The real Pokemon Z and Pokemon Gun were the France we visited along the way
This is certainly a divisive game, isn't it? The internet's incapability to have an opinion that isn't extreme really is visible when you look at anything Z-A related, so hopefully I manage to avoid that curse.
I love Legends Arceus. I'm still deciding if it tops the combo of Black/Black 2 for my favorite Pokemon game; so seeing that they're continuing the Legends series makes me really happy. I was a little concerned that they were doing it in the present/a sequel type game instead of opening up the lore of the past, but I do think it was a good call.
Legends Arceus was a game all about catching. There was battling, but you were there to catch Pokemon. Legends Z-A is a game all about battling. There is catching, but you're there to battle Pokemon. For me personally, I don't care for the battling being the center as much as I do the catching being the center, so at its core I enjoy Arceus a lot more, but 1. I get why they did it for Z-A and 2. I think for a game where the battling is the center, they did a pretty good job.
This game feels like the epitome of what Pokemon battling would be like in real life. It's real time instead of turn based, the moves are very Xenoblade 2 where it's cooldown based (and you get 4 but that's a Pokemon staple), and your positioning matters. It's really cool, I felt like I was doing battles in the anime or something. They're fast paced and it's awesome how different strategies evolve in this ecosystem compared to the classic turn based style. I found that protect was a lot more necessary where I'd usually ignore it, which also really made it feel like an action game, but then because of how you have to target things to use moves, this makes traditionally shitty moves like dig, or bounce actually useful cause you can't protect against them (I don't really like this but I do think it's interesting). I loved how I ended up caring more about how a move would physically move over its raw numbers. I was running flame wheel/rollout on my Emboar for so long cause I loved that ability to dash back and forth; it also worked really well in group scenarios. The real time battles also interacted with items in a super cool way; you could open your menu and use one item occasionally on a cooldown, which I think was a great translation of using an item taking up your turn. I don't think I would want this to become the new normal, even in the context of Legends games, but I'm glad they did it cause I think it's fun and stylistically cool.
To continue on from battling; Megas are back! There's new ones too! (I swear they made these megas to cater to me specifically, so many of my favorites got some) I quite enjoy how they implemented them as a meter you build up that goes away with time; with how fast paces battles are, if it was just one per you'd never use anything else, but this way you can get more mileage out of them. It does stink to have the lack of abilities that Arceus had, cause some Megas really live off of theirs (Poor Aggron with no Filter; or Eelektross with no Levitate). I'm curious to see how the new forms will work when they hit turn based later down the line in Champions or something.
Probably my favorite part of the game was the rogue Mega battles. These were basically the successor to the Noble Pokemon battles in Arceus, but you get a whole lot more of them. I really like how they tended to chase you, the trainer down directly; it felt like a game of survival on top of a normal Pokemon battle, and was a great combo of how the boss battles worked in the previous game. It even allowed returning your Pokemon to their balls as a strategy for dodging, which I found was cool. I'm also really happy they let you rematch them in the postgame; I probably won't do it, but it's something that Arceus lacked.
Pokemon catching is unfortunately not as in depth as it was in Arceus, but this is to be expected, considering my earlier statement. You don't have the same functional range of throwing with the different balls like with normal, heavy, sky, etc. Something neat here though, when you knock out a Pokemon, you have a single free chance at catching them before they run away. By itself, I think this is cool but it also kinda sucks. You can't spam balls during battle cause eventually they'll get angry and stop you, and then you just get that one chance after the battle, leading to a lot of missed opportunities. However. You can save (as long as you're safe) right as they're knocked out, allowing you to close and open the game as many times as you need to land the catch. Is this intentional? Probably not. But it certainly makes hunting for the rarer guys so much easier.
Since the entire game takes place completely within Lumiose, Pokemon are usually limited to these Wild Areas, which you unlock more of as you progress. These are generally cool, but I don't think they hit nearly the same as the full on environments of Arceus. At worst, they feel super cramped, and you get Wild Zone 17. At best, you get a little mini area to sneak around and catch in. The bright side of wild Pokemon though are the ones that appear outside of the Wild Zones, cause they really add to that feel of a lived in city in the Pokemon world; Trubbish are the rats you'd find in garbage, there's Flabebe in the flowers and Panmonkeys in the trees. I like that a lot.
