Pokémon Legends: Z-A takes players to Lumiose City, the site of a citywide Pokémon tournament. It puts a new spin on Pokemon gameplay, particularly shaking up battles and differentiating it from both the mainline series and Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
An Evolving City
Five years on from the events of Pokémon X/Y, Lumiose City is undergoing some changes. Efforts led by Quasartico Inc. are making this city into a place where people can coexist with Pokémon. From the use of holo technology to create enclosed Wild Zones for them to showing people using them to roast food, they’re integrating into all parts of life in the city. Even most people on the street have a partner Pokémon by their side. It contrasts nicely with Pokémon Legends: Arceus, where the concept of coexistence was still new.
Unfortunately, not everything is going smoothly, and it’s not just little instances like the smelly Trubbish being attracted to restaurants that we see throughout the game. Something strange is happening over at Prism Tower, and we start to hear about cases of Pokémon suddenly mega evolving without a trainer. This isn’t just dangerous for the citizens, but painful for the Pokémon themselves.
Enter the protagonist, a new arrival to the city. We soon find ourselves roped into entering the Z-A Royale, a tournament that takes place every night, with the aim of ranking all the way up from Z to A in order to be granted a wish by Quasartico Inc.; a wish that could be used to help the city.
Along the way, we encounter plenty of other contenders who have their own thoughts, from the silly (such as a taxi driver who wishes to abolish all forms of transport other than taxis) to those with more serious thoughts on how they want the city to coexist with Pokémon going forward. Pokémon Legends: Z-A has a great cast of characters, with some quite quirky ones. Sadly, we only get to see a few of the characters with particular regularity. That said, we have a core group of characters who we join to resolve the mega evolution problem, and there’s a great team dynamic between them, which I enjoyed seeing while completing the main story.
Not unexpectedly for a Pokémon game, the story works well to set targets for the gameplay, has some funny moments, and is enjoyable overall, but the overarching plot isn’t too gripping in itself. That said, the ending is a real highlight and brings together the events before it incredibly well. While no knowledge of Pokémon X/Y is needed, it also works well to follow up on some characters from that game, along with working in a number of references to some of the other Pokémon titles, and it works well with the theme of coexisting with Pokémon.
When the Sun and Moon are Out
I really enjoyed the gameplay loop of Pokémon Legends: Z-A. It’s framed as catching Pokémon during the day and participating in battles during the night, but that’s not quite right. Outside of the Z-A Royale, you can do almost anything at any time of the day.
After the opening, it mostly settles into a pattern of completing some story segments involving cutscenes, battles, very occasional short ‘dungeons’, or other requirements, along with fighting three mega-evolved Pokémon. Then you’re given an opponent for the tournament. At night, you need to visit Battle Zones and defeat trainers to earn your ticket to move on and fight the next boss to rank up. As you proceed, new Wild Zones open up. These are areas where you can find, fight, and catch new Pokémon. They are small, but there are a lot of them to explore. One feature I liked is that some have slightly hidden-away areas within them, accessed via out-of-the-way entrances or paths where specific Pokémon can be found. Rewarding exploration is always appreciated.
New side quests are added constantly too, with over 100 to complete. Most of these were battles, but with specific conditions or themes, such as providing an example of trainers fighting with status effects, environmental effects, or limiting your team. Some were more of the unique variety. One had me searching rooftops for an apartment for someone new to the city that fit their exact conditions. I found myself picking these up any time I was nearby one in the city for a quick break. Some of these reference ‘hidden’ features too, such as how to meet specific evolution requirements.
As well as more specific objectives, you can just explore the city. Lumiose City itself feels quite small, and that isn’t helped by the fact that areas within it don’t look particularly unique, including the extreme amount of similar-looking cafés within. But it is packed full. It feels like every corner has an item to find and exploring the rooftops and other out-of-the-way places will net you more than a few Pokémon. The local construction company also has an odd passion for making their scaffolding into platforming challenges, which net you some important rewards. You’ll occasionally find some particularly helpful things that are only discoverable via exploration too.
I quickly fell into a loop of completing story objectives, capturing everything I could from Wild Zones as they opened up, and participating in the Z-A Royale at night. But getting sidetracked into sidequests, challenges, or just looking around to see what I could find was frequent and enjoyable. It felt like I was never doing the same things for too long, which really helped me stay interested. Even the final dungeon, while longer than anything else before it, eschewed JRPG tradition by not being too long.
On the Way to A-Rank
A key feature of Pokémon Legends: Z-A is the new battle gameplay. While not perfect, I found I enjoyed it quite a lot.
Unlike many previous games, it’s not turn-based. Instead, a Pokémon has four available moves, each of which has its own cooldown time. These vary between moves, with big moves often taking longer before you can use them again. As your Pokémon grows and you unlock TMs, you can add more moves, which can be freely changed outside of battle. While the moves which are higher-end are certainly clear, the amount of flexibility this gave to prepare for battles was extensive. There are also options to briefly mega-evolve certain Pokémon if requirements are met, or to use Plus Moves, which are more powerful versions of the regular moves.
You can’t control your Pokémon’s movement directly, but you can move your character around to direct it somewhat. This is helpful, as there are occasional difficult moments where they may get stuck behind an obstacle or have something in the way of their attack. It doesn’t happen often, but it does get frustrating when it does. Moving around is important for other reasons too. It only really happens in certain battles, but sometimes the Pokémon attack the protagonist. In the big mega evolution battles, this becomes an exciting spectacle with additional Pokémon popping up, obstacles along the lines of giant rocks or tornadoes flying around, and the need to both navigate these and collect orbs of energy flying out of the opponent to power up your own Pokémon. These battles can be incredibly fun and kept me far more involved than the traditional turn-based battles.
