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

[doipy hooves]

Unlike Arceus, it seems that Stealth Rock is still classified as a status move in this one. It doesn't have a notification for hitting super effectively and it doesn't have a type effectiveness overlay.

A Level 44 Pyroar doing 39 damage (55/94) to a level 47 Onix with Flamethrower seems closer to the usual damage formula as well, even with just estimating based on random wild stats.

Lvl 44 0 SpA 15 IVs Pyroar Flamethrower vs. Lvl 47 0 HP / 0 SpD Onix: 38-45 (36.5 - 43.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Also, I believe these arrows in the trailer are the new catch indicator.

The intro Fletchling started with 4 arrows.

more arrows

2 on Flaaffy became 3 after Chikorita 'fainted' it, or rather left it in a stunned state. It seems like fainting has a specific message in the trainer battles shown that doesn't show when a wild battle ends like that.

Talonflame has 1 arrow before and after flying into Stealth Rock.
Pyroar had 1 arrow before and after getting hit by Rock Slide.
Pidgeot had 1 arrow before and after getting Outraged.

Garbodor has 2 arrows after getting Bulldozed.

Pokedex thoughts:

#1-9 will likely be the starters.
#10-12 are the Fletchling line.
#24-26 are Mareep-Ampharos.
I think the mons in between could be the mons shown in the party in the Flaaffy clip and Route 1, so Scatterbug (3), Bunnelby (2), Swablu (2), Swirlix (2). Flaaffy and Swablu are shown together earlier as well.

The minimap in that clip also shows a Fly pentagon with a 6 on it, implying this might be representative of area 6. It seems like the green areas represent wild zones, but some battles take place outside of those. I believe this takes place on this top right segment of the map just based off the building shape in the top left of the minimap and what looks like the waterway underneath, which aligns with the map showing Fletchling in the top right and progressing clockwise with its evolutions.

Also, there does seem to be at least one ladder in the game.

 

[R_N]

Perhaps a subset of Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Mega Evolutions will appear, those for Pokémon that already occur in the Kalos Pokedex.

ORAS Mega Evolutions

Those are Beedrill, Pidgeot, Slowbro, Steelix, Sableye, Altaria and Salamence.

Also going back to this a second, aside from the ones you listed there's also Audino, Gallade & Sharpedo (& Diancie, I suppose) as "regular Kalos native, but have ORAS mega"
But at that point it's like...Camerupt, Glalie, Metagross (who are available as Friend Safari) & Lopunny (wasnt available at all). May as well include them too. Just have the full regular set

Blaziken -while not an ORAS mega- will probably be here since it was included prominently as the XY early purchase bonus and at that point why not include the other 2.

Mega Ray, the primals and the mega lati are imo the only ones really up in the air. Could probably get away with the lati (they were technically XY megas...) but who knows if they'd bother unless they were wanting every mega.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Mega Ray, the primals and the mega lati are imo the only ones really up in the air. Could probably get away with the lati (they were technically XY megas...) but who knows if they'd bother unless they were wanting every mega.

Kid named Hoopa

 

[chimp]

I get why some people are underwhelmed by the trailer but as someone who thinks that the Pokémon universe has way more possibilities than the usual formula, I am still very excited for this game. I don't really care that it's set in modern Kalos or that these are the starters or if there are no new megas. My biggest hope for this game is some good worldbuilding and seeing the Pokémon world in a different perspective.

Arceus had the problem of being a big open world with nothing in it. I just don't want this to be the same but instead of a big grassy field its a city.

 

[ToxicWyvern]

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

This. If they're going for regional forms or even alternate evolutions all together then not using Cyndaquil makes sense, But why two Johto starters when no one in the Sinnoh stater trio got anything,

 

[pika pal]

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

You overestimate how many people actually play or are willing to deal with showdown over just using actual 3d graphics on a official platform.

EXPECIALLY given the... pretty bad reputation showdown has as far as playerbase and elitism.

I don't think Showdown's playerbase elitism (correct or otherwise) factors into how it competes with what Champions looks to be, as Showdown also has the use case of "I already have a team I want to try out/a separate event, here is a simple platform to build and do Scrims with" by things like College Clubs or even VGC players before they commit to resource building on Cartridge for official events (Which given Home Compatibility, remains a possible scenario if Champions serves as the new "Event Platform" for TPC).