I think the part of the gameplay I liked the least was the day night cycle. It's kinda cool how it had a good rhythm of do sidequests and catch during the day, battle at night, but I felt like the translations just got in the way of whatever goal I had (usually catching) cause they interrupt the whole flow. There had to have been a better way to translate things. I also didn't have as much fun as I would have liked battling at night, but again, I prefer casual catching over active battling, so that is ultimately a preference thing rather than something the game did wrong, I think.
One last bit before I move on; Side Missions. I do like how each one is essentially themed after a different Pokemon, something I liked that Arceus did as well, but I don't feel like they grasped me as much as that game's did. Granted, I have not completed all of them at the time of writing this (My goal was all Main to consider beaten), so I could be proven wrong, but the amount of battles just didn't hit the same as the collections (again, i've said this a bunch this is preference). I did find the battles where you had to meet specific goals cool though, like only use an Aurorus, or make sure you use a specific Mega.
Ohohohohoho my favorite part. X/Y were unfortunately notorious for having a very bland cast (at least in my eyes); so Kalos really got to luck out here with modern Pokemon writing.
However, before I talk about them, you need to look at the most important characters of all, that being my precious team:
Look at them sleeping I love them. (Featured from left to right: Tiki the Dragalge, Ganon the Emboar, Slicey Slash the Skarmory, BellGrande the Scolipede, Escalators the Eelektross, and McNuggies the Falinks)
ANYWAYS, onto the actual cast.
I love the characters in this game. But rather than elaborate further here, I'm gonna elaborate in
The plot this time around revolves around Prism Tower, in the center of Lumiose City, surging with a lot of scary energy, so in order to find the strongest person possible to be able to handle it, AZ and Quasartico host the Z-A Royale, a ranking system that has trainers battle each other to go up the alphabet; the person that reaches A gets a wish (as long as it's in Quasartico's power). You are a tourist? that comes to Lumiose, and gets completely wrapped into saving the city and solving its problems.
The real highlight of the story for me is everyone (see above) you meet along the way. As you run through the upper ranks, you meet all these groups in Lumiose, and you expect them to be The Big Bad, or whatever, but you just discover that each group just... cares about the city. Ivor and the Fist of Justice talk about abolishing Wild Zones, and you think it's gonna be some Team Plasma shit, but they're not! They're just about strengthening people to live with Pokemon. You run into the Rust Syndicate, the literal loan sharks that put you in debt, and their boss has you doing helpful things around the city. You never run into a real villainous team. Even when you're dealing with the dark past of Team Flare, you're dealing with former members, none of them want this evil revenge plan, just to move on from the damage their group caused.
This all comes to a head in the climax, when the real evil is revealed; the Eiffel Tower. As in, it turns out Prism Tower is an ancient construct built by AZ that finally lost control of its energy, and fusing with Floette's mega flower, literally starts going on a rampage. The fucking Eiffel Tower, god it's peak LMAO. ANYWAYS, everyone you met and fought along the way works together, your friends, the other teams, and even Zygarde, all coming together to push you forward to being able to save the day, all out of a love for their city (or in Zygarde's case, its nature for balance but YOU KNOW STILL A GOOD CAUSE). I really really liked it, it showed the goodness in all these people, and the ability for them to come together, which may I say is something I don't get to see often nowadays, so it warmed my heart.
I've seen some say this game has themes of moving on from the past, and I definitely don't disagree with that at all, but there's something else that spoke to me a lot more. There's a line that talks about "Where X, Y, and Z intersect" (might not be the exact wording, my memory is bad): and to me, this was amazing, as it redefined what came before it even. All walks of life have a point where they can meet together. People and Pokemon have a point where they can meet together. Even natural forces; life, death, have a balancing point. I love how they took X and Y from the definition of axis, and managed to actually turn it into something meaningful; using Zygarde's existence as the Z, and a creature of balance really worked nicely with the theming too, in my eyes.
