The Pokemon Company and Nintendo celebrated 25 years since the release of the first Pokemon games this year, and after hitting such a big milestone, now is a good time to reflect on the series as a whole and its future. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have been out for a bit less than two weeks now, and they have already proven to be very successful games during this time, likely because of how many players wanted Generation 4 remakes to celebrate 15 years since their release. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are perfect examples of what players want and expect from Pokemon titles at this time, as they were very well received, though they were also criticized for being flawed and not as innovative as one would think.
After Pokemon Sword and Shield, some players were happy to rediscover the classic top-down view in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, considering Generation 8 had a very different 3D graphic style. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl also provided a good benchmark for the future with the Grand Underground, something that should return in some form in Generation 9 and beyond due to its incredible potential for those who don't want to rush Gyms and story content. Another part of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl that sparked debate is Legendary Pokemon battles, with many discussing what can be done to improve them moving forward.
Legendary Pokemon Battles In Pokemon Games
Legendary Pokemon have always been a great added value to Pokemon games due to them being very powerful creatures that required patience and strategy to catch, unlike some other random encounters. However, with the way Pokemon games have always worked, players could easily save in front of Legendary Pokemon and try their luck at catching them until they ran out of Pokemon or Poke Balls, at which point they can just reset the game and restart from there. In fact, Legendary Pokemon tend to be rather static in their battles, in the sense that they do act like most Pokemon in the series to a degree, with players having to weaken them before throwing their Poke Balls at them.
This is something that cannot be done with most encounters in the overworld or in tall grass, considering Pokemon can sometimes escape or be accidentally defeated, and players cannot simply reset their game and run into them once more. The counterargument to this logic is that common Pokemon can be found all over the place, and while that is true, each one encountered by players comes as a bit of a surprise in terms of stats, nature, and even color - considering Shiny Pokemon do exist. While the same holds true for Legendary critters, they will most of the time spawn in predetermined locations and allow players to just battle them whenever they feel like, without a real sense of urgency or threat - after all, problems that may arise are a button away from reset.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl do right by this with a specific Legendary encounter, and that's Mespirit. Mespirit is one of the three Lake Guardians in Generation 4, and it is a roaming Pokemon, meaning that players will have to scout the map with their Map Marker Poketch app and see where the creature is hiding until the location of the Pokemon and the players match. At that point, players only have one move to go for before the Pokemon runs away and the whole process has to be repeated, making the encounter more difficult but more engaging.
How Legendary Pokemon Battles Could Change
The same approach was first introduced in the Generation 2 Pokemon games Gold and Silver, which had players look for Suicune, Raikou, and Entei in the wilds as roaming Pokemon. Doing the same thing for all Legendary Pokemon would probably still become stale at some point, but this is a good solution to the more static nature of regular Legendary battles. Also, having Legendary Pokemon constantly flee from battle after a single move, be it using an actual move or attack or throwing a Poke Ball, could prove to be rather frustrating for players who do not know which approach to use in these situations.
Another hypothetical solution would be to make Legendary battles more akin to Max Raid battles from Pokemon Sword and Shield, which made players enroll with strangers or through online play. These battles are exciting because the Pokemon are often quite strong and can even lead to wipes if a single player does everything right by not making mistakes in their moves, and then the Raid critter is guaranteed to be caught with any Poke Ball type when it is defeated. The problem with these battles is that players might get a Shiny encounter and lose out on it due to their team not playing well, be it strangers or real players joining via the internet, which would sting quite a lot in Legendary encounters.
Still, both ideas could be combined into a single one, having players weaken a roaming Legendary Pokemon until it is forced to its lair, where a Max Raid battle - or something of the sort - takes place. This wouldn't take away anything from the experience, but it could grant Pokemon fans a great sense of victory and conquest when finally pinning down the Legendary critter to a place from which it cannot escape, while also getting to battle it on a much bigger scale for a notable sense of threat. Overall, the approach to Legendary battles should change in future Pokemon games, and there could be many other ways to do so that Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have not explored yet.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are available for the Nintendo Switch.