Pokémon Legends ZA, an Unfortunate Post-Mortem

I didn’t lie when I said Legends ZA didn’t evoke any interest within me that would justify touching it, but turns out getting it as a surprise gift from friends and getting immediately excited to give it a go because of it will cause a bit of a change in plans. I’m now the proud owner of a copy of the latest not-so-mainline-but also yes Pokémon game, I truly am unable to run away from this franchise for long and my soul is bound to its existence from now till the end of times. Dear God…

I have some… feelings about the game that spawned the Legends subtitle . I wouldn’t call them strong, but also the numbers don’t lie, unlike me; I am unable to feel love or hate for it, I look back on the experience itself and cannot find any form of raw emotion that isn’t shiny Kricketot related, a game that felt similar to white noise at times that I’m utterly fascinated by. Legends Arceus is an anomaly in that you can get a look into the minds of thos at the helm and mines of the franchise unlike anything you could discern out of a main gen entry, a game made the more interesting by every single circumstance that surrounds it, intentional or not, than the actual game itself.

We now officially live in a post Legends Arceus world, and while I still maintain that its place in the series feels kind of unclear even now, playing ZA proves, if anything, that my best and worst suspicions are indeed true.

‘’Is ZA a better game?’’ is a question that makes me way too uncomfortable, because I don’t like answering shit I don’t know. The act of playing through Lumiose City, as different as it looks compared to Hisui’s biomes, feels like more of the same in practice. The Monster Hunter-esque division of main base and incursions have been replaced by something more similar to a reduced version of Paldea or Galar’s wild areas, a shift that seems big on paper, but when put alongside everything else, there are few things to actually note.

The playing experience of both games achieves the exact same zen state, and not the nirvana kind, not even ‘’the zone’’ kind, a very particular perennial shut down so unique to this pair that at this point I hope it becomes the series signature. Mission progression, both main and side-wise, are the exact same in essence, an uroboros of a loop and flips between the main objectives of fighting against the next strong trainer in line, always preceded by a fight against a slightly weaker trainer related to them and a short quest to gain the trust or whatever ‘cause these guys are such bad sports and terrible at organizing matches the Smash scene would quiver, followed by a string of fights against this game’s versions of noble Pokémon fights (except these are better and I’ll get to that later). Fill the space in between with resource collection and random item placements—except this time there’s no crafting and the game re-captures the economy and systems from main-line entries for a more stream-lined and admittedly less tedious loop— and and a half worth of side missions that act as incredibly nebulous and simplistic combat tutorials and another half that act as slight variations of fetch quests, both of which may be riddled with HORRIBLE loading times. This may sound equally familiar and monotonous to some.

Same shit, different day.


Ecosystems are way smaller than before but just as artificial, some mons burrowing underground or resting in packs at night being the most you’re getting in regards of actual naturalistic behavior. Wild mons are objectives than actual living creatures, which is a shame to see when there's clearly being an active effort to make your team have more on an impact on the overworld, even if’s just reduced to ‘’you can only hit this tree with a specific move type, except the tree is a ball of sludge or a rock’’, it’s something, and ironically enough, makes the scattered mons placed randomly on the roofs even more egregious than they normally would be.

That’s the game’s whole mantra, really: when it isn’t doing the same thing as Arceus, it feels like it’s taking one step forward somewhere, one step backwards elsewhere, maybe even tripping over itself somewhere in the middle. Ditching away the crafting system is a good idea, and I’m a fan of focusing more on the player’s own movement with bite sized pseudo-platforming sections and the introduction of the Rotom-float which is INCREDIBLY satisfying to use, but doing the former has the side effect of centering the whole collection cycle on the monetary economy, which is ABSURDLY easy to break in this and regresses back to the old Pokéball types, and the latter only reinforces how barren and repetitive Lumiose is, the lack of a more fun on-foot travel being the final nail on the coffin on a space with extremely simplified verticality, monotonous colors and a map that does everything but help. I mean it sincerely when I say that the most fun I had exploring the city was inside a gutter and a reduced version of a location from X&Y.

