. It worked out pretty well to visit the Icelands for Machamp and Glaceon as some of my last uncaught common mons and also summoning a blizzard for Tornadus.

Speaking of the endgame I guess I can also talk about the story. There were a lot of minor characters living and joining the village, and the dialogue and requests gave them some insight at times with the whole idea of developing the town and relationships with pokemon. There are some good jokes in there and I feel like Wanda is Leon's ancestor. As for the main story I felt like it was an alright concept that they did keep secret pretty well, but I would have preferred more development for the characters especially Volo who I kept hearing all this stuff about the foreshadowed backstabbing and general villainy, and in the end they didn't really backstab you at all. If anything the foreshadowing moment was them saying "Boo!" because of the Spooky Plate. There were some nice character moments and dynamics like the deal with Gen 5, but there's not really the same kind of dynamic here with friends or rivals or gym leader authorities, it's just multiple factions in a tense relationship with everyone including you and for what it was worth they really had it out for the protagonist in this plot. At least they still give you dialogue options to choose from sometimes. They did add some more clan interactions in Daybreak which was nice and the Zorua part was disturbing, though I personally wanted to see what would happen with Munchlax's subplot and the source of the mass outbreaks and it just became a game mechanic instead. It was a nice tone to end the main story for the clans though and the completed pokedex cutscene serves a similar purpose for the Galaxy Team/main plot.

Overall I had fun with the game and the degree of content, and there's still potential battles in all the paths of solitude and the reverie and other random trainer fights Daybreak added. A single player game focused on research and making completing the dex a viable goal was an interesting concept and it brought together some old and new experiences. I didn't like that you couldn't screenshot the ending photo in the credits though so I hope SV improves on that front.