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Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion

probably a coincidence in the main world but the shiny rate is absolutely higher in hyperspace. usually i encounter a shiny around every 5-ish times i pick up the game (except when i'm actively hunting) but i've run into 4 shinies in hyperspace during the past 2 sessions i've played without even trying and i've seen a lot of people having the same experience
Anubis has datamined the shiny rates and there’s no difference for hyperspace outside of using the sparkling power donuts.
 
I am so glad that you do not have to give the Gholdengo back to the quest giver and the game understandable gets that even with a 413 down payment this was still a lot of work.
I wonder how many people did give it to him.



Also saw Serebii put up a page on an Item Trader and, boy. I really hope that there's a lot more on offer here, maybe based on what you give him, because otherwise what a shame that this kid exists purely for the zeraora thing and not a generally useful way to get better items without dealing with the hyperspace lottery.
 
I am so glad that you do not have to give the Gholdengo back to the quest giver and the game understandable gets that even with a 413 down payment this was still a lot of work.
I wonder how many people did give it to him.



Also saw Serebii put up a page on an Item Trader and, boy. I really hope that there's a lot more on offer here, maybe based on what you give him, because otherwise what a shame that this kid exists purely for the zeraora thing and not a generally useful way to get better items without dealing with the hyperspace lottery.

well I guess it could’ve made Gholdengo a tiny tiny bit easier
 
Just going back to the subject of the ghost girl, Kotaku actually asked Masuda about it in 2014 (https://kotaku.com/almost-a-year-later-pokemon-x-ys-ghost-girl-is-still-1646738916)

"Last week, I got a chance to speak with Junichi Masuda, a producer on X & Y. Surely, I figured, Masuda might have a clue as to what was going on with ghost girl? When I asked him if he knew about ghost girl, he was puzzled. “We didn’t put anything like that in the game,” Masuda claimed.


So I showed him the video, which he watched intently—and once the ghost girl came on screen, he sort of laughed and went “oOoOoOoO.” In fact, he said “oOoOoO” multiple times during our exchange, sort of with a smirk, but he didn’t say more about it."

It's a joke, guys
 
Just going back to the subject of the ghost girl, Kotaku actually asked Masuda about it in 2014 (https://kotaku.com/almost-a-year-later-pokemon-x-ys-ghost-girl-is-still-1646738916)

"Last week, I got a chance to speak with Junichi Masuda, a producer on X & Y. Surely, I figured, Masuda might have a clue as to what was going on with ghost girl? When I asked him if he knew about ghost girl, he was puzzled. “We didn’t put anything like that in the game,” Masuda claimed.


So I showed him the video, which he watched intently—and once the ghost girl came on screen, he sort of laughed and went “oOoOoOoO.” In fact, he said “oOoOoO” multiple times during our exchange, sort of with a smirk, but he didn’t say more about it."

It's a joke, guys
Folks, Masuda owns.
 
Re: Ghost Girl
She may not have appeared (though R_N says she's mentioned by some NPCs and DaddyBuzzwole is possibly right about Gwynn being a reference (would explain why they made Gwynn a Ghost specialist amongst a Fighting-type dojo)), we do have one ghost mystery in the game:
It's sadly not in the same spot as the Ghost Girl, and someone in the comments pointed out this is where we battled the Rogue Mega Froslass so this could be that Froslass wanting to thank us. Though saying all that it's a missed opportunity not to then have the Rogue Mega Froslass battle occur near where the Ghost Girl appeared in XY (and thus this Side Mission of us following it around).
 
Really not loving how much of the Hyperspace Dex is locked behind special scan zones, given that you only get one special scan portal every 25,000 survey points, and the type of special zone you get is totally random

There’s a lot about this DLC that, even if it isn’t necessarily what I wanted or would have preferred, I can at least see a solid justification for it in terms of game design (like having the map be a bunch of smaller disconnected zones instead of a big singular map — that works in service of the whole roguelite thing), but I really do think the grind is unusually excessive, even from the perspective of them likely expecting players to do these missions in small bursts over a long period of time.
 
