The Media Man Reviews: Pokémon Legends Z-A (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1.

Section 3: The Gameplay

Now for the interesting part, for Legends Z-A boasts the biggest change in Pokémon's usual gameplay style we've had since the franchise began. One could argue that Legends Arceus did it first with its two fighting styles, but Legends Z-A really made a big change to how Pokémon games are usually played.

Before we get to that big change, let's talk about the smaller parts of the gameplay first. As this is a game with a single city setting, naturally the gameplay is mostly about exploring said city and catching Pokémon along the way. For reasons that completely mystify me, people criticized the game just for being set in a single city and feel it's "restricting" or that "It's a small map." Funny how I never saw anyone criticizing Batman: Arkham City for being set in a single city, same for Batman: Arkham Knight. Those games are set in a single city, yet nobody criticizes those games for that, so why is it suddenly a bad thing when Legends Z-A does it? And don't give me any Tauros-crap about "Pokémon is all about exploration", because that hasn't changed in this game. You may be in a single city, but you're still encouraged to roam around and explore like you do in every Pokémon game! Nothing's changed here aside from the fact you're not exploring a whole region. Why is that considered a bad thing? I think it's good we have a game that's set in one location for a change as it means we get to see more of this location than ever before and it encourages a whole new kind of exploration. We don't usually see city life from the perspective of the Pokémon world, and that to me gives Legends Z-A more of its own identity and something that makes it stand out from other Pokémon games. It also helps that Lumiose City, contrary to what idiots on the internet are saying, is a pretty sizeable location and there's plenty to see as you go around the city. It's NOT a small map by any means and you can easily spend hours and hours just wandering around trying to find everything there is to find.

Hell, much like how the Batman: Arkham games change the environment as the game goes along so you're always finding something new to explore, this game does the same. Not to the extent of Batman: Arkham of course, but it does happen. Prism Tower gets covered in scaffolding that builds up and up and up as the story goes on and as you progress through the game, new Wild Zones open up and provide you more Pokémon to seek and capture. This prevents the game from looking too samey beginning to end and does mean you're always in for something new as the game goes along, so it's not like you're stuck in one place that never changes throughout.

Oh and ignore every single idiotic comment out there about how "you can't go into buildings" in this game. THIS. IS. NOT. TRUE! You CAN go in buildings in this game! Quite a few in fact! There's Hotel Z, the Rust Syndicate's headquarters, Racine Construction and Canari's little corner, at least three different restaurants, Hotel Richissime, the sewers, a building that someone's moving in to, the Looker Bureau, Professor Mable's lab and even the ruins of Lysandre Labs in Lysandre Café! The more accurate criticism should be "you can't enter a lot of buildings in this game", not "you can't enter buildings at all". Even then, I actually think the amount of buildings you can enter is adequate. GameFreak only focused on the really important locations for the game and that's all that matters in this case, so I don't mind it. Not every building needs to be enterable in a video-game. Besides, the aforementioned Batman: Arkham games didn't make it so you could go into every building in their locations, so why is Legends Z-A once again being criticized for something nobody had a problem with in other games?

But enough on that. The one criticism about the city setting I DO agree with people on is that this game would've benefit so much from having rideable Pokémon to get around the city faster. Annoyingly, leaks revealed that indeed, this game WAS going to have rideable Pokémon such as Gogoat, but that got scrapped for whatever reason. Instead, we just have to run around everywhere or fast travel and later in the game, we get the ability to Rotom glide across rooftops. It's...unreliable a lot of the time to be honest and just has me question why this is a feature and not the ability to ask a Pidgeot or a Charizard to give us a ride. If there's any feature of Legends Arceus that should've been brought over to this game, it's riding Pokémon and it sucks GameFreak left it out of the final product. Also it really would be nice if they didn't feel the need to play a cutscene every time night falls or daybreak approaches. That gets tedious real quick and just slows down the game's pacing every time it happens.

