Pokémon legends: Arceus may be good, but is still embarrassing

Can we please talk about that Pokémon legends: Arceus is not the AAA title that should be?

• The graphic is a joke
• Explanatory note
• An empty Open World is never acceptable
• The thing with expectation
• The realization: Boykott has to be it!

Hach, Pokémon! In the core I really like you. I, born 1989, belong to the generation, which has become great with you. At that time I played the red and blue edition on the Game Boy. I loved the cartoon series. I've collected the trading cards and still true to my Bisaflor, who has stolen someone at school. And yes, I also had a talking plush pikachu. Today with 32 is my relationship with Pokémon a completely different. For years I could not play any of the games because I never had a Nintendo handheld after the Game Boy. And when sword and shield came out for the switch, I was very disappointed like many others. About one and a half years later, Game Freak Pokémon Legends announced: Arceus, which should bring the great progress I had hoped for from the eighth generation and did not get. Well, and then I saw the first gameplay material...

"Boah, is that ugly!", Were certainly not only my first thoughts. It can not be denied that the spin-off (it may not be a small side project of Game Freak, but it is not the ninth generation graphically anything but successful. Yes, the Nintendo Switch is a comparatively weak console. In the handy device is hardware, which can not even record it with a normal PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. But she has often proved enough that she is more afforded than what is what Pokémon legends: Arceus presented. Just look at The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - and that is a) not just a launch title, which has been on the huckel for six years, but also b) was originally developed for the Wii u. From Monster Hunter Rise or the successful porting of The Witcher 3: I do not want to talk about Wild Hunt.

In short: almost everything that is not a cheap indie game for five euros (and thus I mean the really cheap, bad titles, not the good indie-kram) looks better than the new, big pokémon game - the latest entry in the story of the largest entertainment brand in the world. And that's exactly why it's such a great embarrassment, which one thing should not be rewarded with a purchase at full price.

The graphic is a joke

Yes, I know, Pokémon legends: Arceus is certainly not a bad game. The metascore is 84. With us in the test, it has received four out of five stars. Some magazines have given the title even a note beyond the 9 or 90. Such extremely high scores I do not think absolutely nothing in the context. Nobone can tell me that Arceus is at the same level as a Breath of the game. Now I did not play it myself (ie Arceus) and therefore I'm not able to evaluate it. I did not have the experience, how fun is the gameplay and how well the story works - and I expect that at least for the first party would give me joy, I would try it myself.

However, there are very well things that I look at what I saw from Pokémon legends: Arceus and have read and heard by colleague Nico, who has tested it has tested and heard - at least for me personally. That the graphic belongs is probably obvious. I do not have to hike through the Hisui region for hours to give me an impression of the optics. And there are also almost all critics in the world that they are not the strength of the game.

It is true so that the graphic is criticized from all sides. What I miss, however, is a confrontation of how equal this title can be so ugly. As already mentioned, Pokémon is the largest brand that gives it in the entertainment area and Pokémon legends: Arceus is not the latest main part of the series, but also anything but a gap between generation 8 and 9. It was not made by any developer, but by Game Freak, the Pokémon inventors, a company with well over 100 employees. Yes, there are significantly larger studios, but also smaller - and the providing technically better works.

An example of which I also need in discussions about good and bad Open Worlds and how many resources are needed for the former, again and again, is Piranha Bytes. One or the other will be smiled at this point, after all, their last published game Elex 2 is not exactly good, contemporary graphics - and the successor appearing on March 1st. But is not it indicative that a team of around the 30 people from eating anyway is still a bit more consuming to the legs as Game Freak? And who from the two probably has the larger financial resources? The Ruhrpott troupe, which after 20 years still remains of Gothic fame or the Japanese, who work with Nintendo, and so successful since 1996, that the Pokémon brand has an estimated value of more than $ 100 billion?

Explanatory note

I still ask myself the question of why Pokémon legends: Arceus looks so bad. The switch can be more, so it is not on the hardware. Is it perhaps the used engine? Could that be the essence of exactly those who have powered the 3DS Pokémon games and is simply unearthed? Then I do not understand why you have not already replaced them.

Or does it have much more to do that Game Freak simply can not deliver better optics? After all, the studio has developed almost only handheld games over decades. But then I look at the "Let's Go" title and Note: Ne, that can not really be. Well, they do not have such large, open areas like Pokémon legends: Arceus and use the top-down perspective. But the graphic difference between these games is just too big.