In this respect, Champions would be strictly inferior to Showdown as a service for battling against other players due to narrower/less accessible team building even on an official platform, so if it was not going to match those features, it needs something to make it a better value proposition than (re)creating your team idea on Showdown in 5-10 minutes to battle there.

 

[ant4456]

I

I don't think Showdown's playerbase elitism (correct or otherwise) factors into how it competes with what Champions looks to be, as Showdown also has the use case of "I already have a team I want to try out/a separate event, here is a simple platform to build and do Scrims with" by things like College Clubs or even VGC players before they commit to resource building on Cartridge for official events (Which given Home Compatibility, remains a possible scenario if Champions serves as the new "Event Platform" for TPC).

In this respect, Champions would be strictly inferior to Showdown as a service for battling against other players due to narrower/less accessible team building even on an official platform, so if it was not going to match those features, it needs something to make it a better value proposition than (re)creating your team idea on Showdown in 5-10 minutes to battle there.

I think people who are in Smogon circles vastly, vastly overrate how much the teambuilding time matters to a lot of people at this point

I know so many people with a casual interest in VGC who would rather play in-game than learn how to use Showdown. I'd know, I tried to host events with VGC for my friend group

The time to make mons is easy and with team codes you can insert a code into your game and basically just use top level teams. No training catching whatever required.

 

[DreamPrince]

I’m wondering if we will see any old Kalos characters like Sycamore, Diantha, Dexio, Sina, or even Team Flare. This could be a great opportunity to show what happened to Lysandre after XY; and considering this game takes place after XY, I wonder if this game is counted as a sequel?

 

[Cuddly]

Champions is definitely the most important announcement this direct imo. A Pokemom Battle sim that Pokemon fans have been enjoying for over 2 decades now with PO and Showdown has potential to change the Pokemon franchise’s direction forever, in a positive way.
I for one always wanted the Story mode and PvP modes to be seperate games. GameFreak can now have their focus on both experiences more easily without one conflicting with the other.
While we have limited knowledge of Champions, one of my biggest hopes for Champions is custom games. Safe to say modding the game to radically change the game will be completely unsupported given Nintendo’s history with modding compared to Valve. Which is why I hope we get custom games and an ingame ability to change certain values. Like how Mario Kart lets you customize races with items and stuff, or how Halo lets you create entire gamemodes off official ones.
One other thing I’d love to see is regular balance changes. Not only with movepool additions or generational BST changes, but also movepool removals, rebalancing of moves/abilities/items, drastically changing stats, etc. I want GameFreak to be able to take some of Flutter Mane’s SpA/SpD/Spe and put them into its Atk. I want GameFreak to be able to change the BP of Last Respects and Fishious Rend and their effects. I want GameFreak to give Meganium either Flower Gift or Flower Veil or to make Leaf Guard an actually good ability. And I don’t want to wait years in order to maybe see these changes.

In other news, I’m glad we got some Pokemon ZA news. I hope that new info starts to speed up, considering we waited a full year just for starters being confirmed as Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile, and a few more confirmed Pokemon being in the region.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Look: I fully understand if you are disappointed by Legends Z-A essentially being XY2. If you spent the past year hyping yourself up for an elegant Victorian France game and feel this result is too bland and similar to what we usually get in new generations, I get it.

But this is so fucking rad. Seeing AZ chilling and comfy with Floette after the passage of 12 real life years is fundamentally impactful in a very different way than anything in Legends Arceus. Timeskips are a sorely underutilized concept in Pokemon and I can't wait to see all the different ways Lumiose City and its citizens evolve. This is the game Kalos needed

 

[Bakugames]

this game is a 12 year timeskip??? i thought it was like 6 months

 

[Yung Dramps]

this game is a 12 year timeskip??? i thought it was like 6 months

Im referring to how much time has passed irl since xy's release

 

[DrrT]

So the Arceus starters

There was a Mon based on a yokai, on a samurai and on an archer. Thematically fitting to a traditionally japanese setting

Now we have a crocodile, a dinosaur and a random pig as starters in a french region?

There's already Snivey and Piplup who are directly inspired from France and the most important french person in history. Why weren't they chosen?

