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Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion

DHR-107

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
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Orange Islands
Hi All,

As we are now so close to release, it's probably time we moved anything regarding PLZA into this forum!

This should be where we discuss current news and events which are related to PLZA. I believe the majority of any new content has probably been shown off now and the advertising campaign will be trailing off this close to launch.

Anything which has been Officially Announced By Nintendo/TPCi is fair game to be discussed here. We'll be making a further Spoiler thread a bit closer to release, along side a pair of Mechanics thread/data dumps threads as well. These will likely happen when a copy gets into the wild, which as far as we are aware has not happened yet.

We're now less than 2 weeks away, so I don't think it will be much longer!
 
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This guy MDee14 evolved Chikorita in the demo and showed Bayleef's existence as the first middle stage starter to be seen ingame officially.
It learned Giga Drain after evolution which seems like a good sign for just level 20 or earlier as an evolution move.

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The Wild Zone gameplay really demonstrates how smoothly the battling and catching work in tandem with one another in this game. It also shows that there's absolutely still risk in letting wild mons get dizzy since you only get one shot at catching them at that point. Also, looking at the Wild Zones more, I can see why rideable Pokémon may not be in this game (at least for faster ground movement). It's hard to imagine that working in these cluttered city spaces. Also hard to imagine that working when your mons are constantly out and using attacks. Curious what you'll use to cross water though and I think rollerblades are still very possible.
 
Something I've noticed in several gameplay videos is that unlike PLA, wild Pokémon in PLZA can target and hurt the player even after sending one of your own out to battle it. They seemingly switch their focus to the player's Pokémon once they've taken a number of hits. Footage of the Alpha Houndoom in particular shows it continue to target the player even after taking Super Effective hits from the player's Gyarados. Since you can be targeted by multiple Pokémon at once, it seems like having spread moves among your party will definitely be key.

When it comes to overall difficulty, this is a small but significant change from PLA where the player is always invincible during battles. In that game you can place yourself between opposing Pokémon and your own; you'll react to the attacks "hitting" you, but will take no damage.
 
reaverz said:
When it comes to overall difficulty, this is a small but significant change from PLA where the player is always invincible during battles. In that game you can place yourself between opposing Pokémon and your own; you'll react to the attacks "hitting" you, but will take no damage.
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To be honest that's not so much a difficulty change, just a combat system change.

LA was still a turn based game (outside of the major boss battles), the player position in battle was just cosmetic.
In this game you actively control player AND pokemon on the field real time. Makes sense that you are actually vulnerable to attacks.
 
Worldie said:
To be honest that's not so much a difficulty change, just a combat system change.

LA was still a turn based game (outside of the major boss battles), the player position in battle was just cosmetic.
In this game you actively control player AND pokemon on the field real time. Makes sense that you are actually vulnerable to attacks.
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I would say that's an indirect difficulty change then, no?

Having to now make sure that you as the player are not taking damage / too much damage in battle is now going to factor into decision making and placement, all of which contribute towards difficulty.

I'm not sure if we'd had any sort of confirmation, but if outbreaks are back, that's going to be a fair amount of Pokémon taking aim at you and your Pokémon whilst also keeping an eye on them both, and then if you throw shiny Pokémon into the mix that's going to make things more intense and stressful. In PLA you could just initiate a turn-based battle to keep the shiny "safe" whereas in PLZA you're going to need to take down all of the surrounding allies in real-time.

I think that constitutes difficulty increase even if the overall levelling / ai isn't so different.

Although given how that alpha Houndoom was shaking off several SE hits from Gyarados that should have absolutely knocked it out, and then dealing out major damage, I think it's safe to say that there is some sort of difficulty increase, especially with the alphas finally having more presence than just "big".
 
More new demo gameplay dropped by the same person, this one mostly about fighting trainers.
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Stacking Status Moves: Using multiple moves that temporarily boost the same stat will not make the stat boost more powerful. It will, however, make the stat boost last longer.
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This tip is pretty much like how it was in Arceus, though being in real time instead of with turns may make it more relevant to preemptively reapply buffs.

We see Totodile's level 25 moveset and that Croconaw's evolution move is Slash.
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(Clever) Feathers exist so I think it's likely that EVs are still a thing for this game.

At 4:49 you can see Whirlwind is like an undamaging shove.
 
the more I see about this combat system the more excited I get to play it.

I'm so glad they decided to do the legends series where the devs can try cool new stuff, I imagine it also helps a lot with burnout.
 
doipy hooves said:
More new demo gameplay dropped by the same person, this one mostly about fighting trainers.
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This tip is pretty much like how it was in Arceus, though being in real time instead of with turns may make it more relevant to preemptively reapply buffs.

We see Totodile's level 25 moveset and that Croconaw's evolution move is Slash.
View attachment 777278
View attachment 777276

View attachment 777277
(Clever) Feathers exist so I think it's likely that EVs are still a thing for this game.

At 4:49 you can see Whirlwind is like an undamaging shove.
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Interesting that they changed how collecting items works, making your pokemon use a CD on a move in order to get an item. Croconaw used bubblebeam to collect shards but wasn't able to get them again until bubblebeam was available. I think this game promotes you to always have a special attack handy even if your stats for it suck.
 
Is it me or at ~4:00 does honedge look like its hitting everything with its hilt rather than actually swiping or slashing with it's blade?

The way it also unsheathes when it goes to attack and then sheathes right after gives stance change vibes, maybe aegislash is an auto stance changer now rather than king's shield.

