Pokemon Legends: Z-A Review – A Battle Revolution

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Game Freak, the developer behind Pokemon, has been trying new things with the series lately. After changing how you catch Pokemon in *Pokemon Legends: Arceus* and letting players explore in any order in *Pokemon Scarlet and Violet*, *Pokemon Legends: Z-A* completely overhauls battles. Battles are now action-based and happen in real-time, with moves having cooldowns and where your Pokemon are positioned mattering a lot. This new battle system makes *Legends: Z-A* exciting, but the game’s overall look and feel feel outdated.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A is unique because it’s entirely set in Lumiose City, a bustling metropolis in the Kalos region that’s based on Paris. The city features canals, cafes on almost every corner, and a central tower—inspired by the Eiffel Tower—called Prism Tower. While it’s unusual for a Pokemon game to be limited to a single city, Lumiose City is large and detailed enough to support an entire game, thanks to its size and the history established in the previous games, Pokemon X and Y. In fact, the game takes place just five years after X and Y, making it feel like a direct continuation of that story rather than a separate spin-off.

The game has you leading a double life: during the day, you investigate mysterious, powerful Pokémon appearing around the city, and at night, you compete in the Z-A Royale tournament. These two storylines quickly connect, with missions shifting between capturing these Pokémon and improving your tournament rank. As you climb the ladder, you’ll face new opponents representing different groups within Lumiose City, interacting with everyone from martial arts clubs and criminal organizations to the city’s elite. Throughout the tournament, you’ll learn about the backgrounds of these characters while also battling Rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon that threaten Lumiose City – you must defeat them to continue progressing. While the structure is fairly standard, it allows the developers to explore the diverse sides of the city and its unique inhabitants. For example, you’ll meet Ivor, a large man who believes the Wild Zones should be replaced with a unified space for Pokémon and humans, and Corbeau, a stylish crime boss dedicated to protecting Lumiose City.

Lumiose City feels more alive than cities in many other Pokémon games, thanks to its detailed characters and the sense that people have different views on Pokémon. It’s like a hub where various ideas about Pokémon’s role in society come together. However, the new game, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, doesn’t quite capture that vibrancy visually. While the city is divided into districts, they all look very similar. Buildings are largely identical, and the streets are a bland grey, making the whole place feel cold and uninviting. A few places, like the Lumiose Museum and Galerie de la Lune, do a good job of reflecting the city’s atmosphere, but they’re the exception. Even the wealthier residents don’t seem to live in a particularly special area – their neighborhood looks just like any other part of town, aside from the hotel where they gather.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A generally feels underwhelming, and this is noticeable in many areas, including its presentation. For example, there’s an early battle sequence that’s visually well-done, but the absence of spoken dialogue makes it feel strangely flat – almost like the sound wasn’t finished. This contributes to an overall sense of incompleteness. While adding voices wouldn’t necessarily *solve* the problem, this scene perfectly illustrates the game’s broader presentation issues.

Legends: Z-A significantly expands upon the city seen in previous games, taking full advantage of more powerful hardware. The map is a bustling, detailed urban landscape with plenty to explore, including winding streets and hidden parks. Throughout the city, you’ll find walled-off areas called Wild Zones, teeming with Pokemon. These zones become accessible as you progress through the story and are the best places to find large numbers of wild Pokemon, though you can still find them elsewhere. Unlike the vast wilderness areas in previous games, these Wild Zones are relatively small—often just a few city blocks or a park. This makes stealth more difficult; it’s easy to accidentally startle Pokemon when trying to approach them carefully. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t provide helpful catching tools like smoke bombs or distraction berries, which would have been particularly useful in these confined spaces.

Compared to Pokemon Legends: Arceus, catching Pokemon in the newer games feels less fun because of the small areas and limited options. Luckily, the developers seem to have noticed this and made completing the Pokedex much easier. Now, you only need to catch each Pokemon once to register it in your Pokedex, and you get a free chance to catch a Pokemon after defeating it in the wild. I found that I could quickly visit each new area, catch the Pokemon I needed, and leave – often completing the area’s Pokedex on my first visit with very little effort.

