• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.

Reviews Digital Foundry || Pokemon Legends Arceus on Switch - Are the Tech Criticisms Justified?

Christo750 said:
The pop-in is really the only thing that bothers me. I was genuinely surprised to see that the game was pushing 1080p, dipping only to 900p. Impressive. There are lots of visual glitches aside from that. Fixing the shadows, pop-in, and adding a little AA and I think the art style, as it is now, would be perfectly servicable.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the pop-in is among the worst I’ve seen since the PS2 era. It’s ghastly. But the lovely skyboxes and charming art style are doing enough work for me that the game winds up looking fairly handsome when not scrutinized too closely, despite being a technical mess.
 
I think comparisons to games like BotW or XC2 are disingenuous. BotW has like 20 monster and enemy models, XC2 uses recolours and I can't say that I noticed that the monsters from XC were all that reworked in my time playing. All you do in those games is battling monsters, there's no collecting aspect. So why compare? Because they're all "open world", at least now?

I like the artstyle itself. I think I understood that they were going for a look based on traditional Japanese art while watching the very first trailer. I can overlook pop-in, but it can be distracting at times. Also had a glitch or something where the grass would flicker while battling. The white outlines in dark places look weird, but also help with seeing where the characters are. lol
 
Rin-go said:
I think comparisons to games like BotW or XC2 are disingenuous. BotW has like 20 monster and enemy models, XC2 uses recolours and I can't say that I noticed that the monsters from XC were all that reworked in my time playing. All you do in those games is battling monsters, there's no collecting aspect. So why compare? Because they're all "open world", at least now?
Click to expand...

You can only bring this argument when we talking about animation, 3D models debacle, like 2 years ago with the whole NatDex things when people complained BotW, XC2, MH, Pokken, have better monster animation than Pokemon.
We talking about graphic technical things here, and in that sense, BotW and XC1-2 are definitely a fair comparison.
 
Spyder said:
Every employee at Game Freak, The Pokemon Company and Nintendo should be executed for this blunder
Click to expand...
I certainly dont think that what they are saying. Im rather enjoying the game too, but the visuals are sub par even for Nintendo switch standards. I dont think its unreasonable to expect more from one of the biggest entertainment brands there is. BUT on the other hand, i understand that game freak is small, and they dont exactly have the most experience making large 3d games. The foundation here is great, if the visuals are able to catch up to modern standards in the next release, it will be even better.
 
Graphics are 100% fine IMO. Issues for me are pop-in and textures for sure.

That said, Legends is still probably my favorite game since Breath of the Wild. Lots of room for improvement and I’m excited to see where this goes next.
 
the pop-in is egregious and the lighting is atrocious

there's enough going for the style that it can generally power past these issues, but there's more than a few spots in the game which just look gross. the pokemon models are probably the best they've ever been and they're animated beautifully, and the environment design is mostly good. but then you hit spots like on the water where the surface texture is flat and repeated and the light is turning it into a giant white splotch and it's just unappealing

it's not bad, but the technical issues are there and they are unfortunate
 
I think Arceus is an offensively ugly looking game on both technical and art design accounts. That ghastly mix of toon shaded characters and anime styled interiors, vs the weirdly harsh contrasts of the overworld and materials that look strangely out of place is absolutely jarring for me. Add in the low Res of textures and the extremely low poly environments and the whole package just looks off.

Hey but to each their own. The more important part of this game is the bold new gameplay direction which is deserving of all the praise it is getting. I just wish the game wasn't such an eyesore.
 
StephenNParker said:
2. Some of the problems with the visual can be fixed if they actually go all-in with painting art style or just go cel-shade like BOTW. Don't go half-ass painting half-ass "realistic" like this.
Click to expand...
How do you figure? Style change doesn't make pop-in, aliasing, low res textures go away.
 
0
Yeaaaaaaaaaahhhhh no, this is DF going for the low hanging fruit, sorry.

The consensus is that the criticisms are justified. The game's art style actually saves it, but the only way Legends can be considered impressive in the console that has Breath of the Wild, Monster Hunter Rise and The Witcher 3 is by judging it by Game Freak standards, and by those Legends is an effin' miracle.

But even as a turbofan of the game, the question DF poses in the title gets answered just by looking at the Switch's library. There's just no way to twist it.
 