But that's all that needs saying about the city stuff. Let's talk about the REALLY big aspect of the gameplay: the battle mechanics. For the first time in the franchise's history, battles take place in real time and are no longer turn based. About time if you ask me as turn-based combat makes Pokémon games too easy to beat. Here, it's not as simple as spamming super-effective moves until the opponent goes down. There's a lot more creative strategies that go into making these battles feel more fun and exciting than they ever felt before. You can actually dodge or block attacks now with Protect especially feeling like an absolute necessity for your Pokémon to know and attacks and status moves run off of a cooldown period so you can't just spam the same attacks over and over. This to me was a great idea as it now makes having multiple moves more fun as now you can use them all in a single battle and not just use a super-effective hit all the time. I also feel this new combat system makes certain moves even better than they were in previous games. Moves like Dig and Phantom Force are great for dodging attacks and can't be dodged themselves, powerful moves like Fire Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, Focus Blast and more are more likely to hit now that accuracy is no longer a thing in this game (and neither is PP so you can use attacks infinitely, which makes more sense than being limited to how many times you can use them) and thus their bad accuracy isn't an issue and having a speedy Pokémon isn't an instant guarantee you'll get the first hit in. Oh and the cherry on the sundae here? Like in Scarlet and Violet, Pokémon can relearn moves just from the menu and thankfully, TMs are infinitely usable again like they were from Black and White to Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee! Why they ever stopped making TMs infinite use, I'll never understand, so I'm really happy they fixed that here. I also really hope that all Pokémon games going forward will have these battle mechanics because they really make the battles feel more...alive and exciting to play as a result.

That said, they do need a little polish here and there. I've noticed that when you tell a Pokémon to use a ranged attack, for some reason they don't just attack and instead move to a certain spot so they're in range to attack. That's just silly in my eyes and only opens your Pokémon up to an attack and thus they could potentially get knocked out before they can even launch the attack. That and I think it would've been better if you didn't need a button to lock on to your opponent in order to call any attacks. The game should automatically lock on to your opponent for you so you can attack away. There are times where my Pokémon have gotten a beating because I'd forget about the target lock-on first before attacking. If they got rid of that and made locking on to the opponent automatic instead, it would've been better. As is, these battle mechanics are a natural evolution for the franchise and I hope we see future games do more of this and we abandon the turn-based combat system from the previous games for good. Controversial opinion? Perhaps, but you know I'm not wrong for thinking that.

Now you maybe wondering "Do the new battle mechanics make the game more challenging than previous games?". Eh...not by much? Despite what I've said, battles are still mostly down to just "spam powerful moves until the opponent faints" and not a lot of the opponents are that challenging. I've only really struggled against Grisham, Lysandre and some of the Rouge Mega Pokémon. As is, you can get some legitimate challenges in this game. Again, Grisham's really tough. He packs a powerhouse of a team with two pseudo-legendries and a Mega Evolving Charizard. I had to fight him three times before I won. Lysandre's also a tough one to beat, and that's mostly because his team is in the Level 80's, so you need to be a high level to hold your own against him. Also, some of these opponents do have good move sets for their Pokémon that cover their weaknesses such as Corbeau's Scolipede knowing Earthquake to cover Fire-types, Lysandre's Gyarados also knowing Earthquake to cover Electric-types, Jacinthe's Clefable knowing Mystical Fire to cover Steel-types and Canari's Eelektross knowing Liquidation and Giga Drain to cover Ground-types. I won't say the game's as easy as other Pokémon games for the Switch, but I won't say it's that challenging either.

