Pokémon Legends: Z-A review – a mega improvement

Pokémon Legends: Z-A – better than expected (The Pokémon Company)

The first Pokémon game on Nintendo Switch 2 features night-time brawling in a pastiche of Paris, as turn-based battles are ditched in favour of a brand new combat system.

These things are hard to calculate, but it’s often suggested that Pokémon is the biggest media franchise on the planet. Which makes it very curious that all the 3D games (i.e. everything since 2018’s Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee!) look like mid-budget indie titles. 2022’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus was the first concerted effort to make a modern, fully 3D, open world adventure and yet, on a technical level, it was an amateurish mess.

Things only got a little better for Scarlet and Violet (the most recent mainline entries, released that same year) and so even the most ardent fans have been struggling to remain optimistic about Pokémon Legends: Z-A. That’s understandable, given that the root problem is that developer Game Freak is overworked and understaffed, something even they have tacitly admitted.

So, imagine our surprise in finding out that Z-A is a major step forward for the franchise. It’s very far from perfect, and many of the long-standing issues are lessened rather than resolved, but this is easily the best of the fully 3D Pokémon games and a genuinely entertaining action role-player, whether you’re a pokéfan or not.

The Pokémon Legends sub-series seems to be a remnant of the old director’s cut concept, where the older 2D games got an extra version, like Platinum or Emerald, a year later, with some new features and a handful of new pokémon. Except the Legends games work the other way round, where they’re released before the next mainline game and are used to experiment with new ideas and technology.

For example, Arceus featured much more substantial open world elements than predecessor Sword and Shield, but not as much as successor Scarlet and Violet. It also introduced a more dynamic combat element, while still being turn-based. Z-A’s main innovation is that its combat is entirely real-time, with the ability to pause and use the menu your only respite.

It works very simply, as you lock onto your target and use the face buttons to select one of the pokémon’s four moves. There’s no PP (power points) anymore, so you can use any move an infinite number of times, but the more powerful they are the longer a cooldown time they have. You can still use healing and other items but only one a time, once a short meter refills – so you can’t pump your critter full of a dozen health potions when things are going badly.

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Pokémon rarely target you, but you can be injured, the edge of the screen turning darker and darker, until a blackout ends a battle completely if you succumb. You can dodge roll out the way but – and strangely the game never formally explains this – as you manoeuvre around your target your pokémon will move in sympathy with you, while keeping the same distance from its opponent. If you watch for tells though, there is usually enough time to coax them out of the way of a particularly dangerous move.

There’s been understandable consternation about moving to a real-time system but… it works. The controls could do with a little tightening up, the connection between your movements and the pokémon’s being a little woolly, but it’s a fun and exciting system. It allows for proper boss battles, while also making the terrain an important factor, as you try and ensure you’ve got enough space to manoeuvre and don’t get boxed in.

Apart from having us suddenly wish that PlatinumGames would be brought in to help on the next one, we have several nitpicks with the combat system, but none of them are too serious. The speed of battles means that there’s not that much visual distinction between moves anymore, and it’s often difficult to judge by sight whether status effects, and things like Leech Seed, are working. There’s a running text commentary on the right of the screen, but you’ve got no time to concentrate on reading it.

It’s also a shame that there’s no longer any on-screen indication of exactly what a move does, so you’re back to having to remember each one’s function. The game is also weird about not making it obvious when pokémon have a new move to learn or when they can evolve. You are told in the info boxes, and via an icon on the menu, but you have to do it manually and the game never reminds you.

The mean streets of Lumiose City (The Pokémon Company)

There’s clear scope for refinement but as a proof of concept it works extremely well. However, pleasingly, it is not the sole appeal of the game. The whole of Z-A takes place within the Paris-inspired Lumiose City, from Pokémon X and Y, with the name relating to a city-wide tournament where you have to work your way up from rank Z to A, at which point you’re granted your heart’s desire.

You’re roped into helping out a team of competitors who are concerned about random wild pokémon undergoing impromptu mega evolutions, the temporary transformations available to some, but not all, pokémon – which was introduced in X and Y but quickly forgotten about after that.

You eventually gain the ability to initiate mega evolutions yourself, although this is a relatively involved process that requires both a specific pokémon and its unique mega evolution stone, which has to be either bought, traded for mega shards, or obtained as a mission reward.

