The Media Man Plays: Pokémon Legends ZA (Day 1)

Hello readers, and welcome to a brand new segment of themediamanblog that I call "The Media Man Plays"!

If you're curious what this is all about, The Media Man Plays will be a serious of blog posts in where I pick a game, play it and write all about it until I complete the game. And I have the perfect subject for my first Media Man Plays series. That subject is the newest instalment in the Pokémon franchise, Pokémon: Legends ZA.

So for the next few days, I'll be playing this game and writing down everything I've experienced during the playthrough while also giving some critiques here and there. Don't worry though, I AM still going to do a proper review of the game in future. Oh and these posts WILL contain spoilers since I'll be playing through the story and all, so if you don't want the story of this game to be spoiled, you can skip these posts if you like.

Oh and before you ask, yes I'll be providing my own pictures for these posts. Using my Switch 2's photo option, I'll get all the screenshots necessary for this series. I won't be using anyone else's gameplay footage or photos for the The Media Man Plays.

Without further ado, let's dive in!

Beginning The Game

I chose the female character, official name "Harmony", for this playthrough since I'm one of those weird guys who loves playing as girls in video games. Sue me, I love women and I love playing as female characters. =P Although the character has an official name, for my playthrough I've decided to name her "Jane". I dunno why, when I first saw the character after her reveal in the first trailer, she just looked like a Jane to me.

The game opens up with a cinematic cutscene in where we see Lumiose City shrouded in the darkness of the night and Prism Tower is there, standing tall in the centre of the city as always. But something's wrong...

Tremendous amounts of purple energy surround the tower and a worried Jett and Vinnie look on while AZ cryptically comments that "The strongest Mega Evolution user must be found", and all of this being watched over by some unknown witness. I love how when AZ and his Floette show up, Floette actually looks to the camera as if asking the audience "You guys seeing this? It's crazy!" In any case, effective opening hook for the game I say. There's already an air of dread and mystery that makes us want to play and find out more on what's going on...

Arriving in Lumiose City

After that surprisingly ominous opening, we get a lovely cutscene that shows our player character riding on the train and arriving at Lumiose City. People (wrongly) give this game flack for its visuals, but I personally think they did really well animating the train ride through the countryside as we arrive at the city. As this is happening, an unseen figure watches over us and then jumps into our bag. The train arrives and I enter Lumiose City. We're then treated to a lovely sweeping view of the city that shows what it has to offer. I love how big the city looks and how detailed all the buildings look. While I get the "flat textures" complaint, it's not enough to distract from how detailed the city is. Unlike some whiny sods on the internet, I'm capable of enjoying a game without expecting the graphics to look super realistic and all that. Besides, this is Pokémon, not Call of Duty, so the graphics don't need to look realistic anyway.

After arriving in the city, we meet our first of three new friends we make in this game. Depending on which character you choose, it'll either be Urbain or Taunie. Since I chose the female character, I got Urbain, so Urbain it is for this playthrough. He's trying to advertise Hotel Z and get more guests coming in and since he thinks the bag we're carrying "makes us look touristy", he decides to ask us to help. Also Urbain has the ZA starter trio of Chikorita, Tepig and Totodile with him, so you know right from the start it's him we're going to get our first Pokémon from. He tries to film his ad, but then an actual ad plays on a billboard and we essentially get Jett doing the typical Pokémon world introduction thing they do in every game. As the ad ends, Urbain suddenly notices our bag is gone!

And the culprit is this mischievous Pancham! Talk about a great first impression, am I right? We're in Lumiose City for five minutes and our bag gets nicked! We chase it down and come across two trainers named Andi and Andre, a pair of trainers so unthreatening that Urbain doesn't even remember taking them down. He even rather savagely comments how they couldn't have been that much of a challenge. Seriously, ouch. XD Andi and Andre offer to give the bag back, but only if we beat them in a Pokémon battle. Urbain goes for Andre and I go for Andi.

For this playthrough, I picked Totodile as my starter. Even when the game was first revealed and the starter trio was shown in the game's first trailer, I knew Totodile was going to be my first choice. I mean...it's Totodile. Do I need to explain why I picked it? Nobody should ever need to explain why they pick Totodile! Anyway, I battled Andi's Pancham and defeated her quite soundly despite only having Tackle and Leer to work with. This moment serves as our first impression of the game's new battle system that was so heavily marketed and hyped up. Needless to say, I love it. Pokémon games should play like this all the time now where it's real time and no longer turn-based. The battles feel more exciting and closer to what we get in the anime as a result. And as the game goes on, I imagine they'll only get more exciting (and possibly crazy). After we win, we get a fist bump from Urbain and we even get to fist bump with our new Pokémon. Seriously, it's so adorable and I loved it!

