Today we were treated to another edition of Pokémon Presents, a recurring livestream event similar to Nintendo Direct. While there was lot shown for several Pokémon games, including mobile apps, the most exciting reveals came from Legends: Arceus.

This sort of Pokémon prequel takes place in the past, a premise that was already revealed about the game. What’s new is just how harsh the environment is in the past and how humans and Pokémon are so apart, completely in opposition to the unity we see in most main games.

Exemplifying this is the fact that wild Pokémon can attack the player directly with too much damage sustained in this way resulting in blacking out.

It’s always been a bit of a joke in the Pokémon community for the past 25 years that people never physically fight Pokémon and vice versa, so for it to actually happen in an official game is a bit jarring.

Also changed is the way battles take place. Instead of the simple “you attack, I attack” turn-based nature of all previous games, Legends: Arceus will allow Pokémon to attack multiple times in a row.

We’re not sure how this will be balanced, especially in trainer versus trainer battles, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Attached to this new combat system is Strong and Agile styles which affect move damage and priority. It’s really interesting to see this mechanic and it seems awfully close to the Single Strike and Rapid Strike Battle Styles introduced in the Pokémon card game a few months ago.

The card game mechanic was based on the Single Strike and Rapid Strike variants of Urshifu, but we have to wonder if there is some connection to the Strong and Agile styles.

While we’re happy to see all this shakeup to Pokémon norms, Legends: Arceus continues to look extremely rough visually. With not that long before its 28th January 2022 release, we doubt the game will be much polished up before then.

Poor graphics was a major sticking point with Pokémon Sword and Shield, and it looks like the same problems will plague Legends: Arceus. Just look at our header imagine above. We zoomed in a bit to crop out some dead space, but just look at the quality difference between the in-game models and the UI in the bottom right corner.

A dedicated trailer for Pokémon Legends: Arceus can be watched below, but more details are explained in the Pokémon Presents available here.