Really not loving how much of the Hyperspace Dex is locked behind special scan zones, given that you only get one special scan portal every 25,000 survey points, and the type of special zone you get is totally random

There’s a lot about this DLC that, even if it isn’t necessarily what I wanted or would have preferred, I can at least see a solid justification for it in terms of game design (like having the map be a bunch of smaller disconnected zones instead of a big singular map — that works in service of the whole roguelite thing), but I really do think the grind is unusually excessive, even from the perspective of them likely expecting players to do these missions in small bursts over a long period of time.

I mean its about what, 10%? That’s not really that many and half are legendaries. Seems right for endgame grinding.
 
Beat the DLC last night. Pretty cool finale. Now to get, eesh, 70k for the next part
Though part of me did want to fight AZ

Really not loving how much of the Hyperspace Dex is locked behind special scan zones, given that you only get one special scan portal every 25,000 survey points, and the type of special zone you get is totally random

There’s a lot about this DLC that, even if it isn’t necessarily what I wanted or would have preferred, I can at least see a solid justification for it in terms of game design (like having the map be a bunch of smaller disconnected zones instead of a big singular map — that works in service of the whole roguelite thing), but I really do think the grind is unusually excessive, even from the perspective of them likely expecting players to do these missions in small bursts over a long period of time.
Speaking to this, the fact that the Mega Rogue refights only give 10k is a real bizarre decision. These things are long! I had a +91 boost and I still did not beat Mega Mawile before running out of time. What a waste of resources, but even if I did win I have a strong feeling the goods I would get out of it wouldn't be THAT great.

I genuinely feel like you would get more out of just doing regular hyperspace zones, since you can both guarantee points, get extra resources and not use as much resources depending on the zone. If your'e goign to make these things "give lots of points" it should be 25k a pop.
 
the 25k scan requirement wasn't as problematic to me as the useless potential options outside of what you're trying to actually get.

1: legendary scans are still a dice roll between all 7 of them (it took me 8 legendary scans to run into latios finally cause i got latias..twice (I left to get sparkling power), all 3 swords, and the 2 mythicals before latios, the one I wanted to hunt, actually showed up. I have literally every za shiny legendary besides latios now lol.)

2: There's a good chance after you do the grind for 25k points you instead get an absolutely useless fossil or starter wild zone, or battle royale and then you have to repeat the process for another chance at it being a legendary scan.

There is basically no reason at all to use the special scan once you get the legendaries, as everything else appears in normal wild zones with exception of rotom and gimmighoul.. gimmighoul being actually interesting since its the only way you can get an alpha shiny one given its locked pretty much everywhere else. Starters and fossils you can roll in normal hyper wild zones. There's also baxclibur which i absolutely fucking hated running into because the 'catch X species' was basically a guaranteed fail with how terrible catch rates even with back shot quickballs were and on some maps you just can't sneak up at all cause they're on a small platform off a ladder.

You can't backup save or soft reset to fix for the scan you want, i even tried changing the time of day just to see if maybe it was fixed when all the other zones are generated, but no dice it seems to be as pre-determined what the next scan will be as when you left the previous one. 25k points was honestly pretty easy but i imagine it depends on the team + rogue megas (I basically walked into heatran's with a 1 star berry just to throw and reroll it since bench resets won't reroll the rogue mega otherwise, everything else mawile/absol z decimated)
 
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Just going back to the subject of the ghost girl, Kotaku actually asked Masuda about it in 2014 (https://kotaku.com/almost-a-year-later-pokemon-x-ys-ghost-girl-is-still-1646738916)

"Last week, I got a chance to speak with Junichi Masuda, a producer on X & Y. Surely, I figured, Masuda might have a clue as to what was going on with ghost girl? When I asked him if he knew about ghost girl, he was puzzled. “We didn’t put anything like that in the game,” Masuda claimed.


So I showed him the video, which he watched intently—and once the ghost girl came on screen, he sort of laughed and went “oOoOoOoO.” In fact, he said “oOoOoO” multiple times during our exchange, sort of with a smirk, but he didn’t say more about it."

