Published 07/03/2026

Pokemon Legends: Z/A

Pokemon is the biggest franchise on earth, and that’s due to the massive amount of spin-off material it’s spawned in its wake. The anime, plushes, accessories, card games… but the franchise’s bedrock will always be its video games. New games are an event, and the hype behind Legends Z/A felt like the biggest in half a decade. Did it live up to those promises?… ehhhhh.

Legends Z/A is a game of blinding highs and frustrating lows; its fundamental gameplay additions, its retooled battle system are mostly fantastic, and the return of Mega Pokemon to prominence is a long time coming. As a Pokemon game, it’s great - but it suffers from a lack of ambition, a restrained take on an open-setting, and a laughably low level of difficulty that hamstrings its genuinely delight of a battle system. It’s a game that frequently feels like it just happens to be developed by its nemesis, choked by a lack of scope, of a lack of funding, and by far too much untapped potential. Z/A had the potential to be a legendary addition to Pokemon - but for now, it’s just another decent title, no more, no less, albeit with a promise of what greatness could follow.

Legends Z/A is, as the name would imply, is specifically a successor to Legends: Arceus, a game which encouraged a pseudo-open world approach to Pokemon, with wide vistas to explore and a heavy focus on catching hundreds upon hundreds of Pokemon to complete bespoke Pokedex tasks. Z/A, on the other hand, is a much more restrained title; taking place entirely within the bounds of one, albeit pretty large, city, Z/A is a game about Lumiose City, and the people and Pokemon who inhabit it. To that, it feels like a largely more personal tale, even if it touches on many of the story beats well-travelled by the Pokemon franchise. Menacing legendary Pokemon, boss fights against trainers that might as well be Gym Leaders, an evil team, late-game insanity, it’s all here!

The Joy of Battling

Probably the biggest innovation brought to Z/A is that of the new battle system. Rather than the turn-based affairs that have been endemic to Pokemon for the better part of three decades, Z/A puts the player into a real-time, almost action-RPG affair. You can freely move during battle, and generally where you walk, your Pokemon will follow. You’ve still got the basic set of four moves, but how you engage with them has further changed. Each move has a different cooldown timer associated with it, typically associated with how powerful it is, in addition to a built-in global cooldown most moves lock in.

It leads to the pace of battles hitting the perfect middle ground between the turn-based format of before and a true real-time engagement like… I dunno, Dark Souls or something. A lot of status elements have been tweaked here and there, as they wouldn’t really work in a real-time environment; for example, Paralyze and Sleep slow your Pokemon down and raise the cooldown time of your moves, rather than completely disable you, which makes total sense. The idea of being totally unable to defend against incoming attacks, especially online where you can’t use items, would be insanely broken, so the tweaks make sense. I’ve heard some players say that the changes are too drastic, too fast, but I couldn’t disagree more. The new battle system feels like a natural progression of the turn-based encounters of what’s come before, and any teething issues are fairly ancillary. I’m not totally sold on everything Z/A is selling, but I’m very excited for how the battles in the next Legends game could play.

The timer cooldowns, coupled with the inability to issue commands whilst your Pokemon is attacking or performing a move, really just makes Z/A’s battle system feel like a sped-up, more reactive version of what we’re used to. Honestly, I’d say that I feel the battle system justifies itself just with how Protect works now; it almost feels like a required addition to any moveset because it functions more or less like a goddamn parry! Shrugging off most of the damage from a goddamn Blast Burn is incredible. But yeah, I love the battle system; Z/A’s battles feels the closest they’ve ever gotten to replicating the way battles play out in the anime, something which was kind of a pipe dream to me back when I was first playing Pokemon Crystal.

With the game’s greater and redefined focus on battling, the central gameplay loop of the title is the titular Z-A Royale, a battle tournament that activates every night in the city. Its concept is simple as it could be - battle as many trainers as you can to wrack up reward points for money and progression in the game’s plot. These Battle Zones are open-air arenas, and much like old games, if you meet eyes with an opponent, it’ll kick into a battle. But this time, you can get the jum on your foes! Since you can have you Pokemon out at any time, enemy Trainers will also be strolling about Battle Zones with their own. So, you can just point your ‘Mon at an enemy ‘Mon, and get a sneak attack before the proper attack begins! Of course, the opposite applies, too; if you get caught off guard, you’ll be the one taking an early hit. But why are you doing all this? Well, during the story, earning enough Tickets via the Royale will earn you a title shot at raising your rank if you can defeat a more bespoke, frequently plot-relevant Trainer in a proper showdown that’ll continue the main story.

Overall, I like the Battle Royale. I was 100% more interested in exploring Lumiose and engaging in the story and little adventures present throughout the city, but I think the Royale marries the traditional Pokemon battling experience with the new battle system perfectly. Plus, being able to burn through these sections in a high-pace, burst-like format made it way more palatable than it otherwise could be. Thankfully there are still plenty of traditional, non-gimmaciked battles in the game, too, and I think they’re generally a bit better designed, but for the most part? It’s a great way to change up how Pokemon is played.

