Zygarde finally got a game, but there's a caveat...
Pokémon as a franchise is one of those games that you just go in head first eyes close and purchase and Legends Z-A isn’t any different. I really like the Legends sub-series of Pokémon as it is the experimental line of the franchise where Game Freak tries something different within their games that is “not possible” to do within the mainline core-rpg titles and as a fan of Pokémon as a whole, this game is an instant buy for me.
This is JJ-kun bringing you my review of Pokémon Legends Z-A.
Pokémon Legends Z-A, developed by Game Freak, mainly known as the developers of the Pokémon games, is a Japanese Role Playing Game made for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. This game is the second game in the Legends line of titles, following Legends Arceus, that takes us not in the past like the first game, but rather to the near-future; exactly 5 years from the events of 2013’s Pokémon X/Y. Yes, indeed. We never got the rumored “Pokemon Z” but at least we still got a direct sequel in the form of this game.
After a huge success, experimenting with the franchise starting with Legends Arceus, one might wonder who can Game Freak top that game and how would they implement that game’s system into one set in the future? The answer—a great adjustment.
Set 5 years after the events of Pokémon X/Y, the game starts with the consequences of what happened 5 years ago and likewise the urbanization of Lumiose City to allow people and wild Pokémon to live harmoniously within the city. As a tourist wanting to relax in the city, you found yourself ambushed by Taunie/Urbain wanting to make a video of you to advertise Hotel Z to drive in customers. As a commercial happened while you were about to make the advertisement video, a Pancham stole your bag. After retrieving it, dawn time came and you were challenged by several trainers participating in the Z-A Royale, a competition in Lumiose city designed to find the strongest Mega Evolution user. Exhausted, Taunie/Urbain offers that you stay in Hotel Z as thanks—only then to be dumped by all the information you’re going to need in the game and its lore.
While the game immediately lets you roam, catch, and battle Pokémon across Lumiose City, it also drags you out with many dialogues and unskippable event flags just to get you moving which honestly may turn off some players—it almost did me! That said, after a few tutorial missions, you’re off how you want to progress, whether immediately or not.
I like the game for how you can play it as a standalone game despite being a direct sequel to a different game and still be able to understand what happens in the game—and I mean there’s also returning characters that I barely recognized despite playing Pokémon X/Y, though, to be fair, it was 12 years ago that I played it—but what I need to emphasize in this game is its lack of focus in the core plot.
It had too many sub-stories, or sub-arcs as I’d like to call it, and too many surprise elements without build up. Many of the story’s elements just pop out of nowhere! While it’s not that hard to follow, given that it’s a Pokémon game, some of the story’s moments feel lackluster and unrewarding; some even feels that it ends too abruptly. Maybe I should’ve not expected a lot, granted that just like Monster Hunter titles, story isn’t really the biggest point of playing a Pokémon game—it’s catching and battling with Pokémon. It’s just disappointing to see the state of the game especially when Legends Arceus and Scarlet/Violet, the games before this, had phenomenal writing.
Banking on that, we have to talk about the characters as well; they are quite colorful and sometimes cringe but at the same time shows that they are products of their time. One great example is Naveen, who is a content creator simp who defends the livestreamer no matter what like a white knight—haha! Said streamer also calls people chat! It’s really amazing how one is witnessing history being written consciously. Although, I’m also quite dissatisfied with how they handled some characters, like AZ and Zygarde, who were supposed to be the most important characters in the game being that they are the focal point of the story. They were benched for most of the story. Sure AZ gives you the Mega Ring and tells you some key information but that’s it. AZ didn’t even join your team in group meetings. There’s also Zygarde that only appears upon you when it feels like it, mainly just observing from the backlines. There’s a lot of wasted opportunity, really. If there’s something I really liked about how they handled the characters, it’s that they made sure to bind everyone together by the climax, pursuing one single goal. Despite everything I said though, I like how most of them are memorable, compared to most characters in X/Y—or really in most recent games—due to how dynamic everyone is and how their role fits as a part of a bigger picture. It’s definitely one amazing cast of characters.
But you know, don’t get me wrong. I still enjoyed the story of Legends Z-A! It really just overstayed its welcome… but once you reach the climax—ooh, boy! You’re in for a treat. If you’ve enjoyed the climax battles of Legends Arceus, Ultra Sun/Moon, and Scarlet/Violet, then I promise you that you will enjoy this one as well, if not even more! It made me smile so much, just when I smiled from the surprise factor of Volo and Giratina. Some moments are too good and so unconventional, you wouldn’t expect it from a Pokémon game.
