Pokemon Legends: Z-A (Switch, 2025)

Are real time battles the future of the Pokemon franchise? I hope so. I was very excited when I first heard about this massive shift in gameplay for a game series that’s had turn-based combat since before many gamers today were even born. Real time Pokemon battles? I can’t believe it. I used to have “real time Pokemon battles” with my nerdy friends on the playground in 4th grade just using our imaginations. I never thought we’d actually get to experience a bonafide Pokemon game like this.

The Pokemon franchise moves and adapts very slowly, like an oil barge. When Mario 64’s success spawned a host of copycat games attempting to capitalize on the full-3D revolution, every Pokemon fan waited with baited breath. When would we get a fully 3D mainline Pokemon game? If you count Pokemon XY as being “full 3D” (released in 2013), we waited 17 years. Wow. 17 years for the franchise to finally release a fully 3D mainline Pokemon game.

Thankfully, in recent years, the franchise has been bringing us new and interesting Pokemon experiences at a much quicker pace. Legends: Arceus brought us a fantastic real-time catch mechanic, Legends: Z-A has brought us real-time battles, and Pokopia (which I’ve yet to play) has proven that the cosy game hype train is still chugging along.

The real-time battles are the main selling point of this game. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Will the battles be fun? Will they be clunky and weird? I think they pulled it off quite well, though the real-time elements certainly do change the nature of Pokemon as we know it. Legends: Z-A is likely not welcome in the broader category of “relaxing Pokemon games,” since quick timing and full attention are required. The added stress of real-time gameplay may turn some long-time Pokemon fans away, but I welcome this change fully.

It took me a bit to get the hang of it, but the battles are a real thrill. There’s a challenge to getting all of your attacks off quickly while keeping up with what your opponent is throwing at you. Some battles seem to happen in the blink of an eye. There were few times my Pokemon would get completely obliterated by an opponent’s Pokemon, and I had to press X to “pause” just to figure out what happened before I send in the next Pokemon.

Powerful moves have longer cooldowns, which means you’ll need to cycle between two or three different moves if you want to maximize your damage output. In traditional Pokemon games, your water Pokemon can ride through most of the game with just Bubblebeam or Surf. You typically don’t need more than one water move, and you can fill your other move slots with a variety of different move types. In Legends: Z-A, your water Pokemon will likely need two or even three water type moves if you want to maintain maximum STAB damage against a fire Pokemon, for example. Once you use your best water move, it will remain on cooldown, and you will need to use some other move.

I do miss the excellent catch mechanic from Legends: Arceus. They’ve partially retained the same pokeball throwing physics, but it’s noticeably altered. It doesn’t feel quite right. The pokeball’s trajectory feels less like a proper throw and more like a weak toss. You can’t adjust your aim once you’re locked on, which means you can’t raise your aim slightly to adjust for long distances. If you lock on and throw, and you’re too far away, you just miss. It’s very disappointing. I really don’t understand why they altered the best feature from Legends: Arceus. Bring back the good throw.

I have mixed feelings about another significant change they’ve introduced with Legends: Z-A, but I can at least understand it. Gone is the challenge of trying to lower a Pokémon’s HP as much as possible without knocking it out. In Legends: Z-A, if you do knock out a Pokemon, they give you a “catch window”. For a few seconds, before a knocked out Pokemon disappears, you can toss a pokeball. You only get one catch attempt during this “catch window,” so there is still some benefit to whittling down a rare Pokemon’s HP and chucking ultra balls without knocking it out. Still, this feels like one more bit of Pokemon DNA that has been lost. C’est la vie.

In the wild zones, there are aggressive Pokemon that will attack you, but the level of threat is significantly reduced compared to Legends: Arceus. It’s much easier to evade. Exploring the rest of the city is fun as well. There are ladders and lifts and complex scaffolding structures (parkour anyone?) that give you access to the rooftops. Many of the rooftops are interconnected, and in the mid to late game, you’re given an ability which gives you even more mobility and access to the array of rooftops in Lumiose.

Normally, I don’t fuss with camera modes, but this game has a great camera mode that can play different kinds of music to elicit different reactions from each of your Pokémon. They developed animated reactions (a happy dance, a battle pose, and a sleepy time pose) for every single Pokémon in the game. This is an incredible feat for 230+ Pokémon.

