Pokémon Legends: Z-A Review

Pokémon Legends Z-A is the follow-up to one of my favorite Pokémon games, Legends Arceus, and a sequel to Pokémon XY. It takes place entirely within Lumiose City, which you decide to visit on a vacation for an unknown reason. The previous Legends game rose up the ranks of Pokémon games for me entirely unexpectedly, so when they announced a new Legends game, I was understandably excited. Then as time went on and it seemed like they were focusing more on battles than catching, which was the focus of Legends Arceus, my excitement died down a bit. The new battle system is neat, but the thing that carries Legends Z-A to the finish line is actually the story and cast of characters.

As you arrive in Lumiose City, you are quickly greeted by Urbain (or Taunie if you pick the male character) who ropes you into shooting an ad for the hotel he works for, Hotel Z. After a bit of running around, you head back to the hotel and meet the owner of the hotel, AZ (someone we as players are familiar with), as well as a few of the other guests at the hotel, Naveen and Lida. You quickly learn about a tournament called the Z-A Royale, where you work your way up the ranks, and whoever gets to rank A gets a wish granted. This Z-A Royale is the main progression through the game and is where you will get most of your battles in.

The new battle system ditches the old static turn-based system of old and replaces it with a more active system where attacks are based on cooldowns and you can move around the battlefield with your Pokémon. The new attacking system is interesting and should be something that Game Freak continues to work on, but moving around on the field is more hassle than it is worth. As you, the player, move around, your selected Pokémon mostly follows you but on a delay. At times, moves can be delayed or even entirely missed because your Pokémon wasn't at the position that you expected them to be in. This leads to frustrating situations where you end up having to just sit in place and wait for a move to recharge to finish a fight.

Another frustration comes along with the cooldowns and timings within battle. Any time you switch to a new Pokémon, there is a period of time where you can’t attack, and this isn't very clear in the middle of battle. Healing or just getting into the menu while in battle is obfuscated with this new system. Sometimes there is a countdown meter on the bottom of the screen telling you when you can heal again; other times there is no timer. Sometimes you are able to get into the menu screen in battle but can’t actually do anything. It is not a deal-breaker but something I wish was cleaned up, as it did annoy me at many parts of the game.

Outside of the Z-A Royale, you will be taking on the other portion of the story in between ranks: Rogue Mega Pokémon. These are wild Pokémon that are exuding mega energy for an unknown reason, and you have to battle them to calm them down. These Rogue Mega Pokémon battles work somewhat similarly to the Frenzied Nobles from Legends Arceus. You and one of your friends from Hotel Z engage in a large boss battle where the Rogue Mega Pokémon has traditional RPG attacks and phases. You need to worry about not only the health of your Pokémon but also of yourself, as many of the attacks in these phases target you just as much as they target your Pokémon. If at any time you wipe out, you can restart from the beginning or restart keeping any progress you made during the fight. This was a good compromise between making the game more difficult and giving people an option to just hop back in without too much punishment. Once the battle is done, the Pokémon is calmed and you collect the mega stone to mega evolve your very own.

Related to the battle system, but more generally speaking, one thing that people have complained about for a while now is the difficulty in these games. I have never been one who wants or needs games (especially Pokémon) to be difficult; I just want them to be enjoyable or have options to make them enjoyable. Overall, Legends Z-A does skew on the easier side, as I was able to take my starter and just over-level my way through the game without many issues. This is the beauty of Pokémon and RPGs, though: you can easily set rules for yourself if you feel the game is too easy. I could have forced myself to experiment with other Pokémon, or I could have given myself a level cap, for example. A lot of the fun from an RPG comes from your own individual playstyle and the game allowing you to run with it. I believe Legends Z-A does a good job at that.

Now we come to what I consider to be the most important part of a Pokémon game: the Pokémon. Legends Z-A comes with 230 Pokémon in the Pokedex and 63 mega evolutions. The representation feels pretty good. There are a number of Pokémon from different generations, and no single generation feels like it is overpowering another. The majority of Pokémon you will catch and encounter will be within the Wild Zones, which are sectioned-off parts of the city meant to keep the people of Lumiose safe from wild Pokémon. In each wild zone, you will encounter 6-8 different Pokémon, some of which can be Alpha versions, a returning feature from Legends Arceus.

When targeting a Pokémon, you can opt to ready up a Pokeball. This will present you with some icons next to the Pokémon indicating the catch rate; more arrows mean a better catch rate. Lower-level and weaker Pokémon can be pretty easily caught without battling, but others need to be knocked out to give you a chance at them. When any Pokémon is knocked out, you have one shot to catch them; if it fails, you will need to find another or wait for them to respawn. This is a similar system to that of Legends Arceus but dumbed down in many ways. One thing that does carry over from Legends Arceus is making trade evolution Pokémon, such as Gengar, available in the game without having to trade. This is something I really wish the mainline games would adopt because as cool as Haunter or Kadabra are, it is cool to be able to use their fully evolved forms for once.

Let's talk about performance, something that Scarlet/Violet had some issues with. As I stated in my first impression of the Switch version, I am not a stickler for performance. I just want things to be consistent. If that means 30fps, that means 30fps. In the case of Legends Z-A, I got just what I was wanting in the Switch 2 version. I cannot recall any instance in my 35-ish hours where I had a single dip or hiccup, even in hectic times like the Rogue Mega battles; it was locked solid. The designs of the Pokémon and their animations all looked great, possibly the best they have ever looked, and the cast of characters are all well designed. After a few hours in Scarlet/Violet, I got used to most of the performance issues, but they were still lingering. With Legends Z-A, the thought never once came to mind, which is the best thing you can ask for.

Pokémon Legends Z-A is not without its faults. The battle system could use some tweaking, the city, while pretty packed with stuff, does get a bit long in the tooth, and the cutscenes could really use some voice acting, but as a package, it almost gets to the level of the previous Legends game. I hope Game Freak not only continues with these Legends games but also starts taking cues from them for the mainline series. If you didn't like Legends Arceus or Scarlet/Violet, I do not think this will entirely bring you back into the Pokémon fold, but it is a game worth experiencing if you had ever been interested in Pokémon before.

4/5