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

Really small stuff but it seems we now have text referring to when moves are 4x Effective/Resisted

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On a more serious note, I wouldn't say this M-Nite is terrible my any means, but it's not for me. I won't even call it uninspired since M-Amphy is one of my favourite megas (design-wise) and it follows, by all means, a similar concept to this Mega-Nite: it's just old classic Ampharos with more fur. So, in the same way my brain somehow finds M-Ampharos a goated mega, I understand how someone else feels the same about M-Nite.

And, on a broader spectrum, I'd say Game Freak has done his best work in years regarding Pokémon designs in Scarlet & Violet. To me, this Dragonite belongs to the same category that classic megas fell upon, like M-Garchomp and M-Tyranitar, both of which are worse than their original forms (as always, from my point of view), and even M-Mence wasn't all that heat. I'm pretty sure there'll be a bunch of new megas I'll love in AZ, but I do not think for a second this is due to some kind of decreasing in the quality of the designs. Not at all.
 
Giving Aerilate vibes bwahaha, love this guy. Design has the same energy as Mega Tyranitar and that's great!
>Dragon/Flying
>Pseudo-Legendary
>Base form ability for survivability
>Dragon Dancer

Welcome back, Mega Salamence.

By the way, is that Ralts giveaway the first indication that we have held items in Z-A? It's specified as "holding" Gardevoirite, rather than a "Ralts AND Gardevoirite"
I know folks kind of assumed as much, since it's Megas, but since Let's Go didn't have held items and still had Megas it's not like they needed to.


Shame there's seemingly still no abilities, but I guess abilities would require more readjustment to the new battle system.
It'd be an odd exclusion since a lot of Megas had their identity at least partially defined by their abilities (Mega Kangaskhan is obvious, but also the Huge Power mons and -ate users, or Mega Heracross with all the Skill Link moves added to Heracross for it). I did have the absurd idea of Pokemon having "traits" akin to some other RPGs (Monster based or otherwise) and Megas get ones to mimic their Signature Abilities that are also more powerful than the "standard" pool as a result. Like maybe a mon has "Last-Ditch Effort" which works akin to Blaze/Torrent/etc for their STABs, and Mega Kang gets a Parental Bond-like trait while Mega'd (and this will be their excuse to give Regigigas Slow Start AGAIN somehow).
 
Scizor (Speculated as it has a Mega)
Mega Scizor is on the cover so I assume it's definetly in. I'm more interested to know if they will bother adding Kleavor tho. Propertly I mean, not like whatever it was supposed to be what we got in the Indigo Disk.

The Kingambit statue is interesting, I didn't expect so recent mons to make the cut yet.
The official Z-A site also confirms that Alpha Pokémon are back. The Houndoom with the glowing eyes in the trailer was one.
Honestly I wasn't sure if they were going to return before today (like many of LA's mechanics) but the moment I saw that Houndoom I was like "yeah that's an Alpha".

Wonder what the excuse will be this time around, given that Giratina is (presumably) not fucking up space-time not is there a lot of actual wild zones for Pokemon to live freely. It's also very unintentionally funny how the concept of the game is "yeah we are making an utopia for Pokemon and humans to live together, but at night we organinize battle royales restricting most of the cities, there is also wild big and agressive mons with red eyes, and some of thwm also are Megaevolving and going berserk" Truly a mess that only a newly arrived 15 year old can solve.
 
https://legends.pokemon.com/en-us/story-world/pokemon/mega-dragonite

Page for Mega Dragonite its up. wanted to highlight this in particular:

Even Its Kindhearted Nature Is Powered Up

For Mega Dragonite, ending a Pokémon match quickly is an act of kindness toward its opponent. Its kindhearted nature gets amplified when it Mega Evolves, and it launches powerful attacks at its opponent with a smile. At the same time, if it senses someone in trouble, it has the kindness to instantly rush to their aid—even if it’s in the middle of an intense battle.

