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Pokémon Legends: Z-A General Discussion
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
...Yes? That was released November 2020. This is easy to look up.THEY SAID GAME FREAK RELEASED PHYSICAL RELEASES OF SWORD AND SHIELD WITH THE DLC
Yes, that is a thing, i bought the SV version for my nephew in fact.THEY SAID GAME FREAK RELEASED PHYSICAL RELEASES OF SWORD AND SHIELD WITH THE DLC
i'm confused, i'm gonna start hitting myself in confusion
Okay, so I’m going to be honest, I meant to post this the other day and I just completely forgot. So, the game just turned one year old last week. Feels weird saying that when in 2024 all people wanted was more Z-A news and a release date. Gen 9 lasting five years is one heck of a drug, I suppose. So, what’s everyone’s opinions on this game on year later? Have your opinions changed at all? Or have they stayed largely the same?
IMO, the one year mark is roughly around the time when I like to make my final assessment on whatever the most recent Pokémon game at the time is. Doing it too early can cause issues if later content additions throw a wrench into things, and doing it too late can feel somewhat redundant when the game is no longer currently supported. There are exceptions to this, but for the most part I think Legends Z-A holds up pretty well as a pick-up-and-play experience in October 2026… on the Switch 2 specifically. I’m still a bit salty that Scarlet & Violet and this were the only games to get any kind of Switch 2 performance patch, but it’s the quality of life changes from the first Legends game that I think make a difference in my enjoyment of the game. Doing side quests is especially much less tedious when you can access the PC at virtually any time, and that 60 FPS on the Switch 2 version is pretty significant to me, relative to the 30 FPS on Switch 1.
My biggest issue with the game one year out is that it can feel difficult to want to replay and that the grinding for things like Trainer battles, the Shiny Charm, and donut ingredients in the DLC can be very repetitive and honestly kind of boring. Speaking of the DLC, it… exists. At first I liked the Hyperspace Zones and the donut system once I actually figured out how it works, but it did take me a bit to learn about that and while I wouldn’t say it’s inaccessible, I think I might prefer looking for Shinies in the base game more now. There’s little incentive to 100% complete the DLC PokéDex or do anything besides Shiny hunt, and I feel like the special scans were especially mishandled compared to other Legendary acquisition methods in games like ORAS and USUM, to name a few. At least they’re not Shiny locked, I guess. I don’t know, I guess I just feel a bit underwhelmed by the final product, and what made the base game work for me was that for all of its issues people have with modern Pokémon, the single player experience is probably one of the better ones we’ve gotten in the past decade or so.
IMO, the one year mark is roughly around the time when I like to make my final assessment on whatever the most recent Pokémon game at the time is. Doing it too early can cause issues if later content additions throw a wrench into things, and doing it too late can feel somewhat redundant when the game is no longer currently supported. There are exceptions to this, but for the most part I think Legends Z-A holds up pretty well as a pick-up-and-play experience in October 2026… on the Switch 2 specifically. I’m still a bit salty that Scarlet & Violet and this were the only games to get any kind of Switch 2 performance patch, but it’s the quality of life changes from the first Legends game that I think make a difference in my enjoyment of the game. Doing side quests is especially much less tedious when you can access the PC at virtually any time, and that 60 FPS on the Switch 2 version is pretty significant to me, relative to the 30 FPS on Switch 1.
My biggest issue with the game one year out is that it can feel difficult to want to replay and that the grinding for things like Trainer battles, the Shiny Charm, and donut ingredients in the DLC can be very repetitive and honestly kind of boring. Speaking of the DLC, it… exists. At first I liked the Hyperspace Zones and the donut system once I actually figured out how it works, but it did take me a bit to learn about that and while I wouldn’t say it’s inaccessible, I think I might prefer looking for Shinies in the base game more now. There’s little incentive to 100% complete the DLC PokéDex or do anything besides Shiny hunt, and I feel like the special scans were especially mishandled compared to other Legendary acquisition methods in games like ORAS and USUM, to name a few. At least they’re not Shiny locked, I guess. I don’t know, I guess I just feel a bit underwhelmed by the final product, and what made the base game work for me was that for all of its issues people have with modern Pokémon, the single player experience is probably one of the better ones we’ve gotten in the past decade or so.
I think I overall still liked the game, and its DLC. Even if I don't think the new battle system is that great, it was at least interesting? Liked the characters. Lumiose is mostly fun to explore. Everyone inside of it is insane, definitely one of the funnier games in the series. Wish there was more envrionmental variety and not just locked to Lumiose but is what it is I guess...
Still think it's insane how allergic it was to having characters from XY in this, this Kalos revisit.