People keep saying that pokemon fans interpret weird patterns but that's on gf for making obvious sense sometimes and then just going bananas other times

But that's the thing. We literslly don't know if they are getting Megas or regional forms more tied to France. Why are you absolutely sure the starters don't fit ZA already? Were you able to tell right away Rowlet would turn into a more japenese style archer, or do you think archers are some kind of Hokkaido only thing? Were you able to tell Cyndaquil was turning into a yokai with the first trailer alone?
And yes, people see weird pattern. Bevause of two very simple things: 1) something happening once is not a pattern. Look up what a pattern actually is. 2) this new starter selection proves they are not strictly following LA anyways, yet people are already arguing "oh they are just completing the Johto trio and Unova, next one will be Snivy, Litten and Popplio"

So yes, fan do indeed jump into conclusions quickly on their obsession with patterns. You are kind of proving the point.

 

[woodgoldtwo]

this game is a 12 year timeskip??? i thought it was like 6 months

even though yung dramps was referring to how long it's been irl, I highly doubt all that technology and city remodeling was done in only 6 months

 

[CodeFour]

Champions is definitely the most important announcement this direct imo. A Pokemom Battle sim that Pokemon fans have been enjoying for over 2 decades now with PO and Showdown has potential to change the Pokemon franchise’s direction forever, in a positive way.
I for one always wanted the Story mode and PvP modes to be seperate games. GameFreak can now have their focus on both experiences more easily without one conflicting with the other.
While we have limited knowledge of Champions, one of my biggest hopes for Champions is custom games. Safe to say modding the game to radically change the game will be completely unsupported given Nintendo’s history with modding compared to Valve. Which is why I hope we get custom games and an ingame ability to change certain values. Like how Mario Kart lets you customize races with items and stuff, or how Halo lets you create entire gamemodes off official ones.
One other thing I’d love to see is regular balance changes. Not only with movepool additions or generational BST changes, but also movepool removals, rebalancing of moves/abilities/items, drastically changing stats, etc. I want GameFreak to be able to take some of Flutter Mane’s SpA/SpD/Spe and put them into its Atk. I want GameFreak to be able to change the BP of Last Respects and Fishious Rend and their effects. I want GameFreak to give Meganium either Flower Gift or Flower Veil or to make Leaf Guard an actually good ability. And I don’t want to wait years in order to maybe see these changes.

They have occasionally changed BST of pokemon so it is on the table. Hopefully we can change rules like playing on a tera-less ladder for example.

At the very least though I do expect seasons that change often not just with the release of DLC but also their "regulations". It's sort of fun with what they do with VGC but ideally there will be rotating options for singles and doubles and hopefully triples.

Just the additions of DLC 2 were interesting for SV and to some of us it did appear they were trying to balance some things- though we never got to see some of those interactions as they may have been intended.

I have a bit of faith in Champions being a fun reguarly refreshing game and gamefreak possibly taking it seriously enough to be what we need.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I've seen people say the protagonists kinda look like Ethan & Lyra. I sincerely doubt this is the intent and is most likely just the usual Pokemon fanbase searching for references and patterns that don't exist.

But if that's actually what they are going for, then that's how you KNOW this is an XY sequel. We went from KANTOOOOOOOOOOO to JOHTOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[woodgoldtwo]

these are the starter descriptions from the article summarizing the news on the official pokemon website, the initial descriptions for the paldea starters forshadowed the design direction of their evolutions so I wonder if they're doing something similar with these

maybe I'm on to nothing and it doesn't mean anything but I still want to point it out

starter descriptions

 

[R_N]

even though yung dramps was referring to how long it's been irl, I highly doubt all that technology and urban development was made in only 6 months

Honestly with how contemporary a number of Pokemon titles are (or try to be, I mean obviously there's still sci-fi stuff going on) it really could be ~12 years to purposely match that same passage of time.

I've seen people say the protagonists kinda look like Ethan & Lyra. I sincerely doubt this is the intent and is most likely just the usual Pokemon fanbase searching for references and patterns that don't exist.

But if that's actually what they are going for, then that's how you KNOW this is an XY sequel. We went from KANTOOOOOOOOOOO to JOHTOOOOOOOOOOO

me holding up the johto startesr & tepig: is this the fabled paradox unova johto games

 

[Jungle cruiser]

Let me just say that the mcs this time around actually have a lot of drip!

We can wear fedoras! I might consider keeping myself like that...