It's a joke, guys

Mogged by a 50yo nerd holy shit
 
oh yeah small little character bit in the post game
It is funny to me that Corbeau clearly had a run in with Giovanni, but like...I can definitely see him traveling the world, looking into things. So him going to Hoenn and Lumiose would make sense. But the way they had to justify "Corbeau met Giovanni" and "Corbeau learned Hoenn myths from someone" by just being "He met Giovanni, who very specifically knew Kanto, Johto & Hoenn legends, in Lumiose" is funny to me. Like not just broadly "knew a lot of legends" or just have these as two separate beats ("met Giovanni in his youth" + "researched hoenn legends on his own due to the crisis going on") but those 3 regions specifically.
 
the 25k scan requirement wasn't as problematic to me as the useless potential options outside of what you're trying to actually get.

1: legendary scans are still a dice roll between all 7 of them (it took me 8 legendary scans to run into latios finally cause i got latias..twice (I left to get sparkling power), all 3 swords, and the 2 mythicals before latios, the one I wanted to hunt, actually showed up. I have literally every za shiny legendary besides latios now lol.)

2: There's a good chance after you do the grind for 25k points you instead get an absolutely useless fossil or starter wild zone, or battle royale and then you have to repeat the process for another chance at it being a legendary scan.

There is basically no reason at all to use the special scan once you get the legendaries, as everything else appears in normal wild zones with exception of rotom and gimmighoul.. gimmighoul being actually interesting since its the only way you can get an alpha shiny one given its locked pretty much everywhere else. Starters and fossils you can roll in normal hyper wild zones. There's also baxclibur which i absolutely fucking hated running into because the 'catch X species' was basically a guaranteed fail with how terrible catch rates even with back shot quickballs were and on some maps you just can't sneak up at all cause they're on a small platform off a ladder.

You can't backup save or soft reset to fix for the scan you want, i even tried changing the time of day just to see if maybe it was fixed when all the other zones are generated, but no dice it seems to be as pre-determined what the next scan will be as when you left the previous one. 25k points was honestly pretty easy but i imagine it depends on the team + rogue megas (I basically walked into heatran's with a 1 star berry just to throw and reroll it since bench resets won't reroll the rogue mega otherwise, everything else mawile/absol z decimated)

Heatran is one I would never reroll. Garchomp makes quick work of it.
 
I've been enjoying the game a lot. I think one of my only nitpicks in terms of gameplay stuff is that unlike Arceus, you can't complete the whole dex by yourself. And its by just a few mons, too. Most trade evos are actually obtainable in-game, although some of them only once. Here's a small guide on how to get all the available ones:


:gengar::alakazam::machamp: They show up in Zone 20 as possible Alpha spawns. Gengar is also available through a side quest

:gourgeist: Fixed Alpha spawn in Zone 15

:trevenant: Fixed Alpha spawn in Zone 13

:steelix: Only one is catchable. After you complete the main story, you can activate a post game mission with Mable to find an Alpha at Zone 3

:slowking: Very roundabout way of getting the entry but there are side missions for a Galarian Slowpoke trade and its evolution items. Galarian Slowking counts for Dex progression.

This leaves only three culprits preventing a full dex completion:

:sv/scizor::sv/aromatisse::sv/slurpuff:


And it is a little frustrating. There's 300 mons in the game so quite literally 1% of that is locked behind trades. Locks you out of completing the Mega Pokédex too
Revisitting this post-DLC:

:steelix::slowking::slowking-galar::scizor::slurpuff::aromatisse: Are now all catchable in Hyperspace. This makes the base game's Pokédex and the Mega Pokédex both completable without the need of trading. Gourgeist, Trevenant, Alakazam, Gengar and Machamp are all available through Hyperspace as well (they were in the base game, but only as static Alphas)

I was a little worried when I saw the DLC has Porygon, but not only is there a NPC that trades you a Porygon holding an Upgrade, but also the entire line is available in Hyperspace as well

So, can you complete the entire dex solo now?

...well no!

