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Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
our mc getting off the train doing absolutely 0 research or preparation on anything: oh boy i can't wait to visit the newspaper offices and maybe meet my favorite reporter, possibly face off against the gym leader clemont while climbing the prism tower that's definitely open, golly what if Professor Sycamore let's me get a Pokemon (that I dont have, for some reason, despite ostensibly being okay with the idea of Pokemon ownership and good at it), get a Gogoat ride.....
Average Paris experience. Except change the Eiffel Tower with the Louvre because they robbed the damn place with a ladder and angle cutters
This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard about accidental realism. XD
That's a real psychological thing?! Fascinating.
And I thought writing an entire chapter that's nothing but bashing France into a legendarily bad novel was as bad as reactions got... Did Norman Boutin get Paris syndrome or is that one of the few problems he doesn't have?
Finished the main storyline and most of the major post-game missions. Overall I thought it was quite marvelous, but I have one big bone to pick with a particular story element:
The wish. Obviously, I knew we weren’t going to be able to actually make our own wish, because there’s no way the devopers could accommodate that, but… we end up with two A-rank Trainers, who both decide to waste their wish on the same thing, which apparently Quasartico were already planning on doing at AZ’s suggestion anyway. Way to fucking blow it, you morons.
Actually I want to comment on the newspaper because like
okay so no one cares about this place. It's a side building you'll probably never go into, but it's Alexa's workplace. If you remember it it's either because you remember Alexa's appearances in the anime or you know this is where you get extra info about Volcanion. & newspapers were definitely already known as a dying medium even back in the day, mcuh less today, much less in-universe 5 years later. But it's still a quasi-notable location in Lumiose and Alexa is still somewhat notable and her sister is a gym leader that's RIGHT THERE just outside of town.
Anyway the place closed down and the people are working at a cafe and Alexa isn't there. The only way you find this out is if you happen upon an older couple lamenting the change in times (Well the guy laments it, the wife just says its fine they're working at the cafe).
For a game set entirely in Lumiose it sure seems averse to actually playing with the things that were set up as being in Lumiose. Emma is probably lucky to be here at all and not just relegated to "Remember that kindly young girl that detective took in? I hope she's alright...." NPC dialog on Mauve street (day time only, side area)
okay so no one cares about this place. It's a side building you'll probably never go into, but it's Alexa's workplace. If you remember it it's either because you remember Alexa's appearances in the anime or you know this is where you get extra info about Volcanion. & newspapers were definitely already known as a dying medium even back in the day, mcuh less today, much less in-universe 5 years later. But it's still a quasi-notable location in Lumiose and Alexa is still somewhat notable and her sister is a gym leader that's RIGHT THERE just outside of town.
Anyway the place closed down and the people are working at a cafe and Alexa isn't there. The only way you find this out is if you happen upon an older couple lamenting the change in times (Well the guy laments it, the wife just says its fine they're working at the cafe).
For a game set entirely in Lumiose it sure seems averse to actually playing with the things that were set up as being in Lumiose. Emma is probably lucky to be here at all and not just relegated to "Remember that kindly young girl that detective took in? I hope she's alright...." NPC dialog on Mauve street (day time only, side area)
I don't know where else to post this so it's going here. Spoilers ahead: I've redacted the most egregious ones.
I don't have fully formed thoughts yet - I'll probably make a thread about this later - but I'm pretty intrigued by the themes throughout of debt and children reaping what their ancestors sowed. XY already hinted at themes of life and death, and this feels like a logical extension to that.
The cycles of life and death continue. This time, there's hope that the next generation can do better.
I don't have fully formed thoughts yet - I'll probably make a thread about this later - but I'm pretty intrigued by the themes throughout of debt and children reaping what their ancestors sowed. XY already hinted at themes of life and death, and this feels like a logical extension to that.
- Core conflict is resolving a threat created long ago by a 3000-year-old man that he is no longer capable of handling
- Major subplot involves helping to resolve someone else's debt
- Rival's mother passed away: they literally carry a piece of her with them at all times
- Grisham and Griselle being born into Team Flare's cult and being ostracized because of it, despite Flare falling before they had any real agency in the matter
- Canari's parents are apparently not in the picture: Tarragon, seemingly her caretaker, is her grandfather
- In a purely meta element, ZA feels like much of it is rectifying some of the "sins" of XY (no Megas until postgame, no Zygarde lore, no Eternal Floette)
The cycles of life and death continue. This time, there's hope that the next generation can do better.
Oh, you know, now that you mention it, Mega Floette’s design looks a lot like it’s connected to the flower by an umbilical cord.
I still have no idea what the tower was supposed to do thousands of years ago. The ending has mad "and then the security system takes over Squidward's house and attacks the city" vibes
Shoot Eternatus? This is basically France, Galar's right there. An attempt to recreate the ultimate weapon by whoever built it?
From what I can gather,
Agne was not made to be a weapon, but basically a giant lightning rod of Life Energy that when activated could bring eternal life onto others. AZ said he didnt want to make a weapon, and didnt activate Agne because he was waiting to be reuinited with Floette to share eternity with her. Also it seems that peace times didnt necessitate the user of the life granting power of Agne. The problem comes after Lysandre firing the weapon, Agne seemed to have ramped up activity, generating critical amounts of life energy and mega power to the point it war harming those around it as well as attracting Wild Pokemon en masse to the area. This then culminates with it literally having a life of its own when they tried to shut it off
For those struggling to capture Alpha Pokemon, there is an easy way to cheese the fight and capture them. The method is simple, have a Poison or Burn, and inflict the status on the Pokemon. Call back your Pokemon, and simply dodge and optionally throw Pokeballs as HP lowers. I’ve managed to capture several Alphas with this technique, including Manectric, Meowstic, Garbodor, and Whirlipede.
