I am obsessed with Pokémon Legends: Arceus, dear reader. In the space of one week, I went from turning my nose up at all the trailers because I thought it looked rougher than a Machamp’s armpit, to obsessively combing every inch of Hisui to comprehensively fill out my Pokédex.
Yes, Legends: Arceus has its issues. Large parts of the empty open world look genuinely bad, and it’s clear GameFreak needs more help, time, and resources to really get the most out of the Nintendo Switch. The tutorial is overlong, cutscenes drag, and an argument could be made that there simply aren’t enough trainer battles to break up the endless cycle of catching and collecting.
But I honestly don’t care about any of that when it comes down to it. For all its flaws, Legends: Arceus has easily become one of my favourite Pokémon games of all time. In fact, it might just have secured a spot as my second-favourite, just underneath the excellent DS remakes of Gold & Silver.
Given the game’s astounding commercial and critical success so far, it’s clear that a sequel to Legends: Arceus is a matter of when, not if. I’ve no doubt we all have our own mental wish lists drawn up for the follow-up already. Legends: Arceus has, after all, established such a solid new foundation that’s bubbling away with so much potential. But there’s only one thing at the top of my list: set the next Legends game in Johto.
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Assuming all future Legends games stick with the established concept of sending players back in time to an age before people and Pokémon lived together in perfect harmony, which they absolutely should, then surely Johto is a no-brainer for our next journey into the past? Certainly, our very own James Daly said so himself in his Legends: Arceus review - and he's bang-on.
The region first made explorable in Gold & Silver way back in 1999 has always been brimming with a real sense of history. Despite the technical limitations of the time, and the fact that Johto is much smaller compared to later regions, you arrived in Gold & Silver fully believing that you were part of a world where so much had already happened. It felt like a fully formed place.
Kanto was a much more modern region based on technology, but Johto embraced the very notion of its own past. It was the first time players really felt as if the world of Pokémon was something truly ancient. Something that had been around since before they were born, and would likely continue on long after they were gone.
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Of course, this is now true of the franchise in reality as well as in-game, but if I think about that for too long I might well barrel headfirst into a full-on existential crisis.
Johto’s backstory is rich, fascinating, and begging to be explored in greater detail. The mysterious Ruins of Alph and the Unown that dwell within. Ecruteak City, with its centuries-old towers, and the fire that engulfed the Brass Tower for three whole days. The rise of Entei, Suicune, and Raikou. The arrival and departure of Lugia and Ho-Oh. The ancient Ilex Forest and the sacred shrine erected in honour of its protector. These are all stories that Gold & Silver allude to and explore to a degree, but a Johto-focused Legends game could really dive in and allow us to experience that history without having to read it off a Wiki page.
Ecruteak City serving as the central hub in the same way as Jubilife in Legends: Arceus would give players the chance to shoot off to every corner of Johto, but it’d also provide the perfect jumping-off point for the game’s story. The Brass and Bell Towers, built 700 years before the events of Gold & Silver were quite literally constructed in an attempt to strengthen the friendship between people and Pokémon. The aim of Legends: Arceus is to help people understand Pokémon by researching them so that they can be less afraid of them. So why not have the sequel build on that in fun and interesting new ways?
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Instead of taking down boss-like Noble Pokémon because they’re on mindless rampages, have players track down and work with monsters to learn new ways to cooperate and grow Ecruteak alongside the two towers.
Part of the fun of Legends: Arceus is seeing Jubilife grow and change as you increase the population’s understanding of Pokémon. The sequel should take that idea even further by having the main base of operations fundamentally evolve as you learn to work with new abilities and Pokémon. Not just catching them in little balls and putting them to work, but considering how each Pokémon might help grow your settlement while also making sure the environment you create has actual benefits for the Pokémon.
It’d be the perfect chance to lean into that fundamental idea that the franchise has always put forward, but never really shown via gameplay: that Pokémon and friends and partners first. The battles and the training are all well and good, but actually studying ‘mon as a way to build your own settlement where people and Pokémon can live together peacefully is the truest expression of what Pokémon is about. What better way is there to honour Johto’s history than to be able to actually have a hand in shaping it?