Even the Rouge Mega Evolutions are pretty easy, provided you have a mon that can Mega Evolve and can exploit type-advantage. Some are trickier than others like Mega Banette with its illusion trickery or Mega Tyranitar with its Sandstorm tactics and you will black out against at least a couple of them. However, you CAN rematch Rogue Mega Pokémon in the post game and they can be a little more challenging, especially as if you lose in those rematches, you don't get a do-over from when you fainted and have to start again from scratch. Same applies to the final boss battle with Zygarde. You face Zygarde and you have to battle its three forms one at a time and if you lose, you have to start again. You don't get to restart from when you fainted. This is a boss fight you have to win first time or you're not getting Zygarde. Kinda like the Arceus boss battle now I think of it... The Zygarde boss battle I think will give players the biggest challenge of any boss battle in this game, especially since when Zygarde gets to 100% form, it gets really hard to dodge its attacks.

Oh and given I brought up Rogue Mega Evolutions, let's talk about how Mega Evolution is implemented in this game. Unlike X and Y where it felt like an afterthought and a fancy gimmick meant to give us a leg-up in the game (despite the game not needing it as it's easy enough already), Mega Evolution feels like it's the centrepiece of the gameplay as it should do and I love that. Mega Evolutions are more readily available throughout the game with many stones being able to buy early on and a lot of them become available at an early enough stage that you get a good use out of them before the game's over. The only exceptions to this are Mega Pyroar and Mega Malamar. For some confusing reason, those two are post-game purchases, meaning you're stuck with a Malamar and a Pyroar that can't Mega Evolve until you've beaten the game. Like...why? What was the point of that? What makes those two Mega Evolutions so special that they have to be post-game exclusive? Same goes for Metal Coats. Those who want Mega Steelix or Mega Scizor are out of luck because while their Mega Stones are available very early to buy (for money rather than Mega Shards) in the game, you won't be able to use them since you need a Metal Coat and someone to trade with in order to evolve Onix and Scyther into Steelix and Scizor respectively and the Metal Coat isn't available to get until late into the game. Just...WHY?! Who thought this was a good idea? And on the subject of trade evolutions, why the hell are trade evolutions a thing again in this game? That's stupid! Legends Arceus got rid of trade evolutions to make it easier to complete the Pokédex and to make up for the fact that it's a single game, not two, so trade evolving was not needed. Why couldn't Legends Z-A do the same thing? Legends Z-A isn't two games, it's just the one, so why are trade evolutions back here when they could've easily done what they did with Legends Arceus and made them evolve without trading? AND WHY THE HELL DIDN'T THEY BRING THE LINK CABLE BACK FOR GENGAR, MACHAMP AND ALAKAZAM?!?!

Oh and one more important question concerning obtaining things in this game...WHY THE HELL ARE THE MEGA STONES FOR THE KALOS STARTER TRIO NOT IN THE GAME AND ONLY OBTAINABLE BY WINNING ONLINE RANKED BATTLES?!?! WHAT CRAZY GUY THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?!

You're telling me...

But while we're talking about Legends Arceus and what they didn't bring back, for this game they DID bring back some aspects of that game. Namely Alpha Pokémon make a comeback and they're just as terrifying a force of nature as they were in Legends Arceus. Seriously, those things love to attack you and because they're so strong, even a mon with a type advantage will struggle to beat them and thus they bring some of the more challenging battles in Legends Z-A. Oh and side quests are back too. Like in Legends Arceus, completing these tasks will give you rewards and there's a lot of side quests to complete. Some of them are quick and easy fetch quests, some are helpful in filling up the Pokédex, some require you to battle, some of them are tasks as part of Professor Mable's research and completing them often gets you new TMs, EXP candies or even Bottle Caps for hyper-training and at least one side quest gives you a free shiny. Legends Arceus gave you a shiny Ponyta and this game gives you a shiny Mareep. Once you evolve it and get its Mega Stone, you'll get a shiny Mega Ampharos to play with, which is pretty cool. Speaking of shiny Pokémon, this game makes shiny hunting easier than ever as they actually make a shiny sound and sparkle effect when you see them and thus they're easier to notice and apparently, they will not de-spawn after you see them so you'll get a chance to get them later. That's so awesome! And that's not the only thing either as unlike in previous games, defeating a Pokémon doesn't mean you've lost your chance to catch it. Nope, you actually get a brief few seconds to make one last chance to catch it again after you defeat it, which no doubt has caused a lot of shiny hunters to breathe a sigh of relief. You can still fail though if the Pokémon breaks out of its ball, but it's still great that you get a second chance to catch a Pokémon even after it's defeated. I really hope that carries over to future games.

