Despite everything, where “everything” is read as “Scarlet and Violet”, Pokémon Legends: ZA still has the potential to make us dream this year.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus was the realization of a childhood dream. While the series’ tagline is “Gotta catch ’em all,” this is the first time a main series game has actually focused on catching Pokémon, rather than battling them, as the focus of the gameplay. A few years later, it’s easy to forget how surprising that game’s initial reveal was. Battling Pokémon in the overworld, capturing outside of battle, stealth mechanics, were all things we had long accepted that Game Freak and Nintendo had no interest in doing with Pokémon, but somehow the stars aligned and Legends : Arceus was a breath of fresh air for the series, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
It still suffered from some of the technical flaws that unfortunately characterized Pokémon’s time on Switch, but the core gameplay, which consisted of exploring the game’s various areas and employing a variety of tactics to capture dangerous Pokémon in the wild, was such joy that the flaws were easily overlooked. In a series that often tries to box the user into a boring story that constantly talks about how magical it is to live in the world of Pokémon, Pokémon Legends was the game that sat back and let the player discover that magic for themselves. Plus, it made a lot of fun additions to the Pokémon story, giving us a lot more to sink our teeth into when it comes to the Sinnoh trio and the mysterious Alpha Pokémon, Arceus.
The hardcore fanbase that felt undervalued by games like Sword and Shield or the more casual-oriented Let’s Go finally felt heard with Legends, so it didn’t take long for the cries for a sequel to go up. Audiences immediately began fantasizing about what Mythical Pokémon this new game could be named after, what region it would explore, and what nostalgia it could tap into. Kyurem, Celebi, and Mew were the most common requests, but we always thought it was more interesting to delve into a Pokémon that was completely ruined when it was first revealed, Zygarde.
From X and Y to Pokémon Legends: ZA —
Pokémon X and Y aren’t particularly good games. The series’ first leap into 3D was a bit lifeless, with an unsatisfying story, the fewest new Pokémon of any generation in history, and by far the easiest game in the series up to that point. While we’ll never know for sure, it’s likely that lack of enthusiasm meant that the eagerly awaited follow-up game, Pokémon Z, never existed, breaking the Gen 1 model of an “enhanced” edition that it came right after the first games in a new region.
From a business perspective, it was a solid idea, as the Gen 3 remakes, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire, were much better received and put the series back on track, but there was one casualty important of this decision, Zygarde. While Xerneas and Yveltal served as cover legendaries for X and Y, Zygarde was the third Pokémon of that trio, and the “enhanced” games usually altered the story to focus on the third ‘mon. This worked wonders for Rayquaza, Giratina, and Kyurem, who went from forgotten third wheel to beloved legend once their feature games were released.
However, since Pokémon Z was never made, Zygarde was left by the wayside. Two new forms had been designed for him, as well as a new story where he could split into a hundred different pieces and gradually become more powerful as more cells were collected. These ideas were showcased in the Pokémon anime effectively, and when they were eventually implemented into a main series game, it was as a side-quest in Pokémon Sun and Moon that felt completely out of place.
Switch 2, help us —
It has remained there ever since as a sad example of a great missed opportunity, that is, until the reveal of Pokémon Legends: ZA. Despite being revealed almost a year ago, we still know virtually nothing about this sequel, other than that it will be set in the Kalos region, will focus on what will eventually become Lumiose City, and will inevitably have something to do with Zygarde. Plus, Mega Evolutions are returning. If the original Pokémon Legends answered all the questions our inner child had about the definitive Pokémon game, these facts about ZA answer all the adults’ questions about a sequel. It promises to develop an area of lore that had previously been ignored, brings back a mechanic we love to Mega Evolution, and will hopefully evolve the gameplay of the original in a fun way.
It’s not that there’s nothing to worry about, though. For one thing, Game Freak’s range problem hasn’t improved since Arceus Legends. Scarlet and Violet were terrible performance-wise and we could easily see their ambition win out once again. Sure, this game will almost certainly come to Switch 2 at some point – maybe even at launch, depending on when that happens – but even that might not help if it fails to keep the game’s scope in line with what the technology is capable of doing.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that the first Legends was everything we ever wanted from Pokémon. It’s the most fun game we’ve ever had in a series we’ve loved since we were kids, so any game that promises to give us even more will be at the top of our list when it comes to highly anticipated releases in 2025.
Written by Ryan Woodrow for GLHF
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