Wait, hold on, I've not been watching streams cause I rather play it myself later in the evening, but I thought those "ranked battles" were raw PvP except using ZA combat system.
Are they something else?
-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
Are they something else?
I’ve loved Carlos’s work for years, this is so fucking cool man
The ranked battles are basically a 4 player FFA where you just compete for the most kills in 3 minutes and gain progress directly based on your performance/KOs and the other missions. Also if you get KO'd once you respawn with all your mons back, and you get 3 switches per life, and there are random item drops to boost stats.
Last edited:
I found a shiny trubbish
Apparently, they changed the way shiny encounters work so that shiny pokemon are "kept" even when the encounter would normally reset (so you can come back to the same spot later and the shiny will appear in the same spot), but it only keeps track of something like 10 shinies at a time.
Played the game a bit and am having a decent amount of fun.
- Combat system is better than Legends Arceus for sure, though there are still a lot of mechanics I am confused about like "dodging" attacks. Seems like all the opp's moves have homing properties? Letting go of ZR never really feels ideal in these fights either since you don't see the cooldown afterwards. I like the way Protect works since it requires strict timing. That said, it does suck having to include it on most of my mons movesets.
- I think the Pokemon variety here is pretty well balanced - you mostly have two tiers of mons which are the early / mid game power spike mons (think Watchog, Simipour, Emolga, etc.) and the a wide variety of Pokemon that can Mega Evolve like Alakazam, Scizor, Lopunny, etc. I'm still getting into the Mega Evolution part of the game, but the vibe I get is that the more limited Pokemon roster leads to opps in the battle zones running more Pokemon capable of Mega Evolution, making it a more core component of the game. IDK if this is true tho, I've faced high level battle zone opps, but no megas there yet so this might be cap. At the stage I currently am in, mons like Emolga and Vivillion are still doing OK.
- I like how densely populated the city is with Pokemon. Saw Pansages chilling in trees, Spinarak on a tombstone, etc. Its nice.
- The quest here are pretty cool - reminds me of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker saga where you are mostly doing simple, menial task for money, but it has some charm. That said, I think most useful non-mega items are locked to this? The only Miracle Seed I found was linked to a quest and that's the only Non-Mega Stone, non-berry Item I've gotten thus far.
- I was told by a few other people that played the game before release that the canari EXP Charms broke the game or something? I opted to ignore upgrading the EXP Charm as a result, but I ran into the opposite issue where it didn't feel like there was enough EXP to spread around. There were a few points where I was underleveled so far. And I've been doing a decent number of additional catches too.
- Game runs fine on the switch 2 - I like the character + Pokemon Models and Animations, as well as a lot of the visual effects for the ZA Royal, but I do wish that they didn't skimp out on the way Lumiouse city looks. Not a fan of the Balconies being wallpapered on.
- Camera can get a bit wonky when locking on, esp since rocks and vegetation are also lock on targets.
- Raid battles take way too long.
- Honedge line feels noticably weaker in this game. A lot of Trainer Pokemon that it should in theory smash pack random Dark or Ground Coverage like Bulldoze Skiddo, Knock Off Machop, Shadow Sneak Spinarak, Brutal Swing Beedrill etc. Mine only just evolved into a doublade so hopefully its performance should improve.
- Wild Zones and rooftops have been more fun to explore than I was initially expecting. Battle Zones as well. Trainers being in every corner is cool and sneaking up mechanic is interesting.
- City aesthetic has its charm. I'm a fan of your amigos in Hotel ZA so far, but the story also feels like its going at a bit of weird pace - I think largely due to the boss battles not being traditional. ZA Rank progression trainers are cool one-off gigs, but it doesn't feel like you are overcoming a massive hurdle like you would when fighting a gym leader, narratively anyways. Even though I have the Mega Bracelet and leveled up to Rank F, it still feels like I'm in the early game.
- As an Iono enjoyer, I am happy that a character like Canari is in the game. I am also glad that Naveen feels the same way.
