Pocket Thoughts on Pokemon Legends Z-A

Spoilers for Pokemon Legends Z-A

Playing Pokemon games is like watching Super Sentai or Kamen Rider every year. To wit:

With the caveat that I did not play Legends Arceus, Z-A feels like an attempt to refine how Game Freak approaches their open world design. Scarlet/Violet's world was half-baked and infamously unstable. It makes sense to me that Z-A would use a smaller, denser map to focus on how to integrate Pokemon throughout the environment and smooth the transitions between battle and exploration. The open world cat is forever out of the bag, so they need to figure out the balance for future games as soon as possible.

While that makes for an interesting experience, I'd also say the game doesn't do much beyond that. Which, well... what did I expect? It entertained for a reasonable period of time. That is why I play Pokemon, I suppose. I'm here for a smooth ride, made even smoother by my institutional knowledge of how to twist the odds in my favor.

The rhythm of combat in Z-A is bizarre and fascinating to someone like me who has only ever played the turn-based entries. In standard Pokemon you're weighing every move based not just on how powerful it is, but how reliable it is. Thunderbolt's a great electric attack because it's got a respectable 90 base power coupled with 100% base accuracy. Thunder has 110 power, but a mere 70% accuracy and only 10 charges per rest compared to Thunderbolt's 15. It might still be worth it if you know you that damage differential is the difference between a one-hit or two-hit KO, or if you're running a Rain Dance team to ensure Thunder has 100% accuracy, but those are considerations a level deeper.

Many of these decisions get completely upended by real time combat. The main check for more powerful moves in Z-A is longer cooldowns and slower animations. Accuracy is usually a non-issue in single player because now it's a matter of hitboxes rather than dice rolls. Previously derided moves like Zap Cannon (120 power, confuses on hit, 50% accuracy) are much more appealing, and in some cases I downgraded to weaker attacks because the faster animation was more efficient. Emboar's Fire Punch is not as strong as Flare Blitz, but I could keep up a more sustained DPS alongside other attacks now that they weren't all each competing for a shared turn slot. Entry hazards like the infamous Stealth Rock now simply sit in place and are easily maneuvered around.

Former Uber-tier Aegislash - famed for its unique ability to switch between powerful sword mode and tanky shield mode - becomes uniquely terrible due to the new action economy. Because its stance switch animation is unchanged, Aegislash is left wide open and unable to act for about two or three attacks worth of time. And it got lucky! The entire Ability mechanic, a core aspect of deciding which 'mons to use and why, is completely absent, removing the mechanical niche of many featured Mega Evolutions.

Not that any of this matters that much in single player. It's made for children, after all. The only context in which many of these decisions had any import was in PvP, which is now such utter chaos it makes Super Smash Bros. look regimented. The only mode is 4-person free-for-all competing to see who gets the most KOs. All strategy within is about timing your switches and Mega Evolutions to completely avoid hits, then trying to snipe damaged opponents and steal the kill. I think I hate it, but it's undeniably different and makes me curious about the possibilities. I suppose we'll see which features - quality of life or otherwise - Game Freak deigns to implement in following games.

...Which I feel like I've been saying about basically every Pokemon game since X/Y. With Sentai/Rider, I know there will another installment and I simply hope it'll be better than baseline. After all, as long as a certain baseline of quality is met, you'll reach a baseline of entertainment. This is how I've personally treated Pokemon games for years, but I'm feeling the frustration more keenly as I come directly off Z-A's postgame. Video game sequels carry a certain (understandable) expectation of iteration and improvement that doesn't necessarily apply to more passive media.

Legends Z-A went down smooth, but now I have a hangover. I can see so many gaps in Z-A where they could have done something more interesting, but didn't. They undeniably dug the holes and built the foundation, but Lumiose City still feels like it's full of proverbial empty lots with "Coming Soon!" signs posted behind the facade. In that way, perhaps it's fitting that you play as a tourist.

