Pokemon Legends: Arceus has achieved the first positive Metacritic user review score for the core Pokemon series since 2013’s Pokemon X and Y. Marking nearly a decade since Pokemon players were as sold on a new entry in the series as critics, Arceus garnered an 8.3 user score to match the game’s aggregated 83 critic score.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus user reviews beat Sword & Shield, X & Y
For comparison, last year’s Pokemon Brilliant Diamond received a user score of 5.4, while Pokemon Sword and Shield sank to a 4.6 rating. While all those mainline Pokemon games received a much higher critic average, their poor user scores reflected the community’s overall negative attitude to the core series, as complaints have mounted for years regarding its lack of innovation. Pokemon Legends: Arceus’ shift to an open world provided the first major shift for the franchise in a while, and it looks like it’s been well-received by players.
Similarly, Pokemon’s various spin-offs have also received a negative to middling community reaction. The Nintendo Switch MOBA Pokemon Unite has an average user score of 3.7, while New Pokemon Snap garnered a 6.9. Despite Pokemon being one of the most well-known and profitable gaming series, The Pokemon Company has been regularly accused of spinning its wheels with its releases.
While Arceus wasn’t an overwhelming critical success — as highlighted by GameRevolution’s own review — its flaws are at least the result of the series trying out new things, rather than sticking to the same formula established way back in the ’90s with Pokemon Red and Blue. It seems that even with its faults, fans appreciate this new direction, resulting in an 8.3 user score based on over 2,500 user reviews.
In other news, it was revealed that Nintendo Switch Sports would features Mii characters after all, despite it seemingly removing the avatars in its debut trailer. We also compiled all of the Nintendo Direct 2022 announcements in one handy place.
