Reviews: Pokémon Legends: Z-A
and a brief look at my history with the franchise
At Margot Plays, I review games that I have played focused on my experience, which is evolving as I play more games. In general the games’ story will have been completed, on easy mode if applicable and unless stated otherwise played on the steam deck OLED.
About the game
Discover an urban Pokémon adventure in a vibrant city full of Pokémon and possibilities in Pokémon Legends: Z-A on Nintendo Switch! Explore Lumiose City, unravel its secrets, discover Mega-Evolved Pokémon and face off against Trainers in real-time, dynamic battles.
Margot’s stats
Device: Switch 2
Difficulty: NA
Completed: yes
Time: ~25 hours
Summary: I had a really great time with this game despite its flaws. It has so much potential to be an incredible game, but if you ignore the price and lacking graphics and NPC interactions, it can be a really fun game. Had I been at a different point in my life it may not get as much of a good review but I will tell you why this game worked so well for me below.
Overall though this feels to me like an experiment, to see how the fanbase will react to real time battling and they needed to wrap a good enough story and world around it to then deliver the next mind blowing Pokémon game we are waiting for, with the lessons learned from this one. I really hope that is true.
My Pokémon history
To begin with I just wanted to briefly set the scene. I discovered the Pokémon games in 1999, just after we moved from Germany to England. I was 12, and didn't understand enough English to really understand what was going on. I know that there are German versions now but I definitely had an English version, so I am not sure if I bought it in Germany or England. I grew up playing games in English and not knowing what the story was, so this wasn't unusual. It did make things like status afflictions tricky to treat. I used to just try out each item and see what works. That is how I learned game play patterns.
So Pokémon Red was an important game for me because it gave me some escapism while trying to navigate a new school and country. I did find some friends who had Pokémon Blue and we swapped many Pokémon back and forth to complete our Pokédex. Unfortunately those two girls and I grew apart after that initial summer, mostly because one moved away and the other took very different classes to me.
Being obsessed with the series led to me buying several other games and I used to upgrade my handheld Nintendo device because of a Pokémon game.
So I also played:
Yellow
Crystal
Ruby
Black - didn't complete
X - didn’t complete (ironically fell off at Luminose city)
Scarlet - only played 5 hours so far
So you could say I am a fan but not like I know all of the new Pokémon and am really invested in the IP.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A
So when it came to the newest game, I wasn’t sold on it but during Gamescom I got to play one of the demos and really enjoyed the new real time fighting mechanic. The more I then heard about the game, the more intrigued I got. Closed environment, not open world? Yay I won’t get lost.
This was a big selling point for me. I am so stuck in Scarlet due to its open world nature. Similar with Zelda, although I will post an update on that eventually too.
In Z-A you arrive at Luminose city and are very quickly adopted by the inhabitants of Hotel Z, which is run by AZ who appears to be a character from the previous Legends game, making him 3000 years old. With me so far? I do find the naming of this all so bizarre. The other weird naming element for me was that the counterpart to your story, who changes gender depending on what you choose, is either called Urbain (urban) or Taunie (townie?). In England “townie” was a bit of a derogatory term when I was younger, so this was such an odd choice for me.
After you choose your starter Pokémon you take part in the Z-A Royale tournament. This is essentialy a gameplay loop of battling people at night to gain enough points for a challenger ticket, which then unlocks a bottle to go up the ranks.
After a couple of repetition of this, you do feel worried that you have to do this 26 to times to rise up the ranks but there are some story arch short cuts, and the higher level characters you meet add more to the story.
The overall story was a bit meh for me. I found the game really bizarre tonally. Was it aimed at me? A nearly 40 year old or kids? Or both somehow?
Therefore the story jumped around a lot and went from more childish to more serious and I couldn’t really get invested.
What I did like is that exploring almost always led to loot or Pokémon to capture. The game did not feel empty of stuff, but it did feel a bit empty of soul.
The NPCs are scarily standing around in the background with deadpan expressions and not doing anything, apart from the odd one running or walking. But those are so few and far between that it does feel like a bit of a zombie-esque landscape. Cut scenes even have no voice acting. Even the NPCs, I wished at least at like the boop boop boop noises fro the old games as the text scrolls. It is just dead.
No-one: But Margot, you said you really enjoyed the game? It doesn’t sound like it.
Well, I really liked the nostalgia of the game. The references to X, which while I did not complete were nice. Also the mix of Pokémon old and new to me was really nice and manageable. I loved the the types I encountered.
And the actual battles were a lot of fun with this new real time system. While not flawless (some of the focus was a bit clunky) it generally was really rewarding to battle. I even didn’t dislike the mega evolution mechanic, which I did dislike in the past. While the art felt lazy for a few mega evolutions I liked the general concept.
And actually some of the criticism I give above led to me having a great time.
NPCs are deadpan and not in the way. They had no voice acting. Any side quests were already marked on the map, and a lot of speech bubbles would just appear as you walk by. This meant I could turn the sound down or off and play while watching TV or listening to a podcast.
While the real time battling needed a bit of concentration, it wasn't ever a really long battle so I could do a battle and then continue to focus on the TV. We watched a lot of comedy for a couple of weeks where you didn't need to watch the whole time and this combination of gaming and watching TV was the ultimate escape from a hard time for me. A lot has been going on, and while quiet time is also important, I just needed a bit of double distractions.
And being reminded of more wholesome times was also really welcome. :)
I thought I’d not enjoy the zoning system of the game to be able to catch different types of Pokémon but the gamification of “completing” each area was weirdly addictive. I still have many to go and look forward to seeing them all ticked.
I am enjoying that beyond the main story I now get to carry on battling, doing side quests and completing my Pokédex. If I ever will 100% is questionable but I am having such a nice surprising time with this game. Will it be my top game of 2025? I don’t really think so, but it has provided me with a lot of fun and escapism but nothing mind blowing. I keep coming back to the nostalgia element.
Most importantly though I get to take a moment for myself and have a nice coffee with my Pokémon.
If you want something more profound on the subject please check out the writers and podcaster below.
Are you team Pokémon or not (dare I say team Palworld perhaps?)
For a more thoughtful view on this game please check out these three reviews below and the podcast by Dialogue Tree. While we all say similar things at a high level I really enjoyed their perspectives a lot and it almost feels wasted to have written my own words.
Thanks a lot for linking my article! Substack didn't let me know but I was reading the article anyway and it was a pleasant surprise at the end.
It really feels like we're so close to the perfect Pokémon game, next year's Wind and Waves is a game I have high hopes for.
Great take!
Watched some YouTube videos absolutely panning this game last night. I try to avoid them until I've had my say. But wow, did it make me long for balance in the discussion on it. Pokemon really polarises.
Some absolutely die on their hill defending each and every game. Others tear it to shreds, regardless of anything good that the title is doing.
This is such a balanced and well thought-out view, a breath of fresh air.