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Reviews Pokémon Legends: Arceus | Review Thread

It common for swtich games that has big open areas to have draw distance problems, its a limitation of ram/bandwidth if i’m not wrong.

zelda botw, xenoblades, witcher 3, dqxi, dying light…

the console has the minimum hardware to run open areas games with modern visuals.

they have to paired down to x360/ps3 visuals like skyrim to have a decent view of things that are far along the player.

so, whats the problem with legends arceus?
 
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Brock Reiher said:
Hm this is the rival for the throne. But is it as beautiful?
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for your consideration

big_brain_academy_conceptart_gQUVf.jpg
 
Clix said:
But the point I was trying to make, is that yes I know the scale of TPC, but what if GF does not want to have a big expansion and at least internally, remain as is?
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Then that's a bad business decision. Not only are they running the risk of overworking their employees, they're also delivering a lower quality product.

The only reason they get away with it is because they have no competition, there's no other Pokemon like series.
 
LoneRanger said:
It common for swtich games that has big open areas to have draw distance problems, its a limitation of ram/bandwidth if i’m not wrong.

zelda botw, xenoblades, witcher 3, dqxi, dying light…

the console has the minimum hardware to run open areas games with modern visuals.

they have to paired down to x360/ps3 visuals like skyrim to have a decent view of things that are far along the player.

so, whats the problem with legends arceus?
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In DFs analysis video the Switch Skyrim definitely isn't 360/PS3 level, it's running at a higher resolution at a better fps with the SE assets , not the originals

It's more of a pared back PS4/XBONE version of the game. Which is what we expected
 
Lucifer said:
Then that's a bad business decision. Not only are they running the risk of overworking their employees, they're also delivering a lower quality product.

The only reason they get away with it is because they have no competition, there's no other Pokemon like series.
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They do some outsourcing to assist already.

That said, is it a bad business decision if it is working out for them? And quality is such a nebulous term. While their games are not the most visually impressive, their games all around have great game play and terrific character designs, and people enjoy them. There has been plenty of competition, and some that have even done well, and eventually gone away, but I think people gravitate to Pokemon because of the designs and core game play loop, which is actually really darn good.

So they have a couple of options. Expand, expand, expand, which also brings a lot more costs and overhead and goes against - at least for now - for their desire to get too big as a company. The other is a lot more money into budget, software, etc for the staff that they have... and that would also cause a risk to overworking their employees.

Since they already use outsourcing, maybe the better solution is either better partners to help in the parts that they weaker in (non static environmental design) or just keep at it until they themselves feel comfortable and have better hardware in the future to let them give the open areas more depth.

I think they are capable of making some pretty games despite their limitations: Let's Go and Sun and Moon come to mind. Especially Sun and Moon, which I think looked very pretty for a 3DS game.

Sword and Shield was a mixed bag. The towns and routes, which were the bulk of the game, looked pretty. Once you got into the wild area, things got iffy. I think their strengths for what they are as a studio are smaller static environments, which is where the artists really shine.

This is the first game of this type they have ever done, with them testing the waters with the Wild Area in SWSH. As time goes by and they get more experience, they will improve. It happened on the 3DS when they went from X/Y to Sun and Moon which were so drastically different visually. PLA already seems to have improved on the concept of the Wild Area.

And I still standby that the hyperbole is damn real when it comes the visuals.
 
Lucifer said:
A lot of these models were already made back in the 3DS era, and they have looked the same since. I'm sure they have done texture work for them again, but I'm not convinced that this is the main issue why Pokemon games look bad, might be a part of it, but it's also another reason why it's time for Game Freak to scale up.
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Legends is actually the first time they've done some serious work on the Pokémon models since they were first created. For example, Oshawott has a fully modelled mouth now.

But yeah, the Pokemon models have never really been the main problem with the visuals. Game Freak doesn't really seem to have been sufficiently investing in their tech for having their own engine. They do seem to have been hiring recently to try to fix that, but it will be some time before we see the results.
 
Pokemaniac said:
Legends is actually the first time they've done some serious work on the Pokémon models since they were first created. For example, Oshawott has a fully modelled mouth now.

