If you've never played Pokémon, you don't have an emotional or nostalgic connection with its world. Those who have played the game for over 20 years, like me, will eat anything The Pokémon Company serves because the Pokémon universe means something to us.
The joy of evolving your favorite Pokémon, the thrill of capturing a shiny, and the excitement of pulling your favorite card are what "enjoying Pokémon" is about. It's about loving the Pokémon universe as a whole, not just having fun with a game.
But if you've never had that connection with Pokémon, most games will feel boring because they mean nothing to you. The current main series is mid. If you want to really understand where the fun in Pokémon is, you have to start with a game that has all the elements to build that bridge between you and the Pokémon universe. And Pokémon Legends: Arceus is that game.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus (PLA) is the best Pokémon game of the decade because it's widely based on free exploration and discovery. While you have to follow a certain story path to unlock more of the game world, you can interact with the areas and their Pokémon with much more freedom than in other games like Sword and Shield or Scarlet and Violet.
The areas where you find Pokémon are vast, with different biomes and Pokémon. You can observe these Pokémon standing next to lakes, hanging on trees, walking in the forest, and protecting caves. Some will frighten easily and run away, but others will be aggressive and chase you. Some are found alone, while others are always in groups.
Watching these Pokémon helps you learn more about their habits and personality, and this alone should help you to start picking favorites. Maybe you want to surprise-catch cute Pokémon like Eevee, or recruit the aggressive ones like Shinx and Staravia to lead your team and help you complete the Pokédex.
That same Pokédex will reward you for discovering more about Pokémon, such as watching them use specific moves, evolving them, or catching different genres and variants. If you want to make maximum progress in PLA, you have no choice other than learning more about the world of Pokémon.
If this thrill of discovery and immersion in Pokémon isn't quite what you're looking for, you'll find modern gameplay in PLA that no other Pokémon title has had before. You can stalk Pokémon to catch them by surprise, for example. For the first time in the series, you can craft almost any item, not just Pokéballs, from materials you collect in the wild.
You can also argue that PLA is an open-world game because areas are vast and can be explored freely, despite the Jubililfe Village being a hub to move between them. You also lose items when a Pokémon knocks your character out. If you're just looking for a Pokémon game with more modern mechanics, PLA has plenty to offer.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A will soon be the second entry in the Legends series. My early feeling, without hands-on experience, is that it will not focus on adventure, exploration, and discovery like Legends: Arceus. It feels built to appeal to more dedicated Pokémon fans.
Overall, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the one with the most engaging, intuitive, and immersive gameplay in the entire franchise. Its world, exploration, and mechanics have everything one needs to immerse themselves in the world of Pokémon and fall in love with it. If these elements don't make you love at least a part of the Pokémon world, nothing will.
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The post Why Pokémon Legends: Arceus should be your first Pokémon game appeared first on Destructoid.
