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Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion

Having just beat the game(Yes, I went slow), why is everyone in this game insane? There's everything wrong with Jacinthe, the good deeds org that is cosplaying as mafiosos for some reason, I don't think we ever get an explanation for why Quesartico is doing anything of what it does, NuFlare is complaining about everyone being mad at them over the attempted genocide because they're still wearing Flare's colors while one of the parties to the genocide is running scientific research for the municipal government, who only exist in relation to her and never show up for any other crisis, Taunie...Like, I'm not sure if this is just standard Pokemon stuff hitting oddly because it's a more realistic game or what, but I wanted to grab every single NPC and shake them until they stopped doing whatever they were doing.

It was fun. The level curve was screwed up badly, I don't know how many mons we're supposed to have but 6 is clearly not enough for the number of fights we have, and there's definitely some pokemon that are more favored by the level system than others. And TMs being gated off can be painful. But it was overall reasonably challenging and fresh, the Parkour was legitimately interesting as an exploration mechanic, and I mostly enjoyed the characters and story. But also, Taunie, girl, find a braincell.
 
Hugin said:
Having just beat the game(Yes, I went slow), why is everyone in this game insane? There's everything wrong with Jacinthe, the good deeds org that is cosplaying as mafiosos for some reason, I don't think we ever get an explanation for why Quesartico is doing anything of what it does, NuFlare is complaining about everyone being mad at them over the attempted genocide because they're still wearing Flare's colors while one of the parties to the genocide is running scientific research for the municipal government, who only exist in relation to her and never show up for any other crisis, Taunie...Like, I'm not sure if this is just standard Pokemon stuff hitting oddly because it's a more realistic game or what, but I wanted to grab every single NPC and shake them until they stopped doing whatever they were doing.
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Everyone in Lumiose including the randos are just Freaks

Something is in the water and I'm not talking about the tynamo
 
Hugin said:
But also, Taunie, girl, find a braincell.
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The only time I really found Taunie/Urbain to be "off" was during the whole Rust Syndicate Arc. So they help Philippe in someway, he offers them a crooked loan (which, to be fair to Taunie/Urbain was a really jerk thing for Philippe to do), they come to collect the loan but can't contact them, instead contacts their friends who takes on their interest debt, and then during/after the whole thing just shrugs it off as if they don't have an entire organization of (perceived) thugs after them. Like, the only possibly reason I could see them acting so nonchalant was because they actually knew about the Rust Syndicate's whole "acting like bad guys to force people to do charity work" shtick so knew they were perfectly safe and only would have to start doing charity work when the Rust Syndicate catches up to them.

Honestly, I feel like the Rust Syndicate Arc focused on the wrong member of Team MZ. The DYN4MO Arc gave Naveen a bit of the spotlight, the Fist of Justice Arc brought Emma back for a humorous ramp, SBC Arc once again had Taunie/Urbain as one of the focal characters, and Team Flare Nouveau Arc pushed things along with the plot & Lysandre's involvement. However, there really wasn't anything for Lida, she really got pushed into the background in terms of character arc. And, considering one thing we knew about Lida is that when she first moves to Lumiose City she was struggling with her finances, I feel like it would have made more sense for her to be the one who had taken a loan out from the Rust Syndicate. Being Lida comes with us to the Rust Syndicate (and is the one agrees we'll pay off the interest in a panic after the player calls the Rust Syndicate out), feels like it would have made more sense. Nothing really would have changed storywise, but I think would have shown both how determined Lida was to make it as a dancer and how bad financially she was originally in to take a loan she knew was crooked but at the time didn't feel like she had much of a choice. Also, once the whole issue gets resolved (the final scene of Corbeau giving a "tip" to pay the loan changed to him giving it to Lida instead), it would make the scene of Philippe giving Lida a Water Stone for her Staryu feel a bit more cathartic.

