Topic: Pokemon Legends Arceus

@Pizzamorg There is a vast difference between Monster hunter stories and the mainline games. Do you not agree? I don't see why we cannot compare them both? They are both Spinoffs, they change the core gameplay loop.
I also don't see why Story is relevant in a mainline MH game, it keeps the game rolling but well....

You can still catch Pokemon, train them, and the setting makes complete sense in the context. There was a gameplay shift which you just don't enjoy. Doesn't make it bad for everyone, singleplayer Pokemon is rarely hard anyways if difficulty is your problem.
I mean, it is a Spinoff. Why compare it so badly to what is missing from the mainline Pokemon games when it is no Mainline title?

@Pizzamorg I take back what i said about the spinoff part. I really thought it was a Spinoff game but apparently it isn't, sorry about that.

I don't know what point you are trying to make or argue here, but literally none of this has any relevance to the boss battles I was specifically criticising here.

I'm not arguing against trainer independence, in fact I praised that element multiple times. I am just exclusively talking about how poorly designed the boss battles are and a huge part of that is due to how they circumvent the team of Pokémon you have. Building a team and forming a connection to your Pokémon should be a core part of any Pokemon experience, but here the way the game is designed make Pokémon a mostly interchangeable - and in some parts utterly bypassable - side part to the experience. To me, I play a Pokémon game for the Pokémon, as everything else in a Pokemon game can be experience elsewhere and better, so if the Pokémon aren't the centrepiece of the Pokémon game, then it is a bad Pokémon game to me.

@Pizzamorg I agree with you, the battle kinda suck, and don’t keep you engaged all that much, but I don’t really agree with the Pokémon not being centerpiece, I actually think they get the bonding with your Pokémon stuff on point, I think it’s the boss battles that suck at showcasing this, but even then I still love how you can beat it only using the trainer.

@TommyTendo There's a story spoiler but you did ask;

@jump your tag didn’t work in time, I didn’t finish the game… ): it’s ok I don’t mind to much, still kinda sucks tho.

@Snatcher Yeah I fixed it now. Sorry my bad but in fariness i did write spoiler at the very start and you can then see the spoiler written in the brackets so why did you keep reading?

@jump I saw it wile I was going to comment, so all I saw was the below part, but when I read one part of it, I realized what I read lol, not all your fault as I should have noticed the spoiler borders on the side.

Luckily I didn’t spend time looking at it, so I can’t remember it to much, or for all I know I misread. Not clicking on that thing to find out lol.

@Pizzamorg To be fair, before each of the Noble fights is a pokemon fight, so you do have to participate in a Pokemon Battle with a "boss" at the end of each area. Not that they're difficult, but this game isn't really focused on the battles anyway. It's clear this game is trying to push for as much "real time action" as possible. Even the back of the box says "action meets RPG", they just wanted experiment with this as much as possible in the game. If Legends becomes its own series, I wouldn't be surprised if they do away with turn based battles entirely, and when you toss out your pokeball you take control of them in action-style combat.

Personally I actually enjoyed the Noble fights, and actually liked the fact that you had the choice whether you wanted to use your pokemon or not. I think it gave the boss battles some variety, similar to how in the recent Paper Mario there were some bosses that were turn based and some bosses that were real time action. This game also had a mix of both, so I thought it was refreshing.

@cynas Gosh, I hope not. Did we learn nothing from Ni No Kuni?

@Pizzamorg I agree Ni No Kuni had pretty janky combat, but that doesn't mean Pokemon has to implement it the same way. They'd just need to make it like Pokken Torunament-lite. Sort of like an in-between of Pokemon Rumble and Pokken Tournament. Personally I think it could be pretty fun.

@Pizzamorg I haven't played the game (still on the fence, actually haven't gotten a single pokemon on switch as they all look like garbage) but I've seen some clips of I think the first noble fight with kleavor and I have to agree that a "fight" in a pokemon game NEEDS pokemon in it to be considered good and a fight so I agree with you.

I've reached the fifth area now and decided I'd drop a few of my thoughts down on paper.

I love the discovering and collecting of the Pokemon, exploring the nooks and crannies of the expansive landscapes and carrying out the varied requests for the townsfolk. The music is great, the concept of building the first Pokedex is interesting and there is a smorgasbord of characters to learn about. The QOL improvements are superb, namely the evolving, the move pool and the dynamic battles.

On the other hand there are a few things I don't get on with. Still being unable to auto sort Pokemon in ranches/boxes is crazy, the strong/agile styles need to be done away with, I miss having abilities and held items, there are too many aggressive Pokemon (just let me run by you please), I'm not hot on the noble fights, a bit too much crafting for my liking with too many items and not enough space to hold them all and very few trainer battles and the majority of them with just one Pokemon.

I can absolutely see them doing the new games in this style, the groundwork has been done really well. With this creating the first Pokedex thing now done and dusted, they can remove the Pokedex gating, remove the noble concept, remove the hub area and the in-order missions, join up the different areas with loading screens, put some towns in with gyms along the way, put in level scaling maybe to allow you to go and get the 8th badge first, put in random trainers walking about in the wilderness, come up with a story to go alongside your adventure, job done.

I don't understand why the game has so many items to pick up, when you only use a handful for crafting

My current loadout is Pokeballs and Oran Berries for luring things closer.

@TommyTendo You are probably just not crafting them. You can buy/earn extra things to craft like food to attract Poke, health items like max revive, star pieces to sell for more than the shards used to create them etc.

100%. Legends is full of QoL improvements that show innovation without deviating from what makes a Pokemon game, a Pokemon game. It is the reason I give it a 6 and not like a 2 or whatever.

The Nobles, however, are garbo. Chuck it in the bin and start again.

@Pokester99 I mean, it is your opinion and that is fine. But personally it feels pretty awesome to actually have Pokemon as Bosses with their own attacks. I agree with it needing a lot of improvement, but not really for the reason that playing a pokemon is necessary to have fun in this game.
The main chunk of the game is not spend on these bosses anyways

Again people we are in an era in which people don’t even know how to catch, let alone rely on them for anything, why in the world would they need them to fight there battles, when they have been living just fine on there own.

So, I was doing the post-game stuff, and I can see now what people meant by the story being one of the best in the series.