It’s not to say it’s bad, in fact it works pretty nicely as a platter to hold content, but that’s all Lumiose City is; for as much as the game tries to hammer home the connections the capital forms between humans and Pokémon and how it spontaneously evolves, it fails at properly conveying as an actual place worth living in. It gets close, really close at times, I could almost feel myself feeling something for the Hotel Z or some plazas right at the end, but you spend so little time in them besides mission tolls or before they transform into wild areas, it ends up not materializing into anything. Hell, some places that from the distance may seem interesting… are just that: appearances. Inaccessible buildings or copy pasted streets and galleries adorned with the same plain textures as the ones atop Sector 1’s roofs.

Legends Arceus got away—tho the more apt words may be ‘’made it more excusable to bear’’— with many of these problems out of sheer novelty and a stronger sense of progression, both attributes ZA lacks. It’s saving grace, then, it’s the one thing that had me interested, the one thing I trusted they wouldn’t fuck up.

The combat is actual glory.

Would I take this over the RPG combat? Probably not! The lack of abilities is especially notable in this system, and a ton of the usual strategizing and notable moves are out the window, not to mention the re-balancing of status moves which makes them unusable in one extreme and game breaking on the other.

But… it is… different? And it works? And it reworks the entire system while adding properties that basically divide moves into interesting subclasses? And it adds a new whole component with the value of spacing with area moves or the range split of move categories? And it is FUN??????

I have yet to grasp how truly popular this opinion is or how this style has grown or will grow on people, but… I really like it! The idea of a Pokémon ARPG had never been properly realized, but if this was as close as it’s gonna get, I think I'd be pretty satisfied. It combines the fast paced nature of Legends Arceus without going too out there, fusing the in and out of battle state into one and going all in on the dynamism that requires. The cooldowns feel hefty and rewarding to manage, even the item usage ones, and mixing the simplicity of your own movement with the battling creates a mixture that’s actually exciting to balance; you have a space on the fight as much as your own team, which is especially notable in the wild and mega Pokémon fights, reflexes and quick thinking integrating in such a way that asks your brain to re-wire about the ways you think of these move sets.

Brave Bird hits as hard as ever, but is also an amazing mobility tool that can get you out of rock-slides when activated properly, a phrase I don’t think I would ever utter. Hazard moves create actual stage hazards, some of which you can even break and it’s GORGEOUS to see and manage, and the list goes on. Even moves like Protect and Detect have changed from insta-safe moves to actual reaction based counter measures, the usage of which DEMANDS learning the timing of the attacks and their charge times, and you know what that means!

That’s right, you heard it here, Pokémon is now parryslop (positive).

It all culminates and comes together in the Rogue Mega fights, the result of almost a decade worth of trying to make fights against individual boss mons actually work. And the fuckers did it. This feels like what the Noble or Totem should have been, the feeling that the Dynamax and Terra Raids tried to convey and sort of failed, a controlled chaos that makes me feel alive for once.

Noble fights in Arceus felt almost sloppy, the divide between player and team fight clear and the transition between the two sudden and pace breaking; you could even ditch the Pokémon fight aspect entirely, a cool option to have, but it makes it extremely clear how little they are needed and just how much out of place they are. Rogue Megas unify both states into one, the need to watch you health combined with your own team’s PLUS the mega meter management PLUS item usage PLUS on the fly switch turns them into, bar none, my favorite thing about the whole game, a perfect showcase of this system’s strengths and a joy to actually learn. The only things really pushing back against them is the HORRIBLE distribution and overuse (the mandatory re-matches on the post-game felt insulting) and the main story’s final boss, bar none the worst match in the entire game and it ain’t even close, pure definition or style and show over the actual fight. Thank CHRIST for the post game’s final boss, which still isn’t my favorite, but it stopped the game from going out with a whimper.