EDIT:

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You can't be fucking serious it actually doesn't use the blade lol... slowed it down and it genuinely just jabs with its hilt.
 
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Any screen shots of Sharpdeo yet? Skimming through the Serebii list, not seeing the Sharpedo line, Glalie, Honen starters, Mewtwo, Latios, Latios, Squrtile/Bulbasaur lines. I have to assume they will be in as they all have mega forms already.

I have to assume Yveltal and Xerneas will also make an appearance.

For the DLC, will mega Raichu X and Y be released once the story DLC is out in Feburuary? Seems like Hoopa might be in from the sounds of things though it seems like that one will need to wait until the story DLC releases.
 
pkmfan said:
For the DLC, will mega Raichu X and Y be released once the story DLC is out in Feburuary?
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yes, but the DLC's main content is not set to release in February, it is set to release by the end of February.

so it could be released in November, December, or January as well.
New trailer posted by Nintendo Australia,

shows a new picture of mega Greninja, who moves around like its riding a helicopter lol

also includes Meganium on the team, so no regional form and since every other member of that team has a mega this points towards all the legends za starters having megas.

greninja meganium.png
 
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So, the game is approximately a week out from release, and I've yet to feel any particular hype for it. I just can't see that my initial worries from the first non-teaser trailer have been assuaged.

My reaction back then was that the city looked awfully small - about the right size for a "hub world" in a game, but far too tiny to be the setting for the entire gameplay; that the concept "Like Legends Arceus, but confied to one city" was too bare-bones to be worth basing an entire game upon; and that there seemed to be no other "hook" to the gameplay than the new battling system. Surely, there had to be more, somewhere, somehow? But trailer upon trailer have all shown practically the same thing. Pokémon roam the tiny city by day, Trainers do so by night, and ... uhh, new Megas. Oh, and an overworld environment whose graphical fidelity would have been embarrassing for a game released twenty years ago.

The remaining hopes are basically that the battle system is super fun to play, or that the story is good. Exploration doesn't seem like it would be particularly engaging, with so little to see and so little to do. You're not going on some epic journey of discovery either, you're a tourist. And Lumiose doesn't appear to be a very interesting city at that; one street looks pretty much like the other. The battling league also doesn't strike me as anything but a grind either. What it most reminds me of, is the optional "battling mastery" quest at the end of LGPE. That worries me.

Then again, I greatly enjoyed Legends Arceus and S/V, so there's still hope that there's something I've missed in this game that will take me by storm. I just haven't seen that yet, nor seen anybody else present reasonable hope that there will be anything of the sort. Because while I'm open to the idea that I'm just an old fart who has stopped enjoying the things I enjoy, neither have I seen anyone else be very hyped for this game either. This final release thread has received 15 posts in six days, that's not a lot for what's basically a mainline console Pokémon game two weeks from release.
 
Codraroll said:
This final release thread has received 15 posts in six days, that's not a lot for what's basically a mainline console Pokémon game two weeks from release.
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I wouldnt call this a mainline entry, at all in fact.
Expecially with the combat system changes, it couldn't be further from one.

I would rather think the target audience is just not here. Which honestly, knowing smogon, doesn't surprise me.
 
Codraroll said:
This final release thread has received 15 posts in six days, that's not a lot for what's basically a mainline console Pokémon game two weeks from release.
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To be fair it's not like there's been that much new content from current news or events to discuss aside from minor details from similar demos and ads, after the final trailers released. The team discussion thread has double the replies and that's probably more relevant to people planning to play the game, and the original thread was pretty active after each actual official news drop.
 
Codraroll said:
My reaction back then was that the city looked awfully small - about the right size for a "hub world" in a game, but far too tiny to be the setting for the entire gameplay; that the concept "Like Legends Arceus, but confied to one city" was too bare-bones to be worth basing an entire game upon; and that there seemed to be no other "hook" to the gameplay than the new battling system. Surely, there had to be more, somewhere, somehow? But trailer upon trailer have all shown practically the same thing. Pokémon roam the tiny city by day, Trainers do so by night, and ... uhh, new Megas. Oh, and an overworld environment whose graphical fidelity would have been embarrassing for a game released twenty years ago.
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I still maintain that a city is a perfectly acceptable size for a game world assuming it's well-designed and thought out, especially if we don't have a lot of movement options. Smaller worlds can be much more intimate, and thus more memorable. I've honestly had my fill of super massive open worlds that are largely empty and seem to be large for largeness's sake. I fell off BotW partially for that reason.

Codraroll said:
The remaining hopes are basically that the battle system is super fun to play, or that the story is good.
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My personal rub with PLZA atm is that the combat isn't grabbing me purely based on what's been shown. As an FFXIV player I am familiar with ability cooldown-based gameplay, but implementing that system while remaining tethered to exactly four moves per Pokémon doesn't sound like it lends itself to any complexity. This could be made up for in boss fights, where the simplicity of your combat options would allow the actual boss design to get crazy and allow you to focus on what the boss is doing, but that still seems like it would make up a minority of your experience.

This game really needs a demo to allow people to try the radically different gameplay before buying. At least I might be able to rent it from my local library.
 
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Does the game only take place in the city? I was assuming there would be surroundings areas even if it mostly took place in the city. I also assume it will be much more open than what we saw in X/Y. More buildings to enter and the like.
 
pkmfan said:
Does the game only take place in the city? I was assuming there would be surroundings areas even if it mostly took place in the city. I also assume it will be much more open than what we saw in X/Y. More buildings to enter and the like.
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A trailer showed a sewer network, based on the Paris Catacombs
 
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