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If Pokémon Legends Arceus represents the future of Pokémon, then Pokémon as a video game brand, as a distinct and evolving line of gameplay that perennates through its generations from Red and Blue to even a far lesser offering like Sword and Shield, is dead. Unlike a comparable game like Dragon Quest, which never ceased to refine and improve its single, unchanging conception of the perfect game, Pokémon will abandon itself. Were Pokémon Legends Arceus anything but a Pokémon game, clinging to an attenuated form of that closely developed gameplay loop which prevents it from being genuinely worthless, the only comment anyone would have on this game would be that it is obviously outdone by its many competitors is the vogueish and crowded domain of hybrid action-adventure/RPG games. The game of Pokémon, in redefining itself by the use of faddish gimmicks and effects (mobage, 'open world' fetishism), rather than a gameplay formula that has been honed and perfected over decades, can become only a copy of a copy, its status as an cheaply made advertisement for toys, anime, and manga inescapably obvious. It only goes to show how easy it is to bowl over the submissive masses with superficial effects so long as it comparts with some idea they have of their 'fantasy Pokémon game' when they were six years old.
Congratulations to those morbid souls who have been holding your breath for twenty years as you complained that Pokémon was stagnating, that the games since Gen II refused to evolve, as you made a fetish of your imaginary wholesome chungus childhood wonder mysteriously absent from Pokémon after its earliest iterations. Celebrate your 'revolutionized' Pokémon and cheer on its degeneration into another indistinguishable open world action-adventure/RPG hybrid, which the masses apparently demand of all long-running game series and which Game Freak have no financial incentive to execute with the finesse of their competitors. After all, you'll buy it anyway. You win.
