With Pokémon Legends: Arceus the long-running series made some of its most noteworthy shifts, adding action RPG elements, a bigger emphasis on storytelling, and a renewed focus on completing the Pokédex, but completing the Pokédex shouldn't have been a requirement for getting the ending. Because some of the Pokémon required for a complete Pokédex involve heavily random number generator influenced elements, or even an entire game’s worth of item collection in one case, a Pokédex that is close to complete should allow players to see the story through to its end. It's an unfair demand, and is a prohibitive requirement for finishing the story.
[Warning: spoilers for Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ endings below.]
To see the final ending, players will need to catch even the hardest to find Pokémon in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Players can view the base ending of the game without catching an excessive number of Pocket Monsters, only those required to raise their Star Rank with the Galaxy Expedition Team. The story continues from there, however, as players are left with unsolved mysteries regarding what caused the space-time rift that brought the main character into the Hisui Region’s past in the first place, as well as a quest to collect fabled Legend Plates that might unlock the mysteries of Arceus itself.
The focus on completing an index of Hisui’s wondrous beasts makes sense within the context of the game. People are afraid of Pokémon in Legends: Arceus’ time period, with fresh memories of disasters where wild Pokémon have laid waste to villages. The frenzy of several of the region’s Noble Pokémon gives the people of Hisui more reason to fear. This puts the player character in the role of an outsider who has the bravery to face down the most dangerous Pokémon along with the empathy to train and bond with them. In the game’s introductory sequence, the player communes with Arceus, a deific figure in the world of Pokémon. Arceus tasks the player: “Seek out all Pokémon, and thou shalt find me once more.”
Finding and capturing “all Pokémon” would be a considerable challenge under any circumstances, with close to 240 Pokémon in the Husui region. Previously benign Pokémon are truly terrifying in Legends: Arceus, with aggressive behavior and the ability to down one of the player’s own Pokémon in one shot if they make use of their elemental weakness, in many cases. The true ending requirement does make allowances for the Pokémon whose quests specifically rely on experience with other games, like Darkrai, which requires save data from Brilliant Diamond or Shining Pearl. Unfortunately, it still requires several other Pokémon that only spawn in Space-Time Distortions, as well as one that requires collecting every wisp in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which feels like an unfair requirement.
Given the quality of the game both in a story and gameplay sense, it's clear that Pokémon Legends: Arceus deserves DLC before generation 9 arrives, but it could also use a patch to adjust the requirements for the true ending. The Spiritbomb Pokémon is required for Pokédex completion, and catching this Pokémon requires players to first collect all 107 wisps scattered around the game’s maps. Capturing this Pokémon alone is a task comparable to collecting all 120 stars in Super Mario 64, which was the goal of the entire game. Capturing more than 200 Pokémon is already a tall order, but adding a collectathon 3D platformer worth of wisp gathering on top of that is an unreasonable requirement simply to complete the story.
There are several Pokémon that can only be captured in Space-Time Distortions to complete every Pokémon Legends: Arceus Pokédex entry, which is both an irksome task as well as questionable from a story perspective. Players may wait up to 40 minutes for a Space-Time Distortion to spawn, and then hope that the game’s RNG supplies the Pokémon they need for capture. Arceus’ task for the player is presumably to catch every Hisui region Pokémon, not every Pokémon worldwide, which would be more than 900 as of this time. The Pokémon that spawn from the rifts are not necessarily native to the region, and the fact that several Pokémon can only be found in these rifts supports the notion that they are not native to Hisui. This gives the game both story-based rationalization alongside practical reasons to omit those Pokémon from the list required for story completion.
Considering the lengths a player goes through to see the game’s final ending, a better resolution to the story would also be welcome, as the ending leaves questions of what happens to Volo in Pokémon Legends: Arceus after his defeat in battle, among others. The initial ending of Legends: Arceus is fairly satisfying, as it ends with a battle with Dialga or Palkia, the patron deities of the Diamond and Pearl Clan, respectively, and an end to the threat of frenzied Noble Pokémon. The main story quests continue as Volo recruits the hero to help him track down the Legend Plates to meet the true deity of the Pokémon world, Arceus.
Among the lore that Pokémon Legends: Arceus seems to retcon from earlier games are the forms of Dialga and Palkia, the Pokémon lords of time and space. The Diamond and Pearl clans in Pokémon Legends: Arceus believe each of these Pokémon is the world’s creator, when in fact they are subservient to the eponymous Arceus. Volo appears to know this, and the player learns that he was responsible for forming the space-time rift that caused the Noble Pokémon to rampage when they battle Volo after collecting all of the Legend Plates in the game. Volo had intended to use the power of Giratina to force Arceus to remake the world, in classic JRPG tradition, and his defeat preserves the lives of all those currently living in Hisui and beyond.
For those trying to understand the endings of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, they could essentially stop at the fight with Volo and Giratina. The final remaining main quest is to capture all Pokémon, which leads to a confrontation with Arceus itself. The game's most challenging action-based set-piece battle ensues, and players can recruit the creator itself, but there is regrettably little reward for it. The story was already essentially complete when Volo revealed his intent behind creating the rift, and his defeat ensured peace for Hisui. Arceus confirms it summoned the hero to that time and place to deal with the threat, but the player has been aware that Arceus summoned their avatar since the game’s intro.
Having Arceus as a playable Pokémon is a nice treat, but with no story-based challenges left, there is little point to it beyond a victory lap. The Pokédex requirements in Pokémon Legends: Arceus should be adjusted to factor in some of the Pokémon that are the most vexatious to catch, like Spirit Bomb and the Pokémon only found in RNG-reliant Space-Time Distortions as the game did with the Pokémon that require saves in other franchise games. Even omitting those troublesome outliers, catching every Pokémon is a major accomplishment, and often doubles the playtime of the game from its base ending to its final conclusion. Pokémon Legends: Arceus should also offer a more satisfying true ending to reward players who stick with the goal and decide to “catch ‘em all.”