Skittzo said:
Here's my double hot take:

1) Pop-in does not bother me at all because I'm almost never actually looking in the background while I'm moving around

2) Outside of the distance issues this game is prettier (to me) than BOTW. Like, substantially so.
Click to expand...
Near field detail, materials, lighting and shadows in BotW are leaps and bounds beyond PLA.
image0.jpg

PLA doesn’t come close to BotW in any visual aspect. The grass in BotW alone is generations ahead.
 
ArchedThunder said:
Near field detail, materials, lighting and shadows in BotW are leaps and bounds beyond PLA. The grass in BotW alone is generations ahead.
image0.jpg

PLA doesn’t come close to BotW in any visual aspect.
Click to expand...
I like PLA's clean art style much better. Plus the cleaner picture that comes with a native resolution.

But that's obviously very subjective. I'm not trying to claim it's technically superior (or at all competitive)
 
0
While I do understand that Switch has much better looking games, I don't really see any real problems with this one. I think it looks fine.
 
0
ArchedThunder said:
Near field detail, materials, lighting and shadows in BotW are leaps and bounds beyond PLA.
image0.jpg

PLA doesn’t come close to BotW in any visual aspect. The grass in BotW alone is generations ahead.
Click to expand...
BOTW has the opposite issue where the graphics are mostly great but the artstyle is a big letdown. It’s like they weren’t allowed to have a different shade of green ever.
 
Why’s it gotta be either the best looking game or the worst looking game with some of you guys? I think it looks fine. Not amazing, but nowhere near offensively bad.
 
MSnap said:
Why’s it gotta be either the best looking game or the worst looking game with some of you guys? I think it looks fine. Not amazing, but nowhere near offensively bad.
Click to expand...

This is where I’m at. The discussion is going so circular, and people are getting way too worked up about this.

But we can gather, is:

A. It being the greatest franchise in the world has no bearing. TPCis not GameFreak. Franchise being a key word here, and the games are just a portion of it

B. GameFreak is not lazy and incompetent. I’m doing a playthrough of Let’s Go and boy is that game pretty. From this I gather is that their strengths as a dev are very clearly strong for a certain type of game on a visual and technical level.

C. For all intents and purposes, GameFreak is a small studio. From interviews, they have said TPC does not dictate anything to them and leave them at their own devices. I also gather that even though the game became what it is today, that they have a strong desire to still be that independent studio and not to grow as large as other studios.

D. I fully agree with some of the issues people have, but the hyperbole is ridiculous. As the poster above said, it is going into some wild extremes.

E. Everybody needs to sit back, chill, and not take this so personally. Not so much here. But other places.
 
Even though Arceus has technical issues, it makes me super excited about Pokémon Gen 9. Game Freak problem, outside of tech issues(Which they're solving), is time. The fact the Pokémon IP is a well-oiled machine means they don't have much time in-between releases. The fact Pokémon Gen 9 will probably release in 2023, alongside the experience gained from Sword/Shield and Arceus, means that Gen 9 will be a much superior technical experience. I really can't wait. Arceus is superb imo, I really don't care about the visual issues (And props to GF for sticking with higher resolution on Docked and native res on portable despite this being a complex 3D game).
 
Rin-go said:
I think comparisons to games like BotW or XC2 are disingenuous. BotW has like 20 monster and enemy models, XC2 uses recolours and I can't say that I noticed that the monsters from XC were all that reworked in my time playing. All you do in those games is battling monsters, there's no collecting aspect. So why compare? Because they're all "open world", at least now?

I like the artstyle itself. I think I understood that they were going for a look based on traditional Japanese art while watching the very first trailer. I can overlook pop-in, but it can be distracting at times. Also had a glitch or something where the grass would flicker while battling. The white outlines in dark places look weird, but also help with seeing where the characters are. lol
Click to expand...
One Bokoblin in BotW has more parameters and animations than most pokemon in legends put together
 
Oliver-1984 said:
It's totally fine to say that you can live with the shortcomings of the Pokémon games without going with the old tired "It's just for kids" defense. Animated features from Disney targets children for many centuries too, while looking beautiful and still setting standards.
Hell, to stay in the same medium, look no further than Nintendo.
I don't believe in the "GameFreak is just incompetent" claims, far from it. They just need more time, way more time. It must be excruciating to work like some kind of battery caged hen, game after game, never getting the chance to perfecting your work.
Click to expand...

