Pokemon games on the Nintendo Switch have been an interesting experience. Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee both looked and played great as a reimagining of Red/Blue, but they had a different capturing system meant to interest fans of the mobile game Pokemon Go. Now, Sword and Shield was a first attempt at open zone game design, but this didn’t really transform the experience, and online play would tank the frame rate when weather events were happening. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were riddled with bugs and glitches. Scarlet and Violet embraced open world gameplay and added a solid story and roster of monsters to the series but had performance that was so bad at times, that it ran the frame rate of Microsoft PowerPoint.
One of the biggest highlights of Pokemon in this generation was Pokemon Legends Arceus, which completely reimagined how the player interacted with the world of Pokemon by allowing players to sneak up on and catch Pokemon who were just minding their own business out in the world. More than that, however, the combat system was revamped, slightly, and players would have to learn how to dodge the attacks of wild Pokemon or they’d risk getting incapacitated before capturing their quarry. Legends Z-A is the latest Pokemon title to come out in the Legends series and incorporates real-time combat with cooldowns on moves to the exploration and capturing formula established in Legends Arceus. It is one of the finest collective packages that developer Game Freak has released in years.
Pokemon Legends Z-A opens with your customized character just arriving in Lumiose City. Almost immediately, you encounter your rival who requests your assistance in shooting a promotional video for the hotel they work at, but a sneaky Pancham steals your travel bag. Chasing down the thief functions as Legends Z-A’s tutorial, showing you how to explore and battle, and after just a couple hours of story beats, you’ll be thrust into the Z-A Royale, a Pokemon battling tournament being held to find the strongest Mega Evolution user in Lumiose.
Pokemon Legends Z-A returns to the Kalos region, but you’re not going to be visiting Geosenge Town or Snowbelle City this time. The entirety of Legends Z-A takes place entirely within the confines of Lumiose City, which has thankfully received a very expansive makeover compared to its appearance in Pokemon X and Y back in 2013. Pokemon no longer hide in the tall grass for you to find: As you progress, portions of the city will become Wild Zones for wild Pokemon, allowing you to catch critters to your heart’s content. You’ll also find Pokemon hanging from trees and perching atop lamp posts, even on top of the rooves of buildings! Legends Z-A shows a city that’s encouraging its citizens to live harmoniously with Pokemon. Just like in Legends Arceus, Z-A allows you to catch Pokemon in real time without even entering a battle, which is sure to be a hit with both children and adults who enjoy the Pokemon anime.
Sewers, alleys, rooftops, and even hidden laboratories all house Pokemon for you to catch and add to your team, and Game Freak even did us a favor and brought back one of their best battling gimmicks, Mega Evolution. In Legends Z-A, you have to fill up a meter to use Mega Evolution, though you can spend segments of the gauge to use powerful Plus Moves that hit as hard as a Mega evolved Pokemon. Unlike in the turn-based games, you can Mega Evolve as many times in a battle as you can fill up that meter, the sky’s the limit here.
Legends Z-A has also gone for a more real-time approach to combat too. You are no longer restricted to performing just one move and then waiting for your opponent, you can spam moves to overwhelm your opponents if that’s what you feel like doing. This required a complete redesign of a lot of core moves in Pokemon, as moves like Fly and Dig are now valuable in that they make your Pokemon invulnerable for a short period before they home in on their target, while moves like Hurricane are powerful but have such big tells that your opponents can just walk out of the area of effect with their Pokemon.
Moves like Protect and Detect, which would prevent you from taking damage in the turn-based games, function more like parries or dodges in Legends Z-A. Techniques like Aqua Jet, Dragon Rush, and Drill Run function like gap closers to get your physical attackers right in the thick of it with their target. Contact moves will generally move your Pokemon right up against their target, while long-range moves like Ice Beam or Power Gem will generally have your Pokemon retreat before trying to fire off a super effective laser beam. This switch-up to the combat is incredibly fun, and figuring out tech like switching a Pokemon out of an attack they’re 4x weak to or using Bounce to dodge moves that would otherwise seriously hurt makes you feel like you’ve outplayed your opponents on another level.
So, the combat has completely changed, and there’s no longer gym leaders either, since your goal is to reach the top of the Z-A Royale. To increase your rank, you need to wait until night falls in Lumiose (you can forward time by sitting on a bench), and you can enter specific areas of the city designated as battle zones for that night. You beat up a bunch of trainers in order to earn points and once you get enough, you’ll earn the right to take on your promotion match to reach your next rank. Periodically throughout the story, you’ll also be called upon to help quell some Pokemon that are going to Mega Evolve on their own too.
