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Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion

I think anything "off" can usually come down to dynamic shading and, in raichu's case, the vibrant color selection.

You can see it in a lot of them. Starmie has mroe reflecting shading to emphasize the body texture; regular Starmie's art hass omething similar but downplayed and the reflectiveness is present on the anime's stock art too (albeit in a different pose). Staraptor has menacing shadows. Heatran is melting which leads to implied movement on a static Pokemon and difficult to assign scale. The raichus got really vibrant coloring, but it's going to stick out mroe than their renders because it's a flat image; if you compare them they're not that far off but blinding yellow (& pawmi orange) is just going to stand out against its 2D peers. Likely also spurred on by wanting different colors going on from the other 2 Raichus.
 
Esserise said:
I don’t really see anything off about it; I’m curious what about it seems that way to you.

To me, if any of these seem out of place, it’s the two Mega Raichu, especially in comparison to the art for regular and Alolan Raichu:

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It almost looks more like art for the anime to me.

Another oddity is that Mega Raichu X’s tails look almost the same texture-wise as in its 3D render:

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For me its hitting a level of uncanny valley were it doesnt have enough noticeable visual imperfections (for lack of a better term) to really fit in with everything else instead feeling like it was refrencing the 3D model too closely.

Yes im saying its too perfect.
 
As an aside, since you're more saying the vibe than an accusation, the idea of referencing the 3D model too closely is kinda funny because all of these almost certainly came from the finalized concept and modeling sheets that the models were made from (Dragonite's definitely did). & that's something they've been doing for sure since Gen 7 and probably Gen 6.

Probably speaks more about the modeling being, despite how the fandom complains, generally high quality and getting better at it over time.
 
Looking at the Sugimori Art, its actually crazy how apparent the X and Y motif on the Megas are, and I can't believe so many people try to vehemently deny it when TAHK0 pointed it out. You can literally see it on the Z megas too. Mega Lucario Z has the zigzag on his tails and the little Z-like shapes on his tails too. Mega Absol Z has a literal Z jutting out of his head.
 
I find it interesting that there is only art for one of the tatsugiri megas, and not even the one you fight in-game at that. its pose is also very similar to the 'static' pokedex one, which would at least make it very easy for fanmade sugimori-style pictures of the other two forms to be made.
 
no me vean said:
I find it interesting that there is only art for one of the tatsugiri megas, and not even the one you fight in-game at that. its pose is also very similar to the 'static' pokedex one, which would at least make it very easy for fanmade sugimori-style pictures of the other two forms to be made.
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Also interesting to me (and related to the point about it not being the one you fight in game) is that they used Stretchy Form’s Mega for the art. Usually if they only do official 2D art for one of a Pokémon’s multiple forms, they do the “base” form, which in Tatsugiri’s case would be Curly Form.
 
Esserise said:
Also interesting to me (and related to the point about it not being the one you fight in game) is that they used Stretchy Form’s Mega for the art. Usually if they only do official 2D art for one of a Pokémon’s multiple forms, they do the “base” form, which in Tatsugiri’s case would be Curly Form.
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I think it makes sense when you look at the composition of the pose
from left to right you have the form that bends downward, then the one that's straight on and then the one fully bent up. So you have a good progression of posing & fully show off all 3 without stepping on each other's toes too much.
The yellow one is also the most eye catching, so even if you just try and look head on your eye is drawn directly to the middle to the most important of the 3, and that's further cemented by having the darker colored ones act as borders for it.

If you're only going to do one piece, it makes sense
 
It has been a few weeks, and I am now finally almost ready to wrap up the game for the time being. Here are some things I have done:

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Completing the side missions was mostly easy (and fun), and I used a guide to find the missing Colorful Screws.

The worst part was doing special scans to obtain the legendaries and mythicals. I had to do a total of 42 special scans in order to get all of them. I got one legendary/mythical every 6th scan, which was too rarely.

