For many years, mainline Pokemon games followed a relatively similar formula. You begin at home, leave on your Pokemon journey, and get a nice little tutorial about why you should avoid the tall grass. You pick a partner Pokemon and head out to explore the world. And then, Pokemon Legends: Arceus arrived. Not quite a mainline game, not quite a spinoff, but something entirely new. With Pokemon Legends: Z-A, many fans are curious to know what makes a “Legends” game versus a more traditional title. After playing the game, one thing is clear – with games like Pokemon Legends: Z-A, fans should expect the unexpected.
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I had the opportunity to experience about an hour of Pokemon Legends: Z-A gameplay during a press event. Going in, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the game. I’d heard rumblings about the prior demos from Worlds, and of course, I’ve seen all the Mega reveals. But what would the second Legends game feel like to play? As it turns out, it felt… not quite like a Pokemon game at all. And I’m not entirely sure what to make of that.
Pokemon Legends: Z-A Breaks the Mold with Real-Time Battles
The biggest change, even from Legends: Arceus, is the battle system. There were some light real-time elements in the Noble Battles in Arceus, but Legends: Z-A takes it up several notches. The demo I experienced was largely geared towards various angles on the new battle system, so it’s natural a lot of my takeaways center on this aspect. As I sat down and picked up that Switch 2 controller, I knew I’d be battling in real time. Of course, first I had to customize my character, which I would’ve sunk many more hours into had I not been on a schedule. Outfit selected, it was time to roam the Wild Areas of Lumiose City. And by roam the Wild Areas, I mean get my butt repeatedly handed to me by Alpha Pokemon.
Legends: Z-A brings back a few familiar aspects of running into Pokemon in the wild. Some wild Pokemon are more aggressive than others. While Buneary was content to let me pass on by, Houndour wanted me to step right out of its turf. So, it didn’t take long before trying to explore a Wild Area brought me right into battle. And that battle felt nothing like what I expect from Pokemon. Time to think through your next move without consequences? Forget about it.
When it comes to wild Pokemon encounters, there’s no hard line between in battle and not in Pokemon Legends: Z-A. If a Pokemon is attacking you, it’s attacking you, whether you try to run away or engage. To fight back, you’ll need to send out a Pokemon, lock onto the target, and select a move. Each move has a cooldown period, as do all of your healing items. So, it’s a fast-paced race that reminded me much more of an action RPG than Pokemon. And like my time roaming the wilds of Skyrim, I spent plenty of time getting sent to the Pokemon Center to heal up because, love them as I do, real-time battles take me some time to wrap my head around. And with Legends: Z-A, it’s extra tricky. You can’t focus only on your positioning as a trainer, but also the fact that your Pokemon will follow you as you dodge. And if they’re moving, they can’t be attacking. There are a lot of moving pieces in these battles compared to what many Pokemon fans are used to with the turn-based system.
This battle system is a core part of Legends: Z-A. It’s what you engage with as you encounter wild Pokemon and it’s how you battle other trainers. There’s no pausing to look at a menu of potential moves or taking your turn. It’s go, go, go. I’ll admit, even if it didn’t feel like Pokemon, it was a lot of fun. The Rogue Mega Evolution battles in particular remind me of the pain and joy of tough boss battles from games like Kingdom Hearts or Elden Ring. I like those games, and I like Pokemon. But having them both in one container will take some getting used to, and my hour of gameplay wasn’t quite enough to settle in and decide whether this is a good move for Pokemon or not.
The World of Legends: Z-A Feels Alive, But I Miss the Tall Grass and Sense of Exploration
In addition to the battle sequences, I got to do a small amount of roaming in Lumiose City. I didn’t get to freely explore everything the city has to offer, but I did see some of how The Pokemon Company is navigating the one-city setting. My exploration time was solely within a Battle Zone and Wild Area, so the free-roaming time remains a mystery. On the one hand, climbing up ladders and doing parkour on scaffolding helped assuage my fears about Lumiose City feeling so small in-game. But on the other hand, exploring one expansive city is very much not what I’ve come to love about Pokemon.
At their heart, the Pokemon games are about a journey. You and your partner Pokemon set out to explore the world together, seeing a variety of towns and landscapes. Stepping into new cities for the first time is one of my favorite parts of Pokemon games, especially those older titles. Each city has its own unique flavor and personality, and you get to experience it all as you explore. By contrast, Legends: Z-A offers deep exploration of one city, rather than a broad sampling.
I’m not sure this is a bad thing yet. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw in terms of using levels to make Lumiose City feel large. I left the demo eager to freely explore what the map has to offer outside of the Wild Areas and Battle Zones. But at the end of the day, deeply exploring one city is another way Legends: Z-A doesn’t quite feel like Pokemon. Even Legends: Arceus offered several different areas to explore, despite having Jubilife Village as your home base. By contrast, this game feels like something entirely different for Pokemon.
What I’ve come away with is the sense that what makes a Legends game is experimentation. It’s a space for Pokemon to play around with something outside the usual formula to see what works. It gives fans a different way to engage with the franchise, potentially bringing new fans into the mix by offering something to pique their interest even if the usual Pokemon format did not. Although playing Pokemon Legends: Z-A didn’t quite feel like playing Pokemon, it did feel like a game I could sink a solid chunk of time into.
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