As someone who was good and ready to hang up my trainer hat after the disappointing experience that was Pokémon Sword and Shield (S&S), I’m absolutely stunned to say that Pokémon Legends: Arceus not only brought me back from the brink of franchise fatigue, but actually has me excited for the next entry Game Freak has in store.
S&S were complete wastes of the Switch’s potential, totally stumbling at every earnest attempt made to take advantage of the console’s added horsepower (relative to the 3DS at least). City maps and the battle system were little more than upscaled versions of the 3DS games, and the flagship “Wild Area” featured comically bad performance and resolution dips and, perhaps even worse, wasn’t even that fun to explore.