yeah, these games are made on some absurd deadlines for their supposed scope. and after all the work they put in to make a solid, decent looking game with minimal bugs in a miracle amount of time, they get to be called 'incompetant' and 'lazy devs'. it's pretty sad
 
0
I’m convinced that some of the takes in this thread are made expressly with the intent of causing a disaster here so we don’t make it to the direct tomorrow night lmao
 
0
Looks like Game Freak prioritized resolution and stable framerate and didn't mind using stuff like aggressive pop-in

Maybe they could've done it more uhh gracefully, put some transitions or something, but Legends Arceus is higher-resolution and more stable than every other open-world-ish game mentioned in the video

Maybe the performance trade-offs in BotW, Xenoblade paid off in the end if people don't mind it that much, but Legends Arceus just runs better
 
Last edited:
0
Played the game again today for the first time in a bit-- immediately struck by how hypnotic the visuals in Jubilife are. Incredible.
 
0
It looks terrible.

Happily it's an amazing, amazing game so that helps mitigate the technical deficiencies, but yes, it legitimately does look bad a lot of the time lol.
 
Quoted by: SiG
1
Phantom Thief said:
It looks terrible.

Happily it's an amazing, amazing game so that helps mitigate the technical deficiencies, but yes, it legitimately does look bad a lot of the time lol.
Click to expand...
I actually feel Digital Foundry gave it a very fair shake, even praising it gameplay a lot despite many of the bigger shortcomings of its presentation. They even said perhaps this is something that could be fixed with a patch, while doubtful, is still pretty hopeful of them.
 
0
Skittzo said:
Money isn't an issue, time is. This game was done in like a little over 2 years, right? During a pandemic for the majority of the time too.
Click to expand...

Seriously?

I mean the game is uggers, with its technical issues, but it's 1080 and 720, and it's gameplay is intriguing as hell to me.

That being said this kind of an overhaul in 2 years, I'm impressed.

On the other hand, what do you put a person through to put out a game like this in just 2 years?

Yeah. I'm getting this. Gotta wait for the kids to finish sword though.
 
Skittzo said:
Money isn't an issue, time is. This game was done in like a little over 2 years, right? During a pandemic for the majority of the time too.
Click to expand...
Time - and the pandemic - are valid factors, but over everything else, Game Freak needs to get a new engine already.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but Legends is running on the SwSh engine, wich already was a souped up version of the SuMo engine.

It's impressive they managed to do something like Legends with that, but it's time to make the jump. The engine has clear limitations that hurts their games in the long run.
 
0
I think the game turned out ok given the short development time, given it was their first open world game, and given how many Pokemon are in the game and can potentially be on screen at once. If they had to prioritize anything, I’m glad they did framerate since it almost always feels smooth to play. The game looked good enough to facilitate enough of the vision to come through and the terrain, though sparse looking, had tons of interesting variety in elevation and obstacles that kept the gameplay engaging. I think the big hope here is that hopefully Gamefreak makes less games with less Pokemon (like Arceus), but with more time now that they have successfully handed out a remake to another developer. Things have to give somewhere if people want more detail and better graphics.

Just want to say though, the egregious pop in makes the game easier in a welcome way since they always pop in the most important stuff first like Pokemon, fruit trees, and satchels lol.
 
I honestly wouldn't care if Pokémon games all looked like Arceus for the next decade if they keep improving on the gameplay. It's the most addictive Pokémon has been for me since probably the GBA days, I don't ever want them to go back.

I think a lot of people take many things in the game for granted, but the way it plays and feels so smooth and nice is such a tremeduous step forward compared to SwSh which felt sloppy in so many little details like GF had no idea how to program a 3D perspective game. It's crazy it's made by the same studio with just a few years difference.
 
0
Crusters said:
That being said this kind of an overhaul in 2 years, I'm impressed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't think people twig how quick the turnover is on Pokemon games and the volume of titles they are putting out all of the time. I think they look at something like Dragon Quest, point at that and say "why isn't game like this?". Pokemon is more like Fifa or Call Of Duty in that respect.
 