Even smaller battles can get hectic to a point. Battles take place in the world seamlessly rather than in their own little contained battle screen like the main games, so it’s possible to encounter several Pokémon all at once. This is great, as with how quick and easy it is to get into battles, I was very willing to take part in a few even if I was doing something else. But I did more than once get surrounded by multiple attackers when trying to take down a tough enemy, which called for some tactical thinning of the herd in some circumstances.
Another aspect that keeps battles exciting is the cards in the Z-A Royale battles. You can just battle the trainers in this tournament like normal, but you can find cards with special tasks along the lines of “beat a Pokémon 5 times with a certain type of move”, or “sneak up on them and win in one hit”. I enjoyed this as it kept me trying different things. It took away the tedium that I might’ve otherwise experienced by needing to go through a lot of battles by having me use different Pokémon and tactics.
Into My Box You Go
Of course, we can’t talk about Pokémon without mentioning catching them. Somewhat similarly to Pokémon Legends: Arceus, you need to aim and throw a variety of Poké Balls, but there’s often a need to battle to wear them down first here. Unlike the mainline games, you don’t need to worry too much about accidentally knocking them out: when they’re down is actually the point at which they’re most vulnerable.
Aside from battling, you can sneak up on Pokémon, and many can be captured if you catch them unawares and have both the right Poké Ball and luck on your side. Still, I often found that trying often just ended up in a fight, so I regularly skipped to that.
Building your collection of Pokémon is quite straightforward. Spawns are more or less set, so you can predict which ones you’ll find where. The Wild Zones only contain certain spawns, but this also applies to knowing that a specific rooftop always has a Fennekin, even if it’ll run if it spots you. Some Pokémon appear more rarely, but I never found it too difficult to find specific ones if I could find where they spawned. This felt much more convenient than some games where you might need to trigger random battles 50 times before finding the Pokémon that you’re searching for.
You can get quite lucky. For example, I found an Alpha (a more powerful variant) Dratini by chance when exploring. It was far too high level for me, but I just about managed to take it down and got lucky in catching it with one of the few Ultra Balls I had found at the time. I couldn’t quite control it, as similar to how gym badges work in previous games, the tournament rank sets what level Pokémon you can command, but the Dratini still made a great shield for a while. Coming across these little challenges or rare Pokémon when exploring was rewarding, though I admit I didn’t feel as good about it when an Alpha Houndoom I encountered almost tore my party to pieces.
Unlimited Chances
It took me about 30 hours to complete the main story, with plenty of sidetracking along the way. Outside of clearing up any remaining side quests, the fun keeps on going, at least to a point. While I’ll leave the particulars for you to discover, you’ll find more opportunities to catch Pokémon and participate in battles, with new unlocks appearing. Certain limited opportunities from earlier in the game open up again, which is a welcome treat, if not an unexpected one.
One specific thing I will mention is that a new feature is unlocked to gain more information about your caught Pokémon. Pokémon Legends: Z-A already gives a good amount of detail, but this adds a little more help in perfecting your team for online. Online can be accessed at nearly any point of the game, but post-game is the best time. You can send in a team of three and all Pokémon are set to level 50. This doesn’t mean that all are held equal; you might be fighting with a weak level 50 Chikorita versus a top-tier level 50 Charizard with its Mega Evolution item, a suitable nature, strong stats, and some of the best moves.
That said, you don’t actually have to win to rank up and get prizes for this mode. You get minus points if you come in 3rd or 4th, but you get points for various tasks like defeating Pokémon, which can counteract this and make sure you’re always in the positive. Some items are exclusive to this mode, including certain mega evolution items. It can be quite fun too, with a four-way Pokémon battle, plenty of switching in and out, and items appearing around the area to change the situation.
Art of Smeargle and Sounds of Jigglypuff
I played Pokémon Legends: Z-A on the Nintendo Switch 2, and the performance is great. After playing Pokémon Scarlet/Violet, which runs well on Switch 2 but horribly on Switch, this was very good to see. Loading times at their worst are a few seconds, the framerate appears stable, and draw distance wasn’t a problem.
The design of the world felt consistent if a little plain and not exactly detailed, and while I wasn’t a huge fan of how the city didn’t vary much, the overall Paris-themed design was nice enough. Some of the character designs were great too, and not just Emma the detective, who seems to be featured in a lot of fanart already.
As always, the music fits well into both the setting and the wider collection of Pokémon music. There isn’t any voice acting for the cutscenes, but unlike my thoughts on Pokémon Scarlet/Violet, I didn’t really feel I was missing anything here.
Verdict
Pokémon Legends: Z-A departs from the mainline Pokémon titles and succeeds in telling its own story, with a very engaging battle system. It has a great gameplay loop that kept me hooked from start to end, and plenty to find in a small city. While not perfect, it feels like a new take on Pokémon, with elements I’d love to see carry over to the next mainline installment.
POKÉMON LEGENDS: Z-A IS RECOMMENDED
If you are looking for another Nintendo Switch JRPG game, check out our review of Mario & Luigi: Brothership.
Many thanks go to Nintendo for a Switch 2 review code for Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