But yeah, the Pokemon models have never really been the main problem with the visuals. Game Freak doesn't really seem to have been sufficiently investing in their tech for having their own engine. They do seem to have been hiring recently to try to fix that, but it will be some time before we see the results.
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if you mean rendering, sure, but even that has some improvements over SS
 
Clix said:
They do some outsourcing to assist already.

That said, is it a bad business decision if it is working out for them? And quality is such a nebulous term. While their games are not the most visually impressive, their games all around have great game play and terrific character designs, and people enjoy them. There has been plenty of competition, and some that have even done well, and eventually gone away, but I think people gravitate to Pokemon because of the designs and core game play loop, which is actually really darn good.

So they have a couple of options. Expand, expand, expand, which also brings a lot more costs and overhead and goes against - at least for now - for their desire to get too big as a company. The other is a lot more money into budget, software, etc for the staff that they have... and that would also cause a risk to overworking their employees.

Since they already use outsourcing, maybe the better solution is either better partners to help in the parts that they weaker in (non static environmental design) or just keep at it until they themselves feel comfortable and have better hardware in the future to let them give the open areas more depth.

I think they are capable of making some pretty games despite their limitations: Let's Go and Sun and Moon come to mind. Especially Sun and Moon, which I think looked very pretty for a 3DS game.

Sword and Shield was a mixed bag. The towns and routes, which were the bulk of the game, looked pretty. Once you got into the wild area, things got iffy. I think their strengths for what they are as a studio are smaller static environments, which is where the artists really shine.

This is the first game of this type they have ever done, with them testing the waters with the Wild Area in SWSH. As time goes by and they get more experience, they will improve. It happened on the 3DS when they went from X/Y to Sun and Moon which were so drastically different visually. PLA already seems to have improved on the concept of the Wild Area.

And I still standby that the hyperbole is damn real when it comes the visuals.
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I wouldn't say it's working out for them outside of the money they are cashing in, obviously there's been years of complaints about this and yet again they release a game that looks worse than older open world/comparable Switch games, so it isn't fair to blame the hardware. All new hardware is going to do for them is make it easier to achieve higher res.

Some people might be going into hyperbole mode, but the quantity of people being disappointed in the visuals certainly says something. It's legitimate criticism that GF seriously needs to think about seeing as it's so widespread.

So far, I'd say Let's Go was their absolute best looking game, the DP remakes looking far worse than that was another baffling decision but that's a whole other discussion.

I'm gonna go play the game for a bit now because I do enjoy the new gameplay ideas, just a shame that a lot of us can't enjoy the visuals like in most games these days.
 
People like to compare Pokemon to DQXI but, as lovely as the game looks on the PS4, the Switch version looks extremely blurry, and has A LOT of pop in. Like, it's the most pop in I've seen in a game.

Granted, the game wasn't developed with the Switch in mind and I'm sure the DQ team could make a better looking game than Arceus if they were working with that intent from the start, but DQXIS ain't it. People are just extremely bitter about Pokemon, but it's actually a lot of other games that get a pass.

(I'm a huge DQ fan btw and I love to have XI playable on the Switch, but it does not look good)
 
Leo said:
People like to compare Pokemon to DQXI but, as lovely as the game looks on the PS4, the Switch version looks extremely blurry, and has A LOT of pop in. Like, it's the most pop in I've seen in a game.

Granted, the game wasn't developed with the Switch in mind and I'm sure the DQ team could make a better looking game than Arceus if they were working with that intent from the start, but DQXIS ain't it. People are just extremely bitter about Pokemon, but it's actually a lot of other games that get a pass.

(I'm a huge DQ fan btw and I love to have XI playable on the Switch, but it does not look good)
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XI is almost 5 years old at this stage aswell. If they were making something today ground up for the Switch it'd look a lot better.
 
Quoted by: Leo
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hanktree said:
XI is almost 5 years old at this stage aswell. If they were making something today ground up for the Switch it'd look a lot better
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The Switch version is less than 3 years old, but that's beside my point. My point is people keep comparing Pokemon to DQXI but DQXI doesn't look very good on the Switch.

I don't remember any Switch games with similar scope to Legends that doesn't have its graphical compromises, except for BotW.
 
