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Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion

Esserise said:
But why only Garden? If you’re already choosing to break away from the original intent of having the patterns correspond to the player’s real-world location (whether through the game itself or through interaction with Go’s postcard system), why not go whole-hog and just let all of them appear? Maybe make it a Donut Power effect or something.
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EDIT: Cannot read.

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The patterns that can be gotten on the game other than Meadow correspond to the countries that inspired Galar and Paldea, which were worked into being located next to Kalos and with a long history, so I suppose that's the reference.
 
Esserise said:
Gotta say, their approach to Vivillon in this game, a Kalos game, is very odd…

Like, I get why they did it the way they did in SV, with the GO integration. GO also needed to figure out a system for Vivillon around that same time, so, sure. Bonus, you can work Gimmighoul into it as well. Hooray corporate synergy~

But I figured that in Z-A, which has no GO integration, we would surely just default to the original way of doing it, as that’s kind of the whole concept behind Vivillon’s patterns to begin with. However, the only repeatably obtainable pattern in the base game is Meadow (and the only other one is the gift Marine Pattern from a side mission). Which I guess makes some sense as Meadow corresponds to the pattern that France gets irl, but why do it this way instead of just making the patterns correspond to the system location as intended?

I thought maybe the DLC could offer some sort of solution, and I suppose it did… exclusively for Garden Pattern enjoyers, as you can now find those renewably in Hyperspace, but it doesn’t seem that any other Patterns can appear there.

But why only Garden? If you’re already choosing to break away from the original intent of having the patterns correspond to the player’s real-world location (whether through the game itself or through interaction with Go’s postcard system), why not go whole-hog and just let all of them appear? Maybe make it a Donut Power effect or something.

I swear if we don’t at least get a distribution for the Poké Ball Pattern at some point in Z-A’s life cycle (as that form was only ever distributed to regions other than Japan once, 11 years ago, and even Japan only ever had one other in-person distribution in 2016) I’m gonna flip my lid. There’s speculation that the Poké Ball and/or Fancy Pattern could be coming to GO soon with some new Scatterbug-themed Timed Research and then the Kalos Tour on the horizon, but the main series could really use another a shot at this thing again.
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Because the Switch doesn't have the same location system as the 3DS. The 3DS let you select by country (or even by province/state in Canada, the US, and few other places), the Switch lets you pick Japan, The Americas, Australia/New Zealand, Europe, or Hong Kong/Taiwan/Korea.

Having it be by Switch region wouldn't actually make that many more available, just Continental or Monsoon for Hong Kong/Taiwan/Korea and likely Elegant for Japan (Japan also had Tundra in Hokkaido and Monsoon in Okinawa) and maybe River for Australia (New Zealand had Garden on the 3DS, and Australia had a couple provinces with different ones). Just Canada and the US alone for had 4 different Vivillon patterns depending on province or state, let alone the rest of the Americas.

Literally every non-event Vivillon pattern except 7 (Elegant, River, Meadow, Sandstorm, Garden, Tundra, and Monsoon) spawned in some area of the area the Americas, and the ones that don't (except River, River is Australia, the Canary Islands, and most of Africa) are the ones with tiny spawn regions (Elegant is Japan exclusive, Tundra is Norway & Iceland besides Hokkaido, Garden is the British isles and New Zealand, Meadow is mostly France exclusive with tiny bits of Spain and Italy, Sandstorm is Middle East exclusive, Monsoon is India and the contentious parts of China as well as Okinawa).
 
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Pikachu315111 said:
"Okay we're going to add in a whole batch of TMs, how?"
"Well we can add in a whole batch of new tiers in Mable's research"
"Nah, if we did that then the players who grinded out 1k battles to get the Shiny Charm only to discover the DLC would make getting in a non-issue would feel like they haven't wasted their time. What else you got?"
"Well we do need something new for the Mega Shards exchange."
"Perfect! How should we implement it?"
"We can just place them in the Mega Shard exchange in Quasartico, I imagine most players would natural look there either after just starting the DLC or when they start getting a lot of Mega Shards from Hyperspace. They'll go to exchange for candy and, surprise, new TMs!"
"Alright then... a guy hidden in an alley somewhere around Wild Area 17 that we'll not alert them even exists it is!"
"... I'm sorry did I fall through a Hyperspace hole and miss a few minutes of this conversation?"
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Jeez I was wondering what all these new shards would be for. Too bad I wasted a bunch by already being at 999.
 
