Pokemon Legends: Arceus Should 'Steal' This Feature From Pokemon Let's Go
The reveal of Pokemon Legends: Arceus sent shockwaves through the Pokemon fandom. Since the series' inception, RPGs have evolved immensely; many have adopted expansive, detailed open worlds that encourage exploration. However, Pokemon has never strayed too far from its roots. Even the most recent mainline titles, Sword and Shield, adhere to the series' fairly linear structure, save for the incorporation of the Wild Area. When Pokemon Legends: Arceus launches next year, it will be breaking away from several of the series' norms. To best do so, it could stand to learn a lesson from remakes of the games that started it all.
The Pokemon Let's Go games are nostalgic experiences that allow players to relive the start of the Pokemon franchise. They're largely the same as every other Generation 1 Pokemon game, but they still come packed with new features to the Kanto region. One notable addition is the ability to ride Pokemon, which opens up new avenues for exploration. Unfortunately, the feature didn't make a return in Sword and Shield, but with Pokemon Legends: Arceus set to feature an expansive open world, the return of rideable Pokemon seems like it would pair well with the game's setting.
As far as Pokemon games go, exploration has always been relatively limited. Generally, players can walk, sprint, and ride a bike, but that's mostly it. Previous games allowed players to ride water-types across bodies of water thanks to the "Surf" HM, but recent games have introduced gadgets, such as the protagonist's bike in Sword and Shield that render water-types' seafaring abilities null and void.
In a world populated by them, the Pokemon themselves typically don't play a big role in how one gets around, except in a few recent games like Pokemon Sun and Moon, where rideable Pokemon acted as TMs. Pokemon Let's Go doesn't quite defy this convention, but it does seemingly open the door for future games to do so.
Certain Pokemon in Let's Go are large enough for players to ride, and some even exhibit special properties while being ridden. Mounting the fiery Arcanine allows players to get around quicker than simply walking, effectively replacing the bicycle seen in previous Pokemon games. Additionally, water-types like Gyrados can be used to maneuver across bodies of water.
Let's Go also lets players control a mode of travel they ordinarily can't: Flight. Most games allow players to "fly" across the world map, but it's generally limited to selecting a point of interest before loading into that area. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire allowed players to fly freely around the Hoenn region, but only in the overworld, not the actual cities players would be flying to. In essence, it was a prettier version of the previous games' flight feature.
In Let's Go, players can use Pokemon like Charizard to fly through cities and routes. One can pass over entire bodies of water, ignore ledges, roadblocks, and also avoid the common Pokemon found throughout the map. Additionally, players can even encounter other flying Pokemon, like Dragonite, in the air.
Riding Pokemon isn't exactly pivotal to Let's Go's gameplay, but it is a thought-provoking mechanic. It seems to lay a foundation for a future Pokemon game to embrace Pokemon as a core part of how players interact with the world around them.
There's a lot that isn't known about the upcoming Pokemon Legends: Arceus, but one thing is certain: It's going to feature an open world. Based on the scale of the world presented in its reveal trailer, it's hard to imagine the game forcing players to navigate its world solely on foot, and given its pre-historic setting, it's likely the fancy traversal gadgets featured in later games won't be a factor. It's only natural that Pokemon should be the primary means of transportation.
Medium-to-large-sized, ground-roaming Pokemon could serve a similar purpose to horses, but Pokemon Legends: Arceus has a huge opportunity to innovate when it comes to travel via both water and air. For the former, on top of simply allowing players to skim across bodies of water, it would be great to see some form of underwater travel incorporated.
Additionally, expanded air travel could allow for Pokemon developers to think more vertically than ever before when it comes to the layout of a map. Traditionally, one could only explore Pokemon's various regions by going to the north, south, east, or west. Even Let's Go's inclusion of flying stuck to this convention, as players couldn't adjust their altitude; it's easy to imagine how Pokemon Legends: Arceus could expand on this. Players could have to fly toward a location in the sky, give chase to a shifty, quick Flying-type, or even just take to the skies for a nice view from the highest point they can reach.
The ability to mount Pokemon and control them to explore underwater or fly would literally add whole new dimensions to Pokemon's exploration, and seems like a natural evolution of the ideas presented in Pokemon Let's Go. Part of the protagonist's goal in Pokemon Legends: Arceus involves creating the first Pokedex, an encyclopedia documenting every Pokemon and what they're capable of. One area that seems worth studying is how effective Pokemon are when it comes to traversing the world around them. Hopefully, Game Freak agrees with this assessment and affords players a lot of material to study.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus releases for Switch on January 28, 2022.
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