Over 12 years ago, the Pokémon X and Y video games dropped for the Nintendo 3DS. The game sold over 14 million copies, being the second highest selling 3DS game of all time. These were the first Pokémon games to switch from 2D to 3D. One of its two main selling points was “Mega Evolution,” a new gimmick that gave older Pokémon new forms and abilities. After the games had run their course, many fans were wondering whether or not we’d get a Pokémon Z to complete the trifecta. For a while it seems like we were, until the project was scrapped, and the mysterious Legendary Pokémon Zygarde, was sloppily rushed into Pokémon: Sun and Moon, the next installments of the series. But nine years later, Pokémon Legends Arceus released for the Nintendo Switch, being an open world Pokémon game that tried out a new style of gameplay, introducing the player into getting attacked by wild Pokémon. This game was a monumental success for Gamefreak so the fanbase was sure there’d be another Legends Game. Sure enough, revealed in 2024 in a Pokémon Presents live stream. The first trailer for legends ZA came out, and then mostly radio silence from Gamefreak.

Then in October, Legends ZA was released and sold 5.8 Million copies in the first week of release. 

Legends ZA follows the protagonist traveling to Lumiose City for a seemingly normal vacation that quickly takes a turn for the worse.

Pokémon Legends Z-A has two gameplay styles: night and day. During the day you run around Lumiose catching Pokémon in the newly introduced Wild Zones, small green areas where Pokémon spawn. During the night battle zones appear, red areas where wild trainers wander about looking to battle.

While playing the story you’ll join the ZA-Royale, a tournament where you go from rank Z to rank A. You do this by fighting the trainers at night in the battle zones, to earn enough points to obtain a challengers ticket, so you can do a promotion match and rank up.

One of the main selling points of Legends Arceus was the giant Pokémon boss fights, where you would dodge and weave attacks while throwing bags at it to defeat it. The boss fights returned in Legends Z-A, in the form of Rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon, tough fights against new and old mega evolutions, fighting against them with mega evolutions of your own. This time you have 26 new megas to work with added onto the base 39.

Overall I found the game to be one of my favorite Pokémon games. The characters were all enjoyable and the story was nice and wholesome for a Pokémon game. If you like games for the graphics, then don’t play this. The Nintendo Switch has always been graphically challenged, and Legends ZA is already a big game. But if you’re looking to start getting into Pokémon, this game is a perfect starter game.