I'm late to the game with my thoughts on Pokemon Legends: Z-A, but better late than never, right?
Truth to be told, there are three major reasons why this review is coming out so late, if I'm being fully transparent:
1) I was out of the country for the first couple weeks the game was out, so I didn't get around to playing it until the latter end of October anyway. All that initial response juice was already gone.
2) My attention has been away from Fanboys Anonymous for 2025 due to having to prioritize other jobs. This is why there hasn't been much content at all for the site this year. I always want to do more, and I have so many more ideas that just sit on the back burner.
3) I haven't exactly been motivated to write up anything about this after playing it. In fact, most of this list is going to be predominantly complaining.
The TL;DR coming out of that third point is that overall, while this is a fun enough game for something to do, I was finding myself writing far too many cons and not enough pros. I also found myself perfectly okay with putting the game down for days at a time, instead of feeling that itch to hop back on as soon as I could.
Look. Nothing will beat the original Generation 1 experience of playing Pokemon for the first time with Red, Blue, and Yellow for me. Not even the enthusiasm and wonder of Gold and Silver, which was in many ways a better game, can quite capture that magic.
But I had a TON of fun revisiting that region for Let's Go, and I felt my first real rush of the old school childhood whimsy with Pokemon Legends Arceus. While Scarlet and Violet had to match that had their pros and cons all of their own (in some ways, improving on what I liked about PLA, and in other ways, going in a different direction I wasn't fond of) I graded that with a bit of a curve, as it wasn't the true follow-up in Legends fashion. Z-A, on the other hand, wasn't going to get the same grace.
Unfortunately, my general assessment of Z-A is that there are VERY FEW improvements compared to PLA for my personal tastes, and more than its fair share of downgrades.
Biggest Con: Lumiose City is a Claustrophobic & Boring Location / Lack of Free-Roam
Easily my biggest complaint about this game, and the overall reason I've been let down by it, is the environment.
From the very first bits of news I had heard about it being one big city, I instantly thought "I hope that doesn't mean everything looks the same, everything is cramped, and there's no diversity."
Lo and behold, that's exactly what we got.
I hate that this is a city that looks almost exactly the same on every street. They're nearly identical throughout the entire map, and it makes it so I not only have no idea where I am and can't recall anything distinct enough for a location, but that I'm visually bored.
In PLA, I would mark sections of the map to explore another time. Venturing out past where they kind of wanted you to be meant that I would find myself panicking because the Alpha Snorlax or Alpha Rapidash or Alpha Alakazam in the first region was suddenly around me and I was severely under-leveled. The same for Scarlet and Violet, where I glitched myself to that platform I wasn't supposed to reach and could explore anywhere and it felt like I came across unique areas that were memorable.
For instance, when I came across that flying Gyarados in PLA, that was one of those magic moments for me. And it felt like every region was HUGE. I was just exploring and coming across a random creek with a Bibarel or the wooded area with the Scyther and Kleavor. Scarlet and Violet went a little overboard in that enough of the spots looked similar that it was hard to keep track of where I was specifically if I had gotten all the items and whatnot without consulting a guide, but it was still more fun to just explore.
There is no exploring here in ZA. That's partially because they lock everything behind invisible barriers (especially at the start of the game, where it was INCREDIBLY INFURIATING to be stopped in my tracks and told that I arbitrarily couldn't go somewhere because I needed to progress the story)
It's an interesting enough concept to change the landscape as you progress with the game, but adding some more of the bland scaffolding doesn't do the trick. Nor am I happy you got rid of my best spot to farm mega shards once I beat the story.
The rooftops are annoying. Having no means of flying or climbing or anything that makes traversing the environment easier, even after the main missions are over, is just a pain. I don't like having to get to the top of something and looking around for 10 minutes because the only way up is some arbitrary corner of some building 4 streets away that is my only access point ever to that rooftop. It just makes it a hassle and not fun when you have to either remember the differences between buildings that look identical and streets that look identical as well as specific little tiny rooftop mechanics.
Wild zones aren't making up for it. You just plopped a few static Pokemon into a corner of a street. Most of it doesn't make any sense to begin with. Also, fuck those Pyroar.
