Right from the first steps into Pokémon Legends Arceus, you get a feel that this isn’t your typical Pokémon adventure. Released on January 28, 2022 for the Nintendo Switch, this title was developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo, bringing a fresh twist to the franchise with a semi open world blend of exploration, action, and classic Pokémon catching.
Set in the ancient region of Hisui, the historical version of Sinnoh, the game drops you into an open world with a mostly third-person perspective and light hack and slash elements as you battle wild Pokémon in real time. This game reimagined how Pokémon encounters and field mechanics could work. In this review for GameTyr, we’ll unpack how these mechanics and the unique setting stack up, and whether Pokémon Legends Arceus truly delivers an engaging semi open world experience.
What Is There to Do Beyond Catching?
Optional Requests act as the game’s version of side quests, and they are mostly small tasks given by villagers across the Hisui region. These usually involve catching a specific Pokémon, showing a completed Pokédex entry, or helping someone understand Pokémon behavior. They are simple by design and rarely complex, but they do a decent job of adding context to the world and reinforcing the idea that people and Pokémon are still learning how to coexist.
The Pokédex is no longer just a checklist of caught Pokémon. Each species comes with multiple research tasks like catching them in different ways, observing specific moves, or defeating them under certain conditions. This turns the Pokédex into a long term progression system, differing it from the classic pokemon games that present it as more of a background objective. It is repetitive at times, but it gives clear structure to exploration and ties directly into rank progression, making it one of the core side activities in the game.
Catching Pokémon and exploring the world are tightly linked, especially with the addition of Alpha Pokémon. These larger, stronger variants roam the map openly and act as informal difficulty spikes. You can choose to engage them early, avoid them entirely, or come back later when better prepared. Exploration also includes tracking different Pokémon behaviors, time of day variations, and environmental interactions, which makes moving through each area feel more purposeful even without a traditional quest marker pushing you forward.
Shopping in Pokémon Legends Arceus is fairly straightforward and centered in Jubilife Village. Players can buy items like Poké Balls, healing supplies, and inventory upgrades. As you progress, new items unlock and prices adjust slightly, but shopping mostly serves as a convenience layer rather than a deep system. It supports the gameplay loop without trying to dominate it.
Crafting replaces the need to constantly rely on shops and fits neatly into the exploration focused design. Materials gathered in the wild can be used to create Poké Balls, healing items, and utility tools either at camps or workbenches. The system is simple and easy to manage, and while it lacks depth, it encourages players to engage with the environment instead of constantly returning to town.
Overall, there aren’t that many side activities to get lost in besides the ones centered around catching pokemon.
How Open Is the World in Pokémon Legends Arceus Really?
As a whole, Pokémon Legends Arceus is open in structure but not fully seamless. The world is divided into several large regions rather than one continuous map, and each region functions as its own open zone. These areas unlock gradually as you progress through the main story, meaning certain parts of the Hisui region are inaccessible early on. Once a region is unlocked, however, you are generally free to explore it at your own pace without strict story gating inside that area.
Travel between regions does not happen naturally through map borders. Instead, moving from one region to another requires returning to Jubilife Village and speaking to a specific NPC to select your destination. This classifies it as a hub based open world. Fast travel is also available within regions, allowing you to quickly move between camps and discovered points of interest. Within the regions, though, you can travel by foot or the various pokemon mounts, whether it’s flying, climbing, gliding or even through the water.
Each individual region is fairly large and offers a good amount of explorable space, with varied terrain like fields, cliffs, water areas, and caves. While the maps encourage roaming and experimentation, they are not completely free form. Certain areas are shaped by natural barriers like steep mountains or water until traversal options are unlocked later. Invisible walls are minimal, but there are a few paths that funnel you in specific directions, making parts of the map feel narrow.
Overall, the world of Pokemon Legends: Arceus is just open enough to support exploration.
Does the World of Hisui Feel Alive or Empty?
Pokémon Legends: Arceus leans heavily on natural landscapes to sell its atmosphere. Wide plains, snowy tundras, misty marshes, and volcanic zones give each region a clear identity, even if the environments themselves are fairly static. The music is understated and often fades into the background, letting ambient sounds like wind, water, and distant Pokémon cries do most of the work. While this creates a calm, almost lonely mood that fits the historical setting, it can also make large areas feel quiet to the point of emptiness, especially during longer exploration sessions.
Jubilife Village is the clear highlight when it comes to liveliness. NPC density is on the minimal side but improves over time as the village expands, which helps sell the idea of a growing settlement. Characters usually stand in fixed positions or loop very simple actions like farming, guarding, or working at stalls. They feel functional rather than alive. Most NPCs exist to give quests, sell items, or deliver exposition, and very few have routines that change meaningfully across the day. The village feels believable as a hub, but not as a place with independent daily life.