We’ve seen the evolution of the 2D sprites from the Nintendo Gameboy to the Nintendo Gameboy Advance, then to the Nintendo DS, and eventually transitioning to 3D with the Nintendo 3DS and to the ever-capable Nintendo Switch. What I can say is that since Pokémon X/Y, the developers have been trying to capture the feeling of a “Pokémon game artstyle” from its 2D era. To this day, I still don’t think they are able to capture it but at least now I feel like they have finally honed the artstyle of 3D Pokémon nearing perfection. Pokémon Legends Z-A is the perfect game to have showcased this artstyle. Sure, it may not have the realism style of which many modern games are trying to achieve and aimed at, but at least it stuck with its signature 3D look.
The game showed how vibrant and colorful the world of Pokémon is despite being “stuck” in a single city. This is what previous consoles and games were not able to portray; and now we get to explore the whole of a city, instead of just a Pokémon Center, Pokémon Mart, and maybe 2-3 houses. Definitely, the game illustrated what it feels like to live in the world of Pokémon and it’s one that I would want to live in. One could argue though that even Pokémon Sword/Shield had more life in it, visually speaking, though, and I would agree with that.
All that being said, there are still a lot of areas Game Freak has to improve upon, mainly the technical side of things. See, I played this game on the Nintendo Switch 2, which is the objectively better way to experience the game, but even with the stronger console, the game itself still has troubles with assets appearing from a distance; sometimes it pops in and out without transitions. There’s also the fact that we were able to get much more interactive and live areas in previous games than what we have in this game. Everyone has been complaining about it, like the flat windows without mirroring effects nor sunlight/shade effects, or the ever-repeating roofs. It made it seem like they really cut in a lot to make the game run smoothly.
I’d like to be fair though. Those are things that you’ll mostly only notice if, and when, you single out those details; basically nitpicking them. As I played the game, those were some things that I barely noticed due to how fun I was having playing the game.
Because there’s a lot of repeating segments in the game, i.e battles, characters chatting, the day/night cycle being somehow too short, it’s very easy to get exhausted with the music of this game. I guess, the good thing about this is that if there’s a special theme playing, you will easily recognize it and that you will appreciate those immediately. All in all though, it felt like there’s a very limited music variety in the game because of it—that is until you actually try to listen and search for the music of this game. That’s when you’ll realize that there’s actually a huge list… but still feel lacking when actually playing the game when you’re hearing the same one over and over again.
In the sound effects department of Legends Z-A, it’s not surprising that it borrows sound effects from its predecessor, Legends Arceus; some of those even reworked so that it will not feel out of place in the time and location setting of the game. It’s just okay, I guess.
That said, I’m still quite disappointed that we don’t get any voice overs outside of voice grunts. Some of the moments in the game got its impact extremely downplayed because you’re just watching a voiceless cutscene with sound effects and background music. Get it together, Game Freak. It’s about time. See the fandubs on YouTube. It doesn’t even need the entire game dubbed, just the cutscenes is enough. Learn from ATLUS. Even Pokémon Masters EX, New Pokémon Snap, and Pokémon Battle Revolution have voice acting and yet your mainline titles don’t? Granted those are not developed by Game Freak, but c’mon, dude.
I think most would agree if I say that many people are exhausted of the traditional core-rpg mainline title gameplay of Pokémon games. Not because it’s a turn-based RPG, but rather because of the overall quality and content included in these games. Gameplay-wise, I think the Legends titles are the best and really takes the franchise to a whole ‘nother level!
The biggest difference is that you now command your Pokémon in real-time instead of a modified turn-based gameplay like in Legends Arceus. Because of this, some recurring elements of Pokémon as a franchise had to be adjusted, like the removal of Abilities and Special Attacks being ranged attacks and Attacks being melee attacks. It’s very intuitive too, especially if you have been playing action games because you really play it like such! You attack with your pad buttons while locking in with the ZR button. You move your trainer and your Pokémon follows. You may also evade attacks by moving! Really, it’s like finally experiencing what it feels like being a Trainer in the anime, except you are moving a lot! I wonder though, would the experience be better if it adapted the controls of Astral Chain, allowing you to manually move Legions, or in this case your Pokémon, and have it play like a real-time action game? It’s something to think about.
The implementation of Z-A Royale is also a welcomed addition which gave the day-night system of the game a variety that offers more than just nocturnal and diurnal Pokémon swapping places. It made sure that you could focus on catching Wild Pokémon during the day and increasing your rank, if not training for EXP, during the night. Although, the day-night cycle will feel too fast the more you play the game. I wish there’s a patch to make the cycle somehow slower.
