This August, Pokémon fans were treated to a lengthy look at the upcoming open-world game Pokémon Legends: Arceus thanks to the Pokémon Presents livestream, which introduced new features and footage to both returning games and new entries in the Pokémon series, and there are some remarkable similarities in Arceus to New Pokémon Snap. The new trailer highlighted quite a few of the features that will be coming to the game, revealing just how drastically its gameplay differs from many other titles in the Pokémon franchise.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus takes place in the feudal era of the Sinnoh region, otherwise known as Hisui, a time period in which humans and Pokémon rarely lived in harmony, which accounts for some of these differences. The player serves as part of the Survey Corps section of the Galaxy Expedition Team, an organization responsible for observing and documenting the behavior of Pokémon in the wild. Although battling and catching Pokémon will still be a large part of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, there’s an additional layer to the gameplay experience.
Players will be tasked with gathering research about each individual Pokémon’s behavior in order to better study them through the course of Pokémon Legends: Arceus. This will be accomplished through research tasks, which are assigned from NPCs at base camps and Jubilife Village and help flesh out the Arceus Pokédex. The focus on observing Pokémon in the wild may seem familiar to players of Pokémon Snap, another entry in the series that presents relatively similar goals.
How Pokemon Legends: Arceus Is Similar To Pokemon Snap
New Pokémon Snap released in early 2021 as an update to the beloved formula of the 1999 original, and while there isn’t likely to the same sort of focus on photography in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, players still travel through the region for a similar purpose and at the request of a Pokémon Professor: in this case, Professor Laventon, who works as part of the Galaxy Expedition Team as well. In many ways, combat seems to be a secondary goal, making the way the gameplay is framed feel potentially unique in the series.
That said, the combat in Pokémon Legends: Arceus sets it apart quite a bit from Pokémon Snap as well, although it’s also changed from what long-time Pokémon fans may be familiar with. Rather than playing out on a one-action-per-turn basis, the turn order and the number of actions are dependent on a Pokémon’s stats, and there are two different Battle Styles in Arceus to help add diversity to the battle experience. It also seems as though there’ll be more of a focus on the overarching story of Pokémon Legends: Arceus if the hints from the new trailer are anything to go by. For the time being, though, little has actually been revealed in the way of the overall plot of the game.