Bulk of that carried into the DLC, though again the environment variety really should have been increased. I can't blame anyone for thinking that such an expensive DLC was quite cheap in that regard. Loved all the subquests though. Endings were neat.
The main story of the DLC didn't feel very grindy to me, I got into a decent rhythm, discovering the pokemon made it novel, etc. It went by at a steady clip and sidequests helped break it up.
No, the worst grind, was left for sickos. And they somehow made two of them. Eternal Floette (& the last few sidequests in the DLC) needing the 13 ranks with only refights to break it up and the Legendary Special Scan grinds. I could feel my soul leave my body twice as unfortunately I am sickos.
Still think it's insane how allergic it was to having characters from XY in this, this Kalos revisit.
Bulk of that carried into the DLC, though again the environment variety really should have been increased. I can't blame anyone for thinking that such an expensive DLC was quite cheap in that regard. Loved all the subquests though. Endings were neat.
The main story of the DLC didn't feel very grindy to me, I got into a decent rhythm, discovering the pokemon made it novel, etc. It went by at a steady clip and sidequests helped break it up.
No, the worst grind, was left for sickos. And they somehow made two of them. Eternal Floette (& the last few sidequests in the DLC) needing the 13 ranks with only refights to break it up and the Legendary Special Scan grinds. I could feel my soul leave my body twice as unfortunately I am sickos.
I definitely still like it, but at the same time I have definitely soured on the DLC if only because of the grind. For the record, I am taking a break Shiny hunting a Virizion, so there's some context to how much grinding I've been doing. Then again, the DLC has given me boxes and boxes of shinies, so I can't complain too much about it. I do really like the game as a whole though, and would like to see the battle system again in some format. Especially the online 4v4 system. That was fun. I also think the increased platforming emphasis was a nice touch, even if sometimes you could tell it does need a simple jump button. I would definitely like to see a later game build off of all this. Maybe include more of the items and the catching items you could use in L:A too, cause I feel those things like the smokescreen really were missing here.
Happy belated anniversary to Legends: Z-A! I haven’t played the game since July, and I don’t think I’ll go back to it again in the future since I consider myself done with it. I have done everything I had planned to do, and while there are a few things left that I can do, I don’t really feel like doing any of them.
My opinion of the game hasn’t changed at all. It is still my favorite Pokémon game since OR/AS, my favorite Pokémon game on the Switch, my fifth favorite Pokémon game overall, and among my secondary favorite Switch games. My Blue Flare hot take is that I think Z-A is much better than Legends: Arceus, it’s not even a contest. I really hope future Legends games will follow in the footsteps of Z-A rather than Arceus (except for the very few things Arceus did better, such as the Linking Cord).
I enjoyed the battle system in Z-A since it was based on skill and strategy, unlike the system in Arceus which relied too much on luck. The Rouge Mega battles were fun, way better than the Noble battles in Arceus. The game being set entirely in Lumiose worked better than expected, the same goes for the open world (or open city). Exploring Lumiose was a ton of fun. I really liked how the game took place in the present, and how it was a sequel to X/Y. I liked the story and the characters too; they were memorable for the right reasons.
I liked the DLC as well. I know that a lot of players don’t like it, and I can understand why, but I don’t share their opinion. I like how it offered a different experience compared to the main game, and how it was a bit challenging too. I felt that I had to play differently in the DLC compared to the main game, and that was just fine by me. I never bothered grinding for donuts with specific effects, I just used ones that gave me a high enough level for the Hyperspace Zone I was going to. That said, I feel that I sort of rushed through the DLC to an extent, I should have played at a slower pace. The only thing I downright disliked with the DLC was the special scans; they were just overly grindy for no good reason. I didn’t find the rest of the DLC to be too grindy. Though, now that I look back, I might have been more okay with the special scans if I had just taken it a bit slower with them instead of trying to get them done as quickly as possible.
I don’t think I’ll ever replay the game. I rarely replay Pokémon games, or video games in general. Most games are a “one and done” for me nowadays. That said, I think Z-A definitely has potential for a replay, unlike Arceus which I think is just completely unreplayable.
Overall, I had tons of fun with Z-A. I think it is a really great game, and it gave me a feeling of enjoyment I haven’t gotten from a new Pokémon game since Gen 6. Playing it reminded me of how fun I had with X/Y back when they were new, and I liked that a lot.
My opinion of the game hasn’t changed at all. It is still my favorite Pokémon game since OR/AS, my favorite Pokémon game on the Switch, my fifth favorite Pokémon game overall, and among my secondary favorite Switch games. My Blue Flare hot take is that I think Z-A is much better than Legends: Arceus, it’s not even a contest. I really hope future Legends games will follow in the footsteps of Z-A rather than Arceus (except for the very few things Arceus did better, such as the Linking Cord).