Now for an aspect of the game that everybody was glad to see and is one of the few things people DON'T criticize about the game...the customization options. Unlike Scarlet and Violet's abysmal customization options, this game gives you A LOT of options. There are numerous upon numerous of clothes you can buy for your character to wear, a lot of different hairstyles and hair colours you can pick and you can even accessorise a little by having your character wear earrings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are earrings are first for this game? I don't recall previous games making that an option. And as everybody has pretty much commented about, clothes are NOT gender-locked in this game. Yep, you can wear whatever you like regardless of if you pick the male or female character so you can have the male character wear a skirt or the female character dress in a masculine manner. That's wonderful to me as it feels very inclusive to all players without it being too on the nose. One thing I find funny is that for the customization options, you can choose to give your character bags under their eyes so they look sleep-deprived. Why is that a thing? I dunno. It's a bit mean an inclusion to me, but also somewhat amusing at the same time to me so I don't mind it that much. XD One thing I really wish was customizable was the way the player can wear their Key Stone. One of my favourite aspects of the X and Y anime was seeing how characters would accessorize their Key Stone and it was fun to see the different ways you could wear it. In this game, the player is stuck wearing it in a Mega Ring on their wrist while all the other characters get to wear theirs in unique ways such as Gwynn and Tarragon wearing theirs in their hats, Vinnie and Ivor wearing theirs on their gloves or Emma and Canari wearing theirs on their chests. It would've been nice if we could choose how we wear our Key Stone and not only wear it on a Mega Ring around our wrist. At least making the Mega Ring customisable so we can pick what colour we want would've been fun. But that's just a nit-pick. Aside from that, the customization options are fantastic here.

Now let's finish off with the primary gimmick of this game: the Z-A Royale. This is where most of the battling takes place and where you really get a feel for the new mechanics or your Mega Evolved Pokémon's strengths. The Z-A Royale is a battle royale style tournament that only happens at night and you have to battle trainers in order to win points. If you win enough points, you get a Challenger's Ticket and then you can challenge another trainer with a Challenger's Ticket in order to rank up in the system. You start at Rank Z and have to work your way up to Rank A. I love how the game itself realizes "That's way too tedious" and Vinnie just lets us skip ahead several ranks after we beat him. XD We pretty much do Ranks Y, X and W and then skip to Rank F so there's only E, D, C, B and A left. Naturally, the early ranks are really easy but Rank F onwards gets more challenging with Mega Evolving trainers and more challenging Pokémon to battle. The Royale itself also provides a nice way to earn some money by collecting Prize Medals. You earn more money depending how many trainers you beat and how many medals you collect. As for the trainers themselves, you can either challenge them directly or you can sneak up on them and ambush them from behind. That's always fun to me, but more challenging than you'd expect as they're not always easy to sneak up on. You can also collect cards that give you a specific task to perform (such as "Knock out an opponent using Fire moves" or "Knock out an opponent before they spot you" or "Win battles using Mega Evolution") and if you complete the tasks on the card, you can win extra points which can help in getting a Challenger's Ticket more quickly. During the post game, you unlock the Z-A Infinite Royale, which is a chance to essentially do the royale as many times as you want and when you win a Challenger's Ticket, you get a chance to rematch a random NPC you've encountered in the game be they the members of Team MZ, Emma, Corbeau, Canari, Jacinthe, Ivor, Gwynn, Tarragon and more.