Eriorguez said:
EDIT: Cannot read.

Second edit:
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The patterns that can be gotten on the game other than Meadow correspond to the countries that inspired Galar and Paldea, which were worked into being located next to Kalos and with a long history, so I suppose that's the reference.
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Hey I’m all for a cute reference, but I really would rather prefer that they prioritize availability on this one…

Coronis said:
Jeez I was wondering what all these new shards would be for. Too bad I wasted a bunch by already being at 999.
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Oh yeah, this reminds me of another thing. I wish there were an NPC in this game who would “bank” your overflow of Mega Shards, like the Gimmighoul Coin collector in SV. I’ve “wasted” the 100 Mega Shard reward from two of the Hyperspace Scuffle missions now (granted, in the first instance, I didn’t think to check the reward preview, and the second instance was just me forgetting to go spend my shards before doing the quest).
 
Esserise said:
Hey I’m all for a cute reference, but I really would rather prefer that they prioritize availability on this one…



Oh yeah, this reminds me of another thing. I wish there were an NPC in this game who would “bank” your overflow of Mega Shards, like the Gimmighoul Coin collector on SV. I’ve “wasted” the 100 Mega Shard reward from two of the Hyperspace Scuffle missions now (granted, the second instance was just me forgetting to go spend my shards before doing the quest, but the I had no way of knowing there’d be a Mega Shard reward for the first one).
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Or just let you have more than one stack of Mega Shards, since they're a currency. Or just have them be an actual currency like BP is in other games.
 
Been doing more side missions. I appreciate how many of these (& in the base game too) have the Pokemon involved be so...animated. Aside from putting all those idle animations people aren't as likely to see across all the species to good use, it adds a lot of charm to the side missions and also is incredibly funny to remember the awkward zacian/zamazenta rotations in comparison to seeing this woman's manectric head track the conversation as it lays down or sits back up and does a little happy jump. Or this corvisquire quest that makes good use of its hopping animations to move around to face you. Or how Fidough you take for a walk pulls out nearly every animation in its set to interact with the people it runs into and ends the sidequest going into a loaf.
 
R_N said:
Been doing more side missions. I appreciate how many of these (& in the base game too) have the Pokemon involved be so...animated. Aside from putting all those idle animations people aren't as likely to see across all the species to good use, it adds a lot of charm to the side missions and also is incredibly funny to remember the awkward zacian/zamazenta rotations in comparison to seeing this woman's manectric head track the conversation as it lays down or sits back up and does a little happy jump. Or this corvisquire quest that makes good use of its hopping animations to move around to face you. Or how Fidough you take for a walk pulls out nearly every animation in its set to interact with the people it runs into and ends the sidequest going into a loaf.
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I was particularly impressed with the Tinkatuff and Scizor mission. I didn't think there was a way to make Scizor look "timid", but wow, they pulled it off.
 
Pikachu315111 said:
Off topic, but found where they put Mega Charizard Y: In your Pocket:
Oh, Venusaur and Blastoise is here too.
Also Serena and Clemont, guess they don't have any characters from ZA ready for their TCG debut just yet.
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As far as Pocket goes yeah they're giving Z-A distance, similar to how Gen 9 was. Could be due to how the game is developed, could be wanting the main TCG to really push them for.
Speaking of, the main TCG has already had them debut. Mega Dream EX, the yearly reprint set, has a bunch of Z-A Megas and characters; Starter Deck 100 which is another special mostly-reprint set also has a bunch of new cards including Z-A characters & the Z-A starter megas.

Starter Deck 100 actually also has Mega Charizard Y as its "star" which is funny for a "set" consisting of 100 random theme-ish decks.
 
