Pokemon Legends: Arceus takes players on a quest to "catch 'em all," but two species in particular take more work than the rest. One represents a fun, intriguing side quest that tests the player's knowledge of the game, but the other is more of a chore for many.
Legends: Arceus sports multiple vast, open-air landscapes to explore, which is a first for the series. Dotted across these areas are the various forms of Unown, all of which are needed to complete the Pokedex; as well as many spirits to be collected in order to catch Spiritomb. Though both work as ways to fill areas with collectibles, the Spiritomb hunt has been described as arduous, and there are easy ways to improve it in future titles.
Catching Unown to Complete The Alphabet
After leaving the Crimson Mirelands area, players can begin the quest to catch Unown. Legends: Arceus contains all 28 forms of Unown, representing 26 letters in the alphabet as well as a question mark and an exclamation point. While the hunt seems overwhelming to start, every Unown form's location as hinted at within the Pokedex; albeit written in the Unown language. These hints are vague but not at all impossible if the player is observant. For example, the clue "A village gateway" refers to the entryway in Jubilife Village, the game's central hub.
Catching every Unown form represents an optional challenge for the player that not only tests the player's map knowledge, but their ability to read the series staple Unown font - it transcends the game's basic gameplay loop. A suitable comparison would be to 2013's Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, in which the answers to all the game's puzzles are tucked away in the pages of the Wizard's Companion, an in-game guide to the JRPG's sprawling world. Catching every Unown and filling out their Pokedex page is rewarding in its own right, but it also allows more Unown to spawn in the Solaceon Ruins with a (small) chance to be Alpha or shiny. There is a stark contrast between this and the game's other major hunt.
Scouring the Landscape for Spiritomb
Spiritomb has always been a difficult Pokemon to capture. Spiritomb first appears in 2006's Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, in which players were only able to capture it after interacting with 108 real players in the game's Underground. Tedious tasks like this have followed Spiritomb through all of its appearances up to 2021's remakes, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Legends: Arceus follows this trend by placing glowing, purple wisps across the game's five major areas and central town. Many of these wisps are visible while following the main path through each area, but the rest require potentially hours of exploration.
The real problem with collecting every wisp is not that they are spread out, or even that there are 107 to locate; rather, it comes down to the fact that wisps are essentially invisible for half of the in-game day. The wisps are most visible at night, usually seen across large parts of the map. However, players must get surprisingly close to a wisp at any other time of day and not even see it. This means that flying over an entire landscape sometimes will not cut it - slowly climbing over every mountain is the only way to go. The frustration of the Spiritomb hunt has led many to guides that pinpoint the location of each wisp, defeating the whole purpose of a task meant to foster exploration.
Pokemon Scavenger Hunts in Future Legends Games
Pokemon Legends: Arceus represents many firsts for the franchise. It is the first truly open Pokémon game, the first to implement more action-oriented mechanics, and the first to really change up the battle system. All of these features make Legends: Arceus a great Pokemon game, but they also serve as a great stepping stone for any inevitable Pokemon Legends sequels. More intricate scavenger hunts like the Unown hunt would greatly benefit any of these future games.
The first possibility that comes to mind is a hunt based on the Regi Pokemon species. Ruby and Sapphire introduced players to Regice, Regirock, and Registeel in 2002. Catching these three involved cryptic puzzles, including using an HM in an empty room, following a seemingly random set of steps to walk, and even reading braille. These bizarre requirements continue through to 2019's Sword and Shield, in which the Galar region's new Regi species are locked behind puzzles of their own. One can imagine these puzzles in the next Legends-styled game, where the player walks off the beaten path to find mysterious ruins with a locked door that can be opened by relying on their vast knowledge of the game world.
Any game out there can scatter collectables across a wide area, but few franchises like Pokemon have deep enough lore and dedicated fans to make hunts like the Unown work. Legends: Arceus is a great first attempt at handling this type of content, but it will be exciting to see how it evolves and manifests itself in the future.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is available now on Nintendo Switch.
