Pokémon Presents - Pokémon Day 2025 - Pokemon ZA Info & Pokemon Champions Announced

[richi3f]

What was that? Can't believe they didn't show a single new Mega.

i get that typhlosion just got hisuian form but having two from one region feels weird

also again omfg the artstyle is ruining this for me

Oh, right. Forgot Hisuian Typhlosion existed and wondered why they left out Cyndaquil lol.

I wonder if these starters will get megas or regional forms.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile as the starters for Z-A huh.

I'm surprised there's overlap in two cases.

But on the other hand, this now means between Arceus and Z-A, all three Johto starters have gotten love!

The game looks so good, I can't wait to play it!

Concierge getting more eps and a Stadium-esque PvP game in Champions to create an environment where everyone and all super mechanics are available is icing on the cake.

Great Presents, got a lot to look forward to this year!

 

[TerrickTerran]

Chikorita love finally.

 

[ant4456]

I am *very* intrigued by the combat system.

Looks like they took Legend Arceus one and went a step further, with actually directly moving your pokemon around to dodge attacks now.

...this is literally the anime's combat and I am 100% looking forward for that.

Something worth of note is that they shown nothing new. No megas, no pokemon, no regional forms.
I would assume they're saving them for later, probably for the Direct that'll have the actual release date (I am expecting such Direct to happen somewhere near summer)

well,

this was something they had planned for PLA they just couldn't make it in time lol

 

[Yung Dramps]

If Essentia happens not to have a unique battle theme I'm blasting this shit at 5,000 decibels

 

[Noah3475]

Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile as the starters for Z-A huh.

I'm surprised there's overlap in two cases.

But on the other hand, this now means between Arceus and Z-A, all three Johto starters have gotten love!

On the other hand, the internet was wrong, which makes me happy.

 

[phoopes]

I am *very* intrigued by the combat system.

Looks like they took Legend Arceus one and went a step further, with actually directly moving your pokemon around to dodge attacks now.

...this is literally the anime's combat and I am 100% looking forward for that.

Me too, now if my Focus Blast misses it is truly a Skill Issue

 

[DreamPrince]

Funny how they retconned AZ to be a publicly known hotel owner with eternal flower Floette while in XY he was portrayed as a mysterious hobo with an unknown past. Here’s Hope to the ideal that Eternal Flower Floette will finally be catchable. The real time looks admirable as well, and the designs of the characters remind me of Detective Pikachu. A pity there is no new Pokémon/Megas featured, but the game looks promising and I’m excited to see how it compares to PLA.

As for Champions, it’s exciting to see GF create a dedicated battle platform. A big question is that if will be the National Dex with Megas, Z-Moves, and all Pokemon. I’m leaning towards yes considering Mega Charizard X was fighting Tera Water Dondozo. And of course, this game might give PS! competition if that’s the case. Another thing is that we are seeing Megas and Tera, while the National Dex banned the latter.

 

[R_N]

Z-A looked pretty neat. Intrigued by the battle system. Also surprsied we're doing parkour rather than using Pokemon (/Zygarde)


Very funny to see it is, in fact, contemporary. But I can't be too petty about being right because I whiffed just about every other prediction about it lmao.


Pretty stunned at doing Pokemon Stadium Champions. My only thoughts about this are that the criticism about the graphics and the constant crashes at official events probably got to them, so they may as well do one dediated game that can look good and ideally not crash all the time. Now the core games can have a shitty head to head mode, and never have to worry about it again. Just play Champions. Look it even has all the Pokemon. It's what you wanted, right?

 

[Jungle cruiser]

Huh, kinda funny how we did get a unova starter, but not the one everyone predicted

 

[Kitsunine]

Funny how they retconned AZ to be a publicly known hotel owner with eternal flower Floette while in XY he was portrayed as a mysterious hobo with an unknown past. Here’s Hope to the ideal that Eternal Flower Floette will finally be catchable. The real time looks admirable as well, and the designs of the characters remind me of Detective Pikachu. A pity there is no new Pokémon/Megas featured, but the game looks promising and I’m excited to see how it compares to PLA.

As for Champions, it’s exciting to see GF create a dedicated battle platform. A big question is that if will be the National Dex with Megas, Z-Moves, and all Pokemon. I’m leaning towards yes considering Mega Charizard X was fighting Tera Water Dondozo. And of course, this game might give PS! competition if that’s the case. Another thing is that we are seeing Megas and Tera, while the National Dex banned the latter.

It’s not a retcon. Its pretty clear at this point that this is taking place after XY.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

Rip Smogon hello Champions

 

[DreamPrince]

It’s not a retcon. Its pretty clear at this point that this is taking place after XY.

Oh my bad, I thought it was in the past.

 

[ant4456]

is it just me or does exploration in this game seem kinda ass

 

[Worldie]

Funny how they retconned AZ to be a publicly known hotel owner with eternal flower Floette while in XY he was portrayed as a mysterious hobo with an unknown past. Here’s Hope to the ideal that Eternal Flower Floette will finally be catchable. The real time looks admirable as well, and the designs of the characters remind me of Detective Pikachu. A pity there is no new Pokémon/Megas featured, but the game looks promising and I’m excited to see how it compares to PLA.

I'm not sure if we talking of retconning.

By how old he looks, this game is definitely taking place way after XY.
So maybe after the shitshow that happened in XY, he just... started a normal life as hotel owner?

Pretty stunned at doing Pokemon Stadium Champions. My only thoughts about this are that the criticism about the graphics and the constant crashes at official events probably got to them, so they may as well do one dediated game that can look good and ideally not crash all the time. Now the core games can have a shitty head to head mode, and never have to worry about it again. Just play Champions. Look it even has all the Pokemon. It's what you wanted, right?

