Pokémon Legends: Arceus is one of the most highly anticipated Pokémon games we’ve seen in a while due to it’s interesting story and gameplay features we’ve never seen in a Pokémon game before. Still many people in the community have been less than satisfied with it’s presentation so far. The game has gotten a lot of backlash because the graphics shown in trailers doesn’t look up to par with previous Pokémon games.
Will Graphics Improve?
The obvious answer is yes. The graphics along with many other features in the game will change and be improved. This is because everything we’ve seen so far is not finished. The gameplay trailers we’ve seen is footage of an unfinished game. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl faced similar backlash back when the initial trailers for that title released. Over time the graphics improved and became what we see today. BDSP still has other things that some players think should be changed, like the size of certain sprites, but graphics and lighting have objectively gotten better as the game was developed. The same is expected to happen with Pokémon Legends: Arceus. We just have to give developers time to finish the game and understand that everything we see before the game is released is not final.
Why The Graphics Look Bad
Not only is the game just unfinished but the graphics we see today might look bad for other reasons as well. For example we know Legends: Arceus will have features that we’ve never seen before in a Pokemon game. This means developers need extra time implementing these new features to make sure they work properly. Usually Pokemon games have similar features, story, and gameplay mechanics but when you start changing the formula for all of those things at once, it might become a challenge to get everything done in the time frame expected. We also know the size of the map is way larger than what we’ve explored previously. This means game designers have a lot of work to do and need to get everything laid out and working properly before they put more detail and polish the terrain.
Unfortunately at that point it’s hard to believe in graphic and artistic improvement. A Depth Field in the Background to take the focus off the empty world, a Chromatic Aberration would be nice too. Unfortunately there is a lack of firm hand in the game’s artistic decisions.