Multiplayer.it (8.5/10. review in Italian):
Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a wonderful experiment but probably the old fans of the series will regret a bunch of features that Game Freak has sacrificed in the name of a new kind of exploration and single player approach.
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Video Chums (8/10):
Pokemon Legends: Arceus definitely provides a great experience with a novel take on the classic franchise but I still feel that grinding is not needed in a Pokemon game which I've always felt should primarily be about simply having fun in a laidback world.
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Leo said:
The Switch version is less than 3 years old, but that's beside my point. My point is people keep comparing Pokemon to DQXI but DQXI doesn't look very good on the Switch.

I don't remember any Switch games with similar scope to Legends that doesn't have its graphical compromises, except for BotW.
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Both Zelda and the Xenoblade games look way better.
 
Lucifer said:
Then that's a bad business decision. Not only are they running the risk of overworking their employees, they're also delivering a lower quality product.

The only reason they get away with it is because they have no competition, there's no other Pokemon like series.
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You are confusing "a decision I don't like" with "a bad business decision". SwSh sold a lot of copies, so as far as they're concerned, the relatively low budget was a good business decision. To dramatically improve the visuals would require dramatic resource investment, whereas the potential sales growth is probably quite low.
 
people don't realize that while yes low-budget and stagnant games chip away at a series' and publisher's reputation, the money is made so much faster than this negligible depreciation of brand value
 
Lucifer said:
Both Zelda and the Xenoblade games look way better.
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Xenoblade 2 also runs at very low resolutions, that's what I meant by compromises. Xenoblade DE looks better than Pokemon sometimes, other times it doesn't.

Point is, a lot of the complaints are hyperbolical because there aren't many games that look and run much better than Pokémon on the Switch when people are making it seem like there are. Again, only game on the system that I consider leagues ahead Legends when you consider similar styles and scope is Zelda.
 
ILikeFeet said:
heresy
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I was honestly surprised by how blurry it is and how much pop in there is considering everyone praises the graphics on the Switch. Maybe I'm just comparing it to the PS4 version in my head all the time, since I played that version first. I still love that it's portable, though, it's an okay compromise.
 
ILikeFeet said:
if you mean rendering, sure, but even that has some improvements over SS
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I'm curious why they aren't using Nintendo's in-house engine or UE4 which was sold as a kind of alternative engine for Nintendo associated devs as well. Games like Yoshi used it.

No one is expecting a great visual spectacle but a consistent fps , limited pop ins would greatly improve the visual fidelity
 
Leo said:
I was honestly surprised by how blurry it is and how much pop in there is considering everyone praises the graphics on the Switch. Maybe I'm just comparing it to the PS4 version in my head all the time, since I played that version first. I still love that it's portable, though, it's an okay compromise.
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Yeah I think that's the case. Having not seen the PS4 version prior, I didn't really expect there was much opportunity for it to look better in the ways it actually does...

 
Leo said:
Xenoblade 2 also runs at very low resolutions, that's what I meant by compromises. Xenoblade DE looks better than Pokemon sometimes, other times it doesn't.

Point is, a lot of the complaints are hyperbolical because there aren't many games that look and run much better than Pokémon on the Switch when people are making it seem like there are. Again, only game on the system that I consider leagues ahead Legends when you consider similar styles and scope is Zelda.
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I would disagree with that…. However, I do think it’s way hyperbolic in general.
 
totofogo said:
Yeah I think that's the case. Having not seen the PS4 version prior, I didn't really expect there was much opportunity for it to look better in the ways it actually does...

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Like yeah, the PS4 version looks sharper, but like playing it, I don’t know, the differences aren’t that jarring really minus the Switch version is obviously softer. The game still looks great.

Edit: sorry still can’t figure out how to multi quote in one post lol
 
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Dekuman said:
I'm curious why they aren't using Nintendo's in-house engine or UE4 which was sold as a kind of alternative engine for Nintendo associated devs as well. Games like Yoshi used it.

No one is expecting a great visual spectacle but a consistent fps , limited pop ins would greatly improve the visual fidelity
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GF would be using Unity since that's where they been putting their eggs. as for Nintendo Engines, outside of Bezel, they're probably not made for external support. pop-in might be an issue of memory management and draw calls that GF will have to sort out
 
Quoted by: SiG
1
having spent some time with this game now, it looks bad in ways that I wasn't even expecting. like, why put decals on character models if they're so pixelated you can barely make out what they are?
 