 

[Bakugames]

ok its been a bit so heres my actual thoughts:
1. mixed on the battle style. this real life abr combat system isnt bad per se but it works best when you, the player, are directly involved in the combat. im worried about the responsiveness of the pokemon and aiming of moves.

2. from the trailers and promotional map we got, a lot of the wild zones seem to be either industrial, grassy or both. this is sonething im worried abt cuz if we dont get a lot of variation in the areas we explore the game will feel very boring to explore.

3. i dont think lumiose city is a good base for an exploration game. it was made to be a city hub of shops and theres only so much you can do with a design thats very constrained, unlike other pokemon cities that had more varying shapes of alleys and shop areas. lumiose is literally just streets and alleys, and if the rooftop parkour stuff isnt good i fail to see how engaging traversing will truly be

4. this game looks kinda ugly tbh

 

[Pale Rose Star]

Champions got me unreasonably hype. With that said, this needs to be an actual game instead of 3D Showdown.

And by that, I mean Offline Content.

It's going to be near impossible to literally just sell Showdown at Home (Mons not included) unless they actually put in some content. It'd flop harder than even PBR.

I mean everyone has responded already but I do wanna add, I think a major point is that this would allow them to focus on having VGC on a separate platform just about. I actually do feel that Scarlet and Violet did put a lot into making competitive accessible with in-game tools (IVs, EVs, natures, etc. are all pretty trivial now) and that definitely took a good bit of effort there that was... lost elsewhere. The separation would allow them to focus more on other in-game stuff, and also make updates between generations a little easier. It's all speculation atp, so I won't go into what I could see this being, but I think that's what the incentive is gonna be to get it. I would agree (as a FG player myself) that just having a battle sim with nothing else tied to it would not sell and it would not be good to be frank. There's a whole world of ways I see this going though and I like that.

Apart from the starters choice, there's something that feels off in PLZA: everything seems all right. It's like if there's nothing bad or strange going on im the city at the present.

I mean, in SV you knew since the very beginning with Paldea's map the Great Crater was a mysterious place. So did you in PLA with the big drift at the top of Mt. Coronet.

What about Lumiose, then?
Story-wise I'm pretty sure there's gonna be a really big twist as shown in future trailers, as this re-development plan seems to have made Lumiose just utopic, without any evil component there. Something has to happen!

I'm expecting an FF7 type thing based off of what I saw with zygarde and a corporation


anyways posting because while I'm pretty disconnected from mons these days, LZA legits looks pretty damn good. I'm honestly pleasantly surprised, the game looked decent (do I just have no standards or smth?) and ran decent and most of all seemed genuinely interesting. Would this be the game that makes me excited for mons again? I'm not sure, but maybe there is hope still. I do like the concept of the battle system but yeah I do agree, it looks like it could get messy real fast and end up as butotn mashing. I do hope the series does not go the route of Final Fantasy where it basically forsakes its original system for trend chasing the action RPG style.

Also fwiw I fucking love large cities so the lumiose bias is real within me XD tho i will say i think my biggest concern is the wild areas, i don't really like the concept of sort of artificially shoving in wild pokemon for a city that could get effectively a massive redesign to be more like a real city. I'll wait and see though! I'm glad we're getting at least something closer to what we wanted as a fanbase

 

[DrPumpkinz]

these are the starter descriptions from the article summarizing the news on the official pokemon website, the initial descriptions for the paldea starters forshadowed the design direction of their evolutions so I wonder if they're doing something similar with these

maybe I'm on to nothing and it doesn't mean anything but I still want to point it out