INTERESTING THEORY: I saw an interesting theory concerning Philippe. He mentions he has a daughter, and considering one of his more defining features are his eyes, people think he might be the father to someone who has similar eyes: Shauna. If true, and obviously Lida is Tierno's younger sister, if they went with that Lida angle it would have been an additional connection between the two characters, the father of one of the XY friends first antagonizing and later helping the little sister of another of the XY friends. That would leave Trevor then without a family member representative (well, also the main rival, but let's just assume the player and Taunie/Urbain spiritually replaces them). We know he has an older sister who is living in their family home in Jaune Plaza in XY (aka the plaza that gets replaced with the desert/sandy Wild Area biome), said older sister using the female Ace Trainer overworld model. So unless they pull a surprise like his older sister is Canari, the most of Trevor in ZA is the mention of him going with Sycamore to do research in another region.

FUN FACT: Want to be clever and think you can make enough money to pay off Taunie/Urbain's debt before visiting the Rust Syndicate? It's not hard, in addition to the 100k they were originally given, they accrued an interest of 1 mil. So, what happens if you bring 1.1 mil with you? Does the game up the price they owe? Well... no. What they do is absolutely nothing! That's right, you can have the amount that Corbeau is demanding to be paid, yet you have no option to offer it and still need to do the tasks for the Rust Syndicate. Now I guess the first time playing it's alright as no player would know to do this firsthand, but on replays it does feel like bad writing. If they didn't want to program the game to increase the interest to ignore this issue, they should have made what Team Rust owed something that couldn't be paid off with money. Like maybe the loan is revealed to be part of an on-going contract (so even if you could pay off what is owed, they would only end up owing even more money next payment period as per the conditions of the contract, thus pointless to pay it off; and instead of a money "tip", Corbeau could give them something like a stamp which is needed to close the contract).
 
Pikachu315111 said:
FUN FACT: Want to be clever and think you can make enough money to pay off Taunie/Urbain's debt before visiting the Rust Syndicate? It's not hard, in addition to the 100k they were originally given, they accrued an interest of 1 mil. So, what happens if you bring 1.1 mil with you? Does the game up the price they owe? Well... no. What they do is absolutely nothing! That's right, you can have the amount that Corbeau is demanding to be paid, yet you have no option to offer it and still need to do the tasks for the Rust Syndicate. Now I guess the first time playing it's alright as no player would know to do this firsthand, but on replays it does feel like bad writing. If they didn't want to program the game to increase the interest to ignore this issue, they should have made what Team Rust owed something that couldn't be paid off with money. Like maybe the loan is revealed to be part of an on-going contract (so even if you could pay off what is owed, they would only end up owing even more money next payment period as per the conditions of the contract, thus pointless to pay it off; and instead of a money "tip", Corbeau could give them something like a stamp which is needed to close the contract).
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Money in general has never been a strong point of the series, but in this game it felt particularly off. I was making $100,000 a night doing the Royale at that stage of the game. Mints are $20,000, you basically never need to purchase healing items/evo stones, balls are cheap...mega stones are the only $100,000 expenditure you'll ever make, and you're only buying a couple of those unless you're grinding Mabel tasks. What are they expecting you to spend money on?

It's like someone screwed up somewhere in the balancing, and no one ever corrected it.
 
Hugin said:
Money in general has never been a strong point of the series, but in this game it felt particularly off. I was making $100,000 a night doing the Royale at that stage of the game. Mints are $20,000, you basically never need to purchase healing items/evo stones, balls are cheap...mega stones are the only $100,000 expenditure you'll ever make, and you're only buying a couple of those unless you're grinding Mabel tasks. What are they expecting you to spend money on?

It's like someone screwed up somewhere in the balancing, and no one ever corrected it.
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clothing

there's a lot of it and it is all over the pricing map
 
R_N said:
clothing

there's a lot of it and it is all over the pricing map
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Which is funny because I see plenty of people who just stuck with the default clothes (me included). Infact the first time I did the Ranked Battles I thought I was gonna look like that one loser who didn't change their clothes nor profile pic... only to see in almost every match either one, two, or all players are in the default clothes using the first required profile pic. "Ah, I should of known, most of us are here out of obligation". Infact I sort of feel bad for people who did customize yet ended up in either 4th or 3rd, they put in a little bit more effort then most of us yet that doesn't mean squat if they're not picking the meta.
 
