Let's talk about Legends: Arceus because I'm tired of airing my complaints about Scarlet/Violet and Legends: Z-A. 🙂
I love Legends: Arceus. It's the most recent main series game that I've thoroughly enjoyed. Everything about it pushed all the right buttons for me: massive open-world exploration, a fascinating, gripping, and well-written storyline augmented by loads of side quests, ridiculously fun gameplay mechanics, and really well-thought-out worldbuilding that made Hisui a joy to play around in.
I know Hisui isn't true 100% open-world because it's divided up into multiple maps, but each of those areas are really massive and full of interesting content (unlike Paldea, which is one enormous map that's mostly empty space). The story and characters were also of the caliber that I'd like to see in every main series game. The plotline didn't pull any emotional punches or make weird narrative missteps--it was compelling, cohesive, and consistent all the way through. I also feel like all the characters had appropriate amounts of personality development for their roles in the story; there weren't any major characters who were one-note (cough Nemona) or who blatantly just existed to fill a gameplay role (cough Lida). Through both the main story and side quests, you got to know the characters and their struggles and helped them, and by the end of the game, Jubilife Village felt like my town because of all the time, effort, and emotional investment I'd put into building it up--not just physically, but by boosting the spirits of the residents and aiding them in transitioning to a society where Pokemon are seen as companions and teammates, not dangerous wild creatures. The writing of Legends: Arceus has a heart and soul that Scarlet/Violet and Legends: Z-A fall short on.
I also really, really love how when creating Hisui, the developers took the theme of Sinnoh being based off Hokkaido and ran with it, and ended up with a historical region with not only lots of real-world references, but also references to Sinnoh, right down to many Hisui characters being implied to be ancestors or relatives of Sinnoh characters and fueling lots of fun speculation. The decision to have Legends: Arceus take place in a historical version of a previous region gave the game's setting a really refreshing and intriguing change of pace, and also went in a new direction as it served to deepen the lore of a particular area of the Pokémon world, rather than broaden it with a geographically new region.
If Legends: Arceus wasn't your thing, that's totally cool, but I'm slightly obsessed with it, haha. It's definitely on my "things to replay when I have the time" queue.