The primary gameplay loop is the Z-A Royale. You enter “battle zones” at night to challenge other trainers in order to earn enough points for your challenge ticket. Once you earn your ticket, you’re matched with another trainer for an opportunity to advance your rank. The battle zones are a real highlight for me. You can try to land sneak attacks on the other trainers’ Pokémon, which is quite fun, but it does feel SO cheap. It feels a bit like cheating. There’s no honor in the battle zones, only tears.

I was quite enjoying the steady progression through the ranks, but there’s a Deus ex Machina moment which disrupts that progression. It’s a bit spoilery, so I’ll say no more here. If you want to know more about this and my thoughts on how they could’ve approached this differently, see my “spoiler talk” section at the end of this post.

The mega Pokemon battles make up another big chunk of the gameplay loop. They are similar in some ways to the Noble Pokemon battle sequences in Legends: Arceus, but they’ve made some welcome changes. The battle area is much larger, giving you more space to maneuver and dodge, and there’s much more time to sneak in your attacks between dodge rolls. I really enjoyed these mega Pokemon battles, but they do get a bit repetitive and fatiguing towards the late game. Mega Banette in particular was a frustrating battle for me until I realized how to spot the real target among the fakes (look for the um, purple sparkly stuff).

This game is very well balanced, unlike many previous Pokemon releases that are either too grindy or far too easy. As expected, the battles are fairly easy in the early game, but the level of challenge slowly increases as you progress. I did no grinding, I used every XP candy I found, and I was about the same level as my opponents in pretty much all of the major battles. There was one notable difficulty spike in the mid to late game where I barely managed to survive a few promotion matches. Thankfully, three more wild zones opened up after those battles, and that allowed me to catch several more Pokemon which earned me quite a bit of XP. If you have a solid team composition and can fire off your Pokemon attacks quickly, you shouldn’t encounter too much difficulty.

I have not yet taken the plunge by purchasing a Switch 2, so I played the OG Switch version of Legends: Z-A. I was expecting a broken, ugly, and laggy pile of jank, like Scarlet/Violet. Likewise, the poor visuals in Legends: Arceus nearly ruined that game for me. Thankfully, Legends: Z-A is a huge step forward on all accounts.

Within the first 20 minutes, I noticed much better lighting, better environments, more detail, and smoother performance. Many textures are still noticeably low res, but passable. Honestly, I’d rather have a smaller but more detailed world (with a higher number of textures and assets) than sprawling bald landscapes like in Legends: Arceus. I think that’s how Game Freak managed to get Legends: Z-A running acceptably on the OG Switch. The city of Lumiose and it’s environments are small and contained, which allows for this kind of (low resolution) detail:

Legends: Z-A revisits the region of Kalos, which is inspired by France. The “Frenchness” of the game is not quite Expedition 33 levels, but they still created a nice atmosphere. The game’s UI is also quite nice. It’s very clean, simple, and easy to use.

The game runs well and is very stable on the Switch. I only encountered one small visual bug — at one point in the game I was able to clip into my Feraligatr:

This may be one of my favorite Pokemon soundtracks in recent years. Obviously, nothing will ever come close to matching the nostalgia-fueled obsession I have with the earliest Pokemon soundtracks, but the music in Legends: Z-A earns very high marks.

There are loads of great battle tracks for sure, but it’s the lush orchestral tracks that really caught my ear. The French palette is evident, featuring touches of jazzy percussion, horns, clarinet, and even some accordion. The light mood and subtle bounciness reminds me of the score from Pixar’s Ratatouille.

Pokemon games have not typically had very good story content, but Legends: Z-A breaks the mold. I was pleasantly surprised by the writing. I kept thinking to myself, “This writing is… actually good?” I laughed out loud at some of the jokes. There were several genuinely funny moments in the story. Most of the dialogue is natural and believable. Characters can be a bit zany at times, but they’re at least consistent. This is one of the most immersive Pokemon stories I’ve experienced yet.