For some ungodly reason, Milotic, exclusively Milotic, is the one Pokémon that is locked behind trading, unlike literally every other trade evo in the DLC
 
Revisitting this post-DLC:

:steelix::slowking::slowking-galar::scizor::slurpuff::aromatisse: Are now all catchable in Hyperspace. This makes the base game's Pokédex and the Mega Pokédex both completable without the need of trading. Gourgeist, Trevenant, Alakazam, Gengar and Machamp are all available through Hyperspace as well (they were in the base game, but only as static Alphas)

I was a little worried when I saw the DLC has Porygon, but not only is there a NPC that trades you a Porygon holding an Upgrade, but also the entire line is available in Hyperspace as well

So, can you complete the entire dex solo now?

...well no!

For some ungodly reason, Milotic, exclusively Milotic, is the one Pokémon that is locked behind trading, unlike literally every other trade evo in the DLC
"yeah i get that you paid $30 but sorry you still need to either give up your pokemon to some grimy internet stranger or have a real social interaction if you want to complete your dex"
 
Revisitting this post-DLC:

:steelix::slowking::slowking-galar::scizor::slurpuff::aromatisse: Are now all catchable in Hyperspace. This makes the base game's Pokédex and the Mega Pokédex both completable without the need of trading. Gourgeist, Trevenant, Alakazam, Gengar and Machamp are all available through Hyperspace as well (they were in the base game, but only as static Alphas)

I was a little worried when I saw the DLC has Porygon, but not only is there a NPC that trades you a Porygon holding an Upgrade, but also the entire line is available in Hyperspace as well

So, can you complete the entire dex solo now?

...well no!

For some ungodly reason, Milotic, exclusively Milotic, is the one Pokémon that is locked behind trading, unlike literally every other trade evo in the DLC
Oh Cool, Porygon-Z is in Hyperspace. I was seeing the tables as they were going up, seeing Porygon2 show up but not Z and it looked like only Milotic & it were left out.



Honestly makes it seem like Milotic not being in anything was just an oversight.
 
Learned a cool trick for those trying to find a specific Special Scan:

1. Before entering a Special Scan, fly to any Pokemon Center (it'll automatically save).
2. Fly to the nearest non-Pokemon Center and go to the scan.
3. If the Special Scan isn't what you wanted, reset the game, and on the title screen open the back-up save by pressing B + Dpad Up and Down.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until you get the Special Scan you want.


Nevermind, upon further investigating the method is really only useful for Shiny Hunting. Apparently, or at least it's currently believed, a Special Scan's result is decided upon completion of the previous Special Scan, so there's no possible way to save scum for a result you want.
 
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It's fitting that the Legendary donuts have such specific and steep costs but also man, trying to hunt the kind of berries you need is a pain huh. I'm so close to making the pair but I lack some berries entirely. So I gotta use more berries to hope to get better ones...
 
I was a big fan of the Z-A Royale, so I feel like I enjoy the bones of these Hyperspace missions well enough — the timer adds an interesting (if sometimes perhaps a bit too unforgiving) element to the challenge — but I wish there was a little more diversity in the sorts of tasks that get assigned.

Learned a cool trick for those trying to find a specific Special Scan:

1. Before entering a Special Scan, fly to any Pokemon Center (it'll automatically save).
2. Fly to the nearest non-Pokemon Center and go to the scan.
3. If the Special Scan isn't what you wanted, reset the game, and on the title screen open the back-up save by pressing B + Dpad Up and Down.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until you get the Special Scan you want.

I believe this is specifically for rerolling the Legendary/Mythical within the Special Scan after you’ve generated the portal, no? From what I can tell, you can’t reset to get the game to generate a different “kind” of portal (like say rerolling for a Legendary or Wild Zone portal when the Special Scan produces a Battle Zone portal).
 
So can we agree Volcanion is the most unloved Mythical there?

People were expecting a second DLC with it in the centre and we ended up with a fight without a background.

And instead of it Heatran of all Legendaries got a Mega together with Magearna who shared a movie with aforementioned Volcanion...
 
So can we agree Volcanion is the most unloved Mythical there?

People were expecting a second DLC with it in the centre and we ended up with a fight without a background.

