Pokémon Legends: Z-A - Review

Pokémon is back once again with a new entry in the Legends style and series. Pokémon Legends: Z-A takes us back to Kalos, where Mega Evolution was introduced and places us in the middle of the aftermath of AZ and Lysandre’s actions, in the French influenced Lumiose City.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A is an interesting addition to the series. Taking us back to Kalos, it puts Mega Evolution back in the forefront once again. Z-A takes place five years after the events of Pokemon X and Y and brings back a couple of names that will be familiar to players, as well as a brand-new ensemble to become friends with and experience the wonderful world of Pokemon with. Unlike Legends: Arceus however, Z-A takes place in a single location, Lumiose City, rather than the sprawling world. Putting the focus on the battles more than the open world exploration and discovery of Pokémon .

Pokémon Legends: Z-A features a revamped and somewhat strategic combat system. Rather than simply following the turn-based approach of almost all previous entries, Z-A has a more action style combat system. During battles, while locked onto an opponent Pokémon, each letter button (A, B, X and Y) is linked to one of four abilities. Status ailments all work a little different in Z-A as well, affecting moreso how your Pokémon behave in battle, moreso than the traditional. Sleep in particular has had a dramatic change, slowing the cooldown time on your abilities by a dramatic amount, rather than making your Pokémon unable to act.

The revamped combat system was a good focus area for Z-A as the battles are what you’ll spend probably close to half your playtime doing. Almost more than any other entry in the series, Z-A has you constantly battling other trainers, leader-esque opponents and a plethora of Pokémon in the different Wild Zones. Unfortunately, Z-A probably leans a little bit too far into the battles and suffers as a result. The trainer battles are boring, repetitive and unfortunately necessary for progress through the story.

Through the Z-A Royale system, you’ll need to be doing many battles to rank up through the game. The Z-A Royale may in fact be the most boring, tedious and grindy system introduced as the story line driving point. Thankfully you won’t have to rank up all the way from Z to A, but you do go through enough rank ups through the game, that when you unlock the ‘infinite Z-A Royale’ at the end of the game, the idea of doing any more of it is more upsetting than it is relieving.

This is a recurring issue through Pokémon Legends: Z-A. New systems are fun, well thought out and interesting; but the world around them and the things that integrate them are bafflingly grind heavy and boring. Couple this with an incredibly reduced world to explore, and one of the smallest Pokédexs in the series, with probably the most lacklustre selection of Pokémon almost ever. The new Mega Evolutions and the way the system is implemented is great, and finding the Pokémon to use all the new Megas is great, but when you’ve only got 230 Pokémon overall to pick from, and 18 of them are starters, and another 9 are Eeveelutions (which probably could have done with some Mega Evolution love themselves), being left with only 200 other Pokémon after you exclude Zygarde, Xerneas and Yveltal, of a potential 1025, it’s a little disappointing.

The lack of Pokémon is definitely a result of choosing to keep the world completely contained to Lumiose City. A large enough city to run around and explore, with a fair bit of verticality, it is also the smallest feeling world that we’ve ever had in the Pokémon series. Even compared to that of first couple generations. A reduced number of Pokémon, with a mostly boring choice selection, where the battle system was revamped to be more interesting and engaging, is an almost baffling overall decision.

The research tasks introduced in the first Legends entry make a return here. As you complete more of the research tasks, you’ll rank up and unlock a range of different TMs, exp candies and a few different special items. The rewards are good, but the tasks themselves are repetitive and boring for the most part. The most egregious of which is catch an increasing number of different Pokémon types. There is little reward for this outside of the research task points, and with an eight-box limit, you’ll spend a lot of your time releasing the excess Pokémon you’ll end up having to catch without any other benefit for it. With so much focus put on improving other things, it’s wild that there is no real improvement on how these tasks work.

The story itself isn’t anything special by any means. Somewhat serious at times, it keeps that light-hearted Pokémon charm too. The choice to not have any voice acting at all for the game, sticks true to the series but is a really strange decision to be making in 2025. It isn’t a major point, but it does make the story and narrative a completely self-driven and emulated experience as a result. AZ and Lysandre make returns here, with a renewed Team Flare as well. There is an array of special characters you’ll encounter through the higher rank up battles in the Z-A Royale too. Canari feels incredibly lazy, being almost a copy paste of Iono from Scarlet and Violet. An electric type trainer who livestreams and is focused on social image moreso than battling. It’s not uncommon to see similar character types through the series, but it is disappointing that some of the cast here feels so shoehorned in.

Circling back on the story, it starts of somewhat slow. Towards the end it ramps up significantly and gets relatively serious. I won’t spoil too much here, but there is a big focus on Mega Evolution, and a mysterious unknown force called Mega Power that is causing Pokémon to Rogue Mega Evolve, as well as making more and more wild Pokémon flock into Lumiose city, making it necessary to contain them in an array of Wild Zones. There is an attempt to create a fear of the Pokémon here, while also pushing the idea of how to live in cohesion with them as well. The gathering Mega Power is a danger and it is up to you to try and stop the impending doom. If there wasn’t so much staggering of the story through the Z-A Royale system, the story would feel a little more cohesive than it does.

Where Z-A really excels however is in the Rogue Mega Evolution battles themselves. These are almost like the Totem Pokémon from Sun and Moon, with a completely unique boss battle with the different Mega Evolutions. By doing these battles you unlock the mega stones for that particular Pokémon, as well as get a good look and experience with both using Mega Evolution and Plus moves, as well as the expanded roster of Mega Evolutions introduced in Pokémon Legends: Z-A. These are easily the most interesting part of the game and putting them a little more in focus would have gone a long way with making the game overall more interesting.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A is a very unique entry into the series. Despite all the negatives, there is a lot to enjoy here as well. The upside to the reduced amount of Pokémon, Z-A is the first game where I’ve successfully completed the Pokédex and captured all 230 Pokemon on offer. Balancing your team around the poor overall selection can be fun in its own right, and outside of the grindy and repetitive nature of the Z-A Royale, the battles and the new combat system are actually done really well and for the most part fun to engage with. A solid forty-hour adventure, Pokémon Legends: Z-A sets up for a good future but is reduced in so many areas that it feels like it was a larger project that was reduced down and suffers boring systems filling the void as a result.

The Score

7.5

Review code provided by Nintendo

The Pros

Revamped Combat System is fun

New Mega Evolutions are pretty fun for the most part

Rogue Mega Evolutions are really well done

The Cons

Research tasks are bland and boring

Lumiose quickly becomes a small and bland place to run around

Z-A Royale is far more boring and grindy than it has any right to be