- Initial 2 hours of railroading was a bit lame.
- Most of the shops being menus is a good thing imo, makes them look and feel way nicer lol..
This is clearly GameFreak's masterplan to prepare players for VGC
Game Freak really needs to either commit to keeping the games silent or biting the bullet and putting some voice acting in future games.
They continue to put a weirdly high amount of effort into lip animations in cutscenes as if the characters are supposed to be voiced but we still have silence and it's super off-putting.
Pick a lane. Or give us Simlish idk. Just something to make this less awkward.
They continue to put a weirdly high amount of effort into lip animations in cutscenes as if the characters are supposed to be voiced but we still have silence and it's super off-putting.
Pick a lane. Or give us Simlish idk. Just something to make this less awkward.
Ngl, I used to not mind the lack of VA, but since LA it started to feel worse and worse.
No VA was fine back in the DS era when at most it was a couple lines of dialogue per time, but now with ever increasing long exposure moments it just feels sooo awkard.
Not even going to repeat the usual Pier concert thing, but even something like the massive dialogue sections in LA felt just sooo boring... and ZA sadly is following through on feeling awkard...
yeah I think they should do what the latest digimon game does at the very least, where most every important story scene is voice acted but everything else is not.
in case anyone is wondering, don't recall seeing it mentioned elsewhere, but Aegislash effectively has its ability hard coded despite there not being abilities. switches to blade forme whenever I attack and switches to shield forme whenever I use moves like king's shield.
This is how many games handle it, especially if they're text heavy.
Honestly even if not that or simlish, even just Zelda grunts would go a long way . It's funny how these same observations (lots of scenes focused on lipsynched voiceless models) were made about skyward sword back in what 2012?
I'm generally agreeing with people who say the main cinematic cutscenes should be voiced but I can't lie, I find these types of grunts and whispers in games to be a sensory nightmare lol
(same goes to those mid budget Square Enix games where characters keep repeating the same voiced quips)
(same goes to those mid budget Square Enix games where characters keep repeating the same voiced quips)
I somewhat agree, but I'd be fine with say, the way SEGA does it, as well as a bunch of other games, which is simply "important scenes are voiced, everything else isn't".
I don't care of the random sidequest where i need to collect 15 white herbs because your grandma is sick, but going through potentially 30-40 dialogue lines unvoiced just hurts. It just prompts me to want to skip without reading.
Yeah I haven't gotten to play a ton, but the dodge/hotbox mechanics are interesting. It seems, at least early on, that if you can get some distance from your enemy a lot of melee attacks can be dodged. For projectiles, a bit of distance and circling your opponent seems to work okay. There does seem to be a good amount of attacks that just sort of happen, like confusion or gust, that don't seem dodgeable via regular movement. Protect is really fun, looking forward to other moves that might let pokemon dodge hits like dig or volt switch.
I've only just started up through Mable's first research, but things I like:
-Everything feels very lively. lots of NPCs and little details in the environments. I liked just look around the magazine stand and hotel room.
-Floette's "are you kidding me?" and firing off the huge Light of Ruin is great. It's been around for 3000 and is beyond done with people's nonsense
-I enjoy that there's NPCs and Mable who aren't thrilled about the Mayor ramming all these wild zone initiatives into the city; we all made jokes about this kind of thing pre-release but turned out to be intentional.
-Mable is also a funny character in general. Literally admits to this whole thing being a way to scam people into doing field research for her.
-Thank god for TMs being infinite use in this game.
-Taunie having both of the other starters is a cute idea, and I like that our first battle was actually against a Pancham.
-The music's quite nice.
-The UI feels...snappier than normal? Maybe I was just used to S1 SV for so long.
Misc other thoughts:
-I like that we're in just in Lumiose for literally no reason. We had no plan, no knowledge of what was going on here, given no indication of how long we planned to stay and just sort of go along with joining the Royale and being strong armed into Mable's research. We weren't even a Pokemon Trainer, which sticks out for several reasons lmao.