Legends: Z-A focuses heavily on battles, and that’s a good thing. It takes the core ideas from traditional turn-based Pokémon battles and smoothly transforms them into a fast-paced, real-time system. Pokémon can learn up to four moves, each with its own recharge time. When you choose a move, your Pokémon is briefly stationary and exposed to attacks while it’s executing the action. Unlike previous games, attacks don’t rely on chance; you need to physically connect with the opponent to deal damage. This changes how you approach combat – close-range moves like Bite and Slash require you to get up close, while long-range attacks like Ice Beam can hit from a distance.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A significantly alters the core battle system and gives new meaning to moves players have known for years. For instance, both Detect and Protect have always shielded a Pokemon for one turn, but in this new game, Detect recharges faster, though it offers slightly less protection. This means players need to be more precise with their timing. It’s exciting to rediscover how familiar moves function and use them to build fresh strategies. There’s a lot of room for experimentation and the potential to create some truly unique teams.

As a long-time Pokémon fan, I can tell you this update completely shakes up battles! It makes you think about *every* move – even ones we’ve been using for years – in a totally new way. It’s a huge shift in how the whole battle system works.

The main exciting feature of Legends: Z-A’s battles is the return of Mega Evolutions. These were a big part of older Pokémon games but haven’t been seen for over a decade. They’ve always been visually impressive, and they fit well into this new game. As you battle, a meter builds up. When it’s full, you can use the right stick to Mega Evolve your Pokémon, but only if it’s holding the correct Mega Stone. Mega Evolving gives your Pokémon a stat boost, making all its attacks stronger for a short time. Using Mega Evolution at the right moment can really turn the battle around, though it doesn’t make your Pokémon invincible – a few missed attacks can send it back into its Poké Ball. Overall, Mega Evolutions add a fun, dynamic element to combat and make battles look even more exciting.

Beyond choosing attacks, where your Pokémon is on the battlefield is now really important. When they’re not attacking, they’ll try to stay near you. Before launching an attack, they’ll move to a better spot, letting you potentially dodge enemy attacks if you time things right. Things like your Pokémon’s size and speed, compared to the opponent’s attack range and speed, all matter a lot in tougher fights. Sometimes, the smartest move is *not* to attack, so you can avoid a powerful hit and counterattack safely. These changes to battles are significant, and while I still enjoy the traditional turn-based combat from other Pokémon games, these new mechanics are fun to play around with.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A is generally an easy game, so you likely won’t need to master all the new battle features. While there are some tricky parts – like a side quest where you have to win ten battles in a row without using items – you can usually succeed by understanding type matchups and making sure your Pokemon are at a higher level. I was hoping for more difficult battles that would really encourage me to explore the new battle system and come up with unique strategies, but the game doesn’t quite offer that level of challenge.

Most battles happen during the Z-A Royale, a nightly tournament that takes place in a different area of Lumiose City each night. If you’re in the tournament zone, trainers will challenge you directly. Win enough of these battles, and you’ll get a Challenger Ticket to compete in a Promotion Match. Winning a Promotion Match lets you climb the ranks. There’s a clever stealth element too: if you attack a trainer before they see you, you’ll get a free hit and your next attack will be ready immediately – a reward for thinking ahead. However, the stealth isn’t always logical. Trainers only react to *you*, not your Pokémon, so you can easily get a surprise attack even while hiding. It doesn’t break the game, but it does make the already simple battles even easier.

The most exciting battles in Pokemon Legends: Z-A are the ones against Rogue Mega Evolved Pokemon. These boss fights are challenging because you have to gradually reduce a huge, powerful Pokemon’s health while avoiding its attacks. Simply using strong attacks or having higher-level Pokemon won’t guarantee a win. You’ll need to carefully choose when to Mega Evolve your own Pokemon and manage both your health and your Pokemon’s. It’s important to remember that protecting yourself doesn’t automatically protect your Pokemon, and vice versa. Winning these battles requires fast reactions, smart positioning, and well-timed attacks.

The new Mega designs really make these battles fun. They’re all over the place, from silly and strange to incredibly cool. Some, like Mega Dragonite, are bound to be controversial, but overall there’s a good mix of unique and powerful designs that kept me excited to try out Rogue Mega Evolution battles.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A feels like a proper conclusion to the Pokemon games on the original Switch. Similar to previous titles like Legends: Arceus and Scarlet and Violet, it tries some bold new things, though the execution isn’t always polished. Game Freak deserves credit for significantly changing the battle system, and the changes work well overall. However, after five attempts at 3D Pokemon games, it’s disappointing to see the series still lagging behind in terms of graphics and presentation. It’s the final element needed to truly modernize the Pokemon experience.

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2025-10-16 01:11