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Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion

Got my Greninjite, quite quickly I might add. I’m glad they made it so easy to get, only played about 5 or 6 games before I got to rank K.

:Feraligatr:
Feraligatr @ Feraligite
Ability: No Ability
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Outrage
- Liquidation
- Aqua Jet

A walking nuclear warhead. It may look silly, but Mega Feraligatr just hits so hard after an SD. Aqua Jet is great for kill-stealing, Liquidation’s a strong STAB, and Outrage’s wide AoE can net you multiple kills.

I’m surprised how fun the PvP is! It’s chaotic, but I’m enjoying it a lot!
 
Just reached credits in Z-A. I am lousy at articulating but this is honestly the most fun I ever had playing a Pokémon game by, presumably because the battle aspects were what tickled my brain the most and this game focusing on it was pure joy. Could do with some adjustments but I honestly vibe so much to this real time action. Especially with my favorite Megas from back then as well as now.

Now I guess I will do living dex/shiny charm unlock and comp prep as part of waiting for Champions. Cheers.
 
Ended up swapping it out for Chesnaught since I wanted to use it and didn’t want a bad flying weakness.
Chesnaught is just as weak to Flying as Heracross though?
Oh brother, I just realized they buffed Medicham for this game but not Diggersby. Would it be that hard to give it a decent Attack stat and let it shine at least in one game lmao.
Huge Power is Diggersby's hidden ability not it's regular one like Medicham.
 
Bizarre design decision: Confusion clears sludge pile so my immediate thought would be, aha, most psycic moves probably clear it away! Such as psybeam, the blast of concentrated psychic energy that hits across the screen. I bet it could even clear out MULTIPLE piles of sludge in its radius, rewarding me for finding a move that hits a wide area!

the answer: no. Drag confusion back into Kirlia's moveset so you dont have to keep swapping out mons.
its called "confusion" cause it confuses you when you see that its the only psychic move that works on the sludge
 
Chesnaught is just as weak to Flying as Heracross though?

Huge Power is Diggersby's hidden ability not it's regular one like Medicham.

Ehhhhh I mean yeah, but it's the early rodent with the weakest offensive stats. It really wouldn't hurt to give it 78 (56x1.4) Base Attack just for this game.

Bizarre design decision: Confusion clears sludge pile so my immediate thought would be, aha, most psycic moves probably clear it away! Such as psybeam, the blast of concentrated psychic energy that hits across the screen. I bet it could even clear out MULTIPLE piles of sludge in its radius, rewarding me for finding a move that hits a wide area!

the answer: no. Drag confusion back into Kirlia's moveset so you dont have to keep swapping out mons.

Wait, Psybeam doesn't even work on the sludge? That's so damn stupid lmao.
 
I've been enjoying the game a lot. I think one of my only nitpicks in terms of gameplay stuff is that unlike Arceus, you can't complete the whole dex by yourself. And its by just a few mons, too. Most trade evos are actually obtainable in-game, although some of them only once. Here's a small guide on how to get all the available ones:


:gengar::alakazam::machamp: They show up in Zone 20 as possible Alpha spawns. Gengar is also available through a side quest

:gourgeist: Fixed Alpha spawn in Zone 15

:trevenant: Fixed Alpha spawn in Zone 13

:steelix: Only one is catchable. After you complete the main story, you can activate a post game mission with Mable to find an Alpha at Zone 3

:slowking: Very roundabout way of getting the entry but there are side missions for a Galarian Slowpoke trade and its evolution items. Galarian Slowking counts for Dex progression.

This leaves only three culprits preventing a full dex completion:

:sv/scizor::sv/aromatisse::sv/slurpuff:


And it is a little frustrating. There's 300 mons in the game so quite literally 1% of that is locked behind trades. Locks you out of completing the Mega Pokédex too
 
I've been enjoying the game a lot. I think one of my only nitpicks in terms of gameplay stuff is that unlike Arceus, you can't complete the whole dex by yourself. And its by just a few mons, too. Most trade evos are actually obtainable in-game, although some of them only once. Here's a small guide on how to get all the available ones:


:gengar::alakazam::machamp: They show up in Zone 20 as possible Alpha spawns. Gengar is also available through a side quest

:gourgeist: Fixed Alpha spawn in Zone 15

:trevenant: Fixed Alpha spawn in Zone 13

:steelix: Only one is catchable. After you complete the main story, you can activate a post game mission with Mable to find an Alpha at Zone 3

:slowking: Very roundabout way of getting the entry but there are side missions for a Galarian Slowpoke trade and its evolution items. Galarian Slowking counts for Dex progression.