Leo said:
Xenoblade 2 also runs at very low resolutions, that's what I meant by compromises. Xenoblade DE looks better than Pokemon sometimes, other times it doesn't.

Point is, a lot of the complaints are hyperbolical because there aren't many games that look and run much better than Pokémon on the Switch when people are making it seem like there are. Again, only game on the system that I consider leagues ahead Legends when you consider similar styles and scope is Zelda.
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Xenoblade environments actually look significantly better. I'll trust your word on it being lower res than Legends but I do know that it had pretty good AA to compensate for that.

I mean, even if we disregard Legends, the other Pokemon games on the Switch are still struggling behind other Nintendo titles. This is really not a case of Pokemon games not looking good because of the hardware. The Switch has amazing looking games.
 
Played the game for 5 or 6 hours. All I can say is this game is FRIGGING GREAT!

...And that's coming from a detached boomer who really dislikes Sword & Shield.

While the graphics aren't remarkable in any way they work for what the game is supposed to be about. As a first attempt for a open-world Pokemon game they really managed to knock it out of the park with the gameplay loop and pacing. I really like the atmosphere as well. I wouldn't mind this being considered the future for Pokémon mainline games from what I've played so far (keeping in mind there is still a lot of room for improvement on other fronts)
 
SlumWolf said:
having spent some time with this game now, it looks bad in ways that I wasn't even expecting. like, why put decals on character models if they're so pixelated you can barely make out what they are?
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if they were decals they'd be higher resolution
 
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ILikeFeet said:
GF would be using Unity since that's where they been putting their eggs. as for Nintendo Engines, outside of Bezel, they're probably not made for external support. pop-in might be an issue of memory management and draw calls that GF will have to sort out
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Wait, Arceus was made in Unity?

That would actually explain much, but games like Ori and Dusk were also made in Unity and ran well.
 
ILikeFeet said:
it's not. it's an evolved Sword Shield engine. but their non-pokemon games are in Unity
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They should've probably gotten some(more) help from Monolithsoft.

That said, I've seen some footage on Twitch. It ain't bad, but it's very hard not to compare it with...New Pokemon Snap of all things.
 
Raccoon said:
the only game of this scope that looks substantially better is monster hunter rise

botw looks about the same
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Definitely disagree about the latter, Zelda was nowhere near as tragic with the textures, geometry also looks worse in Legends.

The Xenoblade games look better as well.
 
Discokuningas said:
It is sad that discussion about this game is mostly about graphics.
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The ST seems to mostly be about the game itself - and impressions overall are almost entirely leaning positive. That and, frankly, the graphics are objectively poor in many areas, and subjectively poor for many - people saying that they personally find that the game looks amazing (or worse, that they think the game looks great all around) doesn't negate that, and only serves to continue the argument for no real reason. People aren't gonna suddenly change their opinion on something they literally don't even have to think about to understand lol

(Note I haven't participated in the ST thread cause I'm finishing off Horizon Zero Dawn before starting this)
 
Raccoon said:
the only game of this scope that looks substantially better is monster hunter rise

botw looks about the same
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I don‘t want to go to much into the graphics discussion because I‘m tired of it, but after replaying BOTW for the last few weeks and now starting with Arceus it is as if my eye sight got much worse and someone put a horrible photoshop sharpening filter over my TV screen (Arceus has definitely a weird way to upscale their image, that is not bilinear filtering)

I know I‘ll enjoy the game but I also know that I‘ll probably not stand somewhere in the landscape and taking a picture because it is so breathtaking.
 
Kano said:
It's mostly the people who have been hating on the game since reveal and weren't going to be convinced otherwise tbh.
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This is a childish take honestly, loving the game so far in terms of gameplay, soundtrack, etc. I just find the visuals rather poor. It's also a common point in the reviews.
 
SiG said:
They should've probably gotten some(more) help from Monolithsoft.

That said, I've seen some footage on Twitch. It ain't bad, but it's very hard not to compare it with...New Pokemon Snap of all things.
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it's an open-ish world game versus a static, on-rails game. comparing them isn't even remotely fair as NPS has many things over even the Xenoblades
 
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