Don’t expect the breadth of the wild

The hundreds of Pokemon in this game are full of character, but the world they inhabit often leaves a lot to be desired. Arceus can’t help but draw comparisons with Nintendo’s masterpiece Breath of the Wild and its vast environments, but a game-changing open-world sandbox this is not – even if it inherits some of the repetitive checklist-type side-quests of the genre.

The Hisui region isn’t quite open-world – it’s split into five zones of varying biomes (annoyingly, you always have to return to the central village hub before you can venture to another zone). But they do feel vast, loading times are pretty quick, and it runs at a stable framerate.

That, however, comes at the price of graphical fidelity. It’s hard not to notice the sketchy textures on characters’ clothes that haven’t been made to be inspected from too close, or the poor draw distance that results in trees popping up.

Anyway, this game is hardly light on content, with plenty to keep you hooked even after completing the main story. If Arceus is a first flawed attempt at a new spin-off series like Metroid Prime, then at the very least it’s got its core element right: the Pokemon themselves.