Pokémon Legends: Arceus, please be good

We all want it to be so don't let us down, ok?

Pokémon has always been a franchise, to me, that the hype was always enormous for Game Freak to release the same bullshit since 1998 in the US.

As a kid, I loved them and obviously thought they were great. They were easily my favorite games at the time.

But as I got older and continued to play them, I could tell that there was no true innovation. They added small changes and gimmicks to try and hide the sameness, but in reality, this was just Pokémon Red and Blue with a new coat of paint and a few new bells and whistles.

I stopped playing for a long time, but returned on the Nintendo Switch in 2019 for Pokémon Sword and Shield because I felt for the first time with the wild area in game that innovation was being made. 

It was a nice quarter step to an underwhelming, albeit satisfying, installment to the universe that added an expansive area of Pokémon within their normal framework for their games. I wanted more, something new to really change how these games function and work.

Fast forward to today, I am so excited for Pokémon Legends: Arceus to release in just a few days, and I am hoping more than anything that it is good.

And, honestly, from everything we have seen, I think it will be. Game Freak is taking a new approach to Pokémon games that we have never seen before. Building everything in the Zelda: Breath of the Wild engine, they have made an expansive world teaming with Pokémon that has a large hub town for getting quests and expanding. 

There are Pokémon walking around in all corners of the world and finding and catching them aren’t just for the joy of catching them all, but for once, a different reason.

Really, I am just excited for something new. I think that anything that can be attempted to freshen up the Pokémon IP is incredibly smart. There are many games that already have innovated on the basic Pokémon model that it is time they catch up.

Personally, I think Pokémon as a property has been banking on the excuse that their games are for kids for far too long. It is silly to think that many adults that used to play their games don’t continue to. I am hoping that with this game it is another step toward a stronger Pokémon IP as a whole.

If this game does fall through, I am worried that Game Freak will be right back to pumping out the same Pokémon games that they have been making since I was three because of the amount of money they make from reprinting new stories under the same base framework.

But with the new map, some of the stealth options, essentially boss battles versus wild Pokémon, and a large open-world, they seem to be trying new things that may carry over into their main game franchise. 

If that is the case, then the future of Pokémon is very, very exciting. So

Pokémon Legends: Arceus, please be good.