Con: Stop Trapping Me to Death / Catching Mechanics
Because everything is so cramped, this made the whole "attack the player" health bar element of this game annoying, too.
I enjoyed running around Hisui and feeling like I was in danger from time to time.
Catching Pokemon by sneaking up on them, or throwing some Feather Balls, Wing Balls, or Jet Balls (three things missing from this game that I would've liked to see return, but you can't really have that when this game is so focused on keeping you in tight spots)—that stuff was fun before.
But I liked it better when I could throw a ball or toss out a Pokemon and start a more locked-in battle, particularly in an environment where I can actually move around.
What I don't like in ZA is that the lock-on mechanics are a bit finicky, and when I'm in an alleyway, there's no room for me to do anything but to immediately get spotted by a Pokemon and then take a bunch of damage. Effectively, to catch damn near anything in this game, I had to just barrel through, attack like crazy with some move that did residual damage to everything else that was attacking me as well, and then hope that I didn't mess up locking onto the wrong thing.
But in particular, there is too much going on at any given moment. How am I supposed to take in the entire environment, every Pokemon in an area, the HP bar of all those Pokemon including my own AND myself, the moves being set up, my moves that I need to execute, and somehow be dodging in a way that is a step ahead and in this tight environment to try to move in a way that my Pokemon also moves out of the way of another attack and I don't get caught where MY attacks just don't land because they're too far away or not facing the right direction or whatever? And when your Pokemon decides to just walk to another spot before doing the attack, or has to take 3 seconds to do its cry when you send it out, that is incredibly frustrating.
Battling wasn't fun in this game like it was in PLA, which I'm going to need them to basically go back to. This idea of my movements being in sync with where my Pokemon move as the means to dodge is just not great.
It's a step up in some ways from the auto battle stuff in Scarlet and Violet, but it's a step down from PLA, for sure.
Pro: More Value to Certain Moves Than Ever
For a short while, I found myself saying "Oh wow, I never use something like Growl, ever, but it kind of seems useful to do that before a Pokemon can notice you, and you can immediately get an advantage in the battle."
I say a short while, because I then found myself in scenarios where I needed to just power through anyway, so it became more advantageous to still just have powerful attacking moves for the most part, and that went out the window pretty quickly.
But hey, for the first time in a long time, I was using Leer and Nuzzle and Amnesia, which is kind of neat.
Pro: Fainting Pokemon Can Be Caught
One of the big positives to the catch system this time around, though, is that you can knock something out and still get an opportunity to catch it, instead of it just disappearing immediately.
More often than not, that was my strategy with a lot of Pokemon.
Con: Give Me More Pokemon to Pick from at the Start! / Better Moves
Holy shit, I did not want to use Bunnelby. Why did you give me NO OTHER OPTIONS to use Rock Smash than that stupid thing?
On top of that, I picked Totodile, and that movepool was atrocious for far, far too long.
Con: Character Customization
It was annoying having to go searching through tons of shops and tons of menus to see the different options and to see that most of them weren't something I was super fond of. If I liked something, but didn't have enough money, I also found it very annoying to have to try to remember which of the 20 shops had that pair of shoes or whatever. This could've been made so much more efficient.
For that matter, those are your only options for haircuts? They weren't great, and I think they could've used another 10 options or so. I liked the hair options better in PLA for sure. Scarlet and Violet was terrible with that, so at least in this, I can wear a suit like I try to, instead of the awful orange and purple uniform options from SV.
Con: Cafes are Dumb
Why do all the cafe drinks do the same thing, it seems? What's the purpose? Why should I pay for more expensive ones? And why are there tons of these cafes around if they all just sell the same things and we have a fast travel that makes it so I don't need to only go to a specific one to get a specific thing or that I don't have access to the previous ones?
I've never liked these extra mechanics of taking photos in the games or playing with your Pokemon. I hated the whole sandwich thing in Scarlet and Violet, for instance. Some people love that, but that's not me.