0
ToniC139 said:
Those shots do look very nice! I honestly think it's just texture quality and draw distance setting it back from being in the same league as Zelda.
Click to expand...

It's nice, but having Zelda to benchmark against is quite the task! Few games manage to carry the atmosphere of BOTW. In motion, BOTW is just glorious.
 
ToniC139 said:
Those shots do look very nice! I honestly think it's just texture quality and draw distance setting it back from being in the same league as Zelda.
Click to expand...
If Arceus had been given a similar dev time it would've looking real nice for sure. As it stands however Zelda also has crazy amounts of near-field detail in grass, pebbles, little plants and other small stuff that's completely missing in Arceus. I still don't get how they pulled that off on the Wii U TBH!

Pokemon's art direction is nice for sure. Let's hope they're able to patch the draw distance up a bit because in the DF video that was the main thing that I was shaking my head at.
 
0
Legends Arceus looks fine. Not amazing, but fine. The pop-in is a bit of a shame, but it does run in native 1080p Docked/720p Handheld (In fact, it's the only open world game on Switch that manages this feat!); so... swings and roundabouts.

It also runs at a rock solid 30FPS (outside of the occassional single frame DRS hitch), and the loading times are incredibly fast; so fast that it puts basically every other Switch game to absolute shame. Its level of performance is actually a bit of a benchmark for the platform. Visual asset fidelity isn't everything.
 
Graphically it's certainly not amazing and I definitely noticed the pop-in but, honestly, the only visual thing that really bothered me was the horrific artifacting in caves. It just looked straight-up bad and I hope they figure that one out for future titles.
 
Digital Foundry do some interesting work but I'm struggling to see what value this really adds to the conversation surrounding Pokemon and graphics. The world and their sausages can see that this isn't a top tier graphical game and I can't really see any other reason this video was made other than to gather some hate clicks...
 
Dunban said:
Hopefully the success of the game will convince Game Freak to improve and polish their open spaces.
Click to expand...
So far any success for them resulted in them just coasting on it, so I wouldn't get my hopes up. They saw people are happy with the result of a not even 2 year dev cycle, so we will get more games with less than a 2 year dev cycle. I'd love to be proven wrong, but eh.
 
doodlewhizz said:
Digital Foundry do some interesting work but I'm struggling to see what value this really adds to the conversation surrounding Pokemon and graphics. The world and their sausages can see that this isn't a top tier graphical game and I can't really see any other reason this video was made other than to gather some hate clicks...
Click to expand...
They do these videos for most big releases, and they mention some positives in the video. I've seen people saying it looks better than BotW, so clearly some people are neither the world, nor sausages (and clearly blind lol). The more incentives for Gamefreak to give their team time and resources to do this franchise justice, the better, imo.
 
Last edited:
it's funny how this overview is bookended by two declarations of "no the game is great regardless don't be mad at us please", but with the toxicity of the discourse it isn't surprising
 
Zellia said:
Graphically it's certainly not amazing and I definitely noticed the pop-in but, honestly, the only visual thing that really bothered me was the horrific artifacting in caves. It just looked straight-up bad and I hope they figure that one out for future titles.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this sure was something. It literally looks like the character is badly photoshopped into the environment with the white edges surrounding them and everything. I have never seen anything like it in a game.
 
SlumWolf said:
it's funny how this overview is bookended by two declarations of "no the game is great regardless don't be mad at us please", but with the toxicity of the discourse it isn't surprising
Click to expand...
The Switch subreddit is crazy with people yelling at anyone who dares to think this game isn't the second coming of Jesus. As soon the consensus was "this game is actually not bad", these weirdos started feeling super emboldened.
 
Beanstar40 said:
I certainly dont think that what they are saying. Im rather enjoying the game too, but the visuals are sub par even for Nintendo switch standards. I dont think its unreasonable to expect more from one of the biggest entertainment brands there is. BUT on the other hand, i understand that game freak is small, and they dont exactly have the most experience making large 3d games. The foundation here is great, if the visuals are able to catch up to modern standards in the next release, it will be even better.
Click to expand...
As long as the game is fun and engaging it doesn't really matter how it looks

It's not like they didn't put effort into the artstyle anyway
 
0
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom