Pokemon Legends: Z-A Review

Game Freak's 2025 entry follows Legends: Arceus by going in the opposite direction: instead of open wilderness, the entire game takes place inside Lumiose City during an urban redevelopment programme that is converting districts into wild zones. Battles are real-time rather than turn-based, with move cooldowns, positioning and dodging, and Pokemon are thrown out and recalled without a transition, so catching happens in the middle of a fight rather than in a separate screen. The Z-A Royale, a nightly ranked ladder fought through the city streets, is the progression spine. Mega Evolution returns as the mechanic the game is built around, with new Megas introduced. Kalos is the setting the fanbase had least expected to be revisited. Its technical presentation drew the usual criticism levelled at Game Freak's recent output, and its structural ideas drew genuine praise - it is the most mechanically adventurous mainline Pokemon release in years, and it launched on Switch and Switch 2.