This leaves only three culprits preventing a full dex completion:

:sv/scizor::sv/aromatisse::sv/slurpuff:


And it is a little frustrating. There's 300 mons in the game so quite literally 1% of that is locked behind trades. Locks you out of completing the Mega Pokédex too
Reminder that as of this game Aromatisse and Slurpuff are now the only Kalos mons to never be used by a major NPC in any mainline game. What is going on lmao why do they keep getting the short end of the stick

Gets even funnier/more frustrating when you realize (spoilering just in case) Aromatisse would've fit really well for Jacinthe
 
I'm kinda sad none of the Kalos trade evos got a Mega honestly. (Along with the fossils, shame since they clearly locked in for almost all Kalos Megas design wise.)
 
alpha pokemon being so big they miss attacks they otherwise wouldn't and also being so big they can't even traverse the city properly

I love my big centipede horse but it got stuck in like every doorway, every stairwell, did not take corners well, lmao
 
I did it! I got my Greninjite!
Also, I started using the trainer name I used when I was an egg again, now that I’m out and have chosen a new name.

My team actually had bad natures, so it doesn't really matter at this point.

:xy/absol:
Absol @ Absolite
- Swords Dance
- Slash
- Night Slash
- Shadow Claw

:xy/meganium:
Meganium @ Meganiumite
- Giga Drain
- Leaf Blade
- Dazzling Gleam
- Reflect (Can be replaced with whatever you want!)

:xy/greninja:
Greninja
- Water Shuriken
- Shadow Sneak
- Quick Attack
- Night Slash​
 
I genuinely hate how common static Alphas are now. In L:A the static ones were relatively sparingly used. Now they're all over the place and easy to activate while you're trying to do...anything at all. Their range is huge, the areas are small, your ability to run away is minimal and they take foreevr to kill and you can't even really item stall. Like it genuinely sucks to just want to wander around the wild zoen and then oh there's an alpha here in an area you barely have room to maenuver around and also its bringing in everything and uh oh!! there's an alpha there and there and there on the rooftops. And for no reason? After meandering through them there's rarely anything worth the hassle.


Also, I think it's odd that the game retains the catch-focus collection aspect, with the ease of captures + Mable's research tasks + mass release option, but doesn't seem to offer any incentive to release in bulk? With Let's Go you got candies and with L:A you got grit (& ithink exp candies?). Here you get nothing.
 
Finally got to sink my teeth into it, first impressions after Emma took one for the team and locked Taunie away so I could explore.

This game is fun. Period.

There's just a lot to like here, very satisfying gameplay loop. Protag movement feels crisp and responsive, it runs pretty well, Bayleef gets Giga Drain on evo and Chikorita learns Leech Seed, I couldn't be happier.

Catching is fun, battling is fun. It's really just an entertaining game.

The game also looks reasonably good. It's not a graphics marvel, but it's also not SwSh. My eyes don't bleed while playing this and that's about enough for me. Gastly probably looks the best its ever looked in this game too.

But... I seriously hope I'm wrong, but I definitely wish there was a way to command my mons around more strategically. I really don't like how they lag behind the trainer and how I can't reposition them. Early-game, ranged moves might as well not exist fr because everything is very in your face. I don't think I ever got to properly dodge an attack and punish it correctly.

My other two gripes are that male customization still sucks, and early-game mons aren't interesting.

I don't particularly mind that the male character can wear dresses or whatever, but I was very disappointed when I walked away from my first row of boutiques with nothing but some timbs. Might as well have a Volcarona as a protag.

The early-game mons are a bit more subjective, but Pichu takes a LOT of exp to keep up, Mareep's movepool is still atrocious, and honestly, I filled almost two whole boxes of mons and I don't have anything resembling a team. There's just not enough quality.

So what I'm getting at is... How do I get my boy Gallade?
 
Do we have any info on the shiny rates in this game? I know like three people who already caught shinies without even trying to hunt for them. Personal anecdote and all, but it does feel like shinies are more common for some reason.
 
7 major complaints now that i've finished the game;

- 1: Day/night shift automatically is cancer. Especially when you throw a pokeball and the shift fucking cancels it as in you dont catch and you don't even get a 'broke out' message. When you see that last message of the day you have to stop what you're doing, don't KO what you're trying to catch, don't throw balls, for like 10 seconds while you wait for the shift.

- 2: catching sucks. If you don't understand true pain go fucking catch a beldum where you're trying not to kill it and throwing 50 balls, or killing it and it despawning while you wait 3 minutes for it to respawn. There's so many encounters like this even with canari charm. Alphas feel so random where sometimes when defeated theyre borderline guaranteed catches other times they're waste of time and never improve. They really needed to adjust catchrates for this game.

- 3: Pokeballs sometimes go right through pokemon without triggering a capture. Its so terrible at times.

- 4: fuck platforming, more specifically the roto glide doing a weird little pause at the end fucking up your momentum, and the single beam balancing. You def need to crouch for those.

- 5: Running away pokemon are just terrible by design. Especially one instance for me where a shiny fletching spawned... but it wasn't on my screen and I was half way up the ladder going up to it, but when you make it to the top of the ladder it runs away before you can even input anything, that was just completely stupid not to mention the several failed attempts just to do froakie or fennekin even while sneaking.

- 6: "You've been caught off guard" still confuses me... apparently me sending a pokemon to go attack while still facing the target is considered 'off guard' but sometimes when im trying to kite out of vision but get detected anyways that doesn't count? it feels flipped.