Con: The Story
I think I've gotten to the point where I barely even engage in the story with Pokemon games, to be honest. I liked the overall concept of PLA, but Scarlet and Violet was just too much dialogue and I didn't like the characters. ZA was basically the same situation. I couldn't even tell you the name of the 2 friends outside of Taunie, because I just skipped everything they said after a while. Everyone yaps too much and it isn't even good dialogue to justify it.
I miss Team Rocket and having better villains. Quasartico and whatnot were so meh.
Pro: Saved Pokeballs / Pokemon Centers / Picking Up Items
Whoever decided to put that guy outside the Poke Centers that gives you the balls you dropped, I love you for that. That was a great touch.
Also, I liked how you could easily just slide into one of these centers, kind of like in Scarlet and Violet, and that you could purchase things there, too. Having separate shops and centers is just obsolete.
Somewhat related, I like the mechanics of just walking over the glowing items and not having to press the A button to interact with them. I like the abundance of them, too, which helped a lot with money management.
Con: Night and Day Loading Screens
Yo. Stop pausing my game and giving me the battle zone activated or deactivated notifications all the time. That goes especially true for when you just despawned something I was catching or reset the battlefield and now, I'm caught in the line of fire of some Pokemon that weren't there before.
Con: The Grind
As I'm writing this, I'm at the point in the game that the Infinite Z-A Royale has been unlocked. You mean to tell me I'm going to have to get 50,000 points for EACH MATCH of that?
That's just an artificial way to force me into stretching out the amount of time I play the game by doing mindless battle after battle in the same areas that never change. This is probably going to be something I abandon instead of finishing, as I don't know if I want to put that many hours into just repeat battles that offer me nothing else but another battle and a reset to do it all over again 20+ more times.
Con: Why Can't I Run?
There should not be any moments of this game where I'm forced to walk at a snail's pace, and yet, there are several. How are those beneficial? Having to walk super slowly to follow something or whatever was just infuriating.
Pro: Changing Moves / Box System
This was the most efficient way to just go into a menu and change a Pokemon's moves. I appreciated that so much, and the ability for the TM menu to show me that lineup rather than for me to have to open up a TM individually and see what can learn it and such.
Go with this box system and all going forward. This was the best it's ever been.
Mostly a Pro: Alphas are Back
I like Alpha Pokemon. The idea behind it is pretty great just by itself about how certain Pokemon are just bigger, stronger, meaner, etc. I'm glad they didn't forego that. But with the diversity and location problems, this left much to be wanted.
In the future, Alphas should be in almost any game, I think. Just give me a wider variety of them and in locations that are different and bigger so I can feel like I'm actually going out in the wild and catching things that aren't spawning directly in front of me or just hanging out on a tiny street.
Speed Round
This is already a long and rambly post (apologies for how messy it is, but I'm just not motivated to polish it up better). So let's just toss out some other pros and cons in a quicker fashion bullet point list:
- Why did I skip half the letters in the alphabet?
- For the most part, I'm not a big fan of mega evolutions. The gimmicks like the Z-Moves and the Dynamax and Terrastalized Form and whatnot just don't really strike me as super interesting. Some of these designs, in particular, are just not good. That's all you could think of for Starmie? What's up with Dragonite? Froslass looks more like a Gigantamax form than a Mega Evolution.
- Yes, the graphics could be better. There really isn't any excuse for it. I played this on a Switch 1, but I don't see any real difference with the Switch 2. They should be better than this.
For Anyone Who is Curious...
If you want to know what my core team was for the majority of the game, my Feraligatr held down the fort predominantly with a Lucario. Talonflame was my #3, I would say. Gardevoir was around for most of it, but I found it not doing super well and would replace it from time to time. Krookodile and Venusaur rounded out the team once I got those. Some of my other things I would swap in from time to time were a Dragonite, a Dedene, and a variety of others. I was really disappointed that I didn't get the opportunity to use Hawlucha or Aegislash for the first time in a playthrough, but you gave me access to them at too late of a time for them to be worthwhile. Instead, you wanted me to suffer with that damn Bunnelby forever. I won't forgive you for that.
What do you think are the best and worst parts of Pokemon Legends ZA?Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