Outside of settlements, human NPC presence drops off sharply. Apart from survey corps members at camps, merchants, or quest-specific characters, the world is almost entirely empty of people. This fits the narrative idea that humans are afraid of wild Pokémon, but it also means there is very little ambient human activity to break up exploration. The wilderness feels dominated by Pokémon alone, which strengthens immersion in one sense, but also reinforces the feeling that the world exists mainly for the player rather than functioning on its own.
Unfortunately, the overall liveliness of the world is still very lacking compared to modern open worlds.
Customization in Pokémon Legends Arceus: Players, Pokémon, and Personal Choice
Character customization starts with basic appearance options, including skin tone, facial features, hairstyles, and hair color. These choices can be changed later in Jubilife Village. So you won’t be locked by your starting choices. The selection is limited, focusing more on practicality over deep personalization. Hairstyles and colors fit the historical setting of Hisui, which keeps the visuals consistent but also means there is less stylistic variety compared to the later Pokémon entries.
Clothing customization is more developed than character appearance and expands steadily as you progress. Players can purchase different outfits, footwear, and headwear, along with small accessories like glasses. These options mostly affect aesthetics and do not impact gameplay. The overall style leans toward period inspired outfits that match the setting, offering variety without going overboard. While there are plenty of combinations, customization stays grounded and avoids extreme or flashy designs.
Trainer card customization exists but plays a minor role. Players can unlock different titles and marks based on progress and achievements, which are displayed on their profile. This system adds a small layer of personalization and recognition, but it is largely cosmetic and easy to overlook during regular play.
Team customization remains one of the strongest aspects of the game. Players have full control over which Pokémon to use, how their teams are structured, and which moves each Pokémon has equipped. The move system allows moves to be swapped freely outside of battle, encouraging experimentation rather than long term commitment to a single build. Nicknaming Pokémon is also available, supporting personal attachment to team members. While the overall system is familiar, the flexibility around movesets makes team customization more accessible and adaptable than in previous entries.
Thus, customization is the strongest aspect of the game so far.
What Keeps You Playing and What Doesn’t?
The core gameplay loop of exploration, stealth catching, and fast encounters is immediately engaging, especially in the early hours. It feels fresh compared to traditional Pokémon games, largely because of how freely players can move through the world and interact with Pokémon on their own terms. Pokédex research tasks reinforce this by providing constant short term goals, giving players clear direction at almost all times. However, these tasks repeat heavily, and once the system is fully understood, the novelty starts to wear off.
Side activities like Requests, Alpha Pokémon hunting, crafting, and material farming tend to engage through efficiency and completion while you’re exploring the world. The game frequently pulls players away from the main story into these systems, encouraging long stretches of side focused play. Progression is driven more by research ranks and mechanical unlocks than by narrative momentum, which can make the story feel like a gate to new areas rather than a motivating force on its own.
Engagement generally peaks early, levels out in the mid game, and declines in the late game unless the player is strongly motivated by completion or optimization. With few evolving systems or escalating challenges, activities gradually become checklist driven.
Overall, engagement is solid and sometimes compelling, but not consistently deep enough to sustain the same level of interest across the full experience.
Why Pokémon Legends Arceus Feels Different From Traditional Pokémon Games and Open World Games in General
Pokémon Legends Arceus stands out primarily because it is the first entry in the franchise to fundamentally redesign Pokémon’s core structure. It moves away from route based progression, random encounters, and gym focused advancement, replacing them with real time exploration, visible Pokémon in the world, and progression driven by research rather than battles alone. Systems like stealth catching, seamless transitions between exploration and combat, and ranking up through studying Pokémon represent mechanics the series had not meaningfully explored before.
Its uniqueness comes from how tightly Pokémon mechanics are integrated into the open world itself. Pokémon are not triggered through menus or encounters but exist as part of the environment, reacting to player behavior, time of day, and surroundings. Exploration is framed around observation, preparation, and interaction instead of escalating combat difficulty or dense NPC driven systems. Compared to other open world games, it does not stand out through complex simulations or reactive ecosystems, but through how it reframes familiar Pokémon mechanics into an exploration first structure. Relative to the Pokémon franchise’s history, Pokémon Legends Arceus represents a clear structural shift that redefines how a Pokémon game functions, even if not every system is fully developed.
Ultimately, the franchise's slight shift in game mechanics solidifies its identity even further in the genre.
Verdict
And with that, we can wrap up Pokémon Legends Arceus. As an open world Pokémon experiment, it might be an interesting visit if you’re into the Pokemon franchise, but as an open world, it might be one you want to skip. The game shines most in shaping its uniqueness through structural changes, flexible customization, and early game engagement, but it struggles with world liveliness, long term variety, and sustaining momentum beyond its core loop. Side activities and progression systems are functional but limited, and the semi open world design supports exploration without fully embracing freedom. As a whole, it settes into a C Tier on the GameTyr scale.