- 7: Mable research and shiny charm is tuned so incorrectly and one of the biggest deterrents to actually finishing the game rather than just shiny hunting without charm.

shinies are pretty easy to get without charm, but its super fucking dumb the requirements for shiny charm went from 100% the dex to;

- 100% the dex
- Evolve pokemon 50 times, which ain't that bad
- Every wild area 100%'d, goes with the dex pretty much and there's so few per wild area while they carry over if they have the same pokemon this is trivial.
- Buy every single mega stone (grind money and mega shards, tbf not that hard), also serebii is wrong there isn't a 13th task it stops at 12, going from 55 to 62, it either doesn't count floette or it counts greninja so i didnt need to get floette.
- catch pokemon of every type 50 times (only cut short by duel types)
- 1000 mega shards attacked (pretty much going to do before you get all the megas)
- 5 online trades where you're the one who recieves the pokemon that evolves.
- 1000 trainer battles (the absolute most tedious one because you're at best ~300 maybe 400 if you don't skip anything by the time you're 100% everything else... meaning 500 battles grinding le nah restaurant/battle zone, this takes fucking ages).

You can skip only some of the "catch every type" or skip a minor task like "complete the dex for 600", but;
1760927478828.png


this is such a cock blocker cause the goalpost I'm at now is only 500 points, and thats from the entire playthrough+post game+about an hour of restaurant farming to see if I can reasonable speed this up (go to le nah, spam quick attack, 3 battles per visit and only 2 pokemon per team) added up... doubling that makes me never want to bother with this shit.

Shiny charm was always just completing the dex idk why they locked it to battling so much that you hate battling.
 
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That task is absolutely obscene but since it specifies "regulation" I guess that PVP also counts, so I guess the idea is you just get really into the battle mode.
Which is still dumb, mind you

Agreed on the running away thing, fully. In L:A you could at least mitigate this by forcing them into a battle; they could still run away (stupid) but you had a better chance of getting a ball off or stunning them. Here you have nothing, if they run and you whiff that's it.

I also agree on the imbalance of the trainer stuff. You really have to work your ass off with specific timing and aiming to get the jump on someone. Meanwhile they stare at you from across the map and they got the jump on you. That timer ticks down really fast too.
And so many times there'll be instances where my Pokemon's distance move takes one million years to launch...and then barely miss the Pokemon.
 
aegislash also is poorly designed too.

1: It activates stance change when you cast the attack, not when it performs it, so aegislash effectively has ~5 second delay on every attack, while also meaning it has to walk up in blade form to use anything melee.

2: its also slow, so walking up in blade form gives the opponent plenty of time to kill you before it even gets in range. You have to be a shadow sneak user or just ranged.

3: Since stance change plays on cast, king's shield only works if you're targetting something otherwise you're stuck in blade, and king's shield is a protect with a delay meaning it blocks nothing unless you're already in shield form when using it... for swapping from blade form you usually get hit anyways and die before the king's shield goes off.

I'm still unsure of when aegislash is considered in each form, ex; is it only after the animations complete its considered 'x form' or is it on cast?
 
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7 major complaints now that i've finished the game;

- 1: Day/night shift automatically is cancer. Especially when you throw a pokeball and the shift fucking cancels it as in you dont catch and you don't even get a 'broke out' message. When you see that last message of the day you have to stop what you're doing, don't KO what you're trying to catch, don't throw balls, for like 10 seconds while you wait for the shift.
Why is that a thing?! They had so much time to fix a problem this massive! Lack of time is not an excuse when the game's release was delayed for a year!

- 5: Running away pokemon are just terrible by design. Especially one instance for me where a shiny fletching spawned... but it wasn't on my screen and I was half way up the ladder going up to it, but when you make it to the top of the ladder it runs away before you can even input anything, that was just completely stupid not to mention the several failed attempts just to do froakie or fennekin even while sneaking.
D:

I'm so sorry you had to lose a Shiny in the most insulting way. It's complete BS that this can happen.

shinies are pretty easy to get without charm, but its super fucking dumb the requirements for shiny charm went from 100% the to;

- 100% the dex
- Evolve pokemon 50 times, which ain't that bad
- Every wild area 100%'d, goes with the dex pretty much and there's so few per wild area while they carry over if they have the same pokemon this is trivial.
- Buy every single mega stone (grind money and mega shards, tbf not that hard), also serebii is wrong there isn't a 13th task it stops at 12, going from 55 to 62, it either doesn't count floette or it counts greninja so i didnt need to get floette.
- catch pokemon of every type 50 times (only cut short by duel types)
- 1000 mega shards attacked (pretty much going to do before you get all the megas)
- 5 online trades where you're the one who recieves the pokemon that evolves.
- 1000 trainer battles (the absolute most tedious one because you're at best ~300 maybe 400 if you don't skip anything by the time you're 100% everything else... meaning 500 battles grinding le nah restaurant/battle zone, this takes fucking ages).
Online trades? Is there no local trading? I don't have Nintendo Online and don't want it, so no local trading would mean being paywalled out of the Shiny Charm. I'd still be locked out of it because of not having friends, so... I'd be paywalled out of getting the Shiny Charm either way... -_-
 
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