Pokémon Legends: Z-A First Impressions

At the time of writing, I have played roughly six hours of Pokémon Legends: Z-A on original Switch hardware. I purposefully did not progress far into the story, as I did not want to redo a lot of content when I move over to the Switch 2. However, I played enough to unlock six wild areas, beat the first Z-A Royale Promotion Battle, and catch about 50 different types of Pokémon. Based on these first hours, I am excited to see more but am also worried about how this gameplay loop will feel after another 20-plus hours. The basic premise of Z-A is that you arrive in Lumiose City, meet a new friend, and get roped into their group. A group that aims to save the city by participating in a Pokémon battling tournament called the "Z-A Royale." The idea is that during the night, certain areas of the city turn into battle zones. You fight NPCs to get points, and once you have enough, you can take on the "boss" of your level to get promoted. The goal is to work your way up the ranks, presumably from Z to A. This is where my first concern comes in. I am more of a "catch 'em all" trainer than a battle-focused one, which is one of the reasons I loved Legends: Arceus. This time around, however, the game is clearly focused on battling, and I am not sure how I feel about that yet. The battle system is new and interesting. It's a real-time 1v1 system where your attacks are on cooldowns rather than using the traditional turn-based system of previous games. While in battle, you can run around freely and send out attacks when you want, but I still have not found a real reason to do so. The game has not made it clear if attacking from different angles deals more damage. I have found that running around can be detrimental, since an attack animation will only begin once your Pokémon is close enough to the enemy. In certain circumstances, I have also seen moves miss simply because I started moving during a fight. This is not to say it is all bad. I think Pokémon needs some shake-ups, and making changes like this is important to the future of these games. I can definitely see a future Pokémon game with a battle system built on this foundation, but with refinements that better mesh the trusted old system with this interesting new one. I am not sure we are quite there yet with Legends: Z-A. I do hope to be proven wrong and that Z-A will overtake Arceus as my favorite Pokémon game of the last 20 years. Lastly, the biggest gripe with the last few games has been performance. I will go on the record and state that I am not a stickler for high frame rates or crazy performance; if it is solid and consistent, that is enough for me. I had my issues with Scarlet and Violet in terms of performance, but it was not game-ruining for me as it was for some, and Z-A feels a lot better in that regard. The world is not as vast as in Scarlet and Violet or even Legends: Arceus, so maybe that has something to do with it. During my time with the game, I did not notice any major issues aside from some texture pop-in in the background. The frame rate was a solid 30fps on the original Switch, according to other reports, which is all I ask for when playing a game. At the end of the day, if you did not like Scarlet & Violet, did not like Legends: Arceus, or have not liked Pokémon since Gen 4, this one is not going to change your mind. If you are open to exploring different systems within the Pokémon umbrella and thought Legends: Arceus was decent but could have focused more on battles, then Z-A is worth checking out. For once, it feels like Pokémon games are trying to be actual modern RPGs. The introduction of a full open world in Scarlet & Violet and now this new battle system is a great thing to see. I will have a full review of the Switch 2 version of the game once I have a chance to complete it.