Pokémon Legends Z-A Review
Thank you once again to @Nintendo Israel for the gift copy. Video review coming soon.
Pokémon Legends Z-A is the second game within the Pokémon Legends sub-series of the main-series Pokémon RPGs.
This game further evolves the Pokémon gameplay formula by improving upon what we saw in Pokémon Legends Arceus in many ways, but as is with most Pokémon games, while the gameplay loop is highly enjoyable with the addictive monster-catching and battles, it isn’t without its glaring flaws.
Being a sequel to X & Y, this game takes place 5 years later, exclusively within Lumiose City in the Kalos region; The Pokémon equivalent to Paris.
Quasartico Inc, along with AZ, the Former Kalosian King, are seeking the strongest trainer and mega evolution user in order to prevent a catastrophic event, as such, they initiate the Z-A Royale, a nightly competition between trainers in the streets of Kalos as they climb the ranks in order to be deemed the strongest trainer and be granted a wish on behalf of Quasartico should they reach the top.
I absolutely love the new Real-time Battle System!
It makes the battles run more smoothly and fighting NPCs doesn’t feel like a total chore.
The idea is pretty much the same as usual Pokémon battles, but feels more like what we’ve seen in the anime. You have your usual 4 moves, EVs, IVs, Natures and whatnot, although there are no abilities in this game due to those being much more specific to the turn-based formula.
Instead of PP and Accuracy found in the usual games, you instead have a cooldown timer.
More powerful moves have a longer base cooldown timer, however, the faster your Pokémon’s speed is, the quicker this cooldown timer will run its course.
Another thing the game does differently in battles is show these little text box popups on the side showing battle info and I think Pokémon Champions and the usual mainline RPGs as whole could definitely benefit from that in order to help make the action in the turn-based gameplay run much smoother.
For some reason, despite not being part of the Play! Pokémon competitive circuit, this game does have an online ranked multiplayer mode, in which 4 trainers compete in a 4v4 Free-for-all with 3 Pokémon on their party. The goal is to score as many Knockouts as possible within 3 minutes. Due to the way the combat works in this game, post people will generally min-max EV investments into the primary attacking stat and either HP or Speed depending on the Pokémon.
It’s actually very fun and is a breath of fresh air from the usual VGC battles that I’m used to.
I would actually love to see these kinds of battles get their own division in the official competitive circuit. Many people within the community have already been hosting online tournaments, so having real-time battles be part of the official competitive circuit in the future is definitely a possibility.
Catching Pokémon in this game works very similarly to how it did in Pokémon Legends Arceus, though with a few distinct changes.
While you can still chuck PokeBalls at Pokémon without initiating a battle, there is no separate battle scene should that method fail. Everything is happening in real-time. So catching a Pokémon will happen simultaneously as you battle.
Another great change, though a risky one, is that if you DO knockout a Pokémon, you’re still given a few seconds to catch it with a higher catch rate, though if it breaks out of the ball or you don’t act quick enough, it will despawn.
While the ability to craft PokeBalls from the previous legends game is no longer present, purchasing more at Pokémon Centers is easy, and there are plenty of extras littered around the city.
And if you’re worried about the balls you throw accidentally or miss with, fret not. There is an NPC outside the Pokémon Centers that will gather any lost balls (that weren’t broken upon a failed capture) and return them to you. I like to call this fellow Ball Guy Two.
Exploring the streets and Lumiose City is actually a lot better than I thought it would be and it’s great to see a full-size city that doesn’t feel empty in Pokémon for once. Lumiose City back in X & Y felt confusing and hard to navigate, but this more detailed and expanded iteration of Lumiose is fantastic.
Plenty of shops, battle courts, cafes, parks, scaffolding obstacle courses and wild areas line the streets of Lumiose city. As you progress through the game, more parts of the city will become Wild Zones, small parks where a set selection of Wild Pokémon can be found.
You also can explore the rooftops to find other Pokémon up there. At night time, segments of the city will become Battle Zones, in which you’ll battle NPCs to climb the ranks of the Z-A Royale and earn prizes.
One of the really good things that this game has shown off, is that it looks like GameFreak finally understands how to efficiently make use of field obstacles and moves that remove them.
You no longer need to have a specific move to remove an obstacle, and now a wide pool of moves will have that effect.
Boulder? Use a blunt force attack like Brick Break, Iron Head or Bullet Punch.
Thorns? Cut em with a slashing move or burn them to cinders.
Sludge pile? Wash it away with a water attack.
Now the big question is if GameFreak will keep this concept for future games.
Hopefully they do, as this is a great way to help with exploration.
Throughout the game, you’ll also be fighting against Rogue Mega Pokémon, which are wild Pokémon that have been undergoing Mega Evolution without the bond of a Pokémon trainer due to the spike of Infinity Energy concentrating within Lumiose City.
As undergoing Mega Evolution without the bond of a trainer is a painful process, (as alluded to in the Generation 7 PokeDex entries nearly a decade ago), the Pokémon will go on a rampage, and your job is to quell them by defeating them in a boss battle where your Pokémon will attack them as you dodge their attacks. I personally love these battles, as it gives more of a fun challenge to seasoned players like myself, while still being fun for newcomers. I want to see more of this going forward.