It’s the opposite of the ultimate weapon. Whereas the weapon was originally designed to steal life energy from other Pokémon and then funnel it into Floette, Ange was designed to do the opposite — share Floette’s eternal life with others. AZ hoped that by doing this, he could atone for his sins and make up for the lives that he took. But Floette never returned to him until the events of X & Y, so before now, he never had a chance to actually use it, and by the time he finally could, there wasn’t really any need to. He was first asked to build Ange by a man of great power who wanted to protect Kalos, but Kalos in the modern day isn’t in any danger or embroiled in conflict that would necessitate making its people immortal.
Incidentally, Lysandre reveals in Z-A that upon learning if its existence from AZ, he wanted to use Ange in addition to the ultimate weapon (presumably to make the Team Flare survivors immortal, resonating with what he said to Diantha in X about wanting to make the world unchanging and eternal), but had to scrap that idea due to Floette’s absence.
Incidentally, Lysandre reveals in Z-A that upon learning if its existence from AZ, he wanted to use Ange in addition to the ultimate weapon (presumably to make the Team Flare survivors immortal, resonating with what he said to Diantha in X about wanting to make the world unchanging and eternal), but had to scrap that idea due to Floette’s absence.
Honestly from what I understood, the "pokemon positioning" mainly boils down to 3 factors:
- If not ordered anything, the pokemon just follows you
- If ordered a contact move, the pokemon will move near the opponent to attack, ideally with a straight line from where it's standing
- If ordered a ranged attack, it'll move at a specific minimum distance (if applicable) to try and execute it, aiming directly in front of the player if possible
So realistically while you do have some degree of control of where to tell it to go, in practice that's easier said than done and the only real impact you have is tell from what direction it's meant to attack. Which imo is a shame, as it undermines the whole positional system.
I get that controlling BOTH the player and pokemon would have been an absolute mess, but as is honestly you may very well not have any real control at all.
Also, don't worry, I have probably 500 hours in xb2 and still don't know what i'm doing either, that's normal.
Side note: Spikes, Stealth Rock and Electroweb being literal hazards you can walk around (and are meant to maneuver around/bait the opponent into) is both so obvious and so amazing, I don't know why but I like that implementation so much.
I'm around mission 19/20 !
Do we have any information on our character ? Where does he come from ? Why is he coming to Paris ? What was his goal ?
Do we have the timeline vs XY ? I think we are 5 years later due to a NPC talk on a roof
And I'm bit disappointed at this point about lack of characters from XY integrated right now (AZ, Mable, Emma, L?)
Do we have any information on our character ? Where does he come from ? Why is he coming to Paris ? What was his goal ?
Do we have the timeline vs XY ? I think we are 5 years later due to a NPC talk on a roof
And I'm bit disappointed at this point about lack of characters from XY integrated right now (AZ, Mable, Emma, L?)
As far as I know there is no reason given for why our character came here beyond "tourist with no plan"
It's 5 years, as determined by the NPC talk.
It's funny in that regard the contrast and similarity in how Arceus and Zygarde act in their respective Legends games with respect to the player character though, particularly in the beginning part.
Arceus in PLA decided to grab this random Lucas/Dawn lookalike teenager from modern times and isekai them into ancient Sinnoh aka Hisui, turning their smartphone into an Arc Phone in the process, and ordering them to "seek out all Pokemon" of the region before coming to face it.
Zygarde in this game (PLZA) has its cells scattered around Lumiose, finds this random tourist with no particular reason for being in Lumiose other than tourism, and for whatever reason decides this tourist has potential and is worth monitoring and guiding, and watches them on the train with one of its cells before sneaking into their bag with the intention of monitoring their actions before guiding them.
It's a rather amusing commonality and contrast.
Arceus in PLA decided to grab this random Lucas/Dawn lookalike teenager from modern times and isekai them into ancient Sinnoh aka Hisui, turning their smartphone into an Arc Phone in the process, and ordering them to "seek out all Pokemon" of the region before coming to face it.
Zygarde in this game (PLZA) has its cells scattered around Lumiose, finds this random tourist with no particular reason for being in Lumiose other than tourism, and for whatever reason decides this tourist has potential and is worth monitoring and guiding, and watches them on the train with one of its cells before sneaking into their bag with the intention of monitoring their actions before guiding them.
It's a rather amusing commonality and contrast.
I think normal/dragon is cool for Drampa, mega or otherwise, and they'll probably reflect the summoning storms thing in whatever its ability is.
would be interesting if it got Drizzle.
The problem is that from what I've seen, ranged attacks might as well be just a sneak faster button.
Opps close in to throw their moves and it basically devolves into sock'em rock'em robots as soon as that happens. There's no real zoning in this game.
In addition, you can fit in a manual save after fully defeating a wild Pokemon and the autosave doesn't trigger on faint/breakout/despawn, so you can essentially still take infinite retries if you so please despite the early fears about mandatory autosave.
On an unrelated note, I found a Shiny Alpha Staryu last night just returning to Zone 2 after night unlocked for the dex (taking my time through the game) and I'm glad I knew enough that it would both be stored and persisted even after being replaced by Magikarp in the night->day transition. I still ended up fighting it alive while trying to catch it the whole way through though, and Bayleef being able to take an Ice Beam from full HP was a fortunate breakpoint.
The fastest friendship/happiness grind seems to be cafes giving a flat +30 happiness to the active mon (regardless of drink or current friendship level). I got a freshly caught Lopunny active in 6 drinks from basically base 0 to >160 happiness for the evolution threshold.
Bench hangouts also give +10 to the whole party, but you have to wait 10 seconds each time while you can just mash through the cafes regardless of time taken. Unlike PLA, getting EXP/breaking things doesn't affect happiness anymore.
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