Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 21/Oct 00:01

Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Review

We’ve had our fair share of monster-catching goodness very recently, with Digimon Story: Time Stranger. As you can read in our review, we definitely enjoyed that game. As anyone can tell you, however, Pokémon reigns supreme in the monster-catching genre. The release times for Time Stranger and the latest Pokémon game, Legends: Z-A, made it tempting to outright compare the two. We’re going to refrain from doing this, apart from saying that the former set a very high bar for Z-A to clear. Can Legends: Z-A live up to expectations? Story Set several years after XY, Z-A takes us back to the Kalos region, which is the Pokémon world’s equivalent of France. More specifically, Z-A takes place entirely within Lumiose City, a.k.a Poké-Paris. The city is being plagued by a mysterious phenomenon known as Rogue Mega Evolution, in which wild Pokémon randomly turn into their Mega Forms and go on a rampage. Quasartico Inc., a company working on an urban redevelopment project in the city, has set up the Z-A Royale, a ranked Pokémon battle system. Whichever trainer can reach the highest rank will have their wish granted by the company. Unbeknownst to the participants, however, Quasartico inc. intends to use the Z-A Royale to find the trainer that is most adept at handling Mega Pokémon, hoping that they can deal with the Rogue Mega Evolution phenomenon. Of course, that trainer is going to be… you, the player! The player character arrives in Lumiose as a tourist, but it doesn’t take long for them to be recruited into Team MZ, a group of young trainers investigating Rogue Mega Evolution. Together with their new friends -and an old and familiar one for anyone who played XY– it’s up to the player to juggle dealing with rogue Mega Pokémon and reaching the top rank in the Z-A Royale! Graphics Ever since the mainline Pokémon series moved away from 2D sprites, the bulk of the criticism the games have received was directed at their graphics and visual performance. Scarlet and Violet were arguably considered the worst when it came to the latter, with Game Freak clearly biting off more than they could chew with the OG Switch hardware. When the Switch 2 was released, Scarlet and Violet got a visual performance update, and the difference was night and day. Unsurprisingly, Z-A builds on this. While we’re not quite up there with Tears of the Kingdom or Mario Kart World just yet, Z-A’s visuals are still a step up for the Pokémon series. The most noticeable improvement is just how smooth the framerate is. Aesthetically, Z-A doesn’t do anything new for the series; however: the Pokémon look exactly like they should and attack effects bring lots of visual oomph to the battles. It’s a shame that Game Freak still felt the need to cut some visual corners here and there, with the city environment in particular suffering from a lack of detail, and certain character animations feeling limited. Still, it’s a step in the right direction, and it bodes well for the future if the series keeps improving with every new entry. Sound The one improvement that we’d want most of all isn’t a visual one, but one regarding the game’s audio. We’ve been saying it since Sword and Shield, but the mainline Pokémon games really need to start adding voice acting. Alas, this still isn’t the case with Z-A. Given how dialogue-heavy the game can be at times, this keeps feeling like a missed opportunity. A less prominent niggle that still warrants mentioning is that Z-A still relies on old cries for the Pokémon themselves. While their sound quality has improved over time, Bulbasaur still makes the same sound as he did on the Game Boy. On the upside, Z-A’s soundtrack is nigh-on perfect for a modern Pokémon title, offering a blend of reimagined versions of familiar tunes and new ones. Gameplay The previous Legends game, Arceus, was arguably the best Pokémon game on the OG Switch, making the case that Game Freak is at its greatest when they step away from the established mainline Pokémon formula. Mind you, we’re still going to count Z-A as a mainline Pokémon game, even though it breaks the mold in a similar way that Arceus did. The vast majority of Z-A‘s gameplay sticks to the series’ established conventions. That means that you’ll be catching Pokémon, battling trainers, and trying to complete a Pokédex. The Z-A Royale replaces gyms and the Elite Four, and the battle system has been completely overhauled here, but Z-A still looks and feels like a Pokémon title in ways that true spin-offs like Detective Pikachu Returns and New Pokémon Snap don’t. The new battle system isn’t turn-based anymore, with the moves of your Pokémon instead relying on a cooldown mechanic. Battles aren’t static either, as you and your Pokémon can now run around the battlefield. Certain attacks are ranged, while others require you to go up close. This, in turn, also means that you can dodge attacks or set up traps with moves like Fire Spin or Sand Tomb. It’s a fresh breath of air for a system that was showing its age in places. You’d half-expect that the new battle system would peak when facing off against rank bosses in the Z-A Royale, but in truth, it really comes into its own against Rogue Mega Pokémon. These are lengthy boss battles where you’re at risk just as much as your Pokémon, as you can be knocked out yourself too, causing you to lose the battle. That said, the Pokémon games have never had a reputation of being punishingly difficult, and Z-A certainly doesn’t change this. Should you be knocked out by a Rogue Mega Pokémon, you can choose to restart the battle with the boss staying at the level of damage you’ve already dealt, for example. With Z-A being confined to a single -albeit large- city, it’s not surprising that the game feels a lot smaller compared to “true” mainline Pokémon titles. The way the game is paced tries to counteract this by unlocking new Wild Areas, where you catch critters, as you progress through the story, as well as relying on verticality, with rooftops hiding plenty of things to discover. Still, it is a fairly short title, with the main campaign taking roughly 20 hours to complete. For such a short Pokémon game, it would be reasonable to expect a somewhat lower price tag, but Z-A sticks to the €69.99 price tag, putting it at the same level as Donkey Kong Bananza and Cyberpunk 2077. We won’t doubt that it will still sell buckets regardless – it’s Pokémon after all- but here’s hoping that the next entry will at least stick to this price point and not push things even further. Conclusion If anything, Z-A makes us hopeful about Pokémon’s future. The game is a good showcase of what Game Freak can do with the series if given some room to breathe and straying away from the core formula they’ve been sticking to for three decades. There still is quite a bit of room for improvement, particularly in the audiovisual department, but with every entry since Sword and Shield, we’ve seen the developer become more comfortable with the hardware, which in turn translated to better games. We’re already looking forward to returning to Lumiose City in late February of next year, when Z-A’s Mega Dimension DLC drops.