Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the Complete Guide to the Hisui Game

On January 28, 2022, Pokémon threw a Poké Ball without stopping at a battle screen first, and nothing was ever the same. Pokémon Legends: Arceus takes you to Hisui, the Sinnoh before Sinnoh, at a time when living alongside a Pokémon still counts as a dangerous eccentricity. No Gyms, no Pokémon Centers, no Abilities, and a hero who can get knocked out by a bear. Here is the complete feature on the game that set the whole series moving again.

Contents

• The console and the context: a main-series RPG, not a spin-off
• Hisui, the Sinnoh before Sinnoh
• Real-time catching: aim, hide, throw
• Strong Style and Agile Style: turn-based battling rethought
• Starters, nobles and rides
• The 16 Hisuian forms and the seven brand-new species
• The story: the rift in the sky and the name of the game
• What players remember
• The legacy: what Hisui left the series
• Pokémon Legends: Arceus at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

The console and the context: a main-series RPG, not a spin-off

First clarification, because it keeps coming up: Pokémon Legends: Arceus is not a spin-off. It is an RPG in the main series, developed by GAME FREAK and tied to the eighth generation, just like Sword and Shield or Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

The game was announced during the Pokémon Presents of February 26, 2021, at the same time as the Sinnoh remakes, and released worldwide on January 28, 2022 on Nintendo Switch. Two months, then, separate two radically opposed visions of the same region.

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It also holds a small catalog oddity: it is the first main-series game to introduce a new region while shipping in a single version. No Arceus Scarlet or Arceus Violet, so no version exclusives to trade, which is a break with tradition in itself.

Critical reception was the best of the generation, with a Metacritic average of 83 out of 100. On the sales side, Nintendo reported 14.83 million copies as of March 31, 2023, after a launch week of 6.5 million units, as announced by The Pokémon Company.

Hisui, the Sinnoh before Sinnoh

Hisui is the land of Sinnoh in a far distant era, long before the events of Diamond and Pearl. Pokémon Centers do not exist, and neither do Gyms, and the locals look at wild creatures with a wariness that gives the game its very particular atmosphere.

The player — Rei or Akari — literally falls out of the sky and joins the Galaxy Expedition Team, the organization that studies the region from its base in Jubilife Village. It is divided into several corps: the Medical Corps, the Security Corps and the Survey Corps, the last being the one the hero joins.

Its mission fits into a single sentence, and that sentence is dizzying: to fill in the very first Pokédex in history. Around him orbit Professor Laventon, who hands over the first partner Pokémon; Kamado, head of the Galaxy Expedition Team and ancestor of Professor Rowan; and Cyllene, who leads the Survey Corps.

The region is split between two rival factions. The Diamond Clan and the Pearl Clan worship the same "almighty Sinnoh" but disagree on what it stands for: time for the former, led by Adaman, space for the latter, led by Irida. Add to that the Ginkgo Guild, a band of traveling merchants where a certain Volo does business.

The playing field is carved into five large areas around the village: the Obsidian Fieldlands, the Crimson Mirelands, the Cobalt Coastlands, the Coronet Highlands and the Alabaster Icelands. You head out on an expedition, you come back, you re-equip — the structure owes more to a hunting game than to a route-based RPG.

🎒 Five areas around the same village, from the Crimson Mirelands to the Alabaster Icelands: in Hisui you head back to re-equip between outings, and that's exactly the job of our Pokémon backpacks when you pack yours in the morning.

Real-time catching: aim, hide, throw

This is the game's founding break. In Arceus, catching happens directly out in the world, with no battle screen. You crouch in the tall grass, sneak up from behind, aim, and throw. If the Pokémon hasn't spotted you, the Ball has a much better chance of sticking.

The second break marked a whole generation of players: the hero can be hurt. Wild Pokémon's moves hit the character directly, and a string of hits knocks you out. You wake up in Jubilife Village, relieved of some of the items in your satchel, which you have to go back and recover where you fell.

The Pokédex changes nature right along with it. Each entry demands specific actions — catch several of them, watch one use a particular move, catch one at night — known collectively as research tasks. The notebook no longer fills itself in: you work at it.

Two rarities spice up expeditions. The Alpha Pokémon, recognizable by their imposing size and red eyes, are much stronger than others of their kind and chase you down mercilessly. The space-time distortions open at random inside an area and, for a few minutes, pour out species and items found nowhere else.

All of this rests on constant crafting. Standard Balls, Heavy Balls, Feather Balls, smoke bombs and balms are made from ingredients gathered in the field, and you rarely set out on an expedition without having cooked up your own supply — a relationship with gear the series had never attempted.

Strong Style and Agile Style: turn-based battling rethought

When a battle does start anyway, it looks like no other in the series. Arceus drops strict turn alternation in favor of a variable action order: depending on Speed and on the move you pick, the same Pokémon can act twice in a row before the opponent has moved at all.