starter descriptions

View attachment 717530

All of those starter descriptions are pretty much just an amalgamation of their Pokedex entries. A lot of the specific wording is even lifted verbatim.

~~~~~~~~

I've been thinking about what the plot could be about. Legends Arceus had a pretty straightforward plot summary: "you're on the Galaxy Team, you get told to go do stuff by your superiors and then go do them". Z-A is far more ambiguous. The website just says travel to Lumiose for fun, stay in a hotel, and then "tackle all sorts of incidents that will occur in the city" which is as ominous as it is nondescriptive. It sounds like the plot hook is similar to a traditional Pokemon game, where it's just you and some friends dicking around until suddenly bad shit happens, except there doesn't seem to be a gym challenge to get the ball rolling.

That said, between the definitely-not-evil urban development company and Zygarde being the defender of balance and ecosystems, I'm getting a pretty good idea of what that bad shit might be. Even if Quasartico isn't intentionally malicious, it seems likely their actions behind the scenes will do something to incur the Land's Wrath.

 

[Mad Ram]

Not sure if the best place to put this, but god, some of the commentary on this is just insufferable. Not really here. Here's been fine. It's more specifically on Reddit or Youtube comments. Yeah, I know, it should be taken as a given they would be bad, but still. There is just such a snobbish hatred of this and people who are fine with it it's unreal. And it's not so much about the game. It's the contempt towards people who are generally excited by this saying they like slop, they have no standards, they have shit in their eyes, all because they are generally fine with how the game looks. Honestly it's probably a sign to just log off and ignore the community, but it just sucks that I can't really delve into fandom about things I enjoy without having to wade through a sea of negativity and abuse because "they have standards." Gamers and Gamer culture was a mistake.

 

[AquaticPanic]

>Fire/Fighting Blaziken in RSE
>Fire/Fighting Infernape in DPP
>Fire/Fighting Emboar in BW

>Fire/Ghost Typhlosion in PLA
>Fire/Ghost Skeledirge in SV

this pig is gonna die bruh

 

[DrrT]

Regarding the Pokwdex, now that people have spotted Mega Sableye and in adittion to the luttle insights by other users, I think it's safe to assume we are indeed getting all Megas and their lines, and that alongside the Kalos originals make for a quite interesting dex. Still hoping the focus on new stuff isn't exclusively on Megas and we get proper evolutions and specially legendaries because Arceus knows Kalos needs more of these.

(Admitedly, with Hoopa sheanigans we could still get the Hoenn trio, the Latis and maybe some lesser ones like the Musketeers again or the speculated Tapus which would be decent...but I want more norse inspired Kalos originals)

I’m wondering if we will see any old Kalos characters like Sycamore, Diantha, Dexio, Sina, or even Team Flare. This could be a great opportunity to show what happened to Lysandre after XY; and considering this game takes place after XY, I wonder if this game is counted as a sequel?

I would be genuinely surprised if AZ is the only returning character. Specially when Malva is right there.

I guess it does depend if they want to close/follow up on XY's plot points or focus on brand new plot with just some chatacters returning but without being a very obvious sequel if that makes sense. While I would prefer the former, it could potentially alienate new players who don't have a 3ds so both ways seem fair to me.

If Dexio and Sina show up I fully expect them talking about how Zygarde was in Alola.

I've seen people say the protagonists kinda look like Ethan & Lyra. I sincerely doubt this is the intent and is most likely just the usual Pokemon fanbase searching for references and patterns that don't exist.

But if that's actually what they are going for, then that's how you KNOW this is an XY sequel. We went from KANTOOOOOOOOOOO to JOHTOOOOOOOOOOO

I was about to agree because other than looking awesome (then again not hard to top Paldea on that) I didn't notice any similarities but after seeing the full artwork...yeah, for once I kinda see it? Extremely superficial likeness, but they are indeed the only other protags they could look like. God the theories about this being Johto in disguise are not gonna ever stop are they?

o̶b̶v̶i̶o̶u̶s̶l̶y̶ G̶F̶ i̶s̶ j̶u̶s̶t̶ r̶u̶s̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ t̶o̶ r̶e̶m̶a̶k̶e̶ e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ s̶o̶ p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ s̶t̶o̶p̶ a̶s̶k̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ F̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ U̶n̶o̶v̶a̶ o̶n̶ B̶B̶,̶ n̶o̶w̶ Z̶ a̶n̶d̶ J̶o̶h̶t̶o̶,̶ t̶h̶e̶n̶ t̶h̶e̶y̶ w̶i̶l̶l̶ o̶n̶l̶y̶ h̶a̶v̶e̶ H̶o̶e̶n̶n̶ l̶e̶f̶t̶ w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ t̶h̶e̶y̶ w̶i̶l̶l̶ w̶r̶a̶p̶ u̶p̶ b̶e̶f̶o̶r̶e̶ t̶h̶e̶ g̶e̶n̶ 1̶0̶ K̶a̶n̶t̶o̶ r̶e̶m̶a̶k̶e̶

Also, why the hell are the rival characters just "the cooler other protagonist"?

May and Brendan in sambles rn