Game Freak can’t do anything without pissing off a good chunk of one of the most aggressively negative “fanbases” in video games. I still have to delete the occasional abuse-filled comment for having the audacity to write a positive review for the last Pokémon game. Something I still play regularly enough that clearly I enjoy it. So, with all that being said, let’s rile the “fans” up some more: I really like Pokémon Legends: Z-A. It’s one of my favourite in a series where I’ve played every single game (yes, stretching right back to Blue/Red/Yellow).
No one (rational) could criticise Z-A for avoiding risk. It features perhaps the single biggest risk Game Freak has ever taken with the series: real-time combat. After decades of refining a pristine turn-based combat system, Game Freak decided to shuffle all of that off in favour of… something very reminiscent of the ATB system in the SNES/PlayStation 1 era Final Fantasy titles. Pokémon still have their four moves available to them, but each of those is set to a different cooldown timer (some abilities taking longer than others), and there’s a delay between when they attack and can do the next one. This means the combat system still feels tactical, with plenty of downtime to plan moves, while also having a greater visual dynamic.
Perhaps the closest thing to compare it to is the original Ni No Kuni – another game I dearly loved. Your protagonist can be attacked and damaged in combat, though enemy pokémon will tend to focus on your pokés if you have them out. You can’t directly fight but you can, of course, command your little animal buddies, swap between them, and duck and dive out of the way if the melee gets a bit too close. Overall, it’s an invigorating and entertaining combat system, even after dozens of hours in, and can make old favourite pokes new friends again.
Another change is the location. Rather than a sprawling open world, Z-A takes place entirely within a city. It is a playground of a city, though, with ample opportunities to scale the walls and run around on the rooftops, and plenty of nooks and crannies to explore. Then there are designated zones where you can find plenty of new monster pals to catch and add to your roster, and at night, battle zones spring up (which is where you combat other Pokémon trainers and move through the ranks). Aside from the unique setting, this side of Z-A feels very traditional to the Pokémon series, and it’s a good, clean system that I enjoy a great deal. If there was one thing I didn’t enjoy about the previous Legends game, Arceus, it was the sheer number of duplicate Pokémon you’d end up with. I’ve always liked to keep my boxes efficient with the minimum number of Pokémon I’d actually need.
The roster of Pokémon in Z-A is relatively thin at 230, but most of the favourites show up, and there’s an additional 65 Mega Evolutions, to continue with Game Freak’s expanding use of that as a system. There’s enough there to sustain a few dozen hours play, and the DLC promises a lot more, but Z-A is, mercifully, a spinoff and therefore somewhat smaller in scope to go with its experimental nature.
While I think it would be a stretch to suggest anyone plays a Pokémon game for the narrative, there is often a surprising level of thought that goes into them, as the games canvas themes in a way that’s accessible to players of all ages without talking down to them. Z-A is perhaps the most nuanced we’ve seen from the entire series, as players find themselves in the midst of Lumiose City at a time when massive numbers of Pokémon are “moving in” and causing conflict with the human inhabitants. Yes, really, Game Freak actually decided to build a metaphor for the tensions around immigration in our modern societies. In fact, if certain groups of people are ever smart enough to figure out how metaphors work in stories, actually tackling such a loaded topic could well turn out to be the biggest risk Game Freak made. Impressively, Z-A also respect’s the player’s intelligence enough not to act like there are easy or straightforward answers to this, and generally allows you to come away with your own thoughts.
This only works because the main characters are written pretty well and, for a change in Pokémon, everyone involved are adults with adult responsibilities. Pokémon has been around for long enough now that a fair chunk of its core players are indeed adults who don’t need the same children’s coming-of-age journey given to them, and it’s nice to see Game Freak testing the water for the appetite for cute monsters crossed with serious discourse.
The only weakness Z-A has is that, for a vibrant city filled with Pokémon to catch, places to explore, and side quests to complete, it’s a little empty. Unfortunately, we’ve all seen what a developer can do by locating a JRPG in a single city thanks to the Yakuza series, and the lack of interactivity with the city beyond parkouring around it is notable. It’s also a relatively simple place visually so I’m not entirely sure I cared enough about it as a location, given that it’s the entire game. If you’re going to take away the wonder of moving from one wilderness environment and biome to the next, and encountering different city spaces as you go, to instead give players just one city, you better make it a character in its own right, and I don’t think the developers quite got there.
