Pokémon Legends: Z-A Review – A Modernized Evolution

Pokemon Legends ZA review

Pokémon Legends ZA aims to attract players with its new real-time battle system and mega evolutions. Can it deliver? We've played it on Switch 2, let's dive in!

ZA takes place in Lumiose, a city shaped like a circle. The main goal is to climb the career ladder in the ZA tournament. You start at Rank Z and must work your way up to Rank A. At each rank, you will challenge trainers in Warzones to earn the Challenger Ticket, and then you will have to face a stronger opponent in a Rank Up match. So, unlike the typical gym and badge-based progression system, this time it's about increasing your ranking in the tournament.

Welcome to the tournament

There is a lot of story content between tournaments. Among other things, you will be able to experience Mega Evolutions, one of the most announced features of the game. Pokemon that have reached the final stage of evolution can “Mega Evolve” if you have their Mega Stone, which makes them stronger and gives them a cool new look.

The game runs very smoothly on Switch 2 and I didn't notice any performance issues or framerate drops. It took me a good 30 hours to complete the story. This time the story is much more linear. Most of the game's time is spent on dialogue, which at some points seems too much compared to the time spent in battles. The gameplay loop can get repetitive pretty quickly because it's always the same process of increasing your rank, and the entire game takes place in the same small town from start to finish. So after the first few hours there isn't much new to learn.

Mega evolution of the combat system

ZA's biggest update is the modernized combat system. It is a more interactive real-time system, no longer based on rounds. Trainers and Pokémon walk together and participate in battles at the same time. Attack moves have no limit on the number of times they can be used, but instead have a short cooldown of a few seconds. This allows you to build chains of combos by using attacks in such an order that by the time you get through all of your moves, the first one will have cooled down. The trainer can now take damage too, especially when fighting wild Pokemon, and if you hit your character too many times, you'll faint and lose the fight. Then you can either immediately outplay your opponent, or wake up in the nearest Poké Center.

Your Pokémon will stay close to you in battle, and you can even use the environment to your advantage. For example, some attacks don't reach very far, and if you have a flying Pokémon and are hiding behind an obstacle, you can use it as cover while using long-range attacks from a safe distance. This doesn't always work against trainers, but is useful when battling wild Pokemon.

During battles with Mega Evolved Pokemon, they sometimes attack you, and to do this you need to dodge the attacks in time. You can even unsummon your Pokémon, which is useful when your opponent's Pokémon is about to launch a powerful attack. This allows some creative freedom in combat tactics. This new battle system makes trainer-Pokémon interactions even more vibrant and feels more interactive than ever before. Battles with powerful wild Pokémon are more like boss battles and require not only controlling your Pokémon, but also dodging attacks with your trainer. If you land a hit, the screen will turn red, which means your trainer is low on health. If you don't take a hit for a while, your trainer's health is automatically restored and you can take another hit.

However, for the most part I found the game too easy. The regular trainers you compete with for challenger tickets pose no threat. They only have 1-3 Pokemon against your full team of 6, plus you can use Mega Evolutions which defeat them in one hit. You can even sneak up on trainers from behind and land a surprise hit, almost guaranteeing an instant victory over their first Pokemon. The rank up matches are a little more difficult, but I completed them all on the first try. You can use your Mega Evolution right at the start of battle, while opponents tend to save it for their last Pokémon. Additionally, you can Mega Evolve multiple Pokemon during a match, but your opponents don't. Your Mega Evolutions have a timer: once it expires or your Pokémon is defeated, you'll need to strike to charge another Mega Evolution. Then you can trigger Mega Evolution again in the same match. This makes Mega Evolution too difficult for you.

The luminous city needs you

Now let's talk about the game world. Lumiose City is the smallest map I remember from a Pokemon game. The entire game takes place inside the city; outside the city there are no “wild” areas to explore. The small size of the map is compensated by the fact that you can climb onto most buildings. The game has a more vertical level design, so there's still plenty to explore.

Pokémon are found in so-called “Wild Zones”, which are marked in Lumiose City as you progress through the story. Each Wild Zone is home to a variety of Pokémon for you to catch, with some only appearing during the day or night. The new catching system is now more interactive, allowing you to sneak up on Pokémon and immediately throw a Pokeball before fighting them. It will show the chance of catching a Pokeball before you throw a Pokeball so you know if it's worth trying.

The game also introduces other quality of life improvements: defeated Pokémon are left incapacitated for a short time and have a higher chance of being caught using a Poke Ball. Attack moves no longer have a usage limit, replaced by a cooldown timer for each attack (usually 6-12 seconds). When learning a new attack move, old moves are no longer lost – any move your Pokémon discovers remains in its move pool and can be relearned for free at any time. You can now manually select in your Pokebox whether you want to trigger Pokemon evolution or not. Pokemon no longer evolve automatically; you decide whether to evolve them or not after reaching the required level.

It is also worth noting that players can enjoy the online game over the Internet as well as on nearby local consoles. Private matches can be created with friends. Despite all the gameplay changes, it does feel like a substantially new Pokemon experience, but it's held back by a repetitive story with too little open world exploration.

A new day for Pokemon

Pokémon Legends: ZA isn't afraid to make much-needed upgrades. However, the small world and repetitive gameplay make it not the most brilliant of Pokemon games.

***Review copy of the game provided by the publisher***