3.5/5 ★ – Davey's review of Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a wonderful step in the right direction for the franchise, but — like the story itself — feels like a relic of the past. Massive open areas are bogged down by clumsy traversal and questionable RNGs. Jubilife Village is a wonderful home base, but Pokémon Legends stumbles by making it the only home base. Traveling between the levels is incredibly frustrating and requires a stop to Jubilife every. single. time. If Pokemon Red & Blue (released in 1996) could let us fly between cities, why can’t a game released in 2022? The game is full of puzzling decisions like this…and it honestly makes you wonder if the Game Freak team has ever played a video game. Getting new mounts opens the levels up even more via swimming, flying, and scaling cliffs. However, these don’t really feel like rewards because all you discover are more Carnivines instead of the excitement of previously-unseen Pokémon for your Pokédex (i hate Carnivine, btw). With all this said, I put 70+ hours into this game. It’s genuinely fun, and I let out several gasps while I stumbled across not-so-rare shinies & alphas. It’s the best Pokémon game in decades, and it itched a childhood scratch.