20 Best Nintendo Switch Games

Pokémon Legends: Arceus was, quite frankly, the kick up the arse that the Pokémon franchise so desperately needed, given that the Switch era of titles up to this point were flagrantly unambitious, to be kind.

Arceus boldly flips the script by serving as a prequel to Diamond and Pearl via timey-wimey shenanigans, and offering up a number of open-world hubs for players to explore in pursuit of Pokémon.

There are some other neat innovations here, most notably the possibility of being attacked by wild Pokémon, injecting some much-needed unpredictability into a series which has been reliably familiar to a fault over the years.

Pokémon desperately needed to try something new, and while Arceus isn't a fully comprehensive reworking of the series, it is the most creative and playful entry in the franchise in a long, long time.

It's a shame that the series returned to staid business as usual with Scarlet and Violet later that year, though the upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A will seemingly share much of Arceus' gameplay DNA, so that's something.