The world’s biggest media franchise has been evolving. Since transitioning to 3D graphics with Pokémon X and Y (2013), the mainline series had stumbled through a period of stagnation — their eight gyms, each tackled in a specific order ending up in a showdown with the elite four, has become stale to fans. Pokémon Legends: Z-A (out Oct. 16), a sequel to X and Y, is the third of a few attempts to shake things up, following Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (2022) and Pokémon Legends: Arceus (2022). The Nintendo Switch era has been turbulent for the franchise, to put it mildly.
Fan frustration finds a new target with each new release, whether it was the bland and forgettable nature of Sword and Shield (2019), the poor technical performance of Legends: Arceus or the unforgivable buggy mess that Scarlet and Violet were upon release. For the developers at Game Freak, their greatest achievement would be not providing fans with a comically large stick to beat the latest entry with.
Boasting a brand new battle system and a compelling alternative to the gym challenge, Legends: Z-A succeeds at making a Pokémon game with its own flavor, but frustratingly stumbles over some familiar hurdles. The dream of a modern Pokémon experience we can call great without heavy qualification remains elusive.
Throwing Chaos into the Pokémon Battle
Much like its predecessor in the Legends sub-series, Z-A looks to redefine the Pokémon battle. Arceus took the route of allowing the player to manipulate the order of the turn-based combat, something that had operated on a strict “their turn, my turn” basis in the mainline games. This allowed for more dynamic clashes, aided by compelling, unique animations.
Z-A takes the dynamism of its battles to the extreme, discarding the turn-based nature of it entirely and opting for fast and chaotic action, a shift that longtime fans will take a bit of time to adapt to. There are no turns, it’s about getting as many attacks off as possible and draining the opponent’s health points (HP) before they can land a fatal blow.
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The first few battles are a disorienting experience. Before the player can figure out how to even select their attacks, the opponent has removed a chunk of their HP through a move that could burst flames, water or psychic energy across the screen. It’s impossible to know where to look. Pokémon muscle memory will have experienced gamers take some time to pick a move and watch their partner execute it.
Real-time battles can be chaotic and require recalibrating how the player approaches combat.
Nintendo; The Pokémon Company
In Z-A, by the time that process is complete, the Pokémon’s HP could be halved and attack power weakened. Keeping track of what both Pokémon are doing, each of their health bars, the animations for each attack and the battle log (which shows whether or not attacks have landed) takes a long time to get used to.
It may take a few hours of playtime but when this action-based battle system clicks, it feels amazing to play out. Not only does the player start to understand where to look and when, but they’ll start to see the depth of strategy in the game. Z-A splits moves into short range and long range attacks. To execute the move Tackle, the Pokémon will have to go right up to its opponent to deliver the blow, leaving it at risk of being countered immediately. On the other hand, Hyper Beam can deliver its might from far enough that the opponent will have to reposition themselves before attacking. Balancing things are cooldown times, meaning Tackle can be used every four seconds, but Hyper Beam will take 12 seconds before it can be used again.
The player is forced to make risk-reward judgments on the fly, which is especially stressful in battles with Rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon as well as Alpha Pokémon. The latter is a concept taken from Legends: Arceus describing huge Pokémon that have gone wild and aim their attacks at the trainer instead of their Pokémon. The same goes for Rogue Megas, except they take on an enhanced form, specialized to each Pokémon species, as introduced as the main gimmick in Pokémon X and Y.
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Having these giant beasts run straight past the Pokémon they should be fighting and directly at the player character (whose outfit they spent a lot of in-game money on) can be used to their advantage. Because of how much enemy Pokémon move around in Z-A, it’s very common for long range attacks to miss, almost like setting up a cannon to fire at a moving target. But by drawing the enemy Pokémon to the trainer, it gives the partner Pokémon a steady target to unleash its Flamethrower or Ice Beam at.
Z-A Royale takes over the city each night with new trainers to face.
Nintendo; The Pokémon Company
Mastery over battles will see trainers speed up the ranks of the Z-A Royale, a tournament unique to Lumiose City (where the entire game is played). The Z-A Royale stands in for the gym challenge and offers a fun, refreshing alternative. Every night the city is bathed in neon red as a purge-like event begins. Trainers will spot the main character in the street and begin battles on the fly, desperate to achieve A Rank and shape Lumiose in whichever sick and twisted way they want.
