Twitter Flooded With GameCube Screenshots After Dan Salvato Says 'Pokémon Legends Arceus' Looks Like A GameCube Game

December 16th, 2021 - 12:40 PM EST by Adam Downer

11 comments | Contact Newsroom

Dan Salvato saying Pokémon Legends Arceus Looks Like A GameCube Game tweet and screenshot of the game.

It's Pokémon game release season, which also means it's "Complaining About Modern Pokémon" season. Today, Nintendo and Pokémon fans were riled up by a tweet from Dan Salvato, creator of Doki Doki Literature Club, who posted two screenshots from a recent trailer for Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

"The Pokemon franchise has grossed more than MCU, Mario, and Harry Potter combined. Why do these graphics look like they're from a GameCube game?," he wrote.


The tweet brings up a complaint that's plagued the Pokémon franchise, especially after it began releasing games on the Nintendo Switch. Many fans have expressed disappointment in the games' switch to home consoles, particularly with the graphical fidelity, which some think are not up to par with other modern titles (who could forget Treegate?). This, itself, got Pokémon defenders riled up in the QRTs, with many arguing that the screenshots portray the game's art style.


However, on a slightly less-exhausting note, Salvato's tweet inspired people to post screenshots of old GameCube games, either to make the point that Legends: Arceus is a step up from the 20-year-old console or to simply admire how good GameCube games looked back then.


Granted, all this hemming and hawing about upcoming Pokémon games is just something that seems like it will plague Pokémon forever, at least until Game Freak goes full-on Unreal Engine, Nintendo, Hire This Man graphics, but at least with this most recent controversy, the silver lining is we get to remember some enjoyable GameCube games.


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ZoruaLoL
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ZoruaLoL

The people claiming Legends Arceus looks the way it does because of an """artstyle""" have no fucking clue they are talking about, Legends Arceus is totally lacking in an art direction.

Generations 6 to 8 went with outlines to sort of mirror the look of the official Sugimori art, Legends Arceus removes that and now the models from now 10 years ago look the rawest they have ever looked: no anti-aliasing, poorly-filtered low-resolution textures and overall unflattering lighting (I think it would look slightly acceptable if it looked like the pre-rendered bit from one of the trailers):

If people think Legends Arceus is trying to look like "ancient japanese art" they should fucking look at games like Okami (also on GameCube) and World of Demons or even the new GetsuFumaDen, as those games actually have a deliberate visual design

And it seems that this graphics debacle has done nothing but to smokescreen the very real problems these games would persist even if the game had better graphics:
- SwSh would still be an on-rails handhold-y experience over hallway maps with a tacked-on sandbox
- BDSP would still be an uninspired cynical rehash of a DS game
- Legends Arceus will still be your typical open-world wasteland with not much to do but repetitive grinding tasks

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