The open world in Pokemon Legends: Arceus adds a whole new dimension to the franchise that has long kept combat tucked away in tiny arenas separate from the main areas to explore of the games. However, this new use of space in Pokemon Legends: Arceus has opened up a few hilariously odd ways for the world to interact with the player and their Pokemon.
In a recent video posted by Reddit user _deburger, the player can be seen in a fight with a Pikachu when the Pokemon's interactions cause the course of the battle to take a comical turn. This goes to join the list of Pokemon Legends: Arceus players who have had enemy Pokemon abandon fights or strike out at the human characters with attacks like hyper beam.
For this specific clip, the player is fighting against a Pikachu using a Kadabra and tries to use Hypnosis on it only for the attack to miss. However, at the same time that the attack would have otherwise hit, the Pikachu starts its ambient walk cycle, appearing to sidestep the attack in real time as it moves. The effect of these two events happening at the same time like this is that it looks like Pokemon can dodge attacks and status effects in Pokemon Legends: Arceus just by moving a few steps out of the way.
Many of the comments under the clip include other players sharing similar experiences where the Pokemon would move around casually to hilarious effect in context of what was happening around them. One commenter even mentioned that this happened in their own game, except the enemy Pokemon walked out of range, and it ended the fight right then and there. The results have some players hunting down enemies in Pokemon Legends: Arceus in order to keep some fights going if these ambient walk cycles take the opposing monsters too far away.
The video itself is hilarious to watch, as the Pikachu so casually ignores the attempted Hypnosis and just walks on down the river like it isn't in the middle of a fight. With the launch of Pokemon Legends: Arceus opening to record sales, fans will likely have plenty of moments like this in the coming weeks as players explore this new adventure for the franchise. The merging of the series' long-running elements along with the new mechanics brought by this new title are sure to produce similar encounters with Pokemon behaving in unusual ways.
