According to an article by Elle.com, the singer, Christina Aguilera had access to an early version of the upcoming Pokémon Legends: Arceus game. She recently was promotional video for Nintendo about her favorite Switch games and how they help connect her with her family. In the video they play games like Animal Crossing and Big Brain Academy but in the article we find that while they filmed this promotional video they allowed Christina and her family to play Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which isn’t out yet. She even gave the game a short review.

Christina Aguilera’s Review

She says she didn’t directly get to play it because her daughter was having too much fun playing but she watched her daughter play the unreleased game and still had fun. She describes the graphics as “gorgeous”, which is great to hear considering so many fans have been upset about how graphics looked in initial gameplay trailers. The graphics were bound to improve because those trailers were published way before the release date, but it’s still good to hear a confirmation. This means other celebrities could have the chance to play this game early and might give us more insight on what we should expect. Who knows who else has play tested the game at this point.

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.

With the release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus right around the corner, players are still left wondering multiple things that have yet to he shown. Something that hasn’t been showcased in promotional trailers are the different types of Pokeballs we’ll find in the Hisiu region. It’s a brief moment but in this gameplay trailer, around the 30 second mark, we see the trainer has a normal pokeball equipped, but we can also see a blue colored pokeball with two red stripes and another thats black with yellow stripes in their inventory. For players that have played previous Pokemon games, you’ll know that these are Great balls and Ultra balls. They look a little different than what we’re used to because these Pokeballs are early prototype, steam powered Pokeballs. But it’s familiar enough that we can recognize what they are. It’s unknown if we’ll see environment related Pokeballs such as Dusk Balls, Net Balls, etc.

All Types of Pokeballs In Pokemon Legends Arceus

• Regular Pokeball
• Great Balls
• Ultra Balls
• Heavy Balls
• Leaden Balls
• Gigaton Balls
• Feather Balls
• Wing Balls
• Jet Balls

Fan Theories

Some fans that are looking forward to playing Legends: Arceus are having discussions about what Pokeballs we’ll see in the game. Some think there could be a crafting system similar to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, where players can use resources to craft their own Pokeballs with different effects and perks. Since the developers havent shown any type of crafting system yet, its unlikely we’ll see this on release, but no ones sure right now. Others think they’ll go to the traditional system of finding Pokeballs around the world. Whatever the system may be, we know these Pokeballs look slightly different from what we’re used to and we’ll have to play the game and see different effects or catch rates.

The new upcoming game, Pokémon Legends Arceus, is completely different from any Pokémon game we’ve seen before. From the gameplay to the story, they’re really changing it up with this one. One of the aspects that show this drastic change is the setting of the story. Pokémon LA takes place way in the past. This begs the question, when exactly are we in the Pokémon time line?

Time Period

In Legends, we don’t see anything like a Pokémon Center because they probably don’t exist yet. At this point in time, it’s not normal for humans to catch and battle Pokémon, so there was no need for our good friend, Nurse Joy. In previous games, you’ll constantly see tame Pokémon living along side humans in cities. In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, this is the opposite of what you’ll encounter. We’ll see a separation of humans and Pokémon as people will live in villages, secluded from the Pokémon living in forests and roaming the hills. Even with all of this information, it’s difficult to say what year this game takes place exactly but it could be hundreds of years in the past. Hopefully when the game comes out, on January 28th, 2022, we’ll get to narrow down the time line.

A Contradiction of the Timeline

Something a lot of fans have noticed is there is a strange object that appears in trailers a lot called the Arc Phone. With the game taking place hundreds of years in the past, phones most likely didn’t exist, even in this universe. Poke balls aren’t even fully developed and look like they’re made of metal and wood, so why would our character have access to a futuristic device like a phone? There are many theories about the Arc Phone and how it came to be, one being that it came directly from Arceus, other theories include time travel, but we won’t know for certain until we play the game ourselves.

Pokémon games usually have Gyms and Gym Leaders that have very powerful Pokemon. The player catches Pokémon and levels them up until they think they’re ready to battle in the Gym challenge. With Pokémon Legends: Arceus changing so many gameplay features, a question that is asked a lot is will Pokemon Legends Arceus have gyms?

Will There Be Gyms?

Short answer, no. There wont be gyms in Pokémon Legends: Arceus (LA). The real question is why. This new game takes place in a time when Pokémon and Humans mostly lived separate from one another. More importantly, in a time before people caught and battled Pokémon against each other, which is exactly what a Pokémon gym is. Having gym battles in this context wouldn’t make sense.

What Will Replace Gyms?

As mentioned before, gym challenges are a huge part of gameplay for almost all Pokémon games in the past. This leaves a large gap for new content in Legends. This gap will most likely be filled by people called Wardens. Wardens protect Noble Pokemon but you’ll see these Noble Pokemon have mysteriously become aggressive. We call these frenzied Noble Pokemon. You’ll most likely get tasks from local wardens to help them tame these wild frenzied Nobles. This could prove to be harder than gym challenges as it not only involves battling your Pokemon against it but your trainer as well. These Pokemon will hit your trainer directly and you’ll need to dodge it’s attacks.

The Myth

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl have recently came out and players are exploring every corner of this game to find new, hidden content. This game is a remake of the old Pokémon Diamond and Pearl games, taking place in the Sinnoh Region. Most of it is similar, minus graphical differences, but there are also new Easter eggs and other content to explore. For example, in Diamond and Pearl you’ll find there’s a library in Canalave City where you can read books about lore and myths from the region. All of these stories have remained the same in BDSP except for one book. There’s an entirely new book titled ‘The Sea’s Legend’ that describes a story of a human traveling with Pokémon to find a “Prince”. The story reads as follows.

“Once upon a time in the East Sea, there was a Pokemon known as the prince. A brave human asked Pokemon living in the sea to let them see the prince. Mantyke, Buizel, and a Qwilfish with huge spikes acknowledged the human’s bravery and joined them. Together, they set off in a boat over the sunset-streaked sea, sailing through the ocean gate stretched over the waves. News of this reached the ears of the prince, who went to meet the brave little party at the Seaside Hollow.”

Theories & The Legends: Arceus Map

In the movie ‘Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea‘ Manaphy is known as the Prince of the Sea, so this myth could be referring to Manaphy when it says “Prince”. The references to this movie don’t stop there, though. On the cover of this movie, you’ll see a Buizel and Mantyke. Qwilfish is also in this movie but plays a smaller role. The myth could just be a reference to this movie but the story doesn’t really match and this movie took place in a different region altogether. This leads us to believe there’s more to this myth than just a reference. It could be a hint at a new Pokémon movie, similar to Temple of the Sea, or some lore within the new Pokémon Legends: Arceus game.

A map of the Hisui region for the upcoming Legends: Arceus game has been shown and we can already connect similar details from this map to this short story. We know this is the East Sea because there is a blue Shellos near the coast. There are two types of Shellos, a pink one and a blue one. The pink Shellos is only seen in the West Sea while the blue one is only seen in the East Sea. In the East Sea, on the map, we also see a small sail boat on the East Peninsula. This could be the boat that referred to in the story when they sail to meet the Prince. Though, we’re not sure where this “Seaside Hollow” is. It could very well be right where that boat is on the map, or somewhere else. For now we’ll just have to wait to play Pokémon Legends: Arceus next year to find more details on this story.