Pokemon Legends: ZA Revisited

At this point I have beaten the main storyline of Pokemon Legends: ZA, and have gotten through at least 8 missions of the Hyperspace DLC. Suffice to say I have seen most of what this game has to offer, and find myself in an odd position with this game. The battling mechanics have been stale since my last review. It’s infuriating to switch a mon in that is super effective against my target just in time for the NPC to use their coverage move which wind up started before I was switching out my other mon that resisted it. This combined with nearly every mon getting every coverage move under the sun makes for a very exhausting experience. The battle fields are already tight and cramped due to the city setting, and you find yourself disadvantaged by this most of the time. Coverage for a pokemon is a move that covers their weakness. For example Pyroar, a normal-fire type pokemon was given the move Earth Power via level up in this game. Ground is super effective against Rock which is super effective against Fire. Not only does this give Pyroar excellent coverage in it’s main attacking stat, special attack, their other primary weakness Fighting is covered but only by a physical move, Psychic Fangs taught via TM. This on top of the Mega evolution given to Pyroar makes it a top tier mon in my opinion but I’m not going to speak on the actual battle meta’s for online battling in ZA. I hear its Mega-Garchomp-Z or bust so I’ll probably hop on with my Ice types someday just to troll. This type of coverage is a nice thing to add but when every mon is capable of covering their weakness on their own it disincentivizes switching, which is core to the turn based battling system. This may just be growing pains of the live-action battling system but if every mon covers their weakness then it pushes the need for speed, and attacks even more leaving bulk builds to always be lacking. It also makes the mons not getting coverage cause there are still some out their *cough Glaceon cough see almost no use because they can’t compete with a mon that can slap down everything in its path. I’m a mixed battle type user, I like to have some bulk, a sweeper, a healer and so on in my competitive teams. This has never been a very viable strategy to win but it was what I liked. Now it just feels like you get the highest speed and attack stats you can find paired with the fastest moves that hit well, and that’s all you need. Yes I am crying that the pokemon battling system is far too simple and only encourages sweepers. Perhaps my years out of battling competitively have left me jaded and no longer with a good eye for metas but battling is the main component of pokemon. Being a lifetime player of twenty plus years should buy me a little credit.

To continue on, things that make it hard for me to recommend this game is the lack of activities you are able to do with your mons outside of battle. In Pokemon Sword & Shield you could camp with your mons, play fetch with them, pet them and make them curry. In Scarlet & Violet you could picnic with your mons, play glitch fetch with them, and make them sandwiches. In Legends: ZA you can sit on a bench with them, and take pictures if they happen into a cute pose on their own. They do run alongside you in battling and hunting wild pokemon very nicely looking but I was hoping for a bit more. We’re in a city full of cafes with outdoor tables, why couldn’t we eat at them there or have one of the many parks dedicated to relaxing with them. The theme of this game like many pokemon games is living in a world where pokemon and people can live side by side but I guess we can only do that by fighting each other constantly, honestly not too dissimilar to humanity on its own.

Every pokemon game has a grind but Legends: ZA starts making that grind grating towards the end of the story then dumps you into DLC that is so grindy you may as well be a Klinklang. In the main story you at least have some variety, the end ranks go in a cycle of beating 3 rouge mega-evolved pokemon, fuck you mega-Barbaracle, usually while dealing with whoever you’re going to be fighting for your next rank up match. This gives you enjoyable characters to hang around with, and an endless task list you must complete because the wrong grifter picked you up when you got off the train in Lumiose city. I said what I said fudge Urbain/Taunie you pointless grifter that does nothing but go off screen to “help” people then steal the climax from you to make everything worse for the last time. I like the other members of team MZ as they are trying as hard as you to make up for the incompetence of the self-appointed leader. They seem one-note at first but both Lida, and Naveen have more depth than I expected. They have more personality than the original team from Pokemon X and Y, at least the big boy and bowl cut boy. On top of that, each challenger you take on in the ZA royale is quirky and fun in my opinion. I ended up not hating the Fist of Justice as much when we were introduced to his ghost using sister. It’s cute to have siblings stick together even if one is rash and makes everything more difficult but the sister is no better with how many times you have to defeat her in battle throughout the game. You can always expect to be roped into a battle if you see the people you previously defeated again, and while some may find it fun I just find it tiring because I’ve already won the outcome won’t change just cause you’ve leveled up a little. 

The DLC has no loop, you get a little character scene and are then sent off to do another hyperspace survey again, and again and again. No variety other than after the 1st survey some hyperspace portals open up with battlezones. The DLC nearly broke me after the first hyperspace sidequest I hopped into was to fight two megas at the same time. This was only compounded when I finally reached the sidequest to get my Raichu mega-stones only to be met with fighting both megas at the same time. My grind to defeat the mega-Crabonimbables had already prepared me, and I didn’t have as hard a time with that sidequest. The mega-Crabonimbales fight made me so angry because it felt like the Pokemon Company was personally yelling at me for all the complaints that pokemon is too easy. A complaint which I’ve never voiced so they were like: “Okay you want hard here's two megas with some of the highest attack stats in the game with coverage moves and you can’t burn them or lower their stats.” I nearly screamed. I want to like the character moments but they are ruined by the dread of the upcoming hyperspace survey, and at this point in the DLC I just want to skip them to get to the survey so I can finally complete the DLC and hunt for my Frigibax.

The thing is after all this criticism I’m still playing the game, rather routinely at that. It makes me feel like while all of these criticisms are true, and some are even valid I still enjoy the game. I said I didn’t have any expectations going into this game but once I discovered what it had to offer I was sad it wasn’t everything that it could be. If I could just stop being so critical, and stop taking it so seriously I don’t think I’d have all these poor things to say about it. Pokemon games can always be better, and it does feel like there has been a quality drop since the transition to 3-D, and moving the games onto the consoles. I can say that because I still regularly play all the DS, and 3DS games. They legitimately have more to offer in terms of stories, mons and overall quality of life. Sword, Shield, Violet and Scarlet all felt extremely rushed and they came out so quickly next to each other. This is also true of X, Y, Sun and Moon but it doesn’t feel like such a quality drop off. It could be that making the games for a handheld console was easier, and there were less expectations because it was on a handheld. It could also just be franchise fatigue, we are getting to nearly 30 years of pokemon, and the national dex is well over a thousand at this point. I never subscribed to the catch them all attitude, I used the ones I like when I want. Go Ice types! So I’m not disappointed when each game doesn’t have every single mon because that’s ridiculous. I’m truly astounded by how many mons ended up in ZA as well as how many more megas we got, and I love a lot of them. All I can say is what I think should be common knowledge, don’t go into Legends: ZA expecting a life changing experience. It’s a lighthearted game not intended to be taken very seriously, and if you're smart about it you can easily grind an unstoppable team to level 100 before you even complete the main story. The characters, and story have the normal failings of a pokemon story, and your character doesn’t have choice because you’re a pokemon protagonist you chose to be on this railcar so either ride it to its conclusion or get off.

If you want to support the blog go here: https://www.sodafountaingabsessions.com/contact-2