The system rests on two styles. Strong Style raises the power of the move but delays your next turn; Agile Style weakens it slightly but often lets you act again right away. A move only becomes usable in these two styles once you have mastered it, by repeating it battle after battle.

The rest of the rulebook got a complete overhaul, and the result is spectacular. Abilities disappear outright, as do held items, while EVs give way to effort levels that you raise with dedicated items — IVs, for their part, are still there, invisible but very much active. Our guide to Abilities measures just how radical that absence is.

Evolution also changes hands. A Pokémon never evolves on its own anymore: the transformation is triggered from the menu, when the player decides, exactly like learning moves, which has become completely free and reversible.

Even status conditions are rewritten. Freezing no longer immobilizes: it works like a burn by lowering Special Attack, while Sleep mimics paralysis without the Speed drop. Confusion and infatuation, for their part, did not make the trip — reason enough to take a fresh look at our guide to status conditions in battle.

Starters, nobles and rides

The starting trio is an unapologetic patchwork: Rowlet comes from Alola, Cyndaquil from Johto and Oshawott from Unova. None of them is native to Hisui: Professor Laventon brought them back from his travels, which elegantly justifies their regional evolutions.

Those evolutions are, incidentally, among the finest in the game. Decidueye becomes Grass and Fighting, Typhlosion turns Fire and Ghost, Samurott goes Water and Dark. Three lines everyone knows by heart, made unrecognizable, as detailed in our guide to the starters from every region.

Hisui ranks its creatures in a way all its own. The Noble Pokémon — "Pokémon monarques" in the French games, where English says noble — are five kings and queens revered across the region, each watched over by a Warden: Kleavor, Lilligant, Arcanine, Electrode and Avalugg of Hisui.

Facing them is nothing like a Gym Leader battle. A frenzy makes them uncontrollable: you calm them by throwing balms at them mid-charge, dodge their rushes, and only start a conventional battle as a last resort. They are the only true bosses in the game.

Alongside them, the Ride Pokémon form the second sacred group. Wyrdeer carries you over land, Basculegion over water, Hisuian Braviary through the air, Sneasler up sheer walls and Ursaluna to sniff out treasure. They let you call on them thanks to the Celestica Flute, once they have judged the player worthy.

The 16 Hisuian forms and the seven brand-new species

Like Alola and Galar before it, Hisui has its own regional variants. There are exactly sixteen of them, every one justified by the region's icy, volcanic climate, and detailed in our feature on regional forms.

🧥 In Hisui, the icy, volcanic climate goes as far as recutting Growlithe and Arcanine as Fire and Rock types; you get off lightly with one of our Pokémon sweaters on your back when the temperature drops.

The list is worth knowing: Growlithe and Arcanine go Fire and Rock, Voltorb and Electrode become Electric and Grass, Typhlosion turns Ghost. Then come Qwilfish, Sneasel, Samurott, Lilligant, Zorua and Zoroark — those two trading Dark for an unsettling Normal and Ghost —, Braviary, Sliggoo, Goodra, Avalugg and Decidueye.

Seven entirely new species also appear: Wyrdeer, Kleavor, Ursaluna, Basculegion, Sneasler, Overqwil and the legendary Enamorus. All of them are evolutions of species already known, except the last one, which completes a quartet of genies that stayed incomplete for a long time.

The full Hisui bestiary numbers 242 Pokémon, from Rowlet at number 001 to Darkrai at 242. Good news for completionists: Phione, Manaphy, Shaymin and Darkrai are not required for the Pokédex to count as complete.

One discreet mechanic with heavy consequences rounds it all out: the Linking Cord, which evolves Kadabra, Machoke, Graveler and Haunter without trading. Contrary to a stubborn misconception, it did not stay confined to Hisui: it also exists in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, as noted in our guide to evolution mechanics.

The story: the rift in the sky and the name of the game

The game's through-line comes down to an anomaly visible from the very first minute: a huge red rift tears through the sky over Hisui. It is what threw the hero into the past, and it is what drives the Noble Pokémon mad with rage.

So the quest is to calm the five Noble Pokémon, then trace the trouble back to its source. The investigation leads to the Temple of Sinnoh and to a revelation many saw coming: the region's two deities are very real indeed, and one of them has to be caught to close the rift.

Dialga and Palkia get their biggest addition since 2006 here: an Origin Forme triggered by the Adamant Crystal for the former and the Lustrous Globe for the latter. The two gods of Sinnoh become monsters again, in the literal sense.

The story saves its twist for the end, and it lands on a character the player has been running into for hours without a second thought: the Ginkgo Guild merchant Volo doesn't have the intentions he claims to have. His true ambition turns a quiet final act into one of the most talked-about confrontations in the series.

