Every good JRPG usually ends with the player killing God. But never has a game made me want to defeat an all-powerful deity more than Pokemon Legends: Arceus has.
That’s because the titular character of Pokemon Legends: Arceus, aka the Pokemon God themself, is far from a benevolent, kind being that cares about their creation. Instead, Arceus is a massive evil jerkward that doesn’t care about the world a bit, and provokes the most tragic story a Pokemon game has ever told.
Warning: This article and the video embedded contain major spoilers for the entire storyline of Pokemon: Legends Arceus, including the post-game. Watch only if you don’t care about spoilers or have finished the entire main story quest.
In this video breakdown of the game’s ending, I go over the ways in which Arceus proves themself throughout Pokemon Legends to be not merely chaotic neutral, but thoroughly evil. Its crimes include kidnapping children, causing permanent amnesia in train conductors, trapping benevolent demigods in horrible upside down dimensions, ignoring the plight of the people they’re meant to protect, foisting all its responsibilities onto others who are less equipped to handle them, and ditching their godly responsibilities to play collect-a-thon games and go off on larks across the country. You know, for funsies.
And unlike the major tragedies of other Pokemon games, Pokemon Legends: Arceus doesn’t get a happy ending for those Arceus made to suffer the most. Unless, of course, DLC is coming, in which case we have to pay extra money for a satisfying ending to these divinely-inflicted tragedies.
In the end, Pokemon Legends: Arceus doesn’t let us kill God, but the Pokemon God sure proves they would deserve it if it did.
For the full breakdown, watch the video above, and be sure to check out our review of Pokemon Legends: Arceus and our detailed wiki guides to the whole game, including how to defeat Arceus at last.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