-I keep thinking AZ has a tail. His hair all tied up just keeps fluttering around his backside like a Zoroark.
-I'm not sure how I feel about the new battle system. I'm still getting used to the controls (switching pokemon in particular is dealing with a lot of bad muscle memory...), but it feels like it wants to have positioning matter but it's very hard to like...mess with that at all.
-Adding to our earlier conversation about the lack of voice acting, the subtitles are terrible. They have very little contrast and every time a conversation starts up I almost miss the line. This would already be annoying in a game with voice acting (terrible subtitles are sadly not a unique phenomenon) but it really stands out when there is none of it. A friend pointed out that you have to wait for the lip flaps to finish on some cutscenes too...
-Everything feels very lively. lots of NPCs and little details in the environments. I liked just look around the magazine stand and hotel room.
-Floette's "are you kidding me?" and firing off the huge Light of Ruin is great. It's been around for 3000 and is beyond done with people's nonsense
-I enjoy that there's NPCs and Mable who aren't thrilled about the Mayor ramming all these wild zone initiatives into the city; we all made jokes about this kind of thing pre-release but turned out to be intentional.
-Mable is also a funny character in general. Literally admits to this whole thing being a way to scam people into doing field research for her.
-Thank god for TMs being infinite use in this game.
-Taunie having both of the other starters is a cute idea, and I like that our first battle was actually against a Pancham.
-The music's quite nice.
-The UI feels...snappier than normal? Maybe I was just used to S1 SV for so long.
Misc other thoughts:
-I like that we're in just in Lumiose for literally no reason. We had no plan, no knowledge of what was going on here, given no indication of how long we planned to stay and just sort of go along with joining the Royale and being strong armed into Mable's research. We weren't even a Pokemon Trainer, which sticks out for several reasons lmao.
-I keep thinking AZ has a tail. His hair all tied up just keeps fluttering around his backside like a Zoroark.
-I'm not sure how I feel about the new battle system. I'm still getting used to the controls (switching pokemon in particular is dealing with a lot of bad muscle memory...), but it feels like it wants to have positioning matter but it's very hard to like...mess with that at all.
-Adding to our earlier conversation about the lack of voice acting, the subtitles are terrible. They have very little contrast and every time a conversation starts up I almost miss the line. This would already be annoying in a game with voice acting (terrible subtitles are sadly not a unique phenomenon) but it really stands out when there is none of it. A friend pointed out that you have to wait for the lip flaps to finish on some cutscenes too...
Ngl, maybe it's because I am a gamer who plays a lot of stuff outside of Pokemon, both within and outside of Nintendo stuff (I also play PS, Xbox, and some PC), including a lot of action adventure games and other RPGs, but I'm finding myself adapting to Z-A's real-time battle system a lot better than I thought I would. I thought it would take a good deal of time for me to adapt to real-time Pokémon battles but playing this way feels very natural to me, and I feel I ended up getting into it quite naturally and quite well. And I really like this real-time battle system. Arceus was neat because of overworld catching, the Noble fights, and whatnot but Z-A taking it a step further and having full on real-time battles is neat, and it feels really snappy and seamless in a way classic mainline isn't. SwSh and SV are fine, but they do still have imprints of outdated jank that classic mainline Pokémon has kept since the early 2000s. Z-A continues the treat Arceus was and even more. As a Sinnoh kid who grew up in the 2000s, Arceus was a big treat, but Z-A is also just as much of a treat since I also have a soft spot for Kalos (Megas and the new Fairy-type were peak, XY was an amazing time to be a Pokemon fan), but these games being as fun as they are and different from classic is neat.