As one final note: Z-A is infuriating at the start for how badly it drags you by the ear. Try and go down a side street on your way to the next objective? Nope. You’ll be turned around and sent back. See an item that’s three steps in the wrong direction from the quest market? There’s an invisible wall that’ll be stopping you from picking that sucker up. Pokémon games have always taken their sweet time to open up, but typically do a better job of putting up the smokes and mirrors to hide it than this.
Still, it eventually opens up, and when it does Pokémon Legends: Z-A hits such an exceptional stride. An invigoratingly original combat system, an almost surprisingly good narrative that covers real and important themes, and the same charming monster designs and aesthetics that continue to define Pokémon as one of the biggest media properties in history. Excellent work, Game Freak.
100 is a perfect game. This is not a perfect game. You either got paid or you’re wildly biased.
“almost surprisingly good narrative that covers real and important themes” Did you guys actually play ZA or did you play Expedition 33 and thought it was ZA by mistake? ZA’s narrative can only be appreciated if the pinnacle of your literacy is a kids book stolen from an elementary school bookshelf, and that’s me being nice.
Have some shame.
100 is not a perfect game. Working backwards from there I’m not overly concerned that you don’t appreciate the review. Have a nice day!
5 stars is not the same as 100 because it’s – with half stars and possibly a zero star option – an 11 point scale, not a 100 point one. So giving it 5 stars in no way implies perfection (unless this site has a scoring guide that suggests that’s the author’s intent).
That said even a 5 star score seems wild.
It’s only natural that expectations are high when the franchise is literally the highest earning one in the world. A series that has close to infinite money shouldn’t be making mainline games look so cheap or make weird mistakes like making the entire map a single model.
I feel they need to stop getting a free pass for spending a probably not even a AA budget on their Pokemon games and then charging a premium price, despite having all the money in the world.
If and when they deliver a AAA experience that respects their customers – or releases their games at a price that’s more in tune with their budget, then I might get back on board.
Generally I’m not one to talk about development budgets – I’ll happily play indie games and ancient games, but here it’s really just egregious.
In fairness, I feel like the developers do spend a lot of time on art direction and making sure that the Pokemon themselves are the heroes of the visual design. I would absolutely hate and loathe if a Pokemon game started to look like the rest of the AAA space. Even when they’re trying to be cartoony, like Astro Bot, the unnecessarily overwrought detail is exhausting on my eyes after a while.
So long and short of it is I get the complaints against the series, but I personally don’t mind what Game Freak does with it.
I’m sure they could keep strong art design without having the game look like something that’s 15 years old. But regardless if they went to spend so little on the games they should charge less for them – these simply aren’t AAA releases. I could probably get on board with it then, especially since the simple graphics likely contribute to us getting the games more often. But Game Freak / Nintendo are essentially ripping us off with the current approach, because they know Pokémon fans will buy these games anyway.
This is such a double standard of review that I’ve ever seen. Objectivity just goes out of the window because there’s no such thing as a perfect game aka 10/10, heck even a masterpiece like Clair Obscure isn’t a 10/10 game and has few flaws here and there. Personally I would rate Clair Obscure 9/10 with all of those few flaws, but back to Pokemon. One thing to note when you’re reviewing something is just because it’s fun doesn’t mean OBJECTIVELY a good game, for example I had lots of fun with Pokemon SV but even I know it’s not a good game if you’re looking deep into it. Never ever settles for mediocrity and have some standard especially for a game from a BILLION dollar company.
I’ll help fill you in on something very basic: The idea of an “objective review” is nonsense. Reviews are subjective.
Also 10/10 isn’t a perfect game.
There ya go. Perhaps consider how little you know about criticism before adopting such a condescending tone next time :-).