The game also has some collectible options. The big one for me are Mega Shards. They're often scattered across the city and they respawn after you destroy them so you can farm them endlessly. Mega Shards can be used as currency to buy Mega Stones, EXP candies or other items and can also help fill up your Mega Gauge so you can Mega Evolve your Pokémon outside of battle. I know I had a lot of fun doing that and taking photos with them, but we're not talking about photographing yet. Some areas have lots of Mega Shards and some only have a few, so you might be better off looking to see which areas have the most shards for farming and use those areas to get as many as possible. Just remember, you can't carry more than 999 Mega Shards, so don't go too crazy. Other collectible things are Colourful Screws which are often found on obstacle courses or on rooftops. Those screws can be traded for Canari plushies and said plushies often have beneficial effects. One raises the amount of EXP you gain, the other increases the amount of money you can win, the other increases the number of Mega Shards you can farm and the last increases your endurance so you'll not black out so quickly when Pokémon attack you. Believe me when I say those plushies are worth buying when you gather up those colourful screws as they do help.

Now we're done with that, let's talk about the photo mode. This game is the best when it comes to taking photographs of your character and their Pokémon. Unlike Scarlet and Violet, you can take full body shots and you have photo options anywhere you go, as well as when you're chilling at a café or sitting on a bench. I think the photo options when you're walking about are the best as the café and bench ones are more limited. I do wish the game gave your character a wider ranger of facial expressions though. There's not a lot to pick from outside of happy, sad, determined or shocked. The poses are more varied at least and we unlock some more poses as the game goes along. As is, this game makes it easy to get snap happy and some of the fun I've had when playing the game has been just posing for photos with my Pokémon, especially when they're Mega Evolved. The amount of Mega Evolution pics I got during my gameplay posts should be enough proof of that. XD

Overall, this is a game with a lot to offer and a lot to do. Are there some things I don't like? Absolutely. But do the positives outweigh the negatives? They sure do. I love the city setting, the exploration of said city, the new battle mechanics, the customization options, the photo feature and the improved Mega Evolution implementation. This game is a prime example of Pokémon games at their best: fun and enjoyable and always giving you plenty to do before the end. I had a fun time playing this game and I really hope that the next games will take some of Legends Z-A's features and build upon them...

Section 4: The Graphics

Time for a hot take: I DON'T think the graphics suck in this game.

Yes, you heard me. I DON'T think the graphics suck. And I bet I lost whatever readers I have left at this point just for saying that. =P

In all seriousness, I genuinely think people are exaggerating when they criticize the visuals of this game. I've seen so many (terrible) jokes about how "Legends Z-A looks like a Wii game" or "these graphics look great...on the PS2 that is" or "This looks like a GameCube game". Seriously, what games were these people playing back then? No Wii game or PS2 game or GameCube game looks anywhere near as good as Legends Z-A does. I can agree that yeah, it's not an amazing looking game and maybe does look a little outdated by today's standards, but I still don't think these are bad graphics by any means. What people forget is that Pokémon games aren't focused on hyper-realism, and a good thing too as Pokémon shouldn't look realistic anyway. That'd just take away the game's identity and make them look generic and like any other game out there.

But of course, I need to address the Copperajah-in-the-room before anything else...the buildings have flat textures on them. Yeah, it does look a little primitive, but it's not that noticeable unless it's pointed out to you. Now some information of the game WAS leaked that revealed the buildings were supposed to be properly detailed with balconies and everything, but they had to scale back on the details for whatever reason. I assume it's because this game was released on the Switch and Switch 2, so they had to hold back a little on the graphics in order to help the game perform better on the Switch to avoid the backlash from Scarlet and Violet. Also, the leaks revealed this game's budget was SHOCKINGLY low! No joke, this game's budget was the equivalent of $13 million in American money! So yeah, I imagine GameFreak needed to cut corners a little for the sake of their budget! So please for the love of Arceus stop spreading these ridiculous claims of GameFreak being "lazy", because they're not. They can only work with the money they're given. If anything, you should be criticizing gaming companies for not giving GameFreak enough money to work with. Oh and please stop spreading misinformation about how Lumiose City is one single model! That is also not true and that "one single model" was used for a cutscene, that's all. The actual city itself is NOT one single model, so stop saying that it is and do your damn research for once in your life!

