I’ve really been dragging my feet to get this one written! Partly because I’ve not made the time, and partly because… well, I’ll get to that. I “finished” the game on New Year’s Eve, with “finished” being in quotes because while I saw the credits, I will be returning to this game. I’ve got a Pokédex to fill out and DLC to complete, but for the purposes of completing more games this year, I’m calling a wrap on this one.
I’ll start by saying that unlike my previous few reviews, I don’t actually have a ton of complex thoughts on this game specifically. I covered so much of what I love about the setting in my Pokémon Y review, and at the end of the day, I mostly just think it was a fun game! I’ve got about 32 hours in it right now, and I feel like I mostly played in obsessive bursts for that entire duration.
I think a major advantage that this game had over its predecessor is that there was so much more of a proper world to occupy, and in the modern era of Pokémon, I find that that’s what draws me to this series. There’s always someone new to talk to or another shiny thing on the ground to pick up or another building to climb. So much of my time was spent leisurely moving from one story point on the map to the next just taking it all in on the way. I might cut through a wild zone or pick up three or four new side quests, and that was the fun of it! Getting to feel like a person wandering around Lumiose with my little Pokémon friends was the overall highlight of the game for sure.
That said, I found the mechanics of the game just… pretty good, for the most part. Not outstanding. The real-time battle system is an interesting way to shake up the formula, and I’m actually really hoping it appears in future games, but at times I felt like everything was moving just a bit too fast for me to react to. I like to approach Pokémon battles more methodically than this system allowed for, but that’s just a matter of taste, so I don’t wanna be too hard on it.
On the positive side of that, however, the system upped the intensity of some battles to heights that they could’ve never reached in the original battle system. Additionally, the animations were very cool, and getting to use your Pokémon’s attacks on certain features in the world was a very neat touch.
Speaking of the world at large, I was a little disappointed in the glut of side quests that just boiled down to “My team has a weird restriction on it! Battle me!” Those coupled with a story that was intrinsically tied to battling stronger and stronger opponents kind of took the emphasis off of the actual capturing of the Pokémon that Legends Arceus underlined so strongly.
Sure, the research missions were there pushing me to catch more wild Pokémon, but they felt a bit sidelined because there was no actual story progression tied to which Pokémon you’ve caught like in the previous game. I was left feeling like there wasn’t much reason to complete those research missions, which saddens me somewhat. It also meant that, like in many of the mainline Pokémon games, I ended up with a team of six Pokémon pretty early on that carried me through the rest of the game. I felt incentivized to catch the Pokémon I loved in each new wild area, but because the game was so heavily focused on battling, I never felt like making room on my team for them for fear of having to spend a bunch of time grinding out levels.
Okay, complaining over (probably). Time to finish the compliment sandwich! I think the Donphan in the room is my favorite gimmick that Pokémon has ever done: Mega Evolutions. I don’t know that any of the new Megas I’ve seen impress me as much as the old ones, but I’m a sucker for the OG, so maybe don’t take my opinion as gospel on that matter. I was just happy to see it come back! And introducing Mega Evolution to the game with a Mega Absol? Perfection.
I thought the Rogue Mega battles were a huge upgrade over the “boss” Pokémon battles in Legends Arceus. Some of the later ones felt a little damage-spongey, but that’s to be expected. The strategy involved in dodging their attacks and even recalling my active Pokémon at times to avoid danger was a level of thinking I wasn’t expecting. Even if Mega Starmie was a Mega Disappointment to me (why the legs????), I’m happy Mega Evolution is back in a space that isn’t going to make a bunch of competitive sweaties mad this time. (Disclaimer: I have competitive Pokémon sweaty friends and I would call them that to their faces.)
I was also pretty wowed by how nice the game looked. I’m a Scarlet/Violet apologist, but even I have to admit that those games didn’t always look great to put it lightly. Having a game with great looking Pokémon models that runs at a (more or less) steady 60fps on a Switch 2? Sign me up! I’m not a frame rate snob by any means, but seeing a Pokémon game run at 60 of those bad boys a second made me do a double take when I first started it up. I didn’t experience any major bugs, either. All in all, a joy to play!
So there you have it. Finally got this one in the books. I don’t want to be too hopeful or seem ungrateful for this wonderful game, but I would love to see just one more Legends game that effectively marries this combat system with progression that is maybe tied to both catching AND battling evenly. I think that would be the perfect one. However, I also need to remember that these games are theoretically more akin to something like Pokémon Ranger in terms of main series status, so letting the developers play around and balance their games on different axes is something I’m all for at the end of the day. I’m a Pokémon stan, so I’m unlikely to ever be overly critical of any game that gets released, but I do have standards, and thankfully Legends Z-A exceeded basically all of them, despite my minor nitpicks.
Until next time <3