I finished the first day, up to the first Nighttime Royale, and I gotta say, I'm going "Yeah, this truly is a Legends game". It has much of Arceus's DNA in a lot of spots. The overworld catching mechanics are back, and translate to Trainers and ambushing them in the Nighttime Royale as well, and that's really awesome. The first Wild Zone's pool of Pokemon mirrors the early picks from Arceus too, with Fletchling being akin to Starly, Bunnelby being akin to Bidoof, Mareep being like Shinx, and Scatterbug and Weedle being like Wurmple. Bunnelby and Fletchling being the Kalos equivalents of Sinnoh's Bidoof and Starly was obvious and expected, though Mareep being the early three-stage Electric a la Shinx is a great way to implement it into this game, since Ampharos had a Mega since the beginning with XY, and now it gets to be this game's Luxray in a way (in XY it was found much later into the game). Nice to see Ampharos getting good rep in a game with Megas that way.
Not to mention the player comes in, meets the starters, picks one after getting in a trifle, and then is recruited into a team (Galaxy Expedition Survey Corps and Team MZ) and eventually given a proper outfit. And the day ends with the player having a big dinner with the rest of the gang before the next day starts.
So yeah, this really is a Legends game and in many ways follows the trends established by Arceus, despite the difference in setting and point in time relative to its original derivative games.
I finished the first day, up to the first Nighttime Royale, and I gotta say, I'm going "Yeah, this truly is a Legends game". It has much of Arceus's DNA in a lot of spots. The overworld catching mechanics are back, and translate to Trainers and ambushing them in the Nighttime Royale as well, and that's really awesome. The first Wild Zone's pool of Pokemon mirrors the early picks from Arceus too, with Fletchling being akin to Starly, Bunnelby being akin to Bidoof, Mareep being like Shinx, and Scatterbug and Weedle being like Wurmple. Bunnelby and Fletchling being the Kalos equivalents of Sinnoh's Bidoof and Starly was obvious and expected, though Mareep being the early three-stage Electric a la Shinx is a great way to implement it into this game, since Ampharos had a Mega since the beginning with XY, and now it gets to be this game's Luxray in a way (in XY it was found much later into the game). Nice to see Ampharos getting good rep in a game with Megas that way.
Not to mention the player comes in, meets the starters, picks one after getting in a trifle, and then is recruited into a team (Galaxy Expedition Survey Corps and Team MZ) and eventually given a proper outfit. And the day ends with the player having a big dinner with the rest of the gang before the next day starts.
So yeah, this really is a Legends game and in many ways follows the trends established by Arceus, despite the difference in setting and point in time relative to its original derivative games.
I’m having a good time thus far. The railroading of the first two hours was agonizing, but once the game finally, finally opened up, I was able to really start getting into it. Initial observations and thoughts:
- The battle system is taking some getting used to. I don’t dislike it, but having to basically re-learn what every move does and how it behaves is just very daunting after 25 years of relative stasis. I’ve particularly been enjoying using forward-thrust moves like Rollout and Flame Wheel (guess who my starter was, lol); there’s something quite satisfying about those. At the moment though, I do find it a bit hard to intuit how to get my Pokémon positioned how it want them to be, like if I’m trying to get them to avoid an attack. I don’t find myself so enamored with this system that I want them to fully ditch turn-based battles in the primary games, but I’m perfectly happy with the idea of Legends games keeping this format and iterating on it.
- I get why Abilities aren’t here, but I feel like figuring out how to integrate those should probably be the next step for the Legends series. Not just for the sake of evolving the gameplay, but also because it’s getting a little silly with how many Pokémon have to have quasi-Abilities or other tweaks to make up for the absence of them.
- Okay yeah the flat textures on every building are pretty bad. That aside, however, I think the game it otherwise quite pleasant to look at (I’m playing the Switch 2 edition).
- Game Freak always cooks with the music, but hiring insaneintherain (who I’ve been a longtime fan of) to do the arranging has infused my auditory cortex with so much euphoric energy that I think my brain might Mega Evolve.