Imagine having a pokemon so powerful and kind it decides to send you to next week rather than get hurt in a long brawl.
 
https://legends.pokemon.com/en-us/story-world/pokemon/mega-dragonite

Page for Mega Dragonite its up. wanted to highlight this in particular:

Even Its Kindhearted Nature Is Powered Up

For Mega Dragonite, ending a Pokémon match quickly is an act of kindness toward its opponent. Its kindhearted nature gets amplified when it Mega Evolves, and it launches powerful attacks at its opponent with a smile. At the same time, if it senses someone in trouble, it has the kindness to instantly rush to their aid—even if it’s in the middle of an intense battle.

Imagine having a pokemon so powerful and kind it decides to send you to next week rather than get hurt in a long brawl.
If I use Mega Dragonite in my playthrough I'm naming it Toki
 
>Dragon/Flying
>Pseudo-Legendary
>Base form ability for survivability
>Dragon Dancer

Welcome back, Mega Salamence.

Maybe, but Salamence had some things going for it.

It didn't need HDB (the item didn't even exist) since Intimidate 'always' triggers whereas Nite needs to be at full HP for Multiscale to work. But more importantly, and this to me was the demonic thing that made it so broken stat-wise if we ignore the most obvious aspects like getting 120 base speed, was the +50 on Defense. For no reason, half the +100 BST megas usually receive went to Defense, upping it from base 80 to base 130, which is absurd for an offensive mon as fast and hard hitting as mega mence was. Its Defense going to the base 130s at the same time Intimidate hindered the opponents Attack, granted him the opportunity to set a DD in from of basically any physically offensive mon.

For M-Nite to outrun certain scarfers after a DD it'll need more investment into speed, since Nite's Speed stat sits at 80 instead of Salamence's 100, meaning that if it gets a mere +20 in Speed it'll still be a base 100. Keep in mind M-Mence did all this in a meta where Gholdengo didn't exist, which honestly I do find a problem since it basically enforces the use of HBD from now to further generations to come invalidating Defog, so M-Nite will have a harsh time with it.
 
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https://legends.pokemon.com/en-us/story-world/pokemon/mega-dragonite

Page for Mega Dragonite its up. wanted to highlight this in particular:

Even Its Kindhearted Nature Is Powered Up

For Mega Dragonite, ending a Pokémon match quickly is an act of kindness toward its opponent. Its kindhearted nature gets amplified when it Mega Evolves, and it launches powerful attacks at its opponent with a smile. At the same time, if it senses someone in trouble, it has the kindness to instantly rush to their aid—even if it’s in the middle of an intense battle.

Imagine having a pokemon so powerful and kind it decides to send you to next week rather than get hurt in a long brawl.
I love this so, so much!

strange omission from the direct, but the site also confirms that Alpha Pokémon are back

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This is a huge surprise given we’ve seen no sign or sight of them. Wonder if this was a late addition back into the mix?
 
Interesting that they're continuing the quirk from Arceus where the "team" is something the player is a part of rather than an antagonistic force. Also, MZ is a really suspicious name. In a game full of As and Zs, what's an M doing there?
 
Interesting that they're continuing the quirk from Arceus where the "team" is something the player is a part of rather than an antagonistic force. Also, MZ is a really suspicious name. In a game full of As and Zs, what's an M doing there?
M is the 13th letter of the alphabet aka the HALFWAY point. Definitely something to do with that 0.0
 
Mega Dragonite is cool.
I really hope the "wild Mega Pokémon" boss battles will be better than the awful noble Pokémon in Arceus. Fortunately, it looks that way in the trailer, so hope the execution will deliver as well.
Glad to see that some older characters are back.
Character customization looks a lot better than it did in ScaVio, which is nice. Makes sense since Kalos is the region of fashion, after all.
 
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I am upset at this chart because this is neutral nature erasure but Hardy nature erasure especially. Hardy is the first nature in index/sorting order (visible in the box search menu) following the order of Attack/Defense/Speed/SpA/SpD, and also Let's Go confirms Hardy is meant to be the +Attack/-Attack nature via Madam Celadon allowing you to choose specifically which two stats to increase/decrease, whereas Serious is +Speed/-Speed.

I know the Serious Mint is already precedent but Pokemon Champions trying to claim that Serious is +Attack/-Attack is a very upsetting contradiction to the established stat system.
 
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