Pokemon Legends: Arceus quickly become a special title in the Pokemon franchise due to its unique catching mechanics, battle turn order, and difficulty. Rarely has a mainline Pokemon game ever been described as a difficult time, because those games are designed to be played by everyone - including children. However, Pokemon Legends: Arceus could afford to forego that approach. Several trainer encounters in the game can be exceptionally difficult for players who haven't trained their team to be overleveled compared to the area.
Although trainer battles are not as common in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, the game handles them in a way that makes them more meaningful story-wise and in terms of challenge. The game also has more grim themes than mainline Pokemon titles, often shown both in dialogue with NPCs or the Pokedex entries for some creatures, such as Basculegion consuming the souls of dead Pokemon. Pokemon Legends: Arceus' heightened difficulty mixed with a darker story set in a time when people were afraid of Pokemon to create something rather peculiar: a Lovecraftian experience.
How Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Lovecraftian Horror Are Alike
H. P. Lovecraft's horror stories are often referred to as cosmic horror, or Lovecraftian horror: a specific type of fear that comes from learning how small one is compared to the greater cosmos around them. Pokemon Legends: Arceus has many story beats that are similar to the average mainline titles in the series, but it also has strong Lovecraftian themes in the way it approaches the story of Arceus, Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina. The main character is summoned into another world, set centuries in the past, without their consent and with no knowledge of what is going on.
This is a narrative tool to make the player and character's knowledge of the world the same. In this case, Pokemon Legends: Arceus players have to trust their new piece of magical technology, the Arc Phone, to guide them through a mission they don't fully understand in a world that's alien to them. Strange, incomprehensible phenomena start to happen around the region, with space-time rifts opening left and right that have powerful Pokemon coming out of them - some of which are unable to exist in that time period.
Players are working under threat of being sent out into the fields and left to die if they fail, and this isn't too far from what happens in terms of gameplay. In Pokemon Legends: Arceus, it's easy to faint in the wilds compared to any other Pokemon game due to wild Pokemon attacking players with their powers, to the point that many characters mention fellow explorers have been severely injured by the monsters. At one point, the sky turns red and NPCs start to believe it's the end of the world as they know it, as they can't understand what is happening.
The main character then has to battle the literal Pokemon god of time or space as they rampage in a frenzy, subduing it with all means necessary so that reality doesn't collapse. Finally, in their hardest Pokemon battle yet, trainers are met with a terrifying Pokemon emerging from the shadows and attacking them: Giratina. Overall, Pokemon Legends: Arceus does have strong Lovecraftian themes, and as a result it remains a compelling take on a franchise that's usually geared toward children.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is available now for Nintendo Switch.