A Fifteen-Minute City

In some ways, Z/A’s design philosophy feels like the opposite of its direct predecessor, Legends Arceus. Arceus allows the player to wander vast, untamed, and somewhat empty vistas in their hunt to catch ‘em all, but Z/A opts to place the entirety of the game within a single, densely populated city. I, along with many other players, were *extremely* skeptical at this idea, and I don’t think they quite achieved the goal they were aiming for. Whilst the focus on the city creates a more personable, reactive, and ‘homely’ vibe to the story, actually playing around in it is another discussion altogether.

I don’t hate Lumiose City as a setting, but whilst it’s denser than the various locales, it just lacks a sense of character or visual diversity that’s present in every other Pokemon game. It’s just… a city. A city with a really decent sense of verticality, and a lot of nooks and crannies to poke you and your Pokemon’s heads in, but ultimately, it’s still just a city. No Pokemon game before this has had this lack of visual diversity - hell, even the Gen 1 games had the different vibes provided by big cities, little townships, or even just Lavender Town alone.

The closest you get to something a bit more varied than endless streets and rooftops are the occasional forays into the sewer system or a long-forgotten base, but these are still extensions of the same theme. A theme which is fine, but something that could’ve used something to spice something up. It wouldn’t surprise me if GameFreak intended the Wild Zones to be this spice to brighten Legends Z/A’s bland feel, but…

The Wild Zones - the fenced off locations dotted about Luminose city that serve as the main source of Pokemon to catch - don’t fare much better. Some of them have a little bit of personality, but that has little to do with the zones themselves, and the Pokemon within them. Seriously, that one with the pride of Pyroar will live on in my nightmares. But once you’ve seen one of them, you’ve really seen them all, and that’s a shame. After all, they’re the main way you’re actually catching Pokemon; why are they the least interesting places to explore in the game? At the very least, seeing how they begin to overtake Lumiose city is interesting, but it’s essentially just set dressing. Give me something really weird! Build a castle-like lair for Dragon-Types, or something soft and pastel-looking for Fairy types. Little alterations to the city is cool, but something completely different to the monotone look of Lumiose would be amazing.

I also feel that the limited number of Wild Zones - and the fact most Pokemon are sequestered within them - has greatly restricted the amount of Pokemon present in Z/A. Despite the intervening years, Z/A has somehow less Pokemon than Arceus. The return of Mega Pokemon does beef up that number, but since they’re temporarily power-ups, albeit with new designs, I don’t really count them. 230 Pokemon isn’t an atrocious number, but the entire point of limiting the Pokedex back in Sword and Shield was ostensibly more attention to making each Pokemon in the new era of games. But still… having less than a previous title in its direct lineage, like Arceus, just feels wrong.

A Legendary Story, From (Mostly!) A to Z

Thankfully, many of the design faults present in Z/A are helped by the surprisingly decent story, and genuinely fantastic characters, the latter of which I’d rank as some of the best in the franchise overall. After a genuinely dreadful early couple of hours or so that is pretty on-rails, the game instantly begins to open up and the central loop of the game - the titular Z/A Royale - becomes accessible, which sends the main plot rolling. Seriously, these opening hours are AWFUL. Just constant cutscenes, explanations, on-rails ‘gameplay’ that does nothing to excite you about the setting. Thankfully, the game’s quality skyrockets after an hour or two, but the way they frontload stuff is really, really awful. Lumiose City is holding the Royale to find the most powerful Trainer, and you being The Protagonist instantly becomes embroiled within it. Each rank of the Z-A Royale - well, after a certain point - is essentially its own little story arc focusing on a specific high-level trainer, and getting to spend a good hour or so with each of them is great.

The cast of rivals you’ll be dealing with are functionally the same as Gym Leaders in the old-style of games, but they are as varied in personality as they are in design. In particular, high marks are deserved towards the subsections of the game dedicated to Corbeau and Jacinthe, two massive standout characters in the game who easily rank as some of my favourites in the series, *especially* Corbeau. We stan a short king. The lunatics that make up much of the Z-A Royale Trainers are balanced out by the surprisingly normal, relatable members of Hotel Z, characters who both fill the role of rival and friends.

Urbain/Taunie (depending on your chosen character’s gender), Lida and Naveen just feel like a cool couple of friends you can find anywhere, all with their own little weird quirks and fixations - Naveen’s deep affection and admiration for the streamer Canari is particularly adorable, and probably has one of the best designs in the entire game - no, scratch that, the entire series. In fact, in contrast the somewhat boring look of the world, the character design work is top-notch, and I think beyond just having good, eye-catching designs, balancing the more wackier, over-the-top designs like Ivor and Lebanne with slightly more… realistic isn’t the word, but reasonably ‘everyday’ outfits you’d maybe see out in the real world like Jacinthe and Lida.

