Pokemon Legends Arceus Players Criticize Lack of Accessibility Options

Pokemon Legends: Arceus Players Criticize Lack of Accessibility Options

Amidst the glowing review scores for Pokemon Legends: Arceus, disabled players are expressing frustration at being left out yet again.

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As soon as Pokemon Legends: Arceus released, it became an instant hit both critically and commercially, changing the context of gameplay in interesting new ways and crafting an experience welcoming to both newcomers and longtime fans. However, disabled players are highlighting a massive oversight in the game’s lack of accessibility options.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus is by all accounts a critical home run, with Game Freak finding its footing again after previous Pokemon titles on Nintendo Switch were much more divisive. One commonality that all the Pokemon Switch titles share, however, is that their accessibility options are either lacking or completely absent.

A post by user Apricot-Autumn highlights the game not even having a menu for accessibility, and from there other users shared problems both with Arceus and previous Pokemon games that make them difficult if not impossible to play. Arceus seems to suffer the worst from these issues, as its real-time gameplay outside of the turn-based battles is reliant on the player having information about the environment, some of which – like the cue for a Shiny Pokemon – is only available through a single medium. The Shiny Pokemon audio cue is an especially egregious oversight, as adding a visual or vibration cue for it would be a small change, yet it is only available in audio.

While Pokemon Legends: Arceus suffers greatly from accessibility concerns, these problems go back further. Other players expressed frustration with the lack of control customization in the Pokemon Let’s Go games, as well as the issue of the small subtitle font size shared across many of the Pokemon games. Even something as standard as a colorblind filter is missing in Arceus, causing some players to miss items on the ground.

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The industry at large has seen improvements in making games more accessible over the past few years, so seeing Pokemon Legends: Arceus lagging so far behind even after so many years of other Pokemon games on Switch is disappointing. The Switch itself is already a difficult console for many disabled gamers due to its lack of per-game control remapping, and in a world where the Xbox Adaptive Controller exists, console manufacturers have few excuses left to keep failing in accessible design. Fans have made the Adaptive Controller work on the Switch, but an officially supported option would be ideal.

Game Freak could fix the accessibility issues in future Pokemon Legends: Arceus updates, but it remains to be seen whether the developers will take notice of these issues. Nintendo-published games in general are well known for lacking in options for accessible gameplay, which is especially disappointing when Nintendo-published games also stand among the most unique and inventive in the modern medium.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus is available now for Nintendo Switch.

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