Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Over the past 25 years, Pokémon's pop-culture dominance has grown astronomically, making it the highest-grossing media franchise of all time by a pretty significant margin. At the start of it all was a humble pair of monster-collecting RPGs that encouraged collaboration and competition between real-life friends, classmates, and coworkers. Now, over two decades later, we have received seven more "generations" of Pokémon games, each leaving that classic formula virtually untouched. Each of them saw massive success, showing just how strong the foundation is, but with repetition often comes boredom. Because the competitive side of Pokémon is so important, major adjustments can't really happen without running the risk of inadvertently damaging a huge draw to the franchise. However, with each successive release that avoids altering the formula, players' interest in retreading old ground fades a little more. Pokémon Legends: Arceus singlehandedly destroys that compla