However, time seems to move at lightspeed in this universe, for it's suddenly night time now and the Battle Zones are now active. Urbain explains that the Z-A Battle Royale is on and I best get a move on before I get caught up in it. I follow him through the alleyways, but get stopped by Brigette the Waitress. She thinks I'm in the Battle Royale and challenges me. Naturally, I walk all over her since she only has a Cleffa and a Bunnelby for her troubles. Seriously, if you're in this tournament with those two as your Pokémon, you're asking to lose. But just as Urbain tries to get me out of here, a trio of delinquents are there with a Honedge, a Heracross and a Pansear ready to take me on. It looks as if I'm about to fight again, but AZ's Eternal Flower Floette appears and rather nicely asks them to back off.

And when I say "nicely", I mean she LITERALLY LAUNCHES A BIG FRICKIN' LASER AT THEM!!! Is this seriously her idea of settling a dispute?! Don't mess with Floette! XD Anyhow, that display of Light of Ruin scares the thugs off and Urbain's able to get me safely out of harm's way.

It's at this point where I'm introduced to AZ and welcomed into Hotel Z. For those who may not know, AZ was a pivotal character in the backstory of Pokémon X and Y, which Legends ZA is pretty much a sequel to. AZ made the ultimate weapon, a dangerous invention that runs off of the life force of Pokémon and can cause terrible destruction. His beloved Floette abandoned him after she learned about this and AZ has spent 3000 years trying to atone for his past sins. At the end of X and Y, he is redeemed and his Floette comes back to him at last. Now here he is as the manager of his own hotel, and a VERY lovely looking one at that. Seriously, the amount of detail that went into the interior of this place is admirable and GameFreak deserves more credit instead of people constantly exaggerating how "bad" the graphics of their games are. AZ welcomes me to Hotel Z and lets me stay in Room 202. As all this is going on, a Zygarde cell crawls out of my bag, revealing that was the thing that was watching me this whole time. AZ wonders if I've been brought here to Lumiose City for a reason. Before I go to bed for the night, Urbain shows me the rooftop and we're treated to a great view of the city at night.

First Day In Lumiose City

The next morning, Urbain asks me to join his friends, which form a group called "Team MZ" and it's at this point in the game where us, the player, gets the iconic Zygarde coloured jacket at last. Fits rather nicely, doesn't it?

I also get introduced to Lida as well. What's really funny about her introduction is that she complains about the noise Urbain makes as he teaches me how to roll, and then is noisy as she excitedly squeals about Team MZ getting a new member. Gotta love hypocritical humour some times. XD Also, I notice she mentions having a "big bro" before Urbain cuts her off. This I imagine feeds heavily into the "Lida is Tierno's" sister theory, but I'll have to play more of the game to see if this theory gets any kind of confirmation...

After meeting Lida, we got outside to battle with Urbain. Interesting, unlike most rival battles, he uses both starters we don't pick, so it's my one Totodile against both Tepig and Chikorita. Tepig's a walkover since, y'know, weak to Water types, and Chikorita should give him an advantage over me, but his Chikorita clearly doesn't know any Grass-type moves since it just spams Tackle and Tail Whip over and over, thus I'm able to win easily. I'm very keen to see how his team will grow and change over the course of the game. I wonder what his final team will be like...

After that, it's more learning stuff to do as Urbain takes us to the Pokémon Centre and shows us where we can find them. Like in Sword and Shield and Scarlet and Violet, the centres are simultaneously a hospital and a place to buy essentials, so no need to look for a PokéMart.

And after that, I get taken to the city's first Wild Zone. Here, the game tutors us on Wild Zones and how they work. I go around and catch all the Pokémon I can in this zone. In Wild Zone 1, you can only catch Mareep, Weedle, Scatterbug, Fletchling and Bunnelby. Fletchling is even the first mon the game makes you catch. After catching at least five Pokémon, I next go to the professor's research lab.

However, it's not Professor Sycamore who's running the joint anymore. Instead it's a new professor named Mable. Her presence is...interesting to say the least. You see, last time we saw Mable in X and Y, she was a member of Team Flare, the evil organization devoted to destroying the world so they can "make it beautiful" again. And yet instead of being locked up in prison where Team Flare belongs, she's now here working as a professor. Seriously, what's that all about? Did Mable do a REALLY good job convincing people she was innocent in all of this, or did she somehow get pardoned for her crimes? Then again, Hollywood is a place where many, MANY crimes go unpunished, so this is depressingly realistic... Anyhow, Mable gives us a new feature in this game in where she'll give me rewards if I complete research tasks for her, many of the rewards being TMs. The first reward is a TM for Rock Smash, which is handy as I can smash through some boulders blocking off some of Wild Zone 1 and catch a Pidgey and a Pichu respectively to fill up more of the Pokédex. Oh and you'll be VERY happy to hear this readers: TMs are infinitely usable again! About time we went back to that after BDSP, Legends Arceus and Scarlet and Violet confusingly decided to make them single use again. I'm so glad TMs aren't single use in this game.