Z-A's base premise plays with the familiar mechanical structure of monster zones and safe zones. Wild Pokemon are flooding into the heart of Lumiose City, and are summarily cordoned into "Wild Zones" as part of an "urban redevelopment" program run by the local megacorp. There's an obvious underlying menace here, and I don't just mean the anti-homeless benches scattered about. Landmarks or otherwise low-traffic parts of the city are basically being gentrified into wildlife preserves with the optics of "coexisting with Pokemon", one of the series' main mission statements. As the game progresses, more and more Wild Zones are designated to the point where they start to actively impede traversal and certainly would make living in Lumiose unappealing. What if every major plaza in the city had roving wolf packs?

Meanwhile, nighttime in Lumiose is ruled by the Z-A Royale, an open tournament meant to find "the strongest Mega Evolution user". Random chunks of the city are turned into Battle Zones, where Pokemon street battles are not only allowed but actively encouraged via nightly cash payouts from the megacorp. The very start of the game has one appear around you, and you're summarily jumped by like four goons. Locals, tourists, and migrants alike participate for the paycheck and get absolutely no sleep as a result. At least one NPC complains about how high rent is in the center of the city and that he's going to have to step it up in the Royale to afford it; by the end of the game the rooftop view he's paying for has been completely destroyed.

This is all because behind the scenes the ancient superweapon built into the Prism Tower is shooting off waves of energy that not only attract Pokemon but make them go berserk and Mega Evolve uncontrollably. Your secondary objective is to pacify Rogue Mega Evolutions before they cause damage to the city and to themselves. Both Wild Zones and Battle Zones are an elaborate scheme to deal with this problem. So you've got this three pronged situation contextualizing your usual catch-and-battle loop. It's a solid setup! ...That's kind of all it is!

Okay, so, like... maybe this is a personal creative failing, but I've never been a "headcanon" kind of person. I support subtext (unlike the Garth Marenghi loyalists) but I also need some kind of indicator that the media itself wants me to think about certain things. Just having them in there isn't always enough for me. Example: basically every Kamen Rider show has the Rider using the same powers as (or powers derived from) the villains. That's just part of the DNA of the franchise. However, not every Kamen Rider explores the thematic or narrative implications of this within a specific show's setting. It's "there", but it's not "there". It's seasoning, not sauce.

Z-A creates the interesting backdrop of a supposedly declining city attempting to revitalize itself via allowing a corporation to freely re-zone its streets and paper over any material concerns with huge amounts of cash. People can't visit the graveyard because they'll be accosted by Ghost-type Pokemon. The research lab is running the Poke-equivalent of Operation Paperclip. Rent is high because any low-income areas literally have "HERE BE DRAGONS" on their listings. There are anti-homeless benches now and the major character who was explicitly homeless five years ago doesn't say a goddamn word.

The game has these things but it is not about these things. The narrative is - as per usual for Pokemon games - about how you are the coolest and strongest trainer around by virtue of being controlled by a human brain, and thus it is your responsibility to solve the local problems. Which is not an issue in itself; this is a game for children. What I find frustrating is that the possibilities of the setting they've constructed are often actively ignored.

The entire conceit of the Z-A Royale is that you start at Z and must fight your way up the ladder to A. That's 26 ranks, a convenient analogue for, say, a half-year run of an episodic anime. Plenty of time and opportunity to flesh out Team MZ, explore the intricacies of living in an urban environment, have some enjoyably frivolous filler sidequests, and include shorter arcs about various wacky Gym Leader equivalents throughout (and to the game's credit, we do get some of that last one).

Instead you jump 15 ranks from V to F. The narrative is basically only main plot. And, just, come on. Putting aside the potential of exploring weightier topics, why are we choosing to experience media for kids if not for goofy filler? The best parts of any given Super Sentai show are between episodes 10-20ish, where the base premise and characters are established and we can have the cast bounce off each other and off the inevitable Sixth Ranger; and between episodes 30-40ish, where we can do the exact same thing but even better because everyone's more settled in and enough time's passed that you can call back to previous episodes. You know what's not happening during those bits? The "real" plot, which is always about saving everybody and everything from some kind of big threat. Which is fine for the main plot - it's for children - but it's not why you're there.