- Speaking of, having a new batch of Megas really crystallizes, in hindsight, how small the previous roster of 48 Megas really felt in the grand scheme of things. It’s nice that this is a concept we can revisit. Although it sure does kind of make every Pokémon in the game that doesn’t have a Mega into a far less compelling team choice.
- I like how faithful the map is to the original Lumiose from X & Y with all of the various cafés and such in the same places (but where’d the Juice Shoppe go?). It would’ve been perfectly reasonable to take a more liberal approach like they did with Hisui in relation to Sinnoh’s geography, but keeping it largely the same makes it feel pleasantly familiar. I also get the sense that this is probably how they really wanted Lumiose to feel back on the 3DS.
- More specifically in regards to this game’s map, I love love love how much verticality there is thanks to the rooftops. And all of the scaffolding parkour challenges! What a delightful surprise those are. Though on the other hand, I do wish that the Wild Zones were a little more visually diversified.
- The vibes of the Z-A Royale are perfection. Running around at night, hunting prize medals and trying to stay out of peoples’ sights in order to get the drop on them, all set to a grimy jazz track is an experience unlike any other Pokémon game.
- The Lumiose Museum is like a dream come true for me. Playing X & Y 12 years ago, I always wished I could get a better look at the original artwork and now here it is, in rich, high definition (I also enjoy all of the posters and magazine covers and various artworks throughout the city). And on top of that they add in a huge exhibit about Hisui, emphasizing the relationship between the two Legends games and also lending a real sense of history and time to the world.
- I um… kinda feel like maybe the boutique selections didn’t need to be divided up among so many fragmented storefronts? Though I do like the hologram displays showing some of their inventory. In fact I think the hologram tech stuff is used quite cleverly all throughout the game. But yeah… I’d rather have like, five boutiques with large inventories rather than fifty with very small ones.
I would even say that those differences even make it stronger as a sequel to Arceus in terms of building on the themes of the previous story. In that game, we saw much early days of the human-Pokémon relationship, with humans venturing into the untamed wilderness to survey and study the way of life of wild Pokémon that were hostile to them, with the Galaxy Team’s efforts gradually bridging the gap and allowing Pokémon to become more integrated into peoples’ lives. In Z-A, we not only see the world that those efforts helped to create (as would be the default by virtue of taking place in the modern Pokémon world), but we actually see the inverse beginning to take place — Pokémon encroaching on human territory and needing to be accommodated.
- The battle system is taking some getting used to. I don’t dislike it, but having to basically re-learn what every move does and how it behaves is just very daunting after 25 years of relative stasis. I’ve particularly been enjoying using forward-thrust moves like Rollout and Flame Wheel (guess who my starter was, lol); there’s something quite satisfying about those. At the moment though, I do find it a bit hard to intuit how to get my Pokémon positioned how it want them to be, like if I’m trying to get them to avoid an attack. I don’t find myself so enamored with this system that I want them to fully ditch turn-based battles in the primary games, but I’m perfectly happy with the idea of Legends games keeping this format and iterating on it.
- I get why Abilities aren’t here, but I feel like figuring out how to integrate those should probably be the next step for the Legends series. Not just for the sake of evolving the gameplay, but also because it’s getting a little silly with how many Pokémon have to have quasi-Abilities or other tweaks to make up for the absence of them.
- Okay yeah the flat textures on every building are pretty bad. That aside, however, I think the game it otherwise quite pleasant to look at (I’m playing the Switch 2 edition).
- Game Freak always cooks with the music, but hiring insaneintherain (who I’ve been a longtime fan of) to do the arranging has infused my auditory cortex with so much euphoric energy that I think my brain might Mega Evolve.
- Speaking of, having a new batch of Megas really crystallizes, in hindsight, how small the previous roster of 48 Megas really felt in the grand scheme of things. It’s nice that this is a concept we can revisit. Although it sure does kind of make every Pokémon in the game that doesn’t have a Mega into a far less compelling team choice.