An empty Open World is never acceptable

But I can not only find the weak technique embarrassing, but also the design of the game world. For me, that's even the main reason for me that I hold some test notes too high, where the scoring inflation plays a role here. Again: I have Pokémon legends: Arceus did not play themselves, but the many gameplay videos I looked at, and the statements of Nico in our test confirm only what I already thought of the first trailer: this ( SEMI) OPEN-WORLD is easy to karg, too empty and does not offer anything interesting to discover. Of course, the main streiracy to go to the wilderness are, of course, the Pokémon and you are definitely happy if you find a rare monster and then captive. But for that alone I do not need any open areas.

If Pokémon legends were: Arceus really so much mission-based as Monster Hunter, which obviously was a great role model for Game Freak in the development, I would get along this criticism less. Yes, even then the cargacy of the environments that are simply loveless would be loveless and therefore not only looks bad at a technical level, a problem. Monster Hunter: World and Rise eventually offer organically-acting areas with partially great panoramas. But I would not complain as strong about that there is to discover too little exciting content on the maps. Exploration simply does not play a major role in Monster Hunter, because away from the expeditions (but rather a bonus as an elementary feature) is going to the territories in order to always explicitly fulfill a mission, including timeout and forced return to the village after completing the successful Hunt.

Pokémon legends: Arceus, on the other hand, follows apart from the fact that there is no contiguous game world, the laws of a typical Open World Adventure: You take a new main mission in Jubeldorf, but then you can do what you want. For example, you can first go to another zone, unless you have released several, and thereby fulfill side quests or just go to monster search. Arceus is essentially an open-world game, unlike Monster Hunter. That's why it's all the more incomprehensible that there are no interesting places in the fields. Yes, you can roam a few caves, but you can not find anything special.

The thing with expectation

Maybe I expect too much of a Pokémon game. But no, stop! I do not get the way now, because that's a total insane. How can one say that one should not expect too much from a new great sprout of the most successful media brand in the world? After logic, nobody could have been disappointed by Cybepunk 2077, because the brand is significantly smaller. And for its developer CD project, a game with future scenario, shooter gameplay and mobile cars was also something completely new, as now the Open World for Game Freak. OK, Pokémon legends: Arceus is not so beamed and unfinished designed. Whereby …

If I think exactly about it, the game world could only be a prototype, according to the motto: "We have now developed the nuclear games mechanics all finished, the concept is, it works and now we design the environments nice." Well, only the latter did not make Game Freak - for whatever. Maybe one did not consider that as important because it is the players who are a large part of children just about catching Pokémon and for which the world does not play such a big role. If there are players who think so, and they have fun with the game, I'm happy for them. But I expect not only from Pokémon, but generally from Open World Games. Much more!

The realization: Boykott has to be it!

I see it a lot of people with Pokémon legends: Arceus have fun. On the other hand, I can argue badly. I just do not light this extreme euphoria. Nice and good that Game Freak finally made something new and has released from old patterns. But the quality has remained in parts on the track. And if I add to the miesen graphics and the boring, loveless game world, that there is no language output again, I can only come to a conclusion.

Pokémon legends: Arceus is not a AAA game and not worth 60 euros. Yes, the brand is huge, but that also applies to Candy Crush. Do King / Activision's puzzles / soon - Microsoft therefore cost the full price? No of course not. Game Freak, The Pokémon Company and Nintendo want us seriously knowing that Arceus is a title that plays in the same category as Breath of the Wild. But further away could hardly be of reality. The game is qualitatively at the level of small indie productions and to demand the full price, I simply hold for impudence. I will not buy it in this circumstances.

But with the opinion, I obviously belong to the minority, because behold: little surprising is Pokémon legends: Arceus a full sales success. And that's exactly what I'm preparing for upcoming Pokémon games. Does anybody believe that the ninth generation or a Pokémon legend will offer 2 great improvements? The past has shown: Game Freak is more reserved about this. The dream of the "Breath of the Wild"-like Pokémon game, which I have like many, will probably only remain a dream. Here, however, Game Freak should finally provide that if you do not want to undermine the status of the Pokémon brand even longer.

Now Pokémon Legends: Buy Arceus!