Game Freak spent 25 years teaching players to catch Pokémon and battle them in turn-based order. Pokémon Legends: Arceus throws most of that out. Released worldwide on 28 January 2022 for the Nintendo Switch, it sends the player back in time to the Hisui region and asks them to build the place’s first Pokédex — by sneaking, surveying and, when it goes wrong, running.
The result is the most interesting Pokémon game in years, and an 8.5 out of 10.
Trailer, via Nintendo of America.
A Rift Opens Over Mount Coronet
Arceus, the creator deity of the Pokémon universe, pulls the player through a rift in spacetime and drops them in Hisui, the Sinnoh region of centuries past. The task is blunt: seek out all Pokémon.
Professor Laventon finds the player on arrival and brings them to Jubilife Village, the region’s single significant settlement. There they join the Survey Corps of the Galaxy Expedition Team, a group that has come to Hisui to chart and study it. The Pokédex they are handed is a paper notebook. Poké Balls are made from Apricorn fruit and puff steam when something is caught.
That detail does more work than any cutscene. Hisui treats Pokémon as wild animals or forces of nature, not partners. The game’s whole mood follows from it.
Five Areas, One Camp at a Time
Legends: Arceus is an action role-playing game, and its map splits into five large areas, each with its own biome. Players spawn at a camp and can fast travel between camps in the same area.
Rideable Pokémon unlock over time. Some move faster, some swim, some climb cliffs, some fly. The landscape fills with Pokémon that wander, keep to certain habitats, and react — some avoid the player, some attack, some do their own thing entirely.
Alpha Pokémon, larger and more powerful versions, patrol the same ground. The player can be hit and hurt by wild Pokémon, which is new. Take enough damage and you wake up back at camp.
Catching Without a Battle
Most wild Pokémon can be caught in the overworld without a fight, though some have to be battled first. Battles start when the player releases a captured Pokémon near a wild one.
The turn-based system survives, but with a twist: players can trade attack damage for extra turns, or the reverse. It is a real decision, not a menu formality.
Then there are the boss fights. Noble Pokémon, venerated by the Diamond and Pearl clans, turn berserk after lightning from the rift strikes them. The player calms them with balms rather than defeating them in a standard battle.
The Rift Widens, and Kamado Blames You
The story moves once five nobles are dealt with. The rift intensifies. Commander Kamado, leader of the Galaxy Team, blames the player and banishes them from Jubilife Village.
Working with either the Diamond or Pearl clan and under the care of the folklore researcher Cogita, the player visits Hisui’s three major lakes to meet Azelf, Mesprit and Uxie — willpower, emotion and knowledge. Passing their trials yields materials for the Red Chain, the item needed to close the rift.
After defeating Kamado at the summit, the player reaches the Temple of Sinnoh at the peak of Mount Coronet. Which legendary appears there depends on the clan the player sided with.
What the Comparisons Get Right
Reviewers compared the game’s hub-and-area structure to Monster Hunter, and its look and movement to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Both comparisons hold up, and neither is a problem.
The stronger point is what the design does to pacing. Older Pokémon games funnel every encounter into a battle screen. Legends: Arceus lets a player watch a Pokémon from cover, decide whether it is worth the throw, and learn something either way. Research stops being a checklist and becomes the thing you came to do.
The trade-off is friction. Aggressive Pokémon punish careless movement, and losing progress to a knock-out can sting. That is the cost of making the player a body in the world instead of a cursor.
Where It Sits in the Series
Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a prequel to Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, the fourth-generation titles from 2006. It sits in the eighth generation and was announced at the Pokémon 25th Anniversary event in February 2021.
It sold over 14.83 million copies by 31 March 2023. It drew generally favourable reviews and nominations at year-end awards, including Best RPG at The Game Awards.
A second Legends game, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, followed in 2025. The template clearly stuck.
The Parts That Matter Most
Ranked by what actually changes how the series plays:
- Catching in the overworld, which removes the battle screen from the default loop.
- The turn economy, which lets players trade damage for tempo.
- Noble Pokémon boss fights, which test movement instead of stats.
- The Hisui setting, which reframes Pokémon as dangerous wildlife.
- Rideable Pokémon, which make the five areas feel traversable rather than large.
The first two are the ones worth keeping. The setting is the one that gives the game its character.
What Holds Up and What Doesn’t
The seams show. Five separate areas with camps are not a seamless world, and the game knows it. The paper Pokédex and the Apricorn Poké Balls are lovely, but they are also a reminder that the series had grown comfortable before this.
What Legends: Arceus gets right is nerve. It takes a 25-year-old formula, pulls it apart, and rebuilds it around observation and risk. The rift, the nobles, the banishment from Jubilife Village — all of it serves a single idea: that Hisui is a place where people do not yet understand Pokémon, and the Pokédex is how they start to.
That idea carries the game past its rough edges. Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the rare series entry that changes what the next one can be.
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