- I like how faithful the map is to the original Lumiose from X & Y with all of the various cafés and such in the same places (but where’d the Juice Shoppe go?). It would’ve been perfectly reasonable to take a more liberal approach like they did with Hisui in relation to Sinnoh’s geography, but keeping it largely the same makes it feel pleasantly familiar. I also get the sense that this is probably how they really wanted Lumiose to feel back on the 3DS.
- More specifically in regards to this game’s map, I love love love how much verticality there is thanks to the rooftops. And all of the scaffolding parkour challenges! What a delightful surprise those are. Though on the other hand, I do wish that the Wild Zones were a little more visually diversified.
- The vibes of the Z-A Royale are perfection. Running around at night, hunting prize medals and trying to stay out of peoples’ sights in order to get the drop on them, all set to a grimy jazz track is an experience unlike any other Pokémon game.
- The Lumiose Museum is like a dream come true for me. Playing X & Y 12 years ago, I always wished I could get a better look at the original artwork and now here it is, in rich, high definition (I also enjoy all of the posters and magazine covers and various artworks throughout the city). And on top of that they add in a huge exhibit about Hisui, emphasizing the relationship between the two Legends games and also lending a real sense of history and time to the world.
- I um… kinda feel like maybe the boutique selections didn’t need to be divided up among so many fragmented storefronts? Though I do like the hologram displays showing some of their inventory. In fact I think the hologram tech stuff is used quite cleverly all throughout the game. But yeah… I’d rather have like, five boutiques with large inventories rather than fifty with very small ones.
I would even say that those differences even make it stronger as a sequel to Arceus in terms of building on the themes of the previous story. In that game, we saw much early days of the human-Pokémon relationship, with humans venturing into the untamed wilderness to survey and study the way of life of wild Pokémon that were hostile to them, with the Galaxy Team’s efforts gradually bridging the gap and allowing Pokémon to become more integrated into peoples’ lives. In Z-A, we not only see the world that those efforts helped to create (as would be the default by virtue of taking place in the modern Pokémon world), but we actually see the inverse beginning to take place — Pokémon encroaching on human territory and needing to be accommodated.
Last edited:
I gen why they didn't, but I think it would have been funny if
Is pressing right to go down a page not fast enough for you?
Also why does Buneary take 8 millennia to gain happiness?
After you take down the first set of rogue megas and have to battle Naveen his title was Camari superfan Naveen or something instead of just of Team MZ
Is pressing right to go down a page not fast enough for you?
Also why does Buneary take 8 millennia to gain happiness?
what are all the nighttime spawn in this game?
Related to this I liked the "world of
Remember when people just either ignored it completely and thought it would be set in the past or just thought it was purely to represent blueprints (& would still be set in the past)? good times.
End of day 2 here. I just beat the Rogue Mega Beedrill. I'll have more to say later but so far I love, love, LOVE this game. It feels great to play. The Pokémon you bring with you matter more than ever and it's so easy to swap them out. In many cases, you're highly encouraged to do so. Music is incredible as always (Essersise's description is very fitting). All the characters are very interesting and likeable. Every gameplay mechanic feels deliberated and each mechanic feature builds well off of the other. The PvP is the most fun I've had with PvP in Pokémon in years. The photo mode is surprisingly fun and I say that as someone who usually doesn't care to use it. The building textures are....unfortunate and the catching is definitely a bit neutered compared to PLA, but the game itself is loads of fun and an absolute delight. Two massive thumbs up.
Pleasantly surprised by this game's worldbuilding. The Pokémon world feels alive and really connected again, probably more than ever. NPCs around Lumiose, even in the early-game, keep on mentioning other regions and the stuff happening abroad. I appreciate how this is really useful for both lore and timeline enjoyers like me!
As for the story, I know things because of spoilers but I need to wait until I experience it by myself before giving an opinion about it. I'm just 4-5 hours in!
As for the story, I know things because of spoilers but I need to wait until I experience it by myself before giving an opinion about it. I'm just 4-5 hours in!