Pokémon Legends Z-A Review Innovation or Rushed
After the massive success of Pokémon Legends: Arceus in 2022, Game Freak is back to experiment with the formula yet again. The Legends sub-series has become a testing ground for ideas the main series is often too afraid to try out. While the core Pokémon formula does work, after so many years of fine-tuning, it can feel somewhat stale. Legends: Z-A tests that comfort zone, but instead of throwing us into a quaintly inaccurate past, it confines its adventure to the modern metropolis of Lumina City, Pokémon's version of Paris from X and Y.
This installment makes sweeping changes that include a complete reform of the combat system. But is that a single innovation good enough to redeem a game many deem claustrophobic, uninspired, and tantalizingly close to greatness. Let us dive into it.
The Big Shift A Real-Time "Xenoblade-ification" of Combat
The combat, undoubtedly the most exciting and also the most contentious aspect of Legends: Z-A, has had a complete overhaul. The real-time approach with ability cooldowns has been substituted for a more traditionally based approach. Think less chess; more action-RPG. You don't need to think about PP; you always have access to all your moves, restricted only by their cooldown timers. This creates a fundamentally different flow of battle.
Spam your biggest damage option. Not all the time. A weaker attack, with a quicker execution time, might mean sacrificing a Tackle in order to finish off a Pokémon before the foe can act.
The system makes battles incredibly fast-paced. Where fights that take several minutes in a traditional game can be resolved in less than a minute in this game. Indeed, outofworld ambushing gives it an even faster resolution. For players feeling bored with turn-based combat, this is finally the Pokémon game they've been waiting for.
Nevertheless, the system has not come without some jank. Targeting can feel imprecise; sometimes Pokémon just seem to get stuck on geometry altogether or their attacks seem to whiff due to dodges over the slightest lip on the ground. With fainting animations lasting a long time for the new Pokémon to enter after the previous one has been knocked out, such nuisances make the battle less responsive and fluent at times.
A Tale of One City The Beauty and Boredom of Lumina
Lumina City is the first and only town in the series. Lumina City looks leagues better than anything Scarlet and Violet had to offer. Cunningly designed with the Switch 2 in mind, the game runs smoothly while it captures the cozy ambiance of an ancient world city that begs exploration from every angle. Initially.
All the "angles" can be taken in within a few hours, however. The city, densely packed with activities, is, at the end of the day, very tiny, and the entirety of it is the game world. Wild Zones, the dedicated areas for catching Pokémon, can often be just a block or two within the city or a small park. The contrast to the sprawling open areas of Arceus makes actually catching Pokémon feel pretty claustrophobic and thereby less engaging.
Moving around is another serious issue. There are no bikes, no roller skates, no Pokémon to ride; just the weak air-dash ability that you get nowhere near the start of the game. The sad slow pace of your character seems very much intentional; it just deliberately masks how tiny the world is. All this while the repetitious theme of a city, however good it is, will surely have overstayed its welcome after dozens of hours in the same place.
The Gameplay Loop The ZA Royale and The Return of Mega Evolution
The whole cycle is a day-night split. By day you explore, catch Pokémon, and do side quests, but at night eerie "Battle Zones" open that become the ZA Royale arena-cum-tournament for you to fight trainers and raise your ranking from Z all the way to A.
Mega Evolutions also make a grand return, revised for the new combat system. They now work on a meter which fills as you deal damage, allowing you to Mega Evolve multiple Pokémon in a single battle. This becomes crucial during boss fights against "Rogue Megas": giant Pokémon with high health that do most gun from mega-evolved allies' powered-up moves.
Unfortunately, the entire thing comes off as somewhat repetitive. The side quests earn almost unanimous opprobrium for being nothing more than lazy fetch quests to "show me this Pokémon", or for more pathetically-simple battles devoid of substance. The ranking system from Z-to-A sounds pretty epic; in actuality, though, it's hardly utilized, skipping large sections of the alphabet and serving to undercut any feeling of a grand journey.
Story, Sound, and Polish A Game of Missed Opportunities
An ordinary tale of lame Pokémon standards honestly describes the situation. There is no evil team or main villain; the conflict hinges on rogue Mega Evolutions caused by a defense system gone wrong. The saddest thing about this critic is that instead of new regional Pokémon variants, we were given new designs for Mega Evolutions: some creative, while most denounced as lazy and uninteresting.
The division on the game centers around voice acting. The game does feature fully animated cutscenes where characters' mouths move in real-time; shame there is no sound. The obsolescence of the voice acting in this multi-billion-dollar series feels cheap and stands out all the more sorely, especially in an era where even budget RPGs are quietly coming with at least limited voice acting.
Pros, Cons & Rating
Pros
- The real-time combat system is fast, innovative, and fun.
- Great improvement over previous titles in terms of graphics and performance.
- Properly stream-lined gameplay gives the impression of being breezy and quick-paced.
- The Mega Evolutions are back, and we've all been waiting for this.
- Charming presentation of Pokémon coexisting with humans in a city.
Cons
- The whole game takes place in a small, monotonous city.
- Extremely minimal traversal options, and thus, exploration feels slow.
- Wild Zones are pretty small, which makes it feel claustrophobic when catching Pokémon.
- Side quests-unimpressive, lazy and uninspired.
- Complete lack of voice acting is jarring in cutscenes.
- Wardrobe prices are way too high for a game that also feels low-budget and without ambition.
Final Verdict
Pokémon Legends: Z-A is a pretty exasperating game. It does come tantalizingly close to a perfect revival of the series, based mainly on a truly enjoyable and forward-thinking battle system, but "the most pure fun many will probably enjoy with the Pokémon series in a long while." However, this one great innovation is locked in a game that feels small, unambitious, and hasty.
It then places you in a single building, which becomes a claustrophobic imprisonment. The side content is mostly filler, and the lack of polish in key areas becomes hard to ignore for a price tag that can only be called premium.
It is one great idea, with every other aspect poorly executed. Good outweighs the bad, but only just. It's a good experience worth having, but it could have been exceptional.