Here's everything I got, in order:
1. Fossils
2. Porygon line
3. Water-type starters
4. Ice-types (Frigibax line and Bergmite/Hisuian Avalugg)
5. Water-type starters
6. Meloetta
7. Rotom
8. Dragon-types (Frigibax line and Hisuian Sliggoo/Goodra)
9. Poison-types (Hisuian Qwilfish line and Galarian Slowpoke line)
10. Grass-type starters
11. Fire-type starters
12. Terrakion
13. Eevee and Eeveelutions
14. Battle Zone
15. Battle Zone
16. Ice-types (Frigibax line and Bergmite/Hisuian Avalugg)
17. Battle Zone
18. Latias
19. Grass-type starters
20. Rotom
21. Dragon-types (Frigibax line and Hisuian Sliggoo/Goodra)
22. Battle Zone
23. Poison-types (Hisuian Qwilfish line and Galarian Slowpoke line)
24. Latios
25. Poison-types (Hisuian Qwilfish line and Galarian Slowpoke line)
26. Dragon-types (Frigibax line and Hisuian Sliggoo/Goodra)
27. Battle Zone
28. Battle Zone
29. Battle Zone
30. Cobalion
31. Battle Zone
32. Battle Zone
33. Battle Zone
34. Battle Zone
35. Fossils
36. Virizion
37. Battle Zone
38. Battle Zone
39. Rotom
40. Battle Zone
41. Battle Zone
42. Keldeo

I would have liked to get a Gimmighoul distortion so I could catch one or several Gimmighoul. I managed to collect another 999 Gimmighoul coins, so catching a Gimmighoul would have allowed me to get a second Gholdengo. But I can live without it.

For me, doing all these special scans was easily the worst part of the game. Which is a shame as I really enjoyed most other things the game had to offer, both in the base game and the DLC. The special scans were just extremely grindy for absolutely no reason at all. While I thought some other parts of the DLC were impractical at best, the special scans were just plain tedious. The execution was terrible, I can think of many ways it could have been done better. I sincerely hope there won’t ever be something like this again in a future Pokémon game.

On to something else. I completed the EX mission for Zeraora, and I was surprised to see that it was Rogue Mega battle. With Emma as one of my partners, that was cool. It was pretty hard, I lost on my first attempt and got close to losing on my second try as well. But I made it. For me, this was probably the hardest Rogue Mega battle in the whole game. So it was suitable that it was the very last one.

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Plasma donut, yay.

While I have done most things in the game that I had planned to do, there’s one thing I’m not sure about. At first, I thought about doing it, then I changed my mind and decided to not do it. But now… I’m not sure.

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I was fine with battling 1000 trainers because it was fun, and it gave me a good reason to train some new teams. But entering Hyperspace distortions a lot of extra times for absolutely no reason doesn’t feel worth it. Though I might give it a try, it depends on how many times you actually need to do it. Serebii has listed 500, while Bulbapedia only has 300. Does anyone know which of them is correct? If it is 300 like Bulbapedia says, then I might actually do it. But if it is 500 like Serebii says, then I’ll pass. Entering Hyperspace an additional 249 times without getting a proper reward in the end just feels like a complete waste of time.

Either way, I’m going to take a break from Z-A soon. The game was fun. Apart from the special scans, I really enjoyed the post-game of the DLC.
 
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It's really incredible that both base game Z-A (infinite royale to get Eternal Floette and also the final Jacinthe quest) and DLC Z-A (special scans) had entirely separate but equally awful grinds to finish out its very last bits

Though I guess the DLC has the "benefit" of getting multiple new things done as you went for the full suite.
 
I think one of the Special Scans that most annoy me is Gimmighoul. It is really rare but the Coins are very common so you will be hitting the 999 limit way before you find Gimmighoul. This also makes Hyperspace feels less rewarding since a lot of the time you will be collecting coins that aren't worth anything because you hit the cap and have no Gimmighoul to evolve
 
Pretty solid quality of life update, if I’m being honest. The fact that the update “number” is specifically 2.0.1 intrigues me, though. I would have thought a hypothetical 2.1.0 would have this kind of stuff. Does that really matter? No, of course not. All jokes aside, the Mega Shard count increase I think is the best thing here, and I’ve heard some people are having issues with the targeting mechanics in Hyperspace so it’s nice to see that get looked at. The only other quality of life updates remaining that I can think of would be for the game to have some way of checking previously saved donut recipes (unless that already is a thing and I just haven’t found it) and whatever is coming in what I am going to assume will the game’s definitive final update on Pokémon Day (think like how Daybreak was in 2022).
 
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