After meeting Mable, I meet another member of Team MZ. He's a fashion designer named Naveen and it's through him I get the character's trademark hat that we all saw her wearing in the trailers. After catching and fighting some more Pokémon and picking up stuff off the floor, I headed back to Hotel Z. It's at this point the sun's starting to set and I get a call on my Rotom Phone saying I have to challenge Zach in the Battle Royale in order to rank up from Z to Y. Before that, I took advantage of the game's Mystery Gift feature in order to get a Ralts carrying a Gardevoirite. Sweet, free Mega Gardevoir I can use later in the game!

Next up in the game's sequence of events is our first time in the Z-A Battle Royale. Of course, I'm all the way at the bottom at Rank Z and have to work my way up the ranks to get to Rank A. I went through the Battle Zone and battled three trainers, which earned me a Challenger's Ticket and that ticket won me the right to challenge another Rank Z trainer, a taxi driver named Zach. Now he might seem like an innocent, ordinary guy at first, but then you find out his wish is to abolish all forms of transport that aren't taxis. So yeah, I didn't feel sorry for kicking his ass. I say that, but in all honesty he proved to be surprisingly strong with his Slowpoke knocking out my Kakuna and Pichu before I got my Mareep to finish him off. After Slowpoke was dealt with, he had a Pidgey and since I still had a Mareep on the field...yeah, of course he lost and apparently this marks 100 times since he's lost a battle now. Good, a crazy loon like him doesn't deserve to have their wish granted. =P

As a result of beating Zach, I officially moved up to Rank Y! Yay! It's also after ranking up as a result of my victory that I got to meet Emma, another returning character from the X and Y games. Unlike Mable, Emma was never a villain, just coerced into villainy thanks to Xerosic sticking her in a suit that brainwashes her. Nowadays, Emma's the top detective of Lumiose City, following on in Looker's footsteps, now doubt out of gratitude for him taking her in and giving her a home back in X and Y. Emma's also no longer a teenager, she's an adult now as a result of these five years having gone by. Emma mentions about "looking for a suspicions Pokémon" and how she couldn't find who Urbain was looking for. Oddly, the game doesn't give any dialogue options in order for us to ask what this is all about, which I find weird as you'd think we'd at least want to know what Emma's on about. Maybe later in the game we'll get our answers.

The next day, Urbain took me out through the city to see Prism Tower. While I went around, I smashed some pink rocks in order to collect Mega Shards in order to buy some Mega Stones later for Mega Evolving, met Vinnie for the first time, explored Wild Zones 2 and 3 and also got this cute picture of myself enjoying some Roserade Tea and cookies with Pichu. Cute, isn't it? ^^ I also managed to evolve my Kakuna into a Beedrill, and so far it's the only evolved Pokémon I have. I mean, the Weedle line DOES evolve very quickly, so that's not a surprise. XD

While exploring Wild Zone 3, I came across Ivor and beat one of this flunkies in a battle. Said flunky uses a Machop and a Meditite since these guys are obviously Fighting-type specialists. My first impression of Ivor is that he means well, but he's too hung up on his whole "abolish wild zones" idea to see that he just sounds like those whiny assholes at PETA, and that's not someone you EVER want to sound like! Still, I'm sure he'll show up again as he's in the Battle Royale as well...

My first day of gaming ended as Urbain took me to the Looker Bureau to meet Emma. What follows is an utterly hilarious scene in where Urbain comments on how intensely focused and calm Emma is...only for it to turn out she was sleeping the whole time. I have to say, it's impressive she can sleep like that. XD Emma then opens up the side missions feature of the game, so I'll be sure to give those a try.

Aaaaaaaaand...that's it for Day 1! I know it doesn't seem like a lot is happening so far, and I agree, it feels like we're mostly just being handheld through the game's features and how they work and that the main story hasn't really started yet. As is, a lot of this does feel necessary to learn and to go through and we're being introduced to the characters as we progress through the game. I'm sure as the game goes in, things will start to get more interesting.

My current team: Totodile, Beedrill, Pichu, Mareep, Ralts and Pidgey.

Join me again tomorrow for Day 2's events.

Support the blog here on my Patreon page.