...In Z-A's post-game, you have to fight through those missing 15 ranks of generic, non-story-related matches to get the final smidge of plot. By God I did it and I am flabbergasted at how minimal the narrative payoff is. The corporation isn't even secretly evil! They're presented as pretty much an unambiguous good to the city!! What are we doing!!!

There are 119 sidequests and maybe 10% of them are up to snuff. For every enjoyably silly quest about a bizarre Starmie cult or finding Spewpa across the museum there are ten with some dude saying "Fight my team that uses barrier moves!" And I can't help but be kind of annoyed because I can see the potential, clear as day.

You know what, yeah, take Starmie, just in general. Lida, allegedly a major character since she's part of Team MZ, is supposed to be supporting you against the Rogue Mega Evolutions. Her signature Pokemon is a Staryu. You get a handful of lines about how she knows she needs to evolve it to Starmie so it can consequently Mega Evolve and help out with the mission, but she doesn't want it to lose its unique Staryu appeal. Eventually she evolves it offscreen and that's the end of that.

I can imagine, say, Rank L or some shit having a whole "episode" about this where you spend time with Lida. She's apprehensive about how the only way she can feel useful to the team is by evolving Staryu. You look for other people around the city who have Staryu/Starmie and end up interacting with a weird Starmie cult that only makes Lida more conflicted. Then you already battle a Rogue Mega Starmie in the actual game, so that could act as a character beat for her somehow. Maybe it's even her Starmie, I don't know. It'd just be nice if she got something.

Like I noted on bsky, Pokemon as a franchise has an entire long-running anime to draw from. There are literally hundreds of one-off episodic plots about random 'mons and situations. Pokemon are inherently silly little guys and the ways they interact with humans have tons of comedy potential. Why can't Legends Z-A have some Yakuza-like quests where Taunie/Urbain drags you into some insane situation where, and I am starting up my Switch to look at the Pokedex and pick a random Pokemon as I am typing this, I dunno, the taxi drivers need a bunch of fresh Swablu cotton to clean their windshields because the sudden influx of bird Pokemon in the city has made keeping the cabs clean a real chore. It'd even be a chance to call back to Le Z Eternel, Zach the misanthropic cabbie.

Though now I'm becoming prescriptive... shaky critical ground when it comes to video games. I must remember it's made for children.

...So, uh, this might be the horniest Pokemon game yet? Z-A's the first one to be rated E10+ here in the United States, though the ESRB listing implies that's for the real-time fighting as opposed to the usual abstracted turn-based battles. To be clear, any fanservice is all quite tame - it's not like Canari's outfit is any more revealing than Misty's back in the day - but now we live in the internet age. Gacha games are all the rage, and people are used to dropping currency material and mental on naught but an attractive character design. I'm told social media is losing it over Jacinthe and Lebanne.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is a convenient point of reference as another recent monster-collecting release. Digimon has never been as big as Pokemon, but it's never gone away either; instead it embraced a sort of comical teenage edge. It's an ancient meme that any given Digimon eventually digivolves into either a killer robot, a sexy human lady, or a sword-wielding furry (the three genders). Meanwhile, Yokai Watch, white-hot with the kids a decade ago, has practically faded from memory without anything to grip the tweens.

Supposedly "dadservice" is what separates something that's "for kids" from something that's "for the whole family". While I don't know if I'd wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, it rings true to me on a conceptual sense. If a franchise perpetually targeting the below-12 demographic wants to keep the 13+ kids around, it makes sense to add a whiff of something for grown-ups. Even Super Sentai has a "dress the girls up in cosplay outfits" episode at minimum once a series, plus the ever-present Sexy Female Villain. One might say Pokemon carries within it not only the potential for a better game but also the potential for a sexual awakening.

Perhaps this potential energy within Pokemon that never quite materializes is what carries the franchise writ large. The Heather Flowers post I cite with Nocturne and elsewhere continues to ring true. I don't know if it's even possible for Pokemon to truly satisfy me in the way it did when I was a child, and cynically, maybe that's part of the point. Yet I still watch the anime, still inevitably buy Pokemon games. Deep down, I know exactly what I'm getting into. At this point it's more about the legend than the reality.

I must keep my expectations grounded. They are made for children.

#games

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