It's not a perfect story, but I have a lot to like about it. I think its weak points lie in some bits not feeling very smoothly executed; your player character really just gets thrown into the whole situation, or another part that felt off to me was in Jacinthe's tournament where Zygarde just. Shows up. I dunno, I felt like that could have been done in a way that felt more natural. The worst part of the story, and I mean this half joking and half serious, is that you're presented as running through the ranks Z-A, whole alphabet, but you skip a bunch of letters. It makes sense in universe, I'll give them that, but it just felt really misleading. I was hoping it'd come back in the post game, but they just went for infinity. I get it, but it sucks. I also wish there was just some more connection to people we already knew. Getting Team Flare and AZ was awesome, but where's Clemont? Why did Sycamore resign? What's Diantha up to? Is that stuff necessary? No. But man I would have really appreciated it. Hopefully in the DLC.
Back to positives, what I really appreciate about the story and writing in this game is Kalos was a very weak region, and I think this game managed to lift it up by giving it extra meat, meaning, and emotional connection. It's still not my favorite region by a long shot, but if I can look back at Team Flare of all things and appreciate them even a little bit more? I'd consider that a success.
oogh. I'm not usually a graphics guy. It's not high on my priority list of things to care about. But this is modern Pokemon we're talking about, so it has to be mentioned.
First, positives. I like the style of this game a lot more than Scarlet and Violet. I prefer my Pokemon to be flatter, and their detailing lies in the lighting. I love how the models of the characters look a lot more like that traditional Sugimori style, and I especially love how they're animated (like I said above, Lida was a standout in this department). I'm the kind of person who liked the way Sword and Shield looked for the most part, so I hope they continue in this direction.
The city isn't the worst thing in the world, like some people would have you believe. But I do think they could have done a lot better with making it more visually distinct, to give your eyes more to look at. The greatest sin comes in the buildings; so many of them are flat nothings. Literally, you look at the wall and it's flat. What really gets to me about modern Pokemon is the lack of buildings you can walk in. I think that would have been huge for this game that exists in just Lumiose; cause when they do make an interior it's great! I loved Lysandre Labs, I loved the museum, genuinely my favorite areas in the game. But it sucks to not have more of those. I really don't like the sheer smooth flat walls either.
Of course, with leaks, we know why this is the case. These games don't get shit for budget, and it's not fair. I hate big corporations, that will never change, and I really wish the devs could get the time and money I know they could use to make a quality product. There's plenty of quality in this game, but maybe not $70 worth of it. They could get there though!
Before wrapping it up, I can't play a Pokemon game and not think about the music. They literally never miss with new tracks. I loved all the battle themes; the Rogue Mega theme is probably my absolute favorite, but I could gush about all the others. Kalos doesn't have a lot of music, but it does happen to have my favorite trainer battle and wild battle theme, which I'm so glad got the remixes they deserve.
My issue though. There's not enough tracks. You're living in this one city, and you're gonna hear the same Lumiose theme for most of the game. I wish there were more variations, cause I know they'd be gifts to my ears. The bigger sin to me though; reused tracks. The clothes shops, and the battle against Xerneas and Yveltal, are the exact same songs as X/Y. They're good songs, but even Arceus made covers of everything. Give me more music. (At the very least the legendary battle did get a remix with Zygarde, but still. I'm greedy.)
ZA might not reach the perfect peak of cozy and engaging for me personally that Arceus did, but there's still a lot that I like and appreciate about the game. I can't believe Kalos finally got some real, meaningful love. I really hope the DLC expands more on what I thought the story was lacking, and even gives some more great mega evolutions.
7/10. A fresh take on the battle system, but not quite focusing on the things I specifically enjoy. Great character writing for a region that previously was lacking, but more connection to the region as a whole would have been nice.
UHHH I MEAN 0/10 THEY DIDN'T EVEN KEEP UP THE LETTER BIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE W RANK FIGHT WASN'T A W NAME WHAT THE FUCK GAME FREAK