I didn't dislike Legends Arceus; on the contrary, I found the core gameplay loop very satisfying. But it was bogged down by so much unnecessary fluff and baggage that it really hampered the experience for me. Crafting was absolutely fine until you needed to craft anything more than a regular Pokeball, then it became far too costly because of the need to buy materials - which you did through capturing Pokemon and earning money, which became an exercise in diminishing returns once you'd done the research tasks for them - because gathering them was a painfully boring and time-consuming process that saw you watching the same animation of your Pokemon attacking trees and rocks over and over and OVER. The world itself was painfully sparse and empty in much the same way the Wild Area in Sword and Shield was, and I'm sorry, but travelling across empty spaces isn't playing a video game, it's wasting time. There are worse offenders out there than this game when it comes to wasting player time, but at the same time, empty space is empty space.
There were also a lot of...little irritations, let's call them. Fall damage? Really? An invisible player health bar that's just plain awkward and doesn't really contribute anything meaningful to the gameplay. Wild Pokemon that will chase you until the ends of the earth irrespective of your rank seems badly-designed to me too. I more than understand that it's designed to paint a picture of a dangerous world, and I do applaud this, but it comes at the expense of player enjoyment and a sense of progression, and it creates a very disjointed experience, at least in my opinion. You can convey a sense of constant danger without having a level 4 Shinx chasing you in a rage when you're packing a party of level 50s that could wipe it out by blowing softly onto it.
Which leads me into the combat. It was fine for the most part, although it was basically the same turn-based malarkey dressed-up a bit. The Strong and Agile styles were interesting, but I wonder at the point of having levels at all in this when they don't seem to make much of a difference either way. I also wonder what on earth possessed them to not let you use more than one Pokemon at a time. There is no rational explanation for why you wouldn't send out more than one Pokemon when you're confronted by three or four at once, each of them getting multiple turns a lot of the time. The removal of moves and lack of AoE moves is also very telling and, frankly, baffling. I understand the need to balance the game, but it is skewed so badly against the player that it's more frustrating than anything else. It doesn't even simulate a sense of difficulty, just a frustrating lack of balance.
I'm using that word a lot, because that's the overwhelming sense I got from playing this: frustration. Because I REALLY enjoyed exploring and catching Pokemon in this. I liked just tossing balls and having that little firework flash up each time felt like a personal victory. Sneaking up on stuff was fun. One time I tossed a ball at a circling Braviary and caught it in mid-air and I felt like a total badass; it was unlike anything else I'd felt in a Pokemon game. But it felt like the game was actively trying to stop me from having fun by forcing me through a rubbish crafting system, or run away from yet another low level Pokemon with omnipotent levels of spatial awareness - and numerous friends with the same - or waste my time on another pointless battle with it.
The narrative...yeah, this left a lot to be desired as well. Which is VERY annoying considering how it ramped things up quite a bit in the postgame with Volo. Why on earth wasn't this incorporated into the main story? They had so, so much potential with this, but they just dropped you into it and kinda just...let it stew. They did do a better job of worldbuilding with the sidequests, but the rewards for doing those sidequests meant that they felt more like a waste of time than anything else, so it was a bit of a double-edged sword. They could and should have done so much more with the story, and the postgame felt like they recognised this but didn't know (or just didn't care) to really do this.
Visually this game was horrendous. Janky visuals are not a visual style. I mean, it looked MUCH worse in the trailers, but this could have used some more time in development, and it could still use a few patches. At the very least they could have gotten rid of the white pixel outlines around your character in dark caves; I've seen 3DS games with better visuals!
I feel like this is the epitome of the phrase "don't run before you can walk" because it makes so many sweeping changes without really considering them in their proper context. It has gameplay features like crafting and fall damage because other popular open world titles have them, without really understanding WHY they have them, or what they contribute. They're just shoehorned in because it's expected. The one thing this game really gets right is its core gameplay loop of catching a lot of Pokemon, and whilst it REALLY gets it right, this gets dragged down by the other systems that would have acted as great support if they'd just put a little more thought into it, or done things slightly differently. Having wild Pokemon recognise you weren't someone to mess with once you hit a higher rank and run away from or just avoid you would have made travel much more bearable, as one example. Letting you use more than one Pokemon at a time would have made battles less aggravating at times. Giving you a visible health bar would have at least made that entire system less frustrating. Just...a little more thought.
As a Pokemon game it's definitely different, and I think that's good - change for change's sake is bad, but experimentation should always be encouraged and celebrated, especially since Scarlet and Violet show that the old way of doing things won't be abandoned just because this was a commercial success. But...well, we live in a world with Monster Hunter Stories 2. Monster Hunter Stories 2 is everything this game could and should have been: it has a strong narrative, a well-designed and excellently balanced combat system that is supported by its secondary gameplay mechanics, and it's actually FUN. Visually it's also stunning and it also has a strong soundtrack and voice acting. I don't think excusing this game just because it does something different within the confines of the series is an acceptable mindset.
I've done a lot of complaining here and I feel the need to say again that I didn't hate the game, and I do think there are a lot of positives to it and a lot of fun to be had...but the small irritations, the clear lack of thought in the gameplay design, and the overwhelming thought of "I could be playing Monster Hunter Stories 2 again right now" that permeated the 50-ish hours I spent with this really add up and bury a lot of the goodwill and leeway I'm willing to give this game. I can't give it more than a 4 because, despite being the most fun I've had with Pokemon years, it's so far behind its contemporaries that it really doesn't matter.