These Mega Evolution pacification missions play out a lot like the Frenzied Noble Pokemon from Legends Arceus. The wild Mega Pokemon will try attacking anyone and anything around it, which means you’re going to need to order your Pokemon to fight back and dodge incoming attacks. Just like with wild Pokemon, if you personally get hit too many times, you’ll black out and have to restart the encounter all over from the beginning. Dealing enough damage will cause them to drop Mega Energy you can use to allow your own Pokemon to launch a counterattack, though you can also use powered up Plus Moves to close out a fight if you need.
Ranking up in Legends Z-A isn’t super difficult, and almost all of your promotion matches are gated by story developments, so there were numerous times I had my promotion ticket but couldn’t use it for an hour or so since I had to finish up story events first. The story of Legends Z-A is mostly unobtrusive until you reach right around the end, where you’ll play a small dungeon that will make you pine for the days when Game Freak made dungeons sandwiched between two pretty large narrative dumps. The pacing is a little bit on the poor side, but this didn’t bother me since I was actually interested in seeing what happened next- I was one of those weirdos who had all but given up on seeing X and Y’s story finally finished since Pokemon Z was originally canceled back in the day.
Also, it’s worth noting: Legends Z-A does a great job of finishing the narrative that was started 12 years ago in Pokemon X and Y. There are many characters missing who are away from Lumiose doing other tasks, but if you ever thought that X and Y’s story was a missed opportunity, you might really enjoy what Legends Z-A has to offer you. Game Freak finally managed to put a bow on the tale of a giant seeking redemption from a genocide and a misanthrope who wanted to end the world. It’s still Pokemon storytelling, so it’s nothing robust and grandiose, but there was at least a little effort put into tying up events from a 12-year-old title, which was appreciated.
Of course, the Z-A Royale isn’t the only thing you’ll be concerned with while exploring Lumiose City. While you’re battling, collecting items, and catching Pokemon, you’ll also have research tasks from Mable to complete that will provide you with useful items such as TMs that teach your Pokemon new moves. Yes, the Mable who functions as the professor in Legends Z-A is the same scientist from Team Flare, the evil team from Pokemon X and Y. She’s on a short leash this time and promptly reins you in to help with her work- thankfully the rewards are great.
Legends Z-A features a fairly limited Pokedex this time around, only having around 231 Pokemon or so, but at least the quality of monsters at your disposal is quite reasonable. As Wild Zones take over different parts of Lumiose, you’ll see new Pokemon pop up that you can add to your team, though the quantity of creatures you can battle with may disappoint some. A few returning Pokemon have new Mega Evolutions, and there are nearly 120 side quests to complete that will give you valuable items like mints to change natures, and battle items that increase your damage or prevent you from fainting in one hit.
Doubtlessly, the choice to restrict the player to just Lumiose was made to make a more cohesive play experience, sure, but it also has the side benefit of dramatically improving the game’s optimization. If you played Scarlet and Violet and experienced hitching, low frame rate, crashes, and more, it’s pretty safe to say that Legends Z-A runs considerably better on all fronts on the original Nintendo Switch. On a Nintendo Switch 2, Legends Z-A didn’t even have hiccups that I could notice- the frame rate and load times were all well above board. So, if Scarlet’s performance issues spooked you, don’t worry: Legends Z-A runs competently, though you may notice the draw distance is a little on the short side in certain parts of Lumiose.
The visuals of Legends Z-A are mostly what you’d expect from a modern 3D Pokemon title, with simple geometry for the environments and bright, colorful character models and textures for all of the little creatures that litter Lumiose City. The outer walls of Lumiose City, for example, are just a flat, repeating texture wrapping around the whole metro area. It’s safe to say that Pokemon titles aren’t ever going to wow you with their graphical fidelity, but Legends Z-A runs well and has an absolutely stellar soundtrack that fits right in along the best in the series. Due to the fact that there are no gym leaders in the Z-A Royale, after a certain point in the story ranked trainers will get their own distinct battle themes that range a gamut of genres, with a personal favorite being the electro-swing theme of a certain battle-freak socialite.
Overall, Legends Z-A is Game Freak trying something new with a real-time combat system that completely changes up the formula. Even online battling has been transformed, becoming a 4-player free-for-all that offers a completely different experience. Of course, this is likely a one-off type of battling system, but Legends Z-A is very refreshing and runs so much better than some other Pokemon titles on the Nintendo Switch that this is an easy recommendation for those who like the series.