I dunno, I think Zarude still slightly edges it out.
- It has the dubious distinction of being the Covid-era Mythical
- Related to that, its international release was a debacle and a half
- Sure Volcanion doesn’t have a Mega or anything, but at least it doesn’t have an alternate form that’s literally just the same thing but with a small cape bearing another, more popular Pokémon’s Dex number for some reason. Imagine if there were a Volcanion form wearing a scarf printed with “151”
- Seriously, why is Dada form even a thing in the games? In the anime, sure, do whatever you want. Give it a cape to symbolize its individuality/main character status. But given how they tend to contextualize Mythical releases, this specific Zarude from this specific movie being forever attached to base Zarude at the hip is a futureproofing headache
- Exposition-dumped though it may be, Volcanion at least does have a small amount of lore, whereas the sum total of what SwSh had to say about Zarude was “Wow, this thing’s not from around here! Here, have Ash’s movie hat!”
 
oh yeah small little character bit in the post game
It is funny to me that Corbeau clearly had a run in with Giovanni, but like...I can definitely see him traveling the world, looking into things. So him going to Hoenn and Lumiose would make sense. But the way they had to justify "Corbeau met Giovanni" and "Corbeau learned Hoenn myths from someone" by just being "He met Giovanni, who very specifically knew Kanto, Johto & Hoenn legends, in Lumiose" is funny to me. Like not just broadly "knew a lot of legends" or just have these as two separate beats ("met Giovanni in his youth" + "researched hoenn legends on his own due to the crisis going on") but those 3 regions specifically.
I've been thinking about this again today and this feels like something that retroactively makes me like the character less because it feels like the shoved too much into him to the point that he comes off...overcooked? like the maingame already tries really hard to make you like him and frankly succeeds at it by making him easily the funniest character in the game, but him being where he is because Lysandre took pity on him and got him some housing and funded his ventures was pretty important and to add Giovanni also doing that devalues that and makes it feel like they just want him to be their specialest guy related to their specialest villain lol
 
I've been thinking about this again today and this feels like something that retroactively makes me like the character less because it feels like the shoved too much into him to the point that he comes off...overcooked? like the maingame already tries really hard to make you like him and frankly succeeds at it by making him easily the funniest character in the game, but him being where he is because Lysandre took pity on him and got him some housing and funded his ventures was pretty important and to add Giovanni also doing that devalues that and makes it feel like they just want him to be their specialest guy related to their specialest villain lol
Honestly I kind of figured Corbaeu had some connection to Giovanni just because he's a yakuza(/mafia) with a penchant for poison types which, despite Giovanni's ground theming, was TR's MO and 2 of his big Pokemon were poison types. And also the TR is meant to be the yakuza(/mafia).
It made sense he'd pick the aesthetic up somewhere. And probably intentional to play into how Giovanni's organization is ran vs Corbaeu's, showing how Lysandre was still the more important lasting legacy.

So not that surprising to me, and mostly just a foot note.

e: Actually considering he just says "Johto & Hoenn", even though it would make the most sense for it to be Giovanni because come on, it would be funny if it was like...god could you imagine if it was Archie or Maxie lmao. Since Johto had the Groudon/Kyogre tower.
 
Honestly I kind of figured Corbaeu had some connection to Giovanni just because he's a yakuza(/mafia) with a penchant for poison types which, despite Giovanni's ground theming, was TR's MO and 2 of his big Pokemon were poison types. And also the TR is meant to be the yakuza(/mafia).
It made sense he'd pick the aesthetic up somewhere. And probably intentional to play into how Giovanni's organization is ran vs Corbaeu's, showing how Lysandre was still the more important lasting legacy.

So not that surprising to me, and mostly just a foot note.

e: Actually considering he just says "Johto & Hoenn", even though it would make the most sense for it to be Giovanni because come on, it would be funny if it was like...god could you imagine if it was Archie or Maxie lmao. Since Johto had the Groudon/Kyogre tower.
He's not from Kalos/Lumiose originally so him being involved/related to Team Rocket in some form makes total sense given the Yakuza aesthetics he's fond of. It's just the specific 'giovanni took care of me for a bit' that just feels borderline fanfiction-y lmao.
 
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