I see your point with there’s no ultimate objectivity regarding this medium, but what’s the point of a “Review” then if it’s based on subjectivity? In my humble opinion, a reviewer should try to reach that element of objectivity as much as they can because it’s such an unfair comparison with other video games that have low popularity but developers put so much care into their crafts. In this case, if we’re talking about pokemon games, we should rate it with other video game franchises as well not basing your scope with just “Pokemon” games.
The metacritic page for this game listed your review as 100/100. Isn’t 5 stars out of 5 mean it’s a perfect game? You know basic mathematics with 4 stars equal to 80/100 and so on. I just don’t get your basic logic here, please elaborate.
If 5/5 was a perfect game then basically nothing should or would get a 5-star score. It would be more accurate to say that a 5-star rating is somewhere between 81 and 100 (or between 91 and 100 since there are half stars), though really it helps when a site explains their rating system, because the same score doesn’t mean the same thing to all writers.
The fact that Metacritic lists it as 100/100 is a failing of metacritic.
We do have a scoring policy which explains our scoring system: https://www.digitallydownloaded.net/scoring-and-comments-policy
The purpose of a review is to discuss a game. That’s it. It’s a work of art. The idea that any work of art can be “perfect” is nonsense because every work of art means something different to someone else. The job of a critic is to lend their own ideas to the conversation.
Five-star hotels aren’t a “perfect” experience. Five-star restaurants don’t serve “perfect” food. They offer something exceptional, yes, and because of that they belong in a category of hotel or restaurant that is beyond what 4 or 3-star hotels and restaurants offer.
That’s how our scoring system works.
Literally the ENTIRE POINT of a review is subjectivity along with what can ACTUALLY be considered objective information like what the game is played on, what the gameplay system is, etc.
The reason you go into a review is not so you can find the objective information (you would find that information easily yourself with trailers, previews, and other officially released information), but the opinions of the reviewer on how they felt about the game. YOUR TRUST in said reviewer and their credibility helps to determine whether or not you feel that you can also trust the review in question and make an informed decision on whether or not to buy the game yourself.
I swear, most people on the Internet don’t know what a review actually is anymore. Or rather, they don’t know what a review is in the first place; after all, the Internet opened up explosively and tons of people gained a voice that they are still learning how to use.
I can’t believe a “journalist” is responding in such a way as if he was a 9 year old on facebook. I get it, your feeling are hurt, but you may consider replying in a more professional manner. The fact you can’t understand your opinion on the game is the minority and that most players are sick and tired of paying an exorbitant price for a game that looks worse than most gamecube games, and is filled with bugs is incomprehensible to me. I’m not asking a journalist to be objective, but I do expect at least some level of care for consumers. Oh and btw you may not like my tone but 10/10 is literally a perfect score, so…. yeah. If it isn’t perfect why the perfect score then?
“I get it, your feeling are hurt”
You’re throwing a tantrum in your post, you silly hypocrite. You’re the one getting emotional here.
“The fact you can’t understand your opinion on the game is the minority”
I don’t care if my opinion is in the minority, actually. Like I really, truly do not care. I like the games I like and if you don’t like them that… means literally nothing to me.
“I’m not asking a journalist to be objective, but I do expect at least some level of care for consumers.”
I actually don’t care how you spend your money, nor is it my job to “care for consumers”. I especially don’t care what some random person who has never been here before, but saw my review on Metacritic and decided to throw a tantrum at me, does with their money.
“Oh and btw you may not like my tone but 10/10 is literally a perfect score”
I don’t care about your tone. I assure you that not a word you wrote has had the slightest effect on me. I am, however, greatly concerned for your sake that you see five stars and somehow equate that to 10/10. You’ve probably never been to a five star restaurant or hotel, but they’re not “perfect” experiences. That’s the scoring system we use. Feel free to actually look and see the score next time.
Hello Matt,
it is refreshing to read a positive opinion on this game for a change. Everyone is riding the troll train and jumping on the negativity wagon for no reason. I had played the game since day one and I have enjoyed it quite a lot.
As you have mentioned there are quirks, but they were also present in Legens Z-A, yet nobody ever mentions those.
The DLC practice I am not too fond of.