There are also two kinds of missions in this game; Main Missions and Sub-Missions, whereas sub-missions are locked based on your story progress, or how fast you finish Main Missions, whereas Main Missions are your story missions. Just to mention, it may be small compared to other JRPGs but this game has a whopping 119 Sub-Missions! What’s more is that no Sub-Missions are missable—you can rack them up as you focus on the Main Missions to finish later for post-game. The downside is that many of those Sub-Missions are the same and are just repurposed. For example, most of the sub-missions are just trainer battles, some need you to battle them only with a specific Pokémon. Some of the sub-missions are “Bring Me!” games—the point is, multiples of the same thing over and over, and as someone who completes games whenever realistically possible, it’s not fun. It’s repetitive and feels like a chore. I get OC’d from the ! marks of Sub-Missions that I still do those. Especially the last two since to unlock those, you would have to complete Z-A Royale at least 20 times on post-game. The Main Missions aren’t any different either. Once you reach a certain point in the game, a character will call another character to tell you about your next objective, which really is just the same thing over and over again, too. I mean I get that it’s the point of the story, why you’re doing what you’re told, but like as a player, it just feels tedious. Don’t get me wrong though, the game is fun in the beginning and once you reach a certain point in the game—it’s really just the mid-game section that the game starts rollercoasting on you.
Nevertheless, it’s quite a breathtaking experience playing Pokémon this way and I’m all in for it. It’s the break that we need from the regular Pokémon experience. If there’s anything I disliked about the game, it’s that there’s only a handful of battles that you will actually feel any challenge, in addition to characters ALWAYS healing your team before and after matches, like Pokémon Centers didn’t exist.
There are many people who keep saying that the game is too expensive for what it offers, nitpicking parts of the game here and there. I’m really kind of on the fence here. For the price of ₱2,595.00 for the Nintendo Switch and ₱3,095.00 for the Nintendo Switch 2, I’d say, if you really want to play this game now, you’re not really missing out on a lot by not having it. It’s a fun Pokémon experience, yes, but is it a must have? I don’t know, man. I feel like, if I’m given the opportunity to have my memory wiped just to replay Legends Arceus and experience it for the first time again, I would but not Legends Z-A. It’s good but not great? Just like Pokémon X/Y, this one still feels incomplete.
To save on costs, I pre-ordered the Nintendo Switch version of the game, despite planning to play it on the Nintendo Switch 2, in Shopee since, not only is it cheaper but, you can use a discount voucher to further decrease its price. I got it for only ₱2,171.00 and then I just bought the Upgrade Pack in the eShop so that I’d be able to play in 4K 60FPS on the Nintendo Switch all the while having the option to play the game on my original Nintendo Switch. You don’t have to get the Nintendo Switch version and buy the upgrade pack though, that’s just my option to save as much as I could. The Nintendo Switch 2 version cartridge is backwards compatible with the original Nintendo Switch, it’s just that the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game’s cover looks so messy for me, if I’m being honest. I spent a total of just around ₱2,676.00 for everything. That’s like saying that I paid only ₱81.00 for the upgrade pack, rather than buying the Nintendo Switch 2 version completely.
Pokémon Legends sub-franchise will always feel experimental, but in a good way. It makes sure that the franchise still stays fresh, especially that Pokémon as a whole is almost 30 years old—even older than me! Legends Z-A had a huge gap to fill especially when Legends Arceus did a phenomenal job starting the subfranchise and the bar will always be high because of it. Personally though, I still find myself wanting to go back to Legends Arceus. In my experience, while Legends Z-A is fun in and of itself, the story felt chaotic and messy adding new elements without buildup here and there. There’s also the fact that it left many holes from X/Y still unfilled. The redeeming factor it has is definitely its revamped gameplay.
I realize that this review felt more like a comparison rather than a critique, but I just couldn’t avoid juxtaposing the two Legends games considering it’s from the same sub-franchise. I wish the DLC would bring more to the table for Legends Z-A and expand on what we currently have.
Since I was a kid, I’ve always been a Pokémon fan, from the anime, to the manga, to the games mainly, too, but we gotta criticize what needs to be criticized and that doesn’t mean that I am any less of a fan.
This review was written before the release of Pokémon Legends Z-A: Mega Dimension DLC.
REVIEWED ON NINTENDO SWITCH 2
