After last week’s Pokemon Presents, many fans around the world are excited to playPokemon Legends:Arceusand the remakes ofPokemon DiamondandPearl.Pokemon Legends:Arceusis a more complex game than people thought, and it goes as far as including stealth and action elements that make its gameplaysimilar toDark Soulsin a certain way.Pokemon Brilliant DiamondandShining Pearlshowed their new and revamped features, which are a big improvement from the original Generation 4 games.
Pokemon Legends:ArceusandPokemon Brilliant DiamondandShining Pearlhave several things in common, with the first and most obvious being that they both are set in the region of Sinnoh. InPokemon Legends:Arceus, however, the region was still called Hisui, and the game takes place when people and Pokemon did not live side-by-side as in modern entries.Pokemon Legends:Arceusalso features Team Galactic in a different way than Gen 4 games, as the villainous team are instead supportive characters interested in field research. Yet,Pokemon Legends:Arceusalso seemingly pokes fun atPokemon DiamondandPearlfor a few reasons.
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Fire-type Pokemon in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Pokemon DiamondandPearlwere regarded by many as games that could have been better, be it because of how sluggish combat speed and surfing speed could feel, or the fact that there wereso few Fire-type Pokemon to catch. InPokemon DiamondandPearl, players could catch Ponyta as a wild Fire-type Pokemon alongside Legendary Pokemon and Eevee’s evolution, Flareon. Because Eevee only became available later in the game, Flareon ended up being locked behind the postgame content, meaning that all those players who didn’t start the game with Chimchar were essentially forced to catch and train a Ponyta or give up on Fire-type Pokemon altogether.
There were other Fire-type Pokemon in those games, but both Magmar and Vulpix were locked unless players had eitherPokemon FireRedorLeafGreencartridges in their Nintendo DS.Pokemon Platinumdid fix some issues, and it added another Fire-type Pokemon to compensate in the form of Houndour. Still, it seems that the lack of Fire-types will plaguePokemon Brilliant DiamondandShining Pearlas well, albeit perhaps not as much.
As forPokemon Legends:Arceus, it is set in Sinnoh in feudal times, but even though they are the very same regionPokemonLegends:Arceuswill have more Fire-type Pokemonthan Generation 4 games at launch, even if no more new Fire-types are revealed or included in the final game.
Pokemon Legends Arceusso far features the following Fire Pokemon: Cyndaquil, Growlithe, Vulpix, Ponyta, Magmar, Flareon, and Chimchar. While Cyndaquil’s presence might be explained by the game’s professor being a traveler, this list poses the question as to what happened to Growlithe in the original games, especially because it has a regional form in Hisui. With seven Fire-types against the three ofPokemon PearlandDiamond- at least in the base game -Pokemon Legends:Arceusdoes seem to make fun of its predecessors in a way. Still, because most of those Fire-types were included inPokemon Platinum, it’s possible that the difference lies in the lore.
Pokemon Legends: Arceuswill be available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on May 17, 2025.
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