ThePokemon Legends: Arceusrelease date is nearly here, and so Nintendo has been ramping up its marketing push for the game. Nintendo has released some extendedPokemon Legends: Arceusgameplay videos to give fans an overview of what to expect from the final product, and it’s within some of this new gameplay footage that a rather interesting change has been discovered.
In some of the newPokemon Legends: Arceusgameplay footage, fans can see a fight between Noble Pokemon Kleavor, a new evolved form of Scyther, and Psyduck. During the fight, Kleavor hitsPsyduckwith a move called Stealth Rock, and it appears to deal direct damage, wiping out Psyduck’s health bar in the process. Stealth Rock is a move that has been in thePokemonfranchise for years, but it has much different functionality inPokemon Legends: Arceus.
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AsPokemonfanshave pointed out, Stealth Rock inPokemon Legends: Arceusdeals direct damage, whereas the move behaves completely differently in all the otherPokemongames. Typically, when players use Stealth Rock, it doesn’t do any direct damage to Pokemon currently on the field. It does do damage when new Pokemon are introduced to the battle, however, like if a Pokemon trainer switches out their monster or is forced to play a new creature because the one they were using fainted.
It’s unclear exactly why Nintendo and Game Freak decided to make this change to Stealth Rock inPokemon Legends: Arceus, and it’s possible that fans won’t get any direct answers about it. It seems strange that Game Freak didn’t equipKleavorwith a different rock-type move that is already established to deal direct damage instead of changing how Stealth Rock works, so it would be interesting to learn the reasoning behind the decision.
When thePokemon Legends: Arceusrelease daterolls around at the end of the month, fans will be able to dive into the full game and search for other changes. It’s possible that some other Pokemon attacks have been altered inPokemon Legends: Arceus, though it’s just as likely that Stealth Rock is the only move that was changed. Fans won’t know for sure until they are able to play the game for themselves, and luckily the wait is almost over.
Even thoughPokemon Legends: Arceusisn’t a true open world gamelike many fans expected at first, there’s still a great deal of hype behind it, if for no other reason than it’s serving as a significant departure from previous main seriesPokemongames. Fans will find out soon if it lives up to the hype.
Pokemon Legends: Arceuslaunches January 28, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
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