As an aside, another thing Z/A utterly nails is player expression in the form of character customization. Whilst you very much start as John/Jane Pokemon Z/A, the sheer amount of hairstyles, outfits combinations and other little customizations means you can pretty much make a character that is utterly unique to everyone around you. Plus, with the outfits being completely gender neutral, you’re not limited to specific outfit styles. This does lead to a few styles being a little less interesting - no skirts, just skorts - but it’s not a awful issue for how much freedom it gives the player.

Z/A’s story has quite a few plot threads to juggle; you’ve got the Z/A Royale, and the constant need to raise your rank and deal with each little mini-arc featuring the various Trainers you’ll be dealing with throughout. Then there’s the main goal of the core cast, who are assisting the administration of Lumiose City with the outbreak of Rogue Mega Pokemon, and the general plague of Mega pokemon descending upon the city. Lastly, there are the questions presented by the presence of A-Z, the elderly, gigantic owner of Hotel Z, the mysterious, amnesiac L, and the Legendary pokemon Zygarde. I’d never claim that the storytelling in Z/A is particularly complex, but mostly due to its incredibly likeable characters, and intriguing, mysterious plot threads, coupled with the sheer variety of tasks and characters you’ll be encountering. Its first impression is truly abysmal, but if you can push through, you’ll be met with easily one of the most engaging Pokemon stories in a decade.

Return of the Mega Kings

But of course, one of the big selling points that underpins Z/A in its entirety is the return of probably the most popular ‘gimmick’ Game Freak ever produced; the highly-anticipated return of Mega Evolutions. Personally, I’m a huge mark for Mega Evolution; the concept of a new evolution for otherwise full-evolved Pokemon has always delighted me (which extended to even back in Gen 4 when a lot of single-stage Pokemon got new forms), and the crazier, over-the-top designs for Megas have always been a hit for me. I also feel their incorporation into the new, faster battle system of Z/A works swimmingly; as you deal and take damage, a Mega Gauge bar will slowly fill, and when full will allow you to Mega Evolve. Better yet, if you’re in a place like the Z-A Royale, your Pokemon will remain in Mega Form until the gauge has run out, allowing you to annihilate a ton of opponents in quick succession. Outside of the Rogue Mega Battles, Mega Pokemon don’t function that differently to their non-Mega brethren - they just hit way, way harder, and are the only things really a match for opponent Megas.

And, for the most part, I think Game Freak really have nailed the newest suite of Mega Evolution Pokemon. Some breathe new life into Pokemon I was never huge on, like the brilliantly devious Mega Malamar, the eldritch-esque Dragalge, or the totally-not Rey Mysterio ripoff Mega Hawlucha. Even the weaker ones have some appeal to me - Mega Clefable looks utterly ridiculous, and I’ll fight to defend Mega Skarmory’s big-ass feet to the grave. Even as someone who spoiled himself on the entire suite of Megas prior to the game’s release, the way it slowly drip-feeds out the new roster is perpetually exciting. It became a bit of a game for myself, guessing which trainer would have which Mega - normally not a hard guess, since trainers LOVE coordinating their fit with their ace, but still, it’s fun.

The other way you’ll be dealing with the Mega Pokemon are in the battles with the Rogue Mega Pokemon, special real-time battles that take place in little bespoke arenas. For the most part, the way you engage and battle with the Rogue Mega Pokemon essentially make up the ‘boss fights’ of the game and are just an expanded version of the more ‘free-form’ battles you’ve been doing up until this point. The best way I can describe the feeling I had fighting the Rogue Mega Pokemon was almost like an MMO raid boss; you’ll be chipping away at their genuinely huge health pools, dodging wide-ranging attacks

But much like the Wild Zones, the Rogue Mega battles are all roughly approached the same way. Use a Mega Pokemon that’s strong against them, do your best to avoid attacks, stun them when gold, recall your Pokemon during wide-scale attacks. There are a handful that feature more bespoke, in-depth mechanics; Mega Venasaur, for an example, has additional plants that need to be destroyed, lest they heal it for large health. But they really do just feel like chip-and-dodge encounters that blend together. To say I hate them would be a bit strong, but since you typically encounter them in sets during the story, I dreaded them because of their repetition. At least you get the Mega Stone for the respective mega after the encounter.

Simple Wanderlust

There’s a smattering of other pursuits for you to follow within Lumiose City; throughout, you’ll be given tasks from a familiar scientist named Mable who’ll ask you to perform such actions as ‘catch x amount of a type of Pokemon’, ‘find all the Pokemon in a specific zone’, or ‘smash x amount of Mega Crystals’. They’re pretty boring and forgettable, but you’ll be completing most of them as you just naturally play the game, and at least you get some pretty nice TMs and other goodies along the way. I much prefer the Pokedex Tasks for each Pokemon that was central to Legends: Arceus, but it wouldn’t work in Z-A’s setting.