That leaves the Pokémon the game is named after. Arceus, the being behind the creation of the world, isn't waiting at the end of a cave: you earn him by fully completing the Hisui Pokédex. It's the first time the series' ultimate Mythical Pokémon can be obtained normally within a game, without an event distribution.

What players remember

What players took away first was a feeling: rediscovering species they knew by heart. Coming across a Pokémon in the wild, watching it, deciding whether to approach or run — the series had never offered that kind of relationship with its own wildlife.

The second memory is rougher, and it has become a running joke in the community: fainting at the hands of a wild Pokémon. Blacking out in front of an Alpha and having to go back for your satchel did more for the credibility of the Pokémon world than ten years of dialogue.

The criticism, for its part, was aimed at the technical side. Poor textures, vegetation that pops into view a few meters ahead, repetitive scenery: the game's visual presentation is its acknowledged weak point, and that's what kept it from winning everyone over despite its 83 out of 100.

GAME FREAK extended the adventure a month after release. The free update "Daybreak", released on February 28, 2022, adds post-credits side missions, the investigation into Massive Mass Outbreaks — those region-wide surges of Pokémon — and the Eternal Battle Reverie, where you meet Arceus again in a dream to put your team to the test.

🌙 In the Eternal Battle Reverie from "Daybreak," Arceus puts your team to the test in a dream, and our Pokémon duvet covers dress the only place where you can answer that kind of summons: your bed.

Finally, Hisui has become a go-to shiny hunting ground. Between Massive Mass Outbreaks, space-time distortions and Pokédex research levels that raise the rates, the odds of running into a Shiny there are among the most generous in the series, as detailed in our feature on Shiny Pokémon.

The legacy: what Hisui left the series

The influence of Arceus on Scarlet and Violet is obvious less than a year later: a single seamless open world, Pokémon visible in the environment, sending out your Pokémon straight from exploration with "Let's Go!", the disappearance of random encounters. Paldea takes Hisui's vocabulary and applies it to an entire region.

The Linking Cord made the journey too, and with it the idea that a solo player should no longer be penalized by the format. That's a deeper shift in doctrine than it looks for a series built on trading since 1996.

Some of the bolder ideas, though, stayed behind in Hisui. Scarlet and Violet took up neither the removal of Abilities, nor Strong and Agile Styles, nor the chance of being knocked out by a wild Pokémon; Pokémon Legends: Z-A did keep the removal of Abilities, a hallmark of the Legends branch, but left the two battle styles behind. These are deliberate experiments, not standards.

Above all, the game created a branch. By putting the "Legends" name on a core series RPG with a free-form structure, GAME FREAK gave itself a permanent laboratory, and Z-A is its second entry. Our cross-series feature on Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Z-A compares the two approaches.

If you're curious and hesitating, the answer is simple: Arceus is still the better entry point of the two, because it's the bigger change of scenery. Its regional stars, from Decidueye to Ursaluna, also turn up throughout our Pokémon plushies and our figures.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is Pokémon Legends: Arceus a spin-off?
  No. It's a core series RPG, part of the eighth generation, developed by GAME FREAK. It's its mechanics that break with the usual formula, not its status.
• How many Pokémon are in the Hisui Pokédex?
  Two hundred and forty-two, from Rowlet at number 001 to Darkrai at number 242. Phione, Manaphy, Shaymin and Darkrai are not required for the Pokédex to count as complete.
• How many Hisuian forms are there?
  Sixteen: Growlithe, Arcanine, Voltorb, Electrode, Typhlosion, Qwilfish, Sneasel, Samurott, Lilligant, Zorua, Zoroark, Braviary, Sliggoo, Goodra, Avalugg and Decidueye. The game also adds seven entirely new species.
• What's the difference between Strong Style and Agile Style?
  Strong Style increases the move's power but delays the Pokémon's next turn. Agile Style weakens it slightly but often lets you act again before your opponent. Both styles only become usable once you've reached mastery of the move.
• Is the Linking Cord found anywhere other than Pokémon Legends: Arceus?
  Yes. It first appeared in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, where it evolves Kadabra, Machoke, Graveler and Haunter without trading, but it's also available in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, where it serves exactly the same purpose.
• How do you get Arceus in the game?
  By fully completing the Hisui Pokédex. It's the first time the series' ultimate Mythical Pokémon can be obtained normally within a game, without going through an event distribution.

In short

Pokémon Legends: Arceus isn't a side note: it's a full-scale laboratory. The game proved you could catch a Pokémon without battling it, remove Abilities, let a player get bowled over by a bear and make the Pokédex genuinely interesting to fill in — all without ceasing to be a core series RPG.

Its technical presentation will remain its Achilles' heel, and some of its ideas died with it. But the essentials survived: Paldea's open world and the Linking Cord come straight from Hisui. For the rest of the story, head to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the generation that scaled these lessons up to an entire region.