Besides, even with a low budget, this is still easily the best looking Pokémon game we have to date, so I'd say they put that low budget to good use. Would it have looked better with proper textures on the buildings instead of looking flat? Yes. Does the game still look good in all other aspects? Absolutely!

First of all, people who complained about Scarlet and Violet (before the Switch 2 improved and fixed everything) having technical issues and lagging in performance will be happy to know that the game runs as smooth as butter. There are no lagging issues, no framerate drops (that I could see) and everything moves very smoothly as you play the game. There are no technical issues with the graphics too (aside from characters and Pokémon occasionally clipping through each other) with everything looking well-rendered with no rough edges anywhere or any white pixel dots on the sides. You can tell that extra year off gave GameFreak what they needed to make this game operate the best they can do for this is easily one of the best looking and best performing Pokémon games we've had yet.

Now for the character designs. As usual, Pokémon excels when it comes to character designs and one of the few praises you'll hear from people on the internet is that this game continues that trend. Just about every important character has a striking and memorable design that adds so much to their character and gives them an iconic appearance that'll make them remembered for years to come. Jacinthe especially has gotten a lot of love for her design (the only positive thing anyone can say about her), her stylish appearance and flashy pink outfit that highly contrasts her dark skin making her look especially eye-catching. Corbeau also has gotten a lot of love for his appearance with his stylish dress sense and poison-dripping coat. I especially love Ivor and Gwynn's designs with how sharply they contrast each other. Ivor is a big, blonde-haired brute of a man who's design perfectly exemplifies his brash, loud, reckless personality while his sister Gwynn by comparison looks small, dainty, delicate and unassuming. Her design shows how she's withdrawn, blunt and very much not like her brother at all. It's such a funny contrast and I love it. The characters also have some unique accessories or clothing items that make them stand out from one another. These include Gwynn's Chandelure themed hate, Canari's electric-themed outfit, Tarragon's hard hat that contains his Key Stone, Jacinthe's fancy pink outfit and much more. Even Team MZ have some unique design features be they Lida's thick heeled shoes and baggy cardigan or Naveen's hair and his Aegislash style tie. I really give the designers credit for making Urbain and Taunie look more unique from one another so they don't look too much like clones. While both have the same coat (for story related reasons), Urbain's clothing style is more casual and baggy while Taunie's is more revealing with her shirt exposing her navel and her shorts leaving most of her legs bare. Of course the female version has the more revealing outfit...

Suffice to say, this is a game where you'll remember how everybody looks because of how much GameFreak nailed the character designs here.

Now on to the next big thing about the character designs: the Pokémon themselves. The Pokémon still look as great as they always have done in these Switch games, but some models such as Machamp have gotten a noticeable upgrade and the improved Charizard model from Scarlet and Violet makes a comeback here. I've also noticed that Eelektross has a grounded model and isn't just floating like it usually does, and some like Salamence are also given a model that depicts them on the ground and not just floating awkwardly above the floor all the time. The Pokémon don't have the realistic textures that Scarlet and Violet gave them, which is a shame as those textures did make the Pokémon look so good there (especially Steel-types), but the colours of the Pokémon look a lot bolder and crisper than in those games. No joke when I say this is a very colourful looking game. The colours really do pop out and make the game look so eye-catching because of it. I've seen a lot of people especially comment how Raichu actually looks orange in this game unlike in previous Switch titles where it looked more yellow. I never really noticed, but now they've pointed it out, it's pretty obvious now. XD