While everyone is obviously complaining / memeing about "oh they will nuke showdown now", tbh I am actually curious of what they're cooking there.
By the looks of it, it still should require having the Pokemon themselves, since it was showing needing to use Pokemon from Home thus those mons being... caught / trained.
Second, they mentioned it having every supermechanic available. On one hand, I am so looking forward to see Megas and maybe even Z-moves in modern graphics. On the other... what are you cooking GF? Is this literally going to be National Dex? We've seen here on smogon how much of a shitshow having every single mechanic at same time becomes....

 

[Noah3475]

is it just me or does exploration in this game seem kinda ass

It left me with as many questions as answers, which I suppose is the purpose of a trailer. Z-A may be scaling back the exploration aspect of the Legends series in favor of focusing on other mechanics, such as the more involved battle system we saw.

 

[Ironmage]

is it just me or does exploration in this game seem kinda ass

Basically the first thing they showed of gameplay is that they gave up on ladders, I wouldn't say it's just you.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

I saw parts of the Presents, and then I watched the trailer afterwards. Here are my short thoughts:
- The starters are an odd trio. Why are there two from Johto? Either way, I'm not picking Chikorita, that's for sure. I'll go with Tepig or Totodile. I'm guessing there will be starters from other regions in the game as well, we saw Charizard so I'm definitely expecting Bulbasaur and Squirtle too. The Kalos starters are bound to be there, hopefully the Hoenn starters too.
- Nice to see Megas back. Mega Stones as hold items were mentioned in the Presents, so it seems like hold items will be a thing here (unlike in Arceus). And OR/AS Megas will be there too (or at least some of them) since Mega Sableye was shown in the trailer.
- Two rivals, I'm guessing which one you'll face will be determined by the gender of your player character.
- I'm really glad the game takes place in modern times, and from what it seems like, at some point after X/Y.
- The new battle system seems interesting but I'm not sold on it yet. I need more info. Here's to hoping it will be better than the system in Arceus.
- Release late 2025... why. They had a big opportunity to release the game earlier in the year, and they chose not to. This just makes the announcement last year feel even more pointless. I hope "late 2025" means October or maybe even September, though I'm guessing it will be November as usual. But the positive thing is that I should be done with XCX by then, so that's something.

 

[R_N]

While everyone is obviously complaining / memeing about "oh they will nuke showdown now", tbh I am actually curious of what they're cooking there.
By the looks of it, it still should require having the Pokemon themselves, since it was showing needing to use Pokemon from Home thus those mons being... caught / trained.

They said during the trailer that you won't just be limited to it.

Second, they mentioned it having every supermechanic available. On one hand, I am so looking forward to see Megas and Z-moves in modern graphics. On the other... what are you cooking GF? Is this literally going to be National Dex? We've seen here on smogon how much of a shitshow having every single mechanic at same time becomes....

I don't think they said every supermechanic did they? Megas & Terastalization are obviously there but I don't think Z-Moves & G-Maxes were confirmed. I wouldn't be too surprised, I suppose, but not confirmed yet I dont think.

Wouldn't surprise me if you can just one super mechanic at a time, which might vary things up if so, but who knows when it'll land.

 

[Valoo]

is it just me or does exploration in this game seem kinda ass

Yeah I really hope the wild zones or whatever are big. I don’t care that much about running around the regular city.


Shocked at the starters lol, and kinda disappointed. I wish they had at least swapped one of the Johto two out so we had three from different regions. Chikorita and Tepig are both meh to me so I guess I’ll go with totodile.

Not surprised about the lack of info re new megas/pokemon considering the release date. Probably won’t get any more info for a few months now. The new battle system is really cool and I’m excited to see how it will work in practice. Also blaming this for the delay!

 

[CodeFour]

I hope they go all in on Champions and that singles is supported. All pokemon and formes avalible. I even want triple battles back. Multiple ranked ladders.

If we could change natures and such from within champions that would be swell too.

Very exciting. Its unfortunate we have to play this ZA garbage first. Hopefully it ends up being fun. Last 3 story's have been ZZZ for me. Hopefully champions updates next gen even as DLC and I don't even have to play gen 10.

They ought to bring old gens to nintendo online now so we can start filling up home for champions

Edit: ok legends battle system looks at least a little intriguing i admit. Might be fun, if movement is good

 

[Bakugames]

btw am i fucking insane crazy or are these two just french ethan and lyra

 

[Just A Seaking]

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The framed photo of Mimi... that cat is dead isn't it

Pre-emptive mourning aside, really looking forward to both ZA and Champions from what they showed! In particular I'm really relieved they're trying a different battle system, that was easily the worst part of PLA for me so I'm glad they're at least switching it up this time.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Something worth of note is that they shown nothing new. No megas, no pokemon, no regional forms.
I would assume they're saving them for later, probably for the Direct that'll have the actual release date (I am expecting such Direct to happen somewhere near summer)

But there were signs.

I don't particularly remember Chikorita getting Disarming Voice that early. My money is on a Grass/Fairy Regional Form.

 

[Worldie]

I would hold my judgement about the exploration part for now.

Despite everything, they've shown... basically nothing of the gameplay. 90% of the trailer was prerecorded non-gameplay footage. The only focus was on the in-battle mechanic. Even on the whole Pokemon catching thing they've been very brief.

I would expect the exploration / pokemon catching shenenigans to be exploded (he he) in a separate trailer later on when we get the real release date.