I think I’ve called a handful of games on my list controversial already. Though none of them hold a candle to this one.
- Release year: 2025
- Developer: Game Freak
- Platform: Switch, Switch 2
Pokémon Legends: Arceus is my favourite game in the franchise. It was a breath of fresh air in a series that was increasingly feeling like it was never really going to make any major changes. It was a huge game that focused on exploration and catching more than battling. And then the first teaser for Pokémon Legends: Z-A dropped, which made it look like it would all take place in one city? I wasn’t sure what to expect from such a scaled-down game, but I knew it wasn’t going to hit the same.
This game does, in fact, all take place within the walls of Lumiose City, the largest city in the Kalos region. You play as a no-name teenager who shows up in Lumiose for no real reason at all, immediately get robbed, and then swept up with a bunch of local weenies. You’re given lodgings at a hotel run by a very tall, very old man, in exchange for investigating what’s going on in the city that’s causing Pokémon to randomly mega evolve and (potentially) go nuts. Also there’s a battle tournament. Multiple battle tournaments.
While Z-A is in fact, a much smaller game than Arceus in every way, that did not at all take away from the fun that I had with it. Lumiose may not be a huge city, but it’s structured like a gigantic maze, and I spent tons of time just running around aimlessly. Well, maybe not completely aimlessly. There are items of various rarities scattered all about the place, and the more valuable ones often require you to navigate fun, little parkour courses and jump around from rooftop to rooftop. For me, the experience of simply moving around the game world means a lot, and Pokémon Legends: Z-A did not disappoint in that aspect.
Now the battling, on the other hand… is also super fun. Pokémon battling is now, for the first time ever, a real-time affair, where you’re running around the battlefield and issuing commands to your Pokémon without any breaks in the action. It’s wild and frantic, and sometimes quite difficult. It’s also even faster than the battling was in Arceus, which already seemed to move at lightspeed compared to the non-Legends games. The main battle tournament that takes place at nighttime, the Z-A Royale, is far too addicting, not only being the main source of battles in the game, but also constantly challenging you to push just a little harder for more rewards.
And then there are the new mega evolutions. I was very afraid of what Game Freak might do with the new megas, but I genuinely think they’re all fantastic. Well, almost all of them. Some are cool some are goofy, but most importantly, they all fit the Pokémon very well. For all the cost- and corner-cutting that Game Freak may do, they are top of class when it comes to creature design.
I played Pokémon Legends: Z-A for a little more than 40 hours before I finally finished the main story, and after that, I was flabbergasted by the number of little icons on the map denoting sidequests that I had left to do. And then there’s the post-game content. And then there’s the DLC expansion that just came out and I’m having extreme difficulty tearing myself away from. I’m having an absolute blast with the game, despite the fact that it’s not nearly as ambitious as its big brother.