Battling in Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s new real-time combat system feels like a mixed martial arts bout. You won’t see Pikachu bleeding out on the mat, spitting out their teeth, but the scrappy, fast-paced cadence of each battle is reminiscent of the octagon.
Both share an intense amount of strategy and preparation. But despite any and all meticulous planning, some fights are over in a matter of seconds. Others turn into messy, drawn-out brawls, where the combatant with the best patience and endurance prevails.
For the first time in a main Pokémon game, the series’ turn-based system has been benched in favour of battles that play out moment to moment. It makes Pokémon Legends: Z-A play more like an MMO, with each attack linked to a cooldown timer instead of a specific number of uses.
Such a risky departure from franchise convention is the modus operandi of the Legends spin-off games. Where Arceus emphasised exploration and discovery in a historical setting, Z-A is all about fighting.
It’s a well-placed risk that makes Legends: Z-A the most exciting Pokémon entry in years. Even with a return to a familiar modern Lumiose City location, the combat system’s reinvention establishes a brisk pace that doesn’t let up.
Dozens of hours spent in the same city don’t slow the game down either. If anything, Legends: Z-A’s narrow focus elevates what it does best: breakneck battles between an assortment of monsters.
Ground and pound
I typically gravitate towards the exploration and collecting elements in Pokémon games. Filling the Pokedex and finding something cool off the beaten track fills me with more joy than testing my skill in the heat of battle.
As if it rewired something hidden deep within the recesses of my brain, Pokémon Legends: Z-A does the opposite. It continually draws me in to seeking out as many battles as I can.
Pokémon’s legacy type matchups remain an integral component, but positioning and speed are now equally important. Sneaking up behind a trainer to initiate a punishing initial strike feels wrong but oh-so satisfying.
More than a mere gimmick, the opportunistic battling fits Lumiose City’s simmering tensions. Its citizens contend with a growing wild Pokémon problem, with more suburbs cordoned off as the infestation grows. By night, wannabe Pokémon masters hunt other trainers to ascend the city’s Z-A Royale league rankings.
It’s a novel twist on the well-worn gym battle structure of older Pokémon games. Being able to knock out a core member of a trainer’s team before the battle even begins is devious but necessary to survive. Likewise, if you’re not careful, opposing trainers can get the jump on you, ridding you of any previous time advantage when every second counts.
Hosting the majority of these battles in Lumiose City’s winding alleys almost feels like developer Game Freak’s direct response to criticism towards the visual deficiencies of its recent games. For the most part, the approach pays off; the Nintendo Switch 2 version looks sharp, although textures and character models still awkwardly pop in as you get closer.
By this point, it almost wouldn’t be a Pokémon without some visible scuff marks. At least my trainer can wear a fancy suit and serve looks all the while.
Fighting against tradition
Everything about Z-A’s battling clashes against my many years of accumulated Pokémon muscle memory. But the excitement of learning a new system and figuring out entirely new strategies far outweighs any fondness for old ways.
With such a reliance on real-time reaction, Pokémon Legends: Z-A loses some of the tension and drama found in the series’ turn-based entries. There’s no time for agonising over which move to pick, which is both a blessing and a curse.
Because so many battles only last for a few seconds, there’s little space for rhythm and flow. Some of the best parts about playing Pokémon come from the tense moments when you weigh up the odds of launching an all-out salvo while side-eyeing your last conscious Pokémon’s tiny red portion of its health bar. Without that time to breathe, these moments don’t happen as organically in Legends: Z-A.
The exception is the game’s various story-based encounters against Mega Evolution Pokémon. At first, fights against these towering monsters creep into bullet sponge territory. They don’t take much damage from attacks, until you’re able to unleash a Mega Evolution of your own.
Where these battles come into their own, however, is through the clever use of space. Your trainer is in as much peril as your Pokémon, as the opposing behemoth launches devastating arena-altering attacks, forcing you to always be on the move.
Lasting much longer than most regular trainer battles, Mega Evolution fights bring out the best of Z-A’s combat system. It wasn’t enough for me to simply queue up attack after attack while waiting for a cooldown timer. I had to move, dodge, react, and decide when to counterattack, if at all. Like any combat sport, split-second decisions in the heat of the moment dictate the outcome.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A verdict
Of the decades of Pokémon games so far, Legends Z-A gets the closest to evoking the feeling of being a Pokémon trainer. The MOBA-styled Pokémon Unite and the 2D fighter Pokkén Tournament might get closer to what it’s like to be a Pokémon, but along with Legends: Arceus, no other entry encapsulates the mortal danger of facing off against a giant monster quite like Legends: Z-A.
I’ll find it tough to return to the series’ turn-based duels now. I love it when established franchises take a big creative swing, regardless of whether they connect. In this case, Legends: Z-A threw a massive right hook and hit its target flush on the jaw.
Nintendo provided a Nintendo Switch 2 code of Pokémon Legends: Z-A for review coverage.