Pikachu315111 said:
Which is funny because I see plenty of people who just stuck with the default clothes (me included). Infact the first time I did the Ranked Battles I thought I was gonna look like that one loser who didn't change their clothes nor profile pic... only to see in almost every match either one, two, or all players are in the default clothes using the first required profile pic. "Ah, I should of known, most of us are here out of obligation". Infact I sort of feel bad for people who did customize yet ended up in either 4th or 3rd, they put in a little bit more effort then most of us yet that doesn't mean squat if they're not picking the meta.
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meanwhile I saw a bunch of people who had the default picture, but did change up their outfits and even more meanwhile it felt like all my friends were playing fashion dress up the game featuring pokemon

real large net pokemon casts sometimes
 
So I managed to get my 1 week free Trial for NO. I already got all 3 Kalos Mega Stones and all the trade evos unavailable in main game.
Now fighting the Infinite Royale as I wanted to wait for my Mega Delphox.

In order not to breach much my plan lv 85 on my main Team (Feraligatr, Excadrill, Victreebel, Froslass, Delphox and Falinks) I'm using a secondary Team which maybe also will reach lv 85 and 3 of 6 have a chance to be used in Mega Dimensions.
The 3 which I will not use during main gameplay are the legendaries Xerneas, Yveltal and Diance which I want to have around lv 85 if possible. Poor Mewtwo missed the cut.
The other 3 are the previously Rogue Absol, an Alpha Raichu which I used for the Pikachu and Alolan Raichu subquests and which will look great as a Mega Raichu X and a Male Meowstic (since Taunie has a Female one). Let's see how it goes.
Plan for Today is Infinite Royale rank battles (up to Rintaro). Tomorrow the rest with my main Team figting vs Eternall Mega Floette (Planning to Mega Evolve Delphox so it can back what it lost due to stone limitations).
Afterwards I will pause until DLC.
 
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Pikachu315111 said:
FUN FACT: Want to be clever and think you can make enough money to pay off Taunie/Urbain's debt before visiting the Rust Syndicate? It's not hard, in addition to the 100k they were originally given, they accrued an interest of 1 mil. So, what happens if you bring 1.1 mil with you? Does the game up the price they owe? Well... no. What they do is absolutely nothing! That's right, you can have the amount that Corbeau is demanding to be paid, yet you have no option to offer it and still need to do the tasks for the Rust Syndicate. Now I guess the first time playing it's alright as no player would know to do this firsthand, but on replays it does feel like bad writing. If they didn't want to program the game to increase the interest to ignore this issue, they should have made what Team Rust owed something that couldn't be paid off with money. Like maybe the loan is revealed to be part of an on-going contract (so even if you could pay off what is owed, they would only end up owing even more money next payment period as per the conditions of the contract, thus pointless to pay it off; and instead of a money "tip", Corbeau could give them something like a stamp which is needed to close the contract).
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i actually had the million, which seriously pissed me off because i was sitting in this negotiation room physically carrying the amount of money corbeau was demanding and i wasn't even included in the discussion. can you imagine the power move it would've been to come in, shitstomp the guards and the syndicate's second-in-command, casually toss a million bucks on the desk and leave without a word? fuck this plot for denying me the opportunity to aura farm
 
Knowing Corbeau, he'd probably use the fact you stomped his employees as grounds to raise the interest and move back the goalposts a bit but yeah it's surprising they didn't think to have "what if" dialogue if players spent extra time at the Royale and had the money up front. Esp because there is numerous instances of chars having dialogue congratulating on you for being prepared for grinding out the challenger ticket whenever time for the promotion match comes up.
 
Honestly I think the even simpler solution available was to make the debt something less liquid in-game. Like what if instead of Taunie/Urbain directly borrowing 100k (I'm not clear how that theoretically plays into them trying to improve their Phone-Reel ads), their antics interfered with Rust Syndicate jobs/services and so your compensation was to do those/similar jobs in their place? Corbeau could easily run it under the idea that money can't make every problem go away (indeed, stuff like the Ghosts in that one abandoned Building isn't something you can just pay to remove), so the matter is less about their assets than their manpower.

