Just put down Pokemon Legends: Arceus and I was very pleasantly surprised. *spoilers*

tl;dr: despite not being perfect, Arceus is a genuinely great and fun game that sets the bar high for future Pokemon games and does not need to rely on the formula and IP to deliver a fluid and captivating experience.

First of all I say put down and not finished because this game has so much end game content that I expect the vast majority of players never get to 100% the game which is fine, but I was slightly disappointed to see that you can't get 2 of the final pokemon, one of which is the headliner without trading for evolution or some RNG in the quite enjoyable Space-time distortions (which spawn random pokemon and items from a pool that is based on which area you're in".

With that out of the way, the game begins a bit slow like most pokemon games and a lot of the cut scenes overstay their welcome but in general, what was most shocking to me was just how smooth and seamless the game plays.
some background I have been completely out of the loop with pokemon games for more than a decade, previously i just touched let's go eevee on launch for a few hours then got annoyed with how slow the game is with all the pauses and in battle texts etc., a few months ago i picked it up again and finished it while playing it casually. Picked up Shield after that and despite it's mind-numbingly bad plot, enjoyed it for what it is.

Arceus was different. I mean this game is actually good. Sure the story again could use some work, but this game is a genuinely good game and does not rely on the Pokemon IP/model to be good. The graphics are actually quite decent and the art style works very well. Yes, there are some awkward frames with large pokemon that are far, but visually it's a very pleasing.

The second you are free to play the game is like a chained up dog being let loose in a park. I was just playing around but I easily got 5 "active actions" at the same time with 2 of my pokemon hitting fruit trees and 3 wild pokemon in pokeballs being caught. The movement of the pokeball when catching pokemons is great, the lack of pauses when catching pokemon and battling is fantastic and exploring the game itself is very fun and rewarding; randomly happening on "Hisuian" Growlithes while exploring a path that I wasn't sure led to anywhere was definitely a peak gaming moment in recent memory and there are lots of instances like that. Revisiting areas after unlocking new traversion methods was really fun as well.

Stealthing, battling, crouching around and throwing pokeballs with all the different types of pokeballs was just really well done. It was genuinely fun and not tedious to catch pokemon. Overall, assuming that in essence Pokemon is about collecting creatures, this is by far the best version of Pokemon out there.

Edit: The music was really really good imo especially the night time song and in *spoiler again* one of the final battles vs. Volo, absolute bangers.

Things i didn't like:

  • Catching pokemon in the water was very very difficult to me.
  • Completionist end game content I prefer to be not listed as actual quests.
  • Requiring pokemon that can only be found in space-time distortions to get the final 2 pokemons was too much imo.

(Edited post to add these 2 things as well)

  • I understand trainer battles don't fit the plot as much, but I definitely missed having more classic, trainer style battles despite
  • Despite the overall great graphics, some random texture were jarringly bad (i.e. clothe designs/patterns on a few of the main characters).