Bespoke, narrative side quests also make a return, though their implementation is a little more mixed. The side quests are a beneficiary - or maybe a victim - of the game getting better the more time you throw into it. Early side quests generally lay on the more simplistic side, feeling more like extant tutorials than anything else. Trainers that’ll have a team built around a gimmick, like status effects, item usage, or something like that, but the fact that many of these early battles are so easy, you normally take them out before you learn anything. But later on, I was doing far more charming tasks, like playing ‘Follow The Leader’ with a troop of Trubbish, hunting down Bug Pokemon in a museum, or assisting a deranged artist in finding her passion. Even special gimmick fights - like using only a Pupitar to beat a Honedge to sharpen its edge - begin to fill the norm, and these are some of them are the most delightful quests in the game.

Plus, upon completing the main story, there is enough of a postgame and extra tasks to engage in that you can get a pretty decent amount of mileage out of Z/A - finding all the Pokemon, doing the research tasks, side quests, collecting Mega Stones. Hell, if you’re a freak (non-prejorative) who loves shiny hunting, it’s almost never been easier or as satisfying as in Z/A. I… spent twenty hours trying to get an Espurr. It was… horrendous. But I digress. It might not all be to my taste, but it’s a game filled to the brim with stuff to do, and whilst i’ll never be happier with a bigger price tag for video games, Legends Z/A does it’s best to justify it’s beefier cost of entry.

I just wish the level curve, and the overall difficulty, was a little bit more well-tuned. Even if you play the game like I do, ONLY engaging in the Royale when required, I was still distinctly more powerful than my opponents until the final few hours of the game. And whilst I didn’t lose these fights, the fact I had to think more deeply on what Pokemon I should be using, if Mega Evolution is a good idea, and actually utilizing items made them that much more exciting. Imagine if the rest of the game had this kind of a difficulty curve? I know, ultimately, that Pokemon being the biggest game on earth needs it to have a fair chill difficulty curve, but with the drama and atmosphere of these final battles being reflected in their difficulty, it makes me bemoan the fact the rest of the game isn’t quite on that level. The new battle systems are so, so fun - the challenge just doesn’t let me actually push it to it’s limit! If a facility like the Battle Frontier, Battle Tower, or something that was truly ‘endgame’ like much of the GBA-DS era of Pokemon games had, maybe I’d be happier, but…

Pokemon and Gamefreak: A Contentious Relationship

Ultimately, I think my biggest issue with Legends Z/A is one that’s been repeated towards Pokemon for the better part of a decade now. Sure, this is all supplanted by the anime, the card game, the billion plushies and everything else, but Pokemon *is* the highest grossing franchise of all time. I know all that isn’t going to get pumped into the games, but the fact of the matter is Z/A doesn’t feel like a flagship entry in the world’s biggest franchise. The restrained, limited setting of Lumiose City; the relatively small selection of Pokemon present; the shortcuts taken in the city’s depiction; all of this culminates in something that just doesn’t feel like it’s living up to its potential. I don’t even mind that Lumiose City makes up the entirety of the game, but Game Freak could’ve made its districts more unique, its landmarks and buildings more well-defined and designed. We could have had indoor, underground, sky-high Wild Zones, more dungeon-style areas, more than… just a city. It’s not bad, not remotely… but with the ways RPGs have grown in the last decade, Pokemon seems to be coasting along on just being ‘fine’.

I love Pokemon; nothing hits the way it does, but GameFreak really needs to invest in the games a little bit more. We know that the games are relatively cheap to make and are developed on a shorter timescale to other games, but with the franchise now exclusively on home consoles, the cracks are really beginning to show. Even if all their recent games - particularly Arceus, Scarlet & Violet, and Z/A - all have glowingly fantastic high points, they sit on a brittle foundation that crumbles a little bit more each title. I know Pokemon can never die, but I feel the day a truly awful, mainlittle title comes out is coming near, and I pray GameFreak is ready.

Pokemon Legends: Z/A really feels like the tale of two games - and not the normal dual-release we’re used to! On one hand, it iterates on the rock-solid Pokemon formula, with a much more dynamic take on battling that feels like a wonderful evolution of what came before. And with a damn good narrative to go with it, there is a really solid core that helps Z/A stick out. I just wish it had a little bit *more* baked into it. It’s rail-roaded opening hours and treatment of the player as a newbie is beyond frustrating, and it just feels like a far more limited game than it should be. At least the return of Mega Pokemon got all the love it deserved. Overall, Legends Z/A has it’s place in Pokemon’s pantheon, but it presents the series as being on a knife’s edge.