This more easily justifies why you can't just pay off the debt or interest yourself with cash, fits into the game's "time only moves with plot" approach to things (also comes up with things like Jacinthe's tournament) without the interest racking up, and leaves room to wrap up the subplot more cleanly and as a better look for all parties involved.

To elaborate on the last part, the whole Rust Syndicate plot is technically only resolving the interest Taunie's (I'll just go by it since she was my playthrough rival) loan accured while leaving Corbeau's visit and "generous tip" to the Hotel as the resolution to the root point, after she'd been absent for basically the entire arc despite indirectly instigating it.

If the "debt" is settled entirely by your actions (perhaps being more vaguely contacted while Taunie is busy with other matters so Lida wants to sort it before it causes her trouble), it makes Corbeau's visit feel more genuine as a good will gesture to drop by, leave something to help the hotel, and maybe spread a good word about the place during/after the jobs you do for him with all different folks in the city. Plus this can make Taunie plausibly ignorant instead of stupidly irresponsible for forgetting the loan and make the punchline of "we cleaned up her whole mess and she didn't even know it" land without any lingering baggage to it.

This is of course me taking a more logical outlook, when maybe the joke to this or a lot of Lumiose is "That's our story. Yes they are all idiots, aren't they?" like a Spongebob episode.
 
Seems I might end up reachign Red/Cynthia lv 88.

Now I have my main Team at lv 87 with most of my secondary squad (Xerneas, Yveltal, Zygarde, Diancie and Raichu at lv 86). Absol is like 86 and Male Meowstic at lv 80. Just completed invinite Royale 15th battle and got AZ Floette. I will wait till Tuesday, 2.12 as I have a gut feeling this is the momement Mewtwo Stones and quest will be distributed. I want to level up Mewtwo and AZ Floette also to lv above 80, mainly by at least reaching the 20 battles and doing Jacinthe sidequest.

In case I will need lv 100 for the DLC I have a to of Rare Candy and XP candy but don't want to use it for now.
 
DaddyBuzzwole said:
i actually had the million, which seriously pissed me off because i was sitting in this negotiation room physically carrying the amount of money corbeau was demanding and i wasn't even included in the discussion. can you imagine the power move it would've been to come in, shitstomp the guards and the syndicate's second-in-command, casually toss a million bucks on the desk and leave without a word? fuck this plot for denying me the opportunity to aura farm
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Ahaha. This makes me think of a much lower budget older game where you CAN pony up the money in much the same scenario. Game is digimon world Dawn or duski
 
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R_N said:
I'll also say that for what it's worth base game SV, while primarily leaning on "exploring the open air", did have 2 fairly large cave systems. The cave near Tulip's gym is pretty sprawling and has lots of nooks & crannies and elevation stuff. And Glaseado mountain is pretty huge on its interior. There's even platforming puzzles! very unfortunate platforming puzzles.
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Glaseado HAS a cave system?
 
Honestly, SV's caves, counting the DLC, were the most fun I ever had with caves in Pokemon. It helps that a fully upgraded 'raidon plays like goddamn Knuckles the Echidna bwahaha.
 
R_N said:
The Mewtwo side mission is funny
Yeah we thought we could use Mewtwo in the weapon, even found its mega stones, but it just sort of sat there brooding and wouldn't react to it.
So we left it in containment for 5 years.


Also how did you even get these? Oh well byeeeeee
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Still it and Diance should've been Mega Rogue battles with Mewtwo swaping between forms
 
ngl i totally thought that the new reveal was tomorrow lol

I like how Lucario Z actually looks like a steel-type now, although I would've preferred it getting a different secondary type instead tbh. The middle hair strand thing also kinda annoys me too, makes it feel a little overdesigned. Other than that, though, it's neat. Bold choice to wear two barboach as hair accessories, very fashion-forward of her.
 
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