The side missions, particularly the ones that focus on Pokémon interactions, have been the highlight of the DLC for me. The Mime Jr. one was so sweet and so adorable that it genuinely made my eyes tear up, and Mime Jr. is a Pokémon that I had never given a thought to before.

Unrelated to that, but

what the hell was the point of including Heatran if you’re not gonna play on the Jaune Plaza Easter egg from XY at all? Its hyperspace portal is on the other end of the map altogether! :smogduck:

Actually, as a whole I feel like anyone who was hoping for this DLC to lean in on continuity and lore has been riddled with a barrage of Ls. No Heatran in Jaune Plaza, no Volo superboss, no Magearna/AZ ultimate weapon connection, no acknowledgement of Hoopa opening rings all over Hoenn in ORAS, nothing particularly new about Volcanion, no Diantha or Sycamore appearance — hell, there’s not even any particular explanation for the Z Megas. They’re just yet more new Megas that were recently discovered, terrestrially, offscreen.

To be clear, I don’t think this is a problem, per se. Taken on its own merits, the DLC doesn’t exactly make any particular missteps with its story and lore, it’s just that it’s very much focused on doing its own things with Korrina and Hoopa and Darkrai and the super-ancient trio, which I guess I just find slightly surprising given how willing to play with deep cuts and how interwoven the lore of Arceus was and how easy some of these potential connections could have been invited.
 
Really enjoying the DLC so far. I've reached the credits and am now doing the postgame content. It feels like it has a lot of things I felt was missing from the base game, like more meaningful wild Pokémon interaction. Outbreaks are basically back. The later parts are *very* grindy but I find the things I'm doing to grind towards the endgoal are fun enough that it doesn't bother me too much. It's certainly no "run through Restaurant Le Nah hundreds of times". The parts you grind towards feel more than worth the grind. Very fanservice-y for sure, but I still can't help but gush at how they did it.

My jaw just about dropped when you went to the New Moon Island-inspired arena to fight Darkrai and the entrance cutscene ensued. The fights with Kyorge and Groudon were everything I ever could've asked for from a realtime bossfight against them. Really excited to see how Rayquaza's fight plays out. While I liked the fight against Zygarde in the base game, these kinda fights against legendaries/mythicals are what I felt were lacking in the base game and I'm thrilled to see they made it in here.
 
In the part where we need to find Corbeau surrounded by walls - I couldn’t find Canari or Gwynn, despite all other main npcs being there. Did I miss them or were they just excluded?
 
Coronis said:
In the part where we need to find Corbeau surrounded by walls - I couldn’t find Canari or Gwynn, despite all other main npcs being there. Did I miss them or were they just excluded?
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I found them; they were standing together in an area straight past where Jacinthe was, below the rooftop Grisham was standing on.

I couldn’t find Lebanne, myself. Was she there?
 
Esserise said:
I found them; they were standing together in an area straight past where Jacinthe was, below the rooftop Grisham was standing on.

I couldn’t find Lebanne, myself. Was she there?
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She was on scaffolding that led to nowhere on the outer edge, past Korrina
 
AquaticPanic said:
I did find all of the Royale opponents, including even Zach, Yvon and Xavi. Of all things, the Quasartico Inc. guard Dedenne were also there

Was Jett there at all or is she more irrelevant than literal rats
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Possibly the most pointless character so far in Pokemon. Unless they have some relevance later in the DLC. (not finished yet, haven’t progressed to the next big fight yet)
 
I did one of those hyperspace battle zones and, it's kind of funny how the DLC tasks mean you just never have to bother with the 1000 mission but also the battle zones feel crafted specifically to make that task easier anyway.
They're dense with trainers, said trainers respawn quicker, they aren't very hard (well, with the asterisk of the ranking of the zone, but you get what i mean), and they go by way quicker not just due to the Pokemon involved but because they don't have end battle dialog or exp rewards. The one I went into had a beat 10 trainer mission and I wound up doing like 16 on accident on my not very large donut.
 
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