For many years now the Pokémon games have been trivially easy but while Z-A is not what you’d call difficult it can easily catch you out if you’re not paying attention. Some pokémon are near impossible to beat without a critter of the appropriate level and type, which makes it feel more like a real role-playing game than any of the previous 3D games.

The side missions are also surprisingly good, with an impressive amount of variety that doesn’t just rely on going somewhere and starting a battle. Having to escort someone’s pokémon or take a photo isn’t exactly complex stuff but the side missions leverage the enormous amount of items, gadgets, and stones that the series already has to provide some very welcome rewards.

Structurally, there are no gyms, but the Z-A tournament underpins most of the main story beats, with the conceit that you have to beat a specific competitor to rise up a rank. But in order to win the right to take them on you have to earn enough points in ordinary tournament battles to gain a ticket.

Ordinary battles take place only at night, in temporary walled off areas of the city where other competitors wander about looking for trouble. Stealth is surprisingly important here, as getting in a first strike, especially if it’s with a good type match, can wipe a pokémon out in one hit.

Stealth can also be employed when trying to catch pokémon in Wild Zones, which are permanent sections of the city where wild pokémon are allowed to run free, with rare ones difficult to find without careful exploration. Although when poking around you might also bump into shiny pokémon and alphas, the latter of which are much larger and more powerful variants that are definitely no joke when battling.

Alpha pokémon are no joke (The Pokémon Company)

Before we make all this sound too good, we should emphasise that the whole game is presented in embarrassing low-budget-o-vision, which is madness considering how profitable the franchise is. Although, up to this point the 3D games have been riddled with bugs and glitches, and that’s not an issue here. It shouldn’t be something we have to praise but Z-A has absolutely no problems in terms of performance or glitches, with an acceptable draw distance to boot.

We were playing the game on Switch 2 though, which apparently increases the frame rate and resolution, so we don’t know if there are any problems on Switch 1. The Switch 2 clearly loads much more quickly too, as there’s never time to read the loading screen hints.

The improvements over Scarlet and Violet are no doubt in part because the game’s not trying to render a complex outdoor environment, but instead what are essentially a bunch of simply textured boxes, portraying the various buildings of the city. If the leaked budget for the game is accurate it wouldn’t even pay for the catering at other developers, which means the game looks incredibly cheap at times, such as when night falls and the lighting is so flat and simplistic it looks like a tech demo from the late 90s.

What really gets our Gogoat though is the lack of voice-acting. This has been a problem with Nintendo games for a long while now, but while titles like Donkey Kong Bananza show a slow change in attitude, it’s Pokémon which needs it the most. Nintendo tries to pretend it’s an artistic choice but it’s very clearly just penny-pinching (and their distasteful aversion to using union actors) and they need to stop being so cheap and fully voice all their games, rather than let everyone’s lips flap uselessly the whole game.

It’s especially irritating because the dialogue in Z-A is not entirely awful, even finding time for a very mild critique of streamers and fandom. Although it’s all in US English, including the date format, because Nintendo couldn’t bear to pay someone to change it. Although that does have the side benefit that although we assume the game is supposed to be pronounced Zee to Ay (as opposed to Zed) nobody actually says the name out loud.

Like all Pokémon games, the amount of unfilled potential is beyond measure but for the first time in a long while this latest entry feels competently made and genuinely ambitious. We don’t care whether the next mainline game has turn-based battles or not, because the best thing about Pokémon Legends: Z-A is not its combat but that it gives you hope for the future of the franchise, and we’ve not felt that for a very long time.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A review summary

In Short: It’s still as embarrassingly low-tech as ever but this is easily the best of the 3D games, with a surprising amount of ambition and invention, not to mention real-time combat that actually works.

Pros: The new combat system is a success and the open-ended structure works very well, with plenty of freedom but a clear goal at all times. Mega evolutions are handled well and side missions are surprisingly engaging.

Cons: There are rough edges with the combat, particularly in terms of the lack of visual information. Extremely low-tech and cheap looking, especially in terms of the lack of voice-acting.

Score: 7/10

Formats: Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed) and Nintendo Switch
Price: £49.99*
Publisher: The Pokémon Company
Developer: Game Freak
Release Date: 16th October 2025
Age Rating: 7

*Switch 2 Edition is £58.99 or a £7.99 upgrade pack from Switch 1

Suddenly we’re much more excited about Gen 10 (The Pokémon Company)

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