‘Pokemon Legends Z-A’ Review

Developer: GameFreak | Platform: Nintendo Switch 2 | Playtime: 27:00 (Story), 46:20 (100%ish)

Following Legends Arceus, GameFreak are looking to expand their settings by keeping the player in an expanded Lumiose City amidst a crisis stemming from the events of X and Y. Does it succeed? Surprising to say, mostly!

Minor Story spoilers and Moderate Gameplay spoilers follow.

Reader discretion is advised.

The story this time around is fairly less dramatic than that presented in Arceus. Instead of being kidnapped and forced back in time by god, instead you’re just a tourist on your way to Lumiose City for a holiday. Shenanigans ensue and you end up taking part in the ‘Z-A Tournament’, a nightly competition where trainers compete to reach Rank A and earn dream come true. Meanwhile, the city secretly suffers a crisis, Pokemon are randomly going rogue in a phenomenon known as Rogue Mega Evolution and must be stopped before they harm themselves or others. These are the two main plot points that go throughout the game and they’re far more intertwined than say the different paths in Scarlet/Violet hence why they are interconnected.

These two storylines manifest as the Z-A Tournaments and the Rogue Mega battles. Every in game night, a portion of the city is closed off and used as a battle court. You and NPC’s patrol around looking for other trainers, looking to get the drop on others. You earn points by winning fights, collecting them from the ground and completing challenges found in cards around the arenas. When you reach the point threshold, you’ll have the chance to fight a boss character. Beating this boss promotes you to the next rank. I was worried to begin with that you’d end up having to this 26 times but thankfully the story bumps you from Rank W to F so you’re not stuck doing the same things for that long. From Rank F onwards, the Z-A promotion matches feel more akin to traditional gym fights which is fun in the new combat style.

Rogue Mega Battles play very similarly to the Noble fights from Legends Arceus but without the balm throwing. The Rogue Mega fights are your Pokemon vs them while you try and survive an onslaught of attacks. The attacks used by the megas are a nice mix of recognisable attacks and attacks that just fit the Pokemon’s designs. The Rogue Mega fights are some of the most fun in the game.

Of course the major selling point here is the shift from turn-based combat that the main series has employed for the past 30+ years to real time combat. I was skeptical at first and even while playing I had my doubts but I think by the end I came to appreciate this new style. Pokemon fundamentals like type matchups remain but are now balanced alongside new things to consider - how long an attack will take, the effective range, the spacing of attacks and the fact that attacks are now infinite use, relying on cooldowns rather than PP to use. It’s all good in concept and is required for some more difficult fights but there’s very few opponents that can withstand the power of you cycling through your four available moves on repeat.

As we’re in a city rather than the routes and wild areas of the greater countryside, changes had to be made to incorporate Pokemon into the main structure. The solution is the Wild Zones. 20 in all, unlocked gradually over the course of the games story, usually in areaa you already visited. While you can find your usual selection of birds, bugs and small rodent pokemon in back streets and on roofs, the vast majority will be found in these zones. Each zone offers around 6-8 Pokemon, the options varying on whether it is day or night. Each zone offers the set selection based primarily on a typing and there’s even some specific to environents that wouldn’t be found in a city - Ice or sand.

Following on from the precedent set by Legends Arceus, Pokemon can and will attack the player. There are far fewer friendly Pokemon here than there was in that game, enemies are also much quicker to anger and more aggressive. Here, everything feels like a Paras or Parasect. I don’t know if it’s due to the smaller areas that Pokemon can be found in or the lack of escape options but you will not survive encounters with Pokemon if more than one are on the go at a time thanks to the player’s very low health. This is less of a challemhe and more of a frustration when it feels like every wild zone feels like a dive into Hell. Wild Zone 17 has very quickly and quite rightly become a meme for this very reason.

The original X and Y had a fairly sizeable Pokedex, stacking in at 400. Legends Z-A, despite introducing  a couple post Gen 6 Pokemon (Literally two – Drampa and Falinks), has seen it’s Pokedex gutted down to 230. I suppose not having as much space for Pokemon is the reason but I’m sure something could have been done to not have the difference be so drastic. No Kalosian forms though? Not One? There are three generations following X/Y and however many from Gens 1-5 that didn’t appear. Suppose the focus was on Megas. I Like-Love all of the new ones, there’s not one that I don’t vibe with in some way or another. It’s great that they all get representation as either a Rogue or a Trainer’s Ace. I suppose it’s a lot easier when there’s comparatively a lot less megas added than a whole new Pokedex (Not to say things were skimped out here – 26 new additions vs 26 + 2 Y Skins in X/Y vs 20 introduced in ORAS. However, when you compare new Megas to the number of Pokemon added with Legends Arceus - 24 of them, the numbers start to feel less impressive.

Characters are okay, maybe a little bit of a step down from the Paldea lot but still better than a lot of previous groups, very appreciated considering the OG Kalos group is dire. I’d argue this is one of the games weakest aspects because I can;t say I cared for any of the main cast particularly, though I did like the Z-A champions as it were.

I did all 118 Side Quests (Ignoring the secret 119th) and they were all pretty fun. A lot of them aren’t anything special, amounting to the equivalent of a random trainer battle on a route in previous games where the trainer uses a niche or thematic team. That’s not to say all of the side quests were like that because there was some good ones like the Litwick horror themed mission or the ones with the Movie Director. Each side quest of course has it’s reward but the real reward is the little vignette of people interacting with Pokemon in different ways. 

I’d be lying if I said I loved the game from the get-go, a rarity for Pokemon games. By the end of course it was a game I didn’t want to ever put down. There are certainly shortcomings based on setting the game in a fairly empty city but the Legends sub series of Pokemon proves to be an interesting testing ground for new ideas. Beyond everything else, Legends Z-A really is the long awaited Pokemon Z, finally putting a bow on the Kalos region,

‘Side Quest EX1: Shine Bright like a Gemstone’ Review 

Playtime: 0:15

Releasing post launch is this small free update which gives the player to obtain Gen 6 mythical Pokemon Diancie as well as it’s mega stone. It was a little disappointing to find that the Diancite was given to the player from the get go rather than being part of a quest or hell even being part of the main quest.

The quest itself is pretty simple, simply requring the player to reach a location on the map and fighting a Diance that was flanked by two Carbink. All in all, downloading the quest to catching Diancie was no more than 10 minutes. Now that I think, this could have been the perfect opportunity for a bonus Rogue Mega Battle but I suppose it’s better than just having the Pokemon just placed straight into your PC box.

It’s a free way of getting a somewhat rare Mythical Pokemon, the rest is fluff.