Defeating these Pokémon will progress the story and unlock their Mega Stones, allowing you to use these Mega Pokémon in battle yourself. Other mega stones for Pokémon that don’t show up as bosses or are used by other characters will be available to purchase at the Stone Emporium and Quasartico HQ.
While the game does take place exclusively in Lumiose City, there are still plenty of side-quests to do. These can range from a simple battle to fetching a specific Pokémon, or even Parkour challenges. Doing these quests will yield rewards like cash, items, TMs, and more.
The Character Customization in this game is probably the best Pokémon has had so far, and I swear to Arceus if they ever go back to the dripless disaster that was in Scarlet and Violet…
Many of the clothing options found in the boutiques of Lumiose come in different color combinations, and you can mix and match these colors with other outfits of the same category.
Also, they have my leather jacket and stompy combat boots, so that is personally a very big win for my character.
This game brings back a well beloved feature from Pokémon’s first mainline evolution into the 3D space, Mega Evolution, and along with it, some new Mega Evolutions for several Pokémon.
Many of these designs range from cool to downright goofy.
I am personally a big fan of Mega Froslass, whose design leans heavier into the Yuki-Onna inspiration.
One thing that Scarlet & Violet did do right with the graphics was adding bump maps to the Pokémon models. This gave many of them realistic textures that made them seem like more believable creatures while maintaining the anime aesthetic. Bird Pokémon had visible feathers, many reptilian Pokémon had scales, mammalian Pokémon had fur and so forth.
For some reason, with the bizarre exception of Tyranitar and a few crystalline Pokémon, almost all of these bump maps have been removed from the Pokémon models, making them seem more boring with a plastic-like texture. I understand that it’s an art style choice or whatever, but it’s still very jarring.
While Lumiose shows promise for how cities and overworlds can be in Pokémon with the right budget and investment, there is still much room for improvement. Many of the buildings in this game look fine from a distance, but as you get close, you’ll notice how flat these assets are.
Not much effort went into modeling the exterior walls on these buildings, and it seems like a simple JPEG was slapped onto most of them instead of actually giving these buildings more depth. Seeing as you’re regularly traversing rooftops and climbing ladders in this game, it does become a bit upsetting to see.
Does it completely ruin the game? No.
Should more effort have gone into making Lumiose City shine? Yes.
The real-time battle system does wonders for the animations in this game.
While many of the character and Pokémon animations have made a serious step forward in this entry, there is still that hint of GameFreak’s lowbudget laziness.
I am of course referring to the ridiculous overuse of black screen cut aways instead of just animating characters doing simple actions like pressing a damn elevator button.
The music in this game, like most Pokémon games, is of course fantastic as always, and this time, we got Carlos from @insanerainmusic leading the tunes of Lumiose City and the Wild Battle theme, showing that GameFreak is still very interested in working with fan-musicians, following through with the fanbase’s “Hire This Man!” meme and I think they should definitely continue as such. I’d love to see more of my favorite gaming music artists get to work with Pokemon in the future, like Courtney from GlitchxCity, Jonny from GaMetal, Jules Conroy from FamilyJules, Joanna from ClassicalCat, DSC, etc.
Pokémon Legends Arceus introduced a Shiny Indication sound that was well beloved by many, as it helped us be aware of shiny Pokémon that we would have otherwise missed in the open world. For some reason, it was absent in Scarlet & Violet, but they were smart enough not to make that mistake again. In addition to this, the game will hold the spawn positions of 10 shiny Pokémon until you either catch them or cause them to flee, so don’t worry if you hear the shiny sound and can’t access while you’re playing through the early parts of the game.
The Pokémon sound great in this game as well. Lots of effort went into the sounds of the Pokémon’s footsteps as they walk around the city with you. The wild Pokémon also feel much more alive in this game. They don’t just stand around idly and can be seen sleeping, eating, or going about their business in a way that doesn’t feel as robotic as it did in previous entries.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about most of the human NPCs…
Okay, now, it’s time to address the Great Tusk in the room…
Ever since the infamous scene of Piers in Sword & Shield, it became apparent that 3D Pokémon games desperately need voice acting, and this game made that assessment even more dire. This is, without a doubt, my biggest complaint of the game.
The characters in this game would be so much more enjoyable if I didn’t have to be the one reading out all of their voice lines (Also, I definitely butchered Jacinthe’s name because I’m very bad at pronouncing French names…).
I’m not saying every random NPC unrelated to the story needs to have full voice overs, just the NPC grunts and whatnot like they do in recent Zelda games would be fine, but the main cast at the very least should have full voice acting in English & Japanese, just like in many other JRPGs.
If the silly little mobile gacha game with really good music can have human characters with full voice lines, then so can the main series.
If the Pokémon make noises to help them feel more alive, so should the humans.
Pokémon Legends ZA isn’t the masterpiece Pokémon game that we yearn for, though it is a great display of Pokémon’s potential with full cities, but while it is only locked to Lumiose for this adventure, it will leave us wondering and craving for that day when GameFreak gives us the true open-world game we’ve always wanted.
7.5/10
P.S. I am very much looking forward to the upcoming Mega Dimension DLC, along with Mega Raichu and the other new Mega Evolutions.
#PokemonLegendsZA
Source by Dov ✡️🇮🇱🇺🇸