But of course, let's cover the really big thing: the Mega Evolutions. I love how this game depicts Mega Evolution here with the Mega Evolved Pokémon getting a rainbow aura around them. It really emphasizes their power and adds an air of beauty to their powered up forms. As for the designs, the old Mega Evolutions look as fantastic as ever of course, but what about the new ones? Contrary to what the internet has to say, I think they're awesome...well almost all of them. Mega Victreebel and Mega Clefable are the only new Megas with actual bad designs and they shouldn't have been created. Mega Starmie, I agree looks lazy as hell, but that thing is at least salvaged by its goofy charm with its funny run cycles. Mega Victreebel and Mega Clefable have nothing that redeems their designs to me. As for the new Megas I think have the best designs, I'd say Mega Emboar, Mega Chandelure, Mega Scolipede, Mega Skarmory, Mega Malamar, Mega Drampa and all three of the Mega Kalos Starters. They're all awesome and in some cases like Malamar and Drampa outright improve on the originals and make them worth using. Seriously, it's insane how DRAMPA of all Pokémon got such a glow up with its Mega. And to think with the upcoming Mega Dimension DLC the game has in store, we'll get even more Mega Evolutions to see and play with. I'm especially hyped for Mega Raichu (no duh!)...

And finally for the graphics, the environments are well detailed and the city of Lumiose has a lot to offer. Flat building textures aside, there's still a lot of good looking stuff to see in Lumiose City. Prism Tower looks positively striking in the game, I love the interior design of Hotel Z, the sewers look appropriately dark and gloomy, Hotel Richissime looks appropriately opulent and fancy and Lumiose City itself is full of life with people and Pokémon just about everywhere you look. That's yet another inaccurate criticism people have made about the game. Some people say the city looks "empty and lifeless", and I have to ask "What game were you playing?" because as I've been playing, I'm always seeing people or Pokémon around just about every corner of the city. Empty and lifeless my arse. =P But back to the visuals a minute. My personal favourite location to explore was the ruins of Lysandre Labs. GameFreak spared NO expense in making the place look ruined and abandoned with bits of rubble, cracks in the floor and broken machinery everywhere. The whole place just has an unsettling atmosphere as you walk through it and it's such a visual standout as a result. I don't know how people can call GameFreak "lazy" when they clearly put as much effort into the visuals as they did here.

This is especially evident during the cutscenes. The final cutscene with the player and Mega Zygarde vs. Ange is especially one of the most epic moments ever put to screen in a Pokémon game and gave us this beautiful image:

Just gorgeous, I love it. :D

Are the graphics the best out there? No. Are they still good graphics? Absolutely. Legends Z-A is not a bad looking game in the slightest and people really need to learn not to complain about such irrelevant details like "flat building textures". And I thought people complaining about the tree textures in Sword and Shield was ridiculous enough...

Conclusion

Pokémon: Legends ZA is up there with Legends Arceus as among the best Pokémon games from the Switch era and every single person who's hating on it needs to lighten up and learn how to have fun for once in their lives. The story may not be the strongest ever but does have some compelling themes and an awesome climax, every single character is memorable and full of personality, the gameplay is infectiously enjoyable, the battle mechanics make the game more exciting to play and the graphics, while not the best ever, are still solid and give the game a very crisp look that makes it good to look at. If you're a Pokémon fan like me, you'll love this game. If you want to get into Pokémon, then this game will be a good place to start. If you don't like Pokémon, then this game won't change your mind about it I'm sure. As is, I found this to be an awesome game and I'll be happy to play it again in the future. I say give this game a try, don't moan about silly things like "flat textures" or "no voice acting" and see how fun it really is. I only hope some of the game's new features like the improved combat system will pace the way for future Pokémon games and give us more exciting and experimental titles for years to come...

And that's it for this review. I hope you enjoyed it and feel free to share your comments down below. Do you like Pokémon: Legends ZA? Do you not like it? Do let me know.

Next week I'll be doing a VS essay where I'll be pitting Legends ZA and Legends Arceus against each other. See you then media fans!