No, all Pokémon in Legends ZA were in the regional XY dex or have been added in due to getting a Mega evolution
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SPOILERS! Legends ZA Data Dumps - Adding Info to OP
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
DLC is a bit more expansive
From the first 5 gens Meowth as you say, Mankey, Feebas, Munna, Yamask, the swords of justice, keldeo, meloetta, genesect. Gen 7 has a few non-mega additions with Sandygast, Mimikyu, Marshadow and Meltan. And plenty of gen 8 & 9 Pokemmon without megas as well.
I always felt the Swords should have been postponed to XY to be Kalos's legendary trio, instead of Unova having two and Kalos having none. Their lore would still fit, even.
Malamar and Pyroar are Audino level meme megas currently. They'd need some good ass abilities to really compete with the other megas both the new and the old.
I mean that's a fair point but it does feel like at least for Pyroar that Game Freak just does not want to throw it a single bone. It's hidden ability is directly counter to its stats and then it gets a Mega and while stuff like Meganium, Drampa and Clefable get substantial buffs it gets what can only be described as the most disappointing of stat buffs
Pyroar I can see working in the lower tiers ngl; 129 SpAtk and 126 Speed is solid, 86/92/86 bulk is not too shaby, and Fire/Normal is one of the few type combos to resist both Ghost and Fairy. Plus, at least this game it has Earth Power, so if it stays in its movepool that's already a neat coverage move.
Still, similar to Mega Houndoom, so let's see how an ability does it.
Malamar remains weirdly unoptimized in terms of stats as always.
Still, similar to Mega Houndoom, so let's see how an ability does it.
Malamar remains weirdly unoptimized in terms of stats as always.
It's the +20 across the board that gets me the most. It just feels like they didn't have a clear interest in a role for it, even though its stat spread & movepool clearly lean it one way (fast special attacker). As an evolution I think that'd be fine (though an actual evolution would have more directed BST since), just Pyroar But Better but as a mega it just feels like most of its stat points got wasted. Even goign all in on bulk would've been novel. What if it inexplicably became a high defense fast special attacker? Could even see that being useful in a game where position kind of sort of matters and Pyroar doesnt always have distance despite the special focus.
>Mega Raichu X and Y
>Sycamore and Trevor are said to be off in a faraway region
>Trevor used Raichu
They are actually on a research trip in Hyperspace Lumiose TRUST
Yeah, the one thing that bothers me is that KALOS as a whole was the most "we will visit this again" region ever, and, while Lumiose is great and so are the new characters, this does feel a lot like Kalos is left on the wayside for the new stuff.
We should had gotten Z in 2015, will die on that hill.
We should had gotten Z in 2015, will die on that hill.
Visit the Scenic Kalos region (Lumiose city and only Lumiose City) once more 5 years later and see all your favorite characters (About 4) again
e: L:A took place 200 years prior and somehow did a better job of giving fun cameo appearences of the bulk of Sinnoh's cast than Z-A which can't even show you all of the notable people within the city the game takes place in.
Meanwhile Volo is the main villain of the DLC and uses Mega Garchomp Z and Hoopa Unbound (as 7th/8th Mon).
I think it's absolutely meant to be volo's outfit, and not the PC who came back & gave it. It's definitely fit for him and he donated a flute (ours turned into the azure one anyway).
Just, as like a design thing, I don't think you show an outfit, say the original owner donated it, that when combined with the fact we know the Celestica people can potentially be immortal*, then pivot and say actually this is the replica outfit the player character gets and they're the ones who donated that.
I think if there's something in the air at all it's Volo's motivations. Did he give up on his ambitions, with this representing giving up on his goal? Did he find something new to chase after? Is it just an immortal joke, since he can always get it again later? Stuff like that.
It also feels thematic that the immortal* wandering the world would get a direct reference in the game that returns to talk about the other immortal* who wandered the world.
*ish
I feel like the nature of this game is such that, despite its name, it was never truly going to fully resolve that feeling for people who wanted a Z game that fleshed out the Kalos region as a whole. Z and Z-A are just two very different kinds of projects.
Personally, I feel like it would be kind of forced if this game, which takes place only in Lumiose, had to contrive a reason for every semi-significant character from XY to show up despite them all being stationed across the entire country. Even Arceus didn’t strain itself so far as to include an ancestral lookalike for every DPP character — plenty were left out, like Barry and Wake, while characters from other generations were brought in.
Granted, Arceus did seem to make more of an effort to represent the spread of characters from DPP, than Z-A does with the characters from XY. But on the flipside, Arceus wasn’t actually doing anything with the characters whom we’d met — aside from Ingo, all of them were just lookalikes. The only thing we learn from Legends: Arceus about Cyrus is that he had a great-great-grandmother who wasn’t a sociopath. Whereas Legends: Z-A actually progresses the stories of certain characters from XY.
