5 things Pokemon games need to improve after Legends: Arceus

Pokemon Legends: Arceus has achieved remarkable success, revitalizing the franchise with its innovative blend of open-world exploration and traditional Pokemon mechanics. Despite its commercial and critical achievements, several significant areas require enhancement to establish a truly groundbreaking foundation for future titles.

The game’s revolutionary approach to Pokemon encounters and world interaction represents the most substantial evolution the series has seen in years. However, to maintain momentum and deliver the premium experience fans deserve, developers must address key shortcomings in the sequel.

This analysis identifies five critical improvement areas that could transform the next installment into a definitive Pokemon experience.

Visual presentation remains the most glaring weakness in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, with graphics that fall significantly below contemporary AAA standards. While engaging gameplay mechanics compensate for visual shortcomings, the disparity between Pokemon and other major franchises becomes increasingly apparent.

Technical limitations manifest across multiple dimensions: Pokemon textures frequently appear as flat color surfaces, draw distances remain severely limited, and environmental pop-in occurs regularly. Distant creature animations often operate at minimal frame rates, creating jarring visual inconsistencies throughout exploration.

Performance optimization represents a solvable challenge, as demonstrated by mobile titles like Fortnite and Genshin Impact achieving superior visual fidelity on less powerful hardware. The Nintendo Switch’s capabilities clearly support more ambitious graphical achievements than currently demonstrated.

Strategic enhancement priorities should focus on texture resolution improvements, dynamic lighting systems, and optimized asset streaming to eliminate pop-in issues. Implementing these changes would elevate the series to compete visually with other major gaming franchises.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus introduced groundbreaking mechanics that赋予玩家宝可梦队伍物理存在感和战斗外实用功能 through the resource gathering system. This innovation significantly enhanced the gameplay experience and deepened creature personality representation.

The current riding system creates a narrative disconnect, as the Pokemon receiving the most screen time—Wyrdeer, Braviary, and Basculegion—belong to rental services rather than the player’s carefully curated team. This approach diminishes the emotional connection between trainers and their companion creatures.

Historical precedent exists for more integrated systems: Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee featured 18 ridable Pokemon from the player’s collection. Adopting this model in a sequel would create compelling strategic decisions about team composition, balancing combat effectiveness with traversal capabilities.

Implementation should allow players to designate specific team members for riding functions, creating meaningful choices about which creatures to include based on both battle performance and overworld utility.

The control scheme in Pokemon Legends: Arceus presents significant usability challenges that impact player experience. The non-intuitive button mapping—where directional pad up accesses menus while the plus button summons ride Pokemon—creates unnecessary cognitive load during gameplay.

Common player mistakes include frequent button confusion even after extensive playtime, particularly with actions like rolling, crouching, and running that follow unconventional input patterns.

Accessibility considerations demand robust customization options, allowing players to remap controls according to their preferences and physical needs. The absence of these features represents a missed opportunity for inclusivity and personalized gameplay experiences.

Best practices for control customization should include full button remapping capabilities, multiple preset configurations for different playstyles, and the ability to save custom layouts for specific gameplay scenarios.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus introduced innovative action-oriented boss encounters with the Frenzied Noble Pokemon, representing a dramatic departure from traditional gym leader battles. Unfortunately, limited mechanical diversity undermines the potential of these engagements.

The current battle formula follows a predictable pattern across all encounters: evade attacks, deploy balms, initiate combat during stun periods, and repeat until victory. While functional, this approach lacks the creative depth expected from modern game design.

Innovative concepts could include mid-battle phase transitions where Pokemon undergo dramatic transformations, environmental interaction mechanics that allow strategic use of battlefield elements, and stealth sequences requiring different approaches to engagement.

Progression system integration offers additional opportunities for enhancement, such as unlocking new battle mechanics as players advance through the story or developing specialized techniques for different Noble Pokemon types.

The narrative structure in Pokemon Legends: Arceus follows an extremely linear progression path, despite the game’s open-world exploration elements. Players receive encouragement to investigate new regions and capture diverse Pokemon, yet story advancement remains rigidly sequential.

Classic Pokemon titles demonstrated effective non-linear design: In Pokemon Red and Blue, after completing initial objectives, players gained freedom to pursue gym leaders in flexible order, confront Team Rocket at their discretion, or explore optional areas based on personal interest.

Modern open-world integration should build upon these foundations, creating branching narrative paths that accommodate different playstyles and exploration priorities.

Player choice implementation represents the next evolutionary step, allowing trainers to tackle major story objectives in sequences that align with their individual preferences and strategic approaches.

This design philosophy would better complement the game’s exploration-focused mechanics, creating a more organic and immersive adventure that respects player agency while maintaining narrative coherence.

No reproduction without permission：Games Guides Website » 5 things Pokemon games need to improve after Legends: Arceus Essential improvements needed for Pokemon Legends: Arceus sequel to revolutionize the franchise