After a year of waiting, we finally got our first look at Pokémon Legends: Z-A during the annual Pokémon Presents showcase. The Switch game seems like a significant departure from the untamed open zones of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which is exciting because we don’t know what to expect. The stream gave us a trailer as well as a general breakdown, and we skimmed through both to see what details we could find. Here’s everything we noticed.
One of the best innovations Pokémon Legends: Arceus implemented was real-time capture mechanics. This included over-the-shoulder aiming which let you toss a Poké Ball at a wild critter and capture them without entering a battle. Scarlet and Violet didn’t quite match this. You could throw a ball at a Pokémon as a way of initiating battles, but you would still have to fight the monster before you could capture them. In Legends: Z-A, it looks kind of like a mix of the two. You can still capture Pokémon without battling them, but it looks like it has a lock-on system similar to that in Scarlet and Violet rather than the option to freehand it. Kind of a bummer, but hopefully it feels better when you’re playing it.
One of the great challenges of a Pokémon game is trying to capture a new addition without knocking them out. This is why abilities like False Swipe exist, which will leave a Pokémon with 1 HP rather than knocking it out. In the first Legends: Z-A trailer, we see a Flaaffy seemingly beaten in battle, but the player still captures it in a Poké Ball. If this is the case, it takes some of the risk out of battles, but will make it a lot easier to capture a rare Shiny or Legendary Pokémon.
Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile are the starters in Legends: Z-A, which has fans convinced their final forms will each get Mega Evolutions. For Chikorita, its final stage is Meganium, and fans are theorizing its Mega Evolution might be a grass/fairy-type because of one small detail in the trailer. The Chikorita shown fighting the aforementioned Flaaffy knows the attack Disarming Voice, a fairy-type move Chikorita has historically never been able to learn. Could this be a hint that Chikorita’s move pool has been tweaked to prepare it for a fairy typing in the late game?
Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ battles were more cinematic than those in previous games, and part of what added to the chaotic nature of its fights were that you could move your character around as your Pokémon took part in the scrap. In Legends: Z-A, Game Freak is taking this a step further by integrating it into the battle mechanics. Positioning and timing are integrated into combat in ways they weren’t before, and as you run around your active Pokémon follows, setting up and avoiding attacks as they play out. So now you don’t just run around aimlessly during fights; you’re a more active participant in battles.
Part of that new active system is that Pokémon attacks seem to have cooldowns. We can see when Chikorita is fighting Flaaffy that its moves have a timer before it can use them again. This makes sense given that timing seems to be a core part of battles this time around. Now you’ll have to make sure you’re well-positioned and can use the attack you need at the right time.
Since Legends: Z-A takes place entirely in one city, it’s not too surprising that it’s doing away with some of the open-world traversal of Scarlet and Violet and Legends: Arceus. In those games, you would ride on Pokémon to get to high places, glide through the air, or swim across bodies of water. Based on what we can see in Legends: Z-A, the only Pokémon you’ll be using to traverse will be your Rotom—which is in your phone—to float between rooftops. That’s a little disappointing considering riding the Hisui Pokémon in Legends: Arceus was one of the best parts about it, but it makes sense given the environment you’ll be inhabiting in Legends: Z-A.
It’s become pretty common in Pokémon games to determine members of the supporting cast by which version of the protagonist you pick at the beginning of the game. In Legends: Arceus, if you pick the female character Akari, you’d meet the male protagonist Rei in the main story, and vice versa. In Legends: Z-A, it looks like you’ll meet one of two supporting characters called Urbain and Taunie depending on your character’s gender. We see what looks like a male protagonist meeting up with Taunie and Urbain chatting with a girl hero. The question is: will both characters essentially be model swaps of the same role, or will they have their own goals and quirks for us to learn?
While this isn’t a hidden detail, it’s crazy to me that we’re just gonna gloss over AZ. The ancient giant is running a hotel in Legends: Z-A, but let’s not forget that this man is a reformed war criminal who created a weapon of mass destruction in X and Y. He is also an innocent babygirl who loves his Floette. We must protect him in the coming game, trainers.
As the name suggests, Zygarde, the dragon/ground-type legendary who never got its own game as was tradition back in the day, will play a major role in Legends: Z-A. We see the Pokémon throughout the trailer in its dog-like form and there’s even a shot of one of its Zygarde Cells scooching throughout the city. But we don’t know what it’s actually doing as Lumiose City undergoes its renovations just yet.
Lumiose City is undergoing a major revitalization effort during Legends: Z-A, and it looks like some areas might not be accessible until you reach certain goals in the game. We can see some of the Wild Zones that Pokémon inhabit blocked off by numbered hologram gates. These might just be labels signifying where more powerful monsters roam, or they might require some kind of in-game signifier like a gym badge to let you through. Whatever the case, it looks like it won’t be easy to stumble into an area you can’t handle.
The final scene in the Legends: Z-A trailer shows a first-person view looking at a Rotom phone with a message that reads: “This is a promotion match announcement.” We only really know that Legends: Z-A will revolve around the Lumiose City renovations, but this implies that some kind of competitive tournament will take place during the course of the game. Legends: Arceus didn’t lean into the competitive sport that typically takes place in Pokémon games, but it was a historical game set before much of that was established in the universe. So it’s probable there will be more battles this time around, and perhaps a tournament in the midst of Lumiose City’s redevelopment.
We’ll learn all about that and more when Pokémon Legends: Z-A comes to the Switch in late 2025.
