57) Pokémon Legends: Z-A (2025)

Releasing in 1996, the Pokémon franchise, originally developed from director Satoshi Tajiri's childhood love of collecting bugs, has grown to become the highest grossing media franchise of all time. What began as a passion project that was cobbled together with barely functional code exploded into a juggernaut that easily rakes in over $10 billion dollars a year. With this massive success comes a ton of pressure to constantly release new items, whether it be trading cards, plushes, anime and movies, as well as new games that grow the already massive roster of collectible monsters. With this pressure, along with the relatively small size of the team at Game Freak, has come a certain level of stagnation as the team struggles to push the series forward without losing what made the games special to begin with. Unfortunately, over the past decade or so, the franchise seems to have had more downs than ups, with the switch from strictly handheld titles to console releases being forced upon them from Nintendo's hybrid consoles.

In 2018, Pokémon took its first wary step into the home console space with Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee. While the series had seen home console releases before, these were usually in the form of spinoff titles that were often developed by other studios, and the Let's Go games played it safe, acting as casual remakes of the original games while implementing many features from the massively popular Pokémon Go. A year later, in 2019, we saw the release of Pokémon Sword and Shield, the first mainline releases to see a home console release. Again, Game Freak played it mostly safe, keeping the games fairly linear and following the established formula.

In 2022, we saw the release of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, a title that broke away from many of the conventions of the franchise. Released as a stand alone title, as opposed to the differing paired versions of the main series, Arceus took a lot of bold chances, giving players their first truly open world experience and drastically changing the battle system. For the first time, wild Pokémon could attack the player, and the lack of trainer battles meant the focus was more on surviving in the wild rather than trying to become a champion. Being set in the past, the title expanded on a ton of lore and offered a refreshingly new way to experience the series, and fans and critics praised its innovation.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A acts as both a sequel to Arceus in terms of gameplay while also serving as a sequel to 2013's Pokémon X and Y in terms of story. Unfortunately, it fails on both fronts, seemingly missing the mark on what made either title special. We begin the game with our character arriving in the city of Lumiose in the Kalos region. As the largest city in the region, it's very much modeled after the real world Paris, France. In X and Y, the location served as both a central hub that the player visits frequently, as well as the location of the fifth gym. It's also home to many boutiques that the player can use to customize their character. In Legends: Z-A, it serves as literally the entirety of the explorable map, and while it has been expanded in the time since X and Y, it feels far more hollow than it did previously.

As we arrive in the city, we have our bag stolen by a trainer's Pancham as we get accosted by either Taunie or Urbain depending upon the player's chosen gender. Seemingly having lived in the Pokémon world without having any Pokémon of our own, we're given the choice of either a Totodile, a Chikorita, or a Tepig to use in order to get our bag back. Afterwards, we get to keep the chosen Pokémon and are invited to stay at Hotel Z, the establishment that Taunie/ Urbain works for and is desperately trying to promote. Here, we meet the absolute giant of a man known as AZ along with the members of Team MZ, a group with an ill defined goal that we are forced into.

The game is split into two primary sections. During the day, we're encouraged to explore the city, taking on sidequests and visiting special areas known as Wild Zones, which are portions of the city sectioned off so that wild Pokémon can roam freely. As we progress through the game, more and more of these areas become available and they serve as the only place for us to catch new Pokémon. Larger, more aggressive versions of Pokémon, known as Alphas, make a return from Legends: Arceus, though the inclusion here makes the entire conceit of inviting wild Pokémon to live in the city that much more baffling. It seems dumb enough to allow wild animals with extraordinary powers to just have large patches of the city, but the stronger, more aggressive ones make it almost certain that people are going to get hurt or die, but the game never bothers to explain why this is okay.

At night, portions of the city get blocked off so that trainers can participate in the Z-A Battle Royale, a city wide contest in which trainers fight to reach A rank with the ultimate goal of being granted a "wish". I say "wish" because the prize can supposedly be anything as long as Quasartico Inc, the company sponsoring the contest, can actually make it happen. We start at the bottom, in Z rank, battling to gain points that allow us to have a promotion match. Initially, this seemed like it could make for an interesting way to progress, and the idea of climbing the ranks slowly had its own novel appeal. Just as I was looking forward to the steady ascension through the ranks, the game decides to arbitrarily bump us up over a dozen ranks. What was even the point? The game doesn't bother to elaborate.

In addition to the day and night split, we also get tasked with taking down groups of rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon. Mega Evolution, a mechanic introduced in X and Y, is easily one of the most requested features that players have wanted to see return. Mega Evolution is the process in which certain Pokémon, holding the correct Mega Stone, can temporarily evolve in battle, granting them increased stats, new typings, and new abilities that are sometimes flat out broken. Legends: Z-A, taking a cue from Arceus, does not feature abilities, meaning that certain Mega Evolutions lose their appeal. In addition to featuring almost all previous Mega Evolutions, introduces a bevy of new ones, the majority of which include our starter choices and Pokémon from the fifth generation of games, which happen to be the next ones in line for remakes. At best, this helps Pokémon that are otherwise lacking in one way or another see new life in the competitive scene. At worst, it comes off as a blatant way to promote the inevitable gen five remakes, making the whole game feel like an extended promotion for games that haven't even been announced.

Focusing solely on the Pokémon, almost all of the new Megas are well thought out progressions of their line's themes and motifs. Few come off as lazy or pandering, and I greatly enjoyed seeing otherwise forgettable Pokémon become more viable. There are a few that are hit or miss, Mega Starmie being one of the biggest examples, but on the whole it was fun to see and use the new forms. I also enjoyed the normalization of the mechanic in the game world, with every major NPC utilizing a Mega on their teams. The only real issue I have is, as stated, the lack of abilities, which leads into my larger problem. The battle system, as presented, just doesn't feel right. Fighting against the rogue Megas feels more like a war of attrition, as it seems stats play little role in the outcome as you have to chip away at their artificially boosted health. In trainer battles, the fighting is laughably short and seems to rely more on the speed of the move than the speed of the Pokémon using it. Battles, which are one of the primary tent poles of the series, feel bad.

I think, overall, the battle system pretty much encapsulates my feelings on the game. While it looks and seems like what I know and love on the surface, there's not enough underneath, and it ultimately feels limp and lifeless. The story, while relying heavily on the events of X and Y, does little to build upon what came before outside of a handful of returning characters that, frankly, don't even seem to match who they were before. Having the entire game take place one large city that you're free to explore sounds novel and exciting, but you quickly realize how hollow the world feels, which is exasperated by the simple fact that you can't go into the majority of the buildings. The ones you can go in are either empty or serve only to advance the plot. The cast of characters, while sometimes fun, seem to exist only to show off new Mega Pokémon, and have paper thin personalities.

I love the Pokémon series, and often find myself defending the games from exceedingly valid criticisms. When people complain about the lack of voice acting, which is odd to see in a major console release, I tend to chalk it up to the cost of recording in the myriad of languages the games release in, while also conceding that voice acting would do little to elevate the experience. Legends: Z-A presents the hardest case for me to defend, as it bucks enough traditions that the ones it follows seem to only hinder the experience. When the only thing I seem to like is some of the character designs, and everything else feels hollow and devoid of life, then I think it's time to either reevaluate the profitable formula or to take the time to truly innovate it. As neither seems likely, it seems as though the Pokémon franchise, much like Legends: Z-A itself, has become a hollow shell of what it once was.