However, there is another wrinkle to its setup that must be noted. Players do not control a trainer from Hisui’s time period. Rather, Pokemon Legends: Arceus opens on the player’s created character being transported back through time. While this action is initiated by Arceus itself, it follows a pattern that lasts for the rest of the game. To correspond with the Sinnoh region being the home of some of the most powerful legendary Pokemon in the franchise, the Hisui region is suffering from space-time instability and frequent distortions in reality. These occur throughout the story and gameplay, and players will want to keep an eye on them. As dangerous as they can be, aspiring Pokemon trainers can still be rewarded greatly for braving space-time distortions and surviving.
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How Space-Time Distortions Affect Pokemon Legends’ Story
Space-time distortions are primarily a gameplay mechanic, but also serve a large role in the story. As previously mentioned, the player character is deliberately brought through a temporary rift in the sky by Arceus itself. However, the other space-time distortions in the game are caused by the remaining “top” legendary Pokemon from Sinnoh. Dialga and Palkia are the obvious culprits due to their domains of space and time being involved, and players will need to eventually take the fight to them to truly resolve the issue. That’s only when it’s clear that there’s no other choice, however; until then, the distortions are just something that the characters are wary of.
For much of the game, a massive rift can be seen floating over Mount Coronet. This eventually gets bigger as the conflict between Dialga and Palkia grows worse, but the effects of reality’s instability have already been felt throughout the game world. While the player character is deliberately brought to the past, they are not the only time traveler that the Hisui region has seen. Pokemon Black and White’s Ingo appears as an amnesic member of the Pearl plan, and will eventually set up a battle arena that allows players to fight stronger versions of NPC trainers. While the concept of space-time distortions could be explored more, Pokemon Legends: Arceus does a good job incorporating them into its world.
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How Space-Time Distortions Work
It’s a good thing that the game pulls these Rifts off with such grace because they are a vital part of completing the game-long mission of catching every Pokemon in Hisui. When the player first sets out into the Obsidian Fieldlands, they will not initially encounter any space-time distortions. It is not until after the player defeats Kleavor, the game’s first Noble Pokemon, that space-time distortions are introduced. Every five minutes up to twenty-five the player spends in the open world increases the chances of a space-time distortion forming, with one guaranteed to appear by the forty-minute mark. Distortions manifest as large colorful domes that randomly spawn throughout the landscape. These domes will take five minutes to fully form, and then four to dissipate. They can be seen on the player’s map, and how long they will last is also tracked.
While they can present a danger due to spawning powerful Pokemon that instantly aggro on the player, they are invaluable for completing the Pokedex and gaining many rare items that cannot otherwise be obtained. Some Pokemon will only spawn in space-time distortions, particularly ones that are man-made and thus should not be in Hisui in the first place. Three of the spawned Pokemon will be rare species that spawn once per distortion, while the other three Pokemon chosen from area-specific pools will spawn infinitely. Players looking to speed up their journey to catch and study them all will definitely want to jump into the next distortion they see. Just be aware that if the weather is Intense Sun, Snowstorm, or Thunderstorm when a distortion would be generated, it will skip spawning it and reset the spawn chance timer.
What Can Be Found In Them
Fully-formed space-time distortions will replace the usual allotment of Pokemon and items with rarer and more potent ones. Three Pokemon are chosen from a pool of stronger Pokemon unique to an area, as well as a few rarer Pokemon, and copies of these three will spawn continuously. These can include evolved forms and even Alpha versions of an area’s Pokemon. Three particularly rare Pokemon will also spawn once somewhere inside a given distortion, but as these can be starter Pokemon and their evolutions, players may need to beat the main story before they start seeing them. Other rare Pokemon that can appear are Pokemon that need items or trades (which in Pokemon Legends just means a particular item) to evolve, regular forms of Hisuian variants, artificial Pokemon like the Porygon and Magnemite lines, Eevee evolutions, and fossil Pokemon.
The items yielded by space-time distortions are also lucrative. Multiple items are meant to be sold or crafted into different items that can be sold at a high price. Players trying to unlock all of their item slots should definitely spend some time gathering resources in distortions. Aside from those, every item in the game that can induce an evolution in a Pokemon can potentially be lying around in a space-time distortion. It may take a while to find the particular items that one needs, but that’s just another reason to dive into every distortion available. Trainers who make the best of space-time distortions will fill Pokemon Legends: Arceus’ Pokedex in no time.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is available now on Nintendo Switch.
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