Could it have progressed the stories of more characters from XY? Probably. At the very least, although I’ve got no issue with the simple namechecks to Malva and Siebold and such, I do think Clemont, Sycamore, Dexio, Sina, and Alexa are an odd selection of people to leave out of a Lumiose-centered game entirely, without even a cameo. But… I also can’t really fault the writers if they didn’t want to spend this game trying to rehabilitate a bunch of flat, Gen 1-tier characterization Gym Leaders like Ramos and Olympia, and instead wanted to cook up a new cast of people who were more intentionally designed for this particular story. (And frankly, I think if you are only going to revisit a couple of characters from XY, then Emma, AZ, and Lysandre are all astute choices.)
(That all being said, I will always believe that a 2015 Z game most likely wouldn’t have polished up the XY characters as much as people probably would have hoped. Even games like Platinum and USUM don’t actually tend to do that much more with the Gym Leader or Elite Four characters than the base games, and instead focus primarily on deepening the story-related ones and, of course, the third Legendary.)
For clarity since I like to exaggerate to complain, I agree that going through every notable XY character would probably have felt awkward even if the game was a "hit the highlights" type game (ie: you stay in luimiose but explore certain routes/areas, maybe some closed off sections like the Sundial and Tower of Mastery). Most of the cast can just get by on mentions or cameos. Like Valerie is more or less fine just being on some posters.
But also it is a revisit to a region that just never had a second chance and I think that it doesn't take a lot for characters to get some spitshine on them. I mean just like at Mabel who is probably part of the most "who are any of you people" admin-tier character in the franchise alongside her non-Xerosic compatriots. But one scene with her and you get across a pretty memorable personality and then a handful of other sidequests; she's now Memorable. So when the returning cast is not only limited, but super limited to the point of ignoring characters who live(or lived, I guess) in the city, it's just...bizarre. And feels lacking. & makes all the text cameos being lumped together with them just feel a little irritating.
You listed off the Lumiosian folks pretty well (c l e m o n t ? ? ? ) but the other one who baffles me to not being here & actively involved is Korrina. I'm only at the second wave of rogue megas, but I assume there'll be some offhand line of dialog that AZ procures his key stones from Korrina and that the Lucario who helps you out was actually her's but also likeeeee
You are seeking out the strongest mega evolution users and are giving out mega trinkets left & right. She's the successor and, with Sycamore gone, the only person (asidefromaziguess) in the region with any true knowledge of the Mega Evolution phenomenon. It feels right at home that she should be an active agent in the plotline right alongside AZ, and having someone who isnt from Lumiose comment on the going-ons would be interesting. If Clemont was in the game you might even have room for developing more of the themes of the game with her through more interactions.
(Also honestly yeah Diantha should be here and not...filming a movie, I guess? Short of Korrina she's the Mega Evolution user of Kalos. Seems relevant to want her around.)
Incidentally, I actually think Wulfric would have been an interesting character to bring in, even just for a bit part. He's one of the few people allowed into Pokemon Village and I think could have some interesting thoughts about Lumiose's attempts at further integration. As one of the older leaders (I guess Ramos is probably meant to be older) there could be an avenue to talk about themes of succession and building futures, too.
For whatever it's worth, the non-presence of the kalos gym leaders is actually just about in line in Arceus: Only 3/8 had ancestors at all and they were all very minor, ranging in scope from secondary shopkeeper to farming npc to one member of a 3 person gang of tertiary antagonists.
Hell, you can even make the argument that the selection of new designs for returning characters isn't too dissimilar from BW2: Cheren, Bianca, Elesa, Zinzolin and Ghetsis were the only real big updates with everyone else being new or largely unchanged from BW1. Given that those other guys still existed though I admit this might be entering stretchy copium territory
Hell, you can even make the argument that the selection of new designs for returning characters isn't too dissimilar from BW2: Cheren, Bianca, Elesa, Zinzolin and Ghetsis were the only real big updates with everyone else being new or largely unchanged from BW1. Given that those other guys still existed though I admit this might be entering stretchy copium territory
The most minor of these characters, Gardenia's ancestor who manned the fields, is still more relevant than the most explicit major Kalos cameo in Z-A (Valerie on a poster).
The comparisons also get worse when we don't zero in on solely on gym leaders.
Yeah BW2 is not even remotely comparable come on man. That's not even copium. That's just...false equivalence?
(I realize this is diverging from the current topic of discussion but I was catching up on posts and) I am really wondering about this too now, because in my Pokédex, it says I have only registered Medium, Large, and Jumbo Variety Pumpkaboo. Despite that, I have a Pumpkaboo in my PC that is definitely listed as XS on its summary screen, and another one that is listed as S but whose model is visibly much larger than the two M Pumpkaboo on either side of it. I’m guessing that each individual variety of Pumpkaboo has its own size range, which is what’s shown on the summary screen, but I don’t have the capability or the know-how to look into it on a technical level.