If Legend ZA has any victory, then it’s that it finally feels like it re-invented something that’s not merely a right step, but worthy of exploring further, something that can co-exist with the original idiosyncrasies of the franchise. Something that can push it forward, too.

And something I’ll give it, is that it tries.

ZA isn't safe from perpetual confusion; not only is it forced to grapple with its own reality of regression, a turn back to 12-8 years ago to recapture the magic that was already fading in Alola, but also its own condition as an X&Y sequel. These two do not clash very well.

Going back to Kalos feels strange, a space trapped in a weird nostalgia that seems hellbent on understanding itself, why it did the things it did back then, almost if the team was presenting the questions within the text. ‘’What future was left after the ultimate weapon was activated again, if any?’’ has no answer, because we are still in the present, even 5 years later. Lumioise is recognizable, but also completely different; few known faces remain, and the ones that are still here have changed, yet the only ones willing to move on are those who either weren’t there, or have lived too long. Concepts like the Team Flare Noveaux or Zygarde’s borderline omni-presence shouldn’t work, but are at minimum interesting simply because of the ways they go back to the X&Y days, a recognition of how trapped and stilted they’ve become as people and entities, even as the city that they love changes around them. What does it matter, if all is still the same. It’s no surprise that L’s return is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the game, a literal passing of the torch, a monster that lost his memories, but still is haunted by a past that refuses to go away, and from it, and it starts from the basics.

I still wish we got more of AZ, he’s grossly underused considering the importance he still holds over the overall narrative, but L picking up from where he left off leads to astonishingly interesting places, even if I wish he was less talked about and more actively showcased, but that’s a sin carried even from the originals, and as it stands, it’s crazy a character I never even liked even as a villain has grown up on me.

L has to bear the cell collection quest and being in a city with anti-homelessness architecture, my man has repented enough already.

He’s, however, the only semblance of self-reflection present in the story, only accompanied by the Noveaux and their pariah status. The rest seems way too lost. Mentions of Galar galore, Alolan and Galarian forms are treated as a novelty that keeps biting away the potential of a showcase of local culture. Hisui suddenly gets remembered, obviously because only now we know it actually exists, but in execution seems a borderline masturbatory exercise, self-referential to the point of denigration, a reminder that seems more like an advert than actual homage to a supposed past culture. The quests get trapped in confusion, happy with the ambivalence: Pokémon and Humans should live in co-existence, but it’s also good when they’re separated it seems. There’s one side quest that borders on segregation commentary and no, not in a good way.

For every mention on how hard is to find or pay for an apartment in the big city and how maybe the renovations kinda fucking suck, there’s just as many Quastelar glazing and adoration, an entity whose taking a monopoly over ever side of Lumoise’s culture and social life yet nobody really bats an eye, except for a group of random NPCs in the middle of the game who get tossed aside right as they are introduced.

There are plenty of little moments where a real sense of community shines, yet they are shunned in favor of maximalism and a path set by forces that get the right by simply having more resources.

Right at the end, when the game asked for my wish, I answered ‘’I wish for Pokémon and Humans to live in harmony’’.

In response, the game said ‘’Quastelar Inc. got that covered, don’t worry!’’.

I do not how else to put it, but in a game that finally shows consideration and hopefulness for the future again, that accepts philosophies of a series that adored and combined them with its own perspective, to see an acceptance of secrecy and powers that be, to tie itself to its recent past because the games are still on the shelves and need to sell even more if possible… It feels gross.

I see L, and I see Game Freak on it, not the entity that it was, but a sad visage that wants to keep walking and dream of an utopia, one that asks no millions or sadness to keep going. It seems that, even now, even after more promises, it isn’t ready to let go of the past.

And I don’t know if it’ll ever be.

I do find enjoyment in how the mayor never shows up and yet is always presented as so completely incompetent that a former Team Flare member cannot put up with him . That right there is European representation.

Originally uploaded to Backloggd on November 7th, 2025. Made some minor changes for a better reading experience.

Thank you so much for reaching this point.