If you've read anything I've put on this blog in the last few months you'll probably hear a refrained "I am ostensibly new to Pokemon" which colors a lot of my experience. For context - I played the originals when they first released, I beat Yellow, and then casually touched a few others until Sun and Moon came out which I spent more time with because my kids were at the appropriate age for it (and the accompanying show) but I didn't by any means complete those games or really dive in too far.

Legends: Arceus however was a huge tipping point for my kid's descent into Pokemon (hell they were still actively playing it up until Z-A's release) so a new entry in the 'Legends' division of Pokemon had their interest. Me? None. I remember seeing the first trailer during the Nintendo Direct and thinking "Yea that's not for me" and moved on - but then a weird thing happened.

I gave Pokemon Legends: Z-A a chance alongside them, and the real-time combat hit me like a fucking rampaging Tauros.

This is not to say that Pokemon should always be real-time; in fact I think it's really interesting to have a mix of the two and I fucking love me turn based games but the flow of Z-A's combat really clicked with me - mixed with a key change from previous entries in the franchise: the goddamn "capture window" - no more doing stupid-ass math to make sure you get a wild pokemon's HP low enough so you can catch it without killing it; all wild pokemon whose health reaches 0 do not disappear immediately, they stick around so you can nab em with a pokeball. Changes the whole fucking 'catch em all' ballgame.

Now, If you go by internet sentiment (never do this), Pokemon Legends: Z-A is [checks notes] the worst thing to ever happen to the franchise; an "ugly PS2 graphics" game with "an insulting lack of voice acting" and "only one town" - and while you could stretch the first point because the graphics are nothing to win awards (but motherfuckers clearly do NOT know what PS2 games actually look like lmao) the latter two are kinda accurate and like, it doesn't matter?? The game is great?? Like seriously, who needs / wants voice acting in a Pokemon game?

Like virtually every other Pokemon game, you are plopped into the world as a self insert, this time heading on what was I think supposed to be a vacation but is likely about to become permanent residential relocation. Your destination? Anime Paris, aka Lumiose City - the central hub of the Kalos region that featured in Pokemon X and Y. It's been five in-game years since that story ended, making this game technically a direct sequel (which I had no idea going in).

Immediately you end up in some hijinx involving your luggage being stolen and helping out an enterprising Pokemon trainer (A gender-locked NPC based on your own selection - since I picked a male character I got Taunie as my 'rival' in the Pokemon parlance though it really doesn't mean that) who is working for a local run-down establishment, Hotel Z.

Hotel Z is owned and run by what can only be described as a dracula man who is 9 (nine) feet all and three THOUSAND years old. This is normal. This is explained to you like it's normal. If, like me, you did not play Pokemon X or Y to completion prior to starting Z-A you probably have no idea what's going on and man, that sells it. Sure. This guy is three millennia old. Did a huge war crime in the past apparently? It's fine. Fuck it. Nothing matters.

But the Pokemon recipe kicks in!

The score is the same; you pick a starter, you catch more pokemon, you explore the area and do research quests for the local scientist (who in a fun plot move is basically only doing this role because they're serving out a community service jail sentence for being one of the fucking villains from from the previous game. I've seen others describe it as "Kalos Operation Paperclip" and like. YEA. SHE'S UNHINGED. Brought her old team's gamer chair to her new office and everything.

On the 'One town' criticism - I won't say that Lumiose City feels "alive" in that 90% of the NPCs are standing around in the same place day and night, and you can go inside very few buildings, but god damn it's still a really compelling place to be. The not-Eiffel Tower looms in the distance, accordion music plays, the rooftops are gorgeous (even if the traversal of them is sometimes infuriatingly silly), remembering which district of the city has the good berry sellers, there's a café on every corner - it's anime Paris, baybeeee

Taunie dragoons you into joining Team MZ, a group of a few others wanting to help out the floundering Hotel Z, and they all have deep seeded reasons to want to protect Lumiose from the coming threat of 'Rogue' mega evloutions.

To be clear, when we ask a Pokemon to engage in a body-horror temporary transformation to do our legally sanctioned dog-fighting it's ok - but if it happens to them in the wild? Well that's bad and we need to help them and put a stop to it.

You're kind of just a rando who got off the train at the right (or realistically speaking, wrong) moment and you need to JRPG protagonist your way through the story as the special hero and like

It just fucking works

The local evil megacorp¹ runs a nightly tournament where sections of the city are zoned off into combat zones (Ahh, I miss Boston) and citizens of the pokemon training variety are encouraged to sneak around and beat the ever living shit out of each other to gain points towards a 'Challenger ticket'. This is eschewing the usual Pokemon format of "Get all the gym badges and fight the Elite Four" where instead you wait till nightfall to come upon some unsuspecting fucks, pile drive their pokemon into the goddamn ground and then go spend your Challenger ticket on the next story match. A victory in said match will up your rank in the tournament at large and you move on in both the game's main story and your alphabetical journey from rank Z to rank A.

The colorful cast includes a local martial arts himbo and his goth lesbian sister, a literal mafia boss, a fancy society dominatrix and her indentured maid servant, and a detective who has seemingly forgiven every bad thing that happened to her at the hands of the villains of X and Y; she was a literal homeless child being used for scientific mind control experiments and Z-A has no time to interrogate that. They're just her old buds. Hell, she has pictures of the villain who did it to her on her office wall like an affectionate memento. Emma's backstory is dark.

Oh and we also can't forget the streamer and her eccentric construction company grandpa.

I thoroughly enjoy the cast and no shade against them but where the game often shines is absolute rando NPCs either doing or saying completely batshit bonkers things; there's the time a cop tries to arrest you (read: fight you) because of an unattended pokemon on a park bench, and like, shit. This lady:

The ostensible end point of the story is that whoever gets to rank A in the tournament gets a wish fulfilled, provided the megacorp has the power to do so. As you'd expect, people espouse their plans for their wish regularly and god damn, they are sure a series of words that have been strung together!

I'm writing this the day before the DLC drops and I've rolled credits on the main game and completed all of Mable's research quests - yet I don't see myself putting this game down any time in the foreseeable future even without the promise of more to do in Lumiose (or as the trailer for the DLC will say, HYPER Lumiose)

Wait so Should I Play it™?

Maybe! Pokemon Legends: Z-A is hands down, the most fun I have ever had with a game in this franchise. I don't know if it's because it hit perfectly when I had time for it, my investment into playing alongside my kids, or the real-time combat and other formula staples adjusted a bit to keep things fresh. It's definitely one of my favorite games of the year and it's 1:1 responsible for my draw a pokemon every day project. I'd call that a win.