I find the setting to be interesting — a city’s residents attempting to live in harmony with both trained Pokemon and wild Pokemon. The “holo tech” plot device is revived from Pokemon XY and serves its purpose well. I like the interesting cast of characters. Instead of the wholesome father-figure-type Pokemon professor we’re used to, we’re met with Mable, a flustered Pokemon research director equipped with plenty of flippant sarcasm. Your colleague, Naveen, is unapologetically deadpan and somewhat “Eeyore-ish”. It’s refreshing to encounter these characters in a franchise that’s been oversaturated with overly affirming “nice guy” and “nice gal” types.

The writing is much better than what we’ve seen in many previous Pokemon titles, but there are still a few quirks and oddities. The wild areas are filled with aggressive Pokémon, yet you will still find random people just standing around handing out potions or selling ice cream and galettes.

Early in the game, there are invisible walls that block your access to portions of the city. I’m used to having my access blocked in Pokemon games, but in Legends: Z-A, there are no story reasons given for this lack of access — no sleeping Pokémon, no wiggly tree, no thirsty guards, no artist drawing footprints. You’re just… blocked. I almost look forward to the bizarre gimmicks they come up with to block the player character’s access.

People are so nice and generous in Lumiose, it almost feels like you’re in the Truman Show. People are constantly just giving you stuff. “Here, have some potions.” “Here, have some pokeballs.” “Here, have my entire 401k.” There’s even some dude that goes around and collects all of the pokeballs from your missed throws and then gives them back to you for free like some kind of pokebutler. It’s nice, but it’s just so much that it begins to chip away at the immersion a bit. Maybe I’m jaded, but no city is that generous.

I struggle with anime and video games that try to force completely unnecessary duels at the most inopportune time. It’s crisis mode, time is of the essence, but instead of just acting logically and rationally to solve this problem, first we must BATTLE. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.

The story is strong for most of the game, but things do get a little shaky towards the end. There are a few nonsense plot moments. I remeber a few lengthy casual conversations happening during a crisis while active threats are literally just standing by and waiting patiently for the conversation to finish. That “Saturday morning cartoon” vibe starts to creep in a bit in the game’s final moments. I do address a few issues I have with the ending in my “spoiler talk” section below, if you’re interested.

Overall, I enjoyed this Pokemon story much more than I expected. The ending has plenty of epic moments and a satisfying conclusion, and I hope we continue to see this level of competent writing in future Pokemon releases. If you’re a fan of the franchise, don’t skip out on Pokemon Legends: Z-A.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead. Only proceed if you’ve rolled credits on Legends: Z-A.

I’ll admit I was both relieved and disappointed when my rank jumped from rank V all the way up to rank F. It’s a huge jump though, 16 ranks. The task of going from rank Z all the way to rank A is both daunting and exciting. Initially, I felt like the challenge of rising up through all 26 ranks was taken away from me, but I will admit, the battle zone and challenge match loop does get fatiguing by the end of the game. I imagine grinding all the way through 26 ranks would be way too much, but I do have an idea for how they could’ve approached this problem differently. Instead of skipping 16 ranks, why not host a special tournament or two that gives trainers the opportunity to advance several ranks in one day. The winner’s rank could advance with each round in the tournament. This would speed up the rank progression process without making the player feel like they didn’t earn it.

In the final scenes of the game, Taunie (or Urbain) makes some very odd decisions. First, challenging the player character at the worst possible time comes off as insensitive, if not borderline absurd. The tower is about to explode, and you want to battle to determine the best trainer in Lumiose? Get your priorities straight, Taunie. When the player character wins, Taunie still calls dibs on the privilege of mega-evolving Floette anyway. What gives? Not only did we fight a pointless battle in the middle of a time-sensitive crisis, but now you won’t even honor the result of the battle? Oof.

I think it would’ve made much more sense for the big match with Taunie to occur before the tower crisis begins. Even so, in the moment when it needs to be decided who will accompany Floette, the player character could offer to relinquish the Floettite to Taunie, even though Taunie lost the battle. Taunie is the de facto leader of Team MZ and has a stronger bond with Floette. It makes perfect sense, but they completely missed this angle. The player character could win the right to accompany Floette, yet willingly lay it down. Rather than feeling like you’ve been robbed, you instead have an opportunity to be selfless hero.

What do you think? Do you like the original ending? If not, what would you change?