In the lead up to its January 28 release date, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is shaping up to be a rather novel experience in the successful franchise, offering two new battle styles that can affect a Pokemon's entire repertoire of moves. The game's pre-industrial, open-world setting is an exciting development for Pokémon, but Legends: Arceus' combat changes are equally interesting. In addition to the player's trainer interacting with Pokémon in the environment, the traditional battle system's new features could prove to shake things up for series veterans in a meaningful way.
Captured Pokémon are still able to learn four moves in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and the battling against wild Pokémon still appears roughly unchanged. Players will now throw one of their captured monsters in Legends: Arceus' new Poké Balls when they want to start a battle, and it doesn't trigger an instanced battle stage, but the combat itself is still a variation of the classic turn based system Pokémon has always used. Now, using the agile and strong styles will change the speed and damage of moves across the board.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus' agile and strong styles have an inverse relationship. Using a move in agile style will increase the speed of the attack, but lower its power, dealing less damage. The opposite is true for strong-styled moves: Attacks will do more damage, but a Pokémon's speed is reduced while using a move in strong style. It appears that any move can be used in one of the two styles, per the Pokémon website, which states that "the moves your Pokémon can use can also be unleashed in two new ways: agile style and strong style." These new mechanics may help make Pokémon Legends: Arceus battle system stand out, given there's an extra layer of strategy encompassing the fight.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus Helps Visualize The Styles
A new HUD element has been added to the battle screen in Pokémon Legends: Arceus - a turn order. This makes the effect of using a styled move tangibly noticeable, since using an agile move will reorder the list and potentially give a Pokémon two turns in a row. This may help give some easily understood depth to the Speed statistic, which has been present in every mainline Pokémon game despite not being well explained. Pokémon has always had moves that manipulate the Speed stat (i.e. Quick Attack), but the styles being applicable to a variety of moves is new.
The turn order list might also help more players understand why moves are happening in the order they are. The Speed stat still appears to be hidden, but at least players will be able to see what order moves are coming in and have a visual reference for how different moves upset the turn order. It's unclear whether or not the strong and agile styles will have to be unlocked, or if there are moves incapable of using the styles, but there's still plenty of time for the battle styles to receive more explanation before Pokémon Legends: Arceus launches.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus will release for Nintendo Switch on January 28, 2022.
Source: Pokémon