GameFreak brings us a new spin-off of Pokémon - Legends Z-A, which this time takes us to the Paris-inspired city of Lumiose. The entire game takes place in the city, and I was a bit skeptical after the first trailer, thinking: "These are some city kids." Pokémon has always meant adventure, travel, and exploring the wilderness for me, not concrete, advertisements, and promenades between cafes and tall buildings. Nevertheless, I decided to suppress my skepticism and give them a chance.
Totodile, I choose you!
Tourism with evolutions
After a brief character creation that, I admit, has never been more detailed, we arrive as tourists in Lumiose, and soon things start to go downhill. After your rival (Taunie or Urbain, the opposite gender of yours) ambushes you while filming an advertisement for the hotel they inhabit, you are soon robbed by a Pokémon.
In search of it, you encounter the owners, old rivals of your rival who are seeking revenge. Here, Taunie gives me one of their Pokémon, and after my victory, simply gifts it to me because "they see we make an exceptional team"? I know that Pokémon is a world of trust and friendships, but I wouldn't just give my beloved Pokémon to a random tourist I just met on the street.
Night falls, it's time for battle!
You quickly realize to what extent your rival is in charge and practically drives the plot forward. Soon, you get entangled with Team MZ, a group living in an old hotel under the leadership of a mysterious owner who, of course, possesses a Pokémon thousands of years old.
The main narrative framework revolves around the Z-A competition – evening battles in the streets of Lumiose, where parts of the city literally become war zones. With victories, you collect points and climb through the ranks, from Z to A. On paper, it sounds fine, but in practice, such a city really doesn't make sense. What if I just want to go to the bakery, and someone ambushes me at the first crosswalk and demands a battle in the name of city honor?
The story is simply shallow, and the atmosphere is artificial. The game also introduces the concept of sneaking and ambushing, which is a nice mechanic, but in the context of an organized city competition, it feels underhanded.
Pro tip: every RPG where you name yourself My Dude becomes 10x funnier
Everyone loves me, I'm funny to everyone
Side quests exist, but they functionally boil down to similar tasks. NPCs treat you like a legend within the first minute. Almost every dialogue showers you with compliments, gifts, and attention. Someone is constantly giving you pokéballs, potions, praising your perfect technique… as if you’ve already saved the world, and you haven’t even entered the second district. Most dialogues offer an illusion of choice and a feeling of false interaction with characters: options between “Yes” and “Yes, of course.” I love when I have the freedom to confirm the same thing twice.
The biggest novelty is the battles
Real-time battles are the biggest change and bring a refreshing twist. We’ve finally moved away from the classic turn-based template. Each Pokémon has four moves mapped to buttons, with cooldowns. It resembles an action jRPG or a simpler MMO. It’s nice that you no longer have to delete old moves when you learn new ones; now you just choose which four you want to keep active, which adds flexibility and rhythm.
Tactics still exist, a diverse team matters, but the balance is thin. I passed most battles by spamming moves. In single player, I didn’t lose once. Not once. For something that should be an innovation, it feels like a step back when we talk about challenge. Pokémon games have been easy for a long time, but here it seems like we’re losing even that chess-like, competitive approach that was previously present.
It’s time for us to ambush Daniel from behind, Totodile. All for victory!
Mega evolutions: a familiar concept in a new guise
Mega evolutions are back, and honestly, it’s one of the best moves Game Freak has made. Not only as a nostalgic return but also as a mechanical refresh. Mega evolutions are temporary boost forms that certain Pokémon can achieve. Each Mega form uses a new energy system that charges during battles and can be used multiple times, adding a nice tactical layer.
Some Mega evolutions look really nice
Some new Mega forms look great, especially Dragonite, Gardevoir, and Lucario. However, there are a few obvious shortcomings. Starmie looks like the designers ran out of time and someone just said, "give it longer legs and that's good." Also, announcing DLC for the game before its release, behind which certain mega evolutions and story are locked, is simply rude.
…but this is wrong. WHO approved this?
Holographic wilderness in the middle of an empty city
The city of Lumiose seems huge on paper, but in practice, each district is more or less the same. The game tries to introduce a sense of verticality through the ability to climb rooftops and jump off them, which initially feels like an interesting freedom of movement, but those rooftops quickly start to look identical. The same five air conditioners, the same gray brick, the same two NPCs staring into nothing.
Exploring the city boils down to running through relatively empty streets and looking for task markers. There are no spontaneous encounters, no hidden stories around the corner, no sense of discovery. Every point of interest is already marked, and everything else is just a backdrop. A city that should breathe simply does not breathe.
The Pokémon catching system from Arceus returns, but here it is significantly simplified. There are so-called wild zones in the city, small, holographically fenced arenas scattered throughout the city that serve as habitats for Pokémon.
These zones often make no sense within the city's infrastructure and feel more like a theme park for catching Pokémon than a real habitat, as if they exist solely for the player. One zone is literally located in the middle of a cemetery. Additionally, the game offers you a refund for all spent Poké Balls, which removes a good part of the challenge. Hunting is still fun, but now it feels more procedural than spontaneous.
Technically not good enough. Again.
Graphically, Z-A is a strange mix. The character and interior design is the best so far, but the city is gray, empty, without any identity, with washed-out textures lacking detail. The wild zones look like abandoned neighborhoods, the streets between them feel like placeholders, and the Pokemons look somewhat... plastic.
On Switch 2, all of this runs at 60 fps. On the old Switch – it doesn't. Drops below 30 are common, textures lag, characters get stuck on air. Cutscenes without voice acting are sterile, empty, sometimes uncomfortably silent.
When I look at what other games are pulling from Switch 2, I can't help but think: Z-A looks like it came out in 2005. And not in a good nostalgic way, but in a bad way of negligence. Anyone with even a slight understanding of video game design knows that much more could have been done here.
We are in the wild zone, which is basically an ordinary neighborhood, but with a bit more grass.
Tolerance must have some limits
Pokémon Legends: Z-A tries to be a step forward, an attempt to move the series forward, but stubbornly pulls roots from the past. Real-time battles and Mega evolutions are a good start, but everything else feels half-baked, unfinished, or just... enough.
Fans will still buy the game. Because they are Pokemons. I understand it's a spin-off, but this is still one of the richest franchises in the world. I love Pokemons. Honestly. But I can't recommend Legends Z-A at the full price of €70. There’s too much that “can pass,” and too little that deserves praise. There is fun here, of course... but we deserve more.