Players skilled at raising strong Pokémon (or farming Rare Candies) should hardly have trouble clearing every battle they come across in Lumiose, which is why the Z-A Royale includes Bonus Cards. Tasks like “Sneak up on an opponent using only Flying-type moves,” or “Only defeat opponents with a higher rank than you,” offer bonus points that can help the protagonist get to the next rank more quickly. It remains engaging and exciting almost every time dusk falls over the city, whether the player is participating in the Royale or just trying to get on with whichever side quest they’re preoccupied with.
A Walkable Open World
Z-A follows the tradition set by Arceus and continued by Scarlet and Violet by being another open world game, but its approach to the genre differs from the industry standard in one significant way — traversal. In many open world games, Pokémon included, the protagonist gains different modes of traversal as they go along. In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Link can paraglide and ride a horse. In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker and Miles Morales can run, swing, or wind-glide through New York. In Legends: Z-A, the only way to get around (other than fast travel) is to walk.
Lumiose City is self-contained but doesn’t provide much reason to explore on foot.
Nintendo; The Pokémon Company
Being set in a single city means that the world isn’t so expansive that it would be a massive chore to walk everywhere, and Game Freak’s intention is for the player to get distracted on their way by a side quest or an item or a Pokémon to catch. As underwhelming Lumiose ends up being when measured against the expectation of a bustling metropolis like that of Pokémon Black and White’s Castelia City, there is never a shortage of things to do in between main missions.
However, with the load times being as short as they are on Switch 2, it always feels more convenient to fast-travel past them, which is a failure of open world design. Fast travel is an option in Marvel’s Spider-Man, but nobody wants to miss out on how good it feels to swing through New York, even if their destination is on the other side of the map. The visceral feeling of it is what puts gamers in the shoes of the main character, clicking a button and appearing in a different region can break the immersion.
The greatest asset of Z-A’s open world are the Wild Zones, areas where the untamed Pokémon of Lumiose are cornered off in an attempt to craft a city where both species can co-exist. Wild Zones are time sinks, places where hours can be drained away, their greatness owed to a mechanic ripped straight from Arceus where catching Pokémon feels like landing consecutive headshots in Call of Duty. The same trigger the player would use to shoot a gun is used to throw Poké Balls at unsuspecting monsters, and there’s never been a mechanic in a Pokémon game that feels as immersive. It’s not unique to Z-A, but the game is stronger for including it.
Wild Zones are the only areas where Pokémon can be caught naturally (by pelting them in the head).
Nintendo; The Pokémon Company
Many of Z-A’s weaker moments have to do with its visuals, something the series has never gotten right since going 3D. While Arceus was a cool interpretation of an ancient world, shooting for a grainy, chalky style, Z-A has no real visual flare to speak of. It’s a game that looks to present information rather than do anything truly inspiring. Z-A never drifts into the realm of unbearable bugs as Scarlet and Violet did (on Switch 2 anyway), the worst offenders being the odd jittery animation in the distance and some noticeable pop-in. The lack of voice acting is another old problem that rears its head here, cut scenes depict characters awkwardly flapping their mouths to complete silence, robbing the plot of whatever drama it has.
Nintendo fans have gotten used to the company’s other flagship franchises like Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong reaching euphoric heights during the Switch era and are looking to Game Freak to deliver the same. There’s an expectation that a cash magnet as large as Pokémon could invest more in making bolder and more exciting games, but that popularity is its prison. Pokémon’s power comes from constantly being in the zeitgeist with a new product out regularly, conditions anathema to innovation.
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Evolution is incremental and Legends: Z-A is as significant as those increments can be within the confines of Game Freak’s condensed release schedule. It builds an exciting new battle system, maintains a dynamic gameplay loop and expands the lore around a beloved part of the universe. This will be enough to top the eshop charts, sell out stores and recover some of the reputation damage from Scarlet and Violet’s botched launch. However, it remains to be seen whether or not Game Freak is capable of delivering a complete package. At this point, the Pokémon franchise remains one still desperately in need of saving.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A is out Oct. 16 for Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2