I enjoyed the battle system in Z-A since it was based on skill and strategy, unlike the system in Arceus which relied too much on luck. The Rouge Mega battles were fun, way better than the Noble battles in Arceus. The game being set entirely in Lumiose worked better than expected, the same goes for the open world (or open city). Exploring Lumiose was a ton of fun. I really liked how the game took place in the present, and how it was a sequel to X/Y. I liked the story and the characters too; they were memorable for the right reasons.
I liked the DLC as well. I know that a lot of players don’t like it, and I can understand why, but I don’t share their opinion. I like how it offered a different experience compared to the main game, and how it was a bit challenging too. I felt that I had to play differently in the DLC compared to the main game, and that was just fine by me. I never bothered grinding for donuts with specific effects, I just used ones that gave me a high enough level for the Hyperspace Zone I was going to. That said, I feel that I sort of rushed through the DLC to an extent, I should have played at a slower pace. The only thing I downright disliked with the DLC was the special scans; they were just overly grindy for no good reason. I didn’t find the rest of the DLC to be too grindy. Though, now that I look back, I might have been more okay with the special scans if I had just taken it a bit slower with them instead of trying to get them done as quickly as possible.
I don’t think I’ll ever replay the game. I rarely replay Pokémon games, or video games in general. Most games are a “one and done” for me nowadays. That said, I think Z-A definitely has potential for a replay, unlike Arceus which I think is just completely unreplayable.
Overall, I had tons of fun with Z-A. I think it is a really great game, and it gave me a feeling of enjoyment I haven’t gotten from a new Pokémon game since Gen 6. Playing it reminded me of how fun I had with X/Y back when they were new, and I liked that a lot.
I have this one image saved on my Switch of my darling Bois clipping into some of the construction scaffold. It was really funny so I made it my competitive profile.
serebii said:
praise be
Well they just released the physical+DLC unit and put up the Z-A soundtrack on Nintendo Switch app as well so maybe they felt like doing an event to coincide with that? And Poké Ball Vivillon was a box that needed ticking before rolling onto Gen 10 (also yesterday I was specifically thinking about if they’d ever get around to it, so really I probably helped manifest this)
Got Continental for mine which is good because if it’d’ve been Modern (my native pattern) I’d have been malding
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That reminds me- it’s been a while since I’ve played X & Y, how do Vivillon’s patterns work when it comes to Scatterbug breeding? We’ve never had access to Shiny Poké Ball Vivillon if I’m not mistaken, so is it random or, like… how does this work?
It'll hatch whatever naturally occurs in your game. No chance of breeding down pokeball vivillon (as of yet anyway)
Ah, okay, thanks for the info :)
The Poke Ball Vivillon is appropriately Level 66 and released on the 6th.
(I still need to get around to actually finishing this game...)
Yes GF, we get it, it's Pokemon #666, it was funny for a short while back when we were all wondering what Pokemon #666 was going to be, but nowadays the only people calling it a devil are collectors trying to get the whole set. At least we finally have the Poke Ball Pattern available again.
Hm, I wonder, do you think GF thought about giving Vivillon some more "special" patterns during the development of ZA? Like wouldn't be too hard to make a Great, Ultra, and Master Ball wing pattern (then again, if you do that then the question becomes when will they do the other Poke Balls).
Hm, I wonder, do you think GF thought about giving Vivillon some more "special" patterns during the development of ZA? Like wouldn't be too hard to make a Great, Ultra, and Master Ball wing pattern (then again, if you do that then the question becomes when will they do the other Poke Balls).
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Just saw these gifts and nabbed them. I’m wondering when the evolution form is set. Upon receiving the gift I presume?
Yay now I finally have 2!
Internally there are 20 separate Scatterbug and Spewpa forms corresponding to each Vivillon pattern, so the Spewpa that you download essentially already has its form determined when you receive it. For instance, I got a Spewpa-4 which will always evolve into Vivillon-4 (Continental Pattern), but my wife got Spewpa-10 which will always evolve into Vivillon-10 (Archipelago).
Not sure how they randomize it for each player because that’s probably all technical programming stuff on their end, but I would guess that the form you receive gets chosen once your game connects to the server to initiate the download.
It seems they released shiny Xerneas to coincide with Ranked Battle Season X, and shiny Yveltal will coincide with Season Y. Sadly, no mention of a shiny Zygarde distribution with Season Z…
At the least, these two feel like the usual shiny cover mascot distributions that appear near the end of a traditional game’s life cycle. I wonder if there will still be ranked seasons after Z, especially when there’s a whole year before Winds/Waves.