It’s hard to believe, but one of the first reviews I wrote here on Big Red Barrel was for Pokémon X & Y, the sixth-generation Pokémon games that were released in 2013. I like to think that my writing has potentially improved over time, as it was 12 years ago, which is mad to think about. Those games were ultimately a transition for the series, as they made the jump to 3D gameplay from the traditional sprite-based art style of the first five generations. To say it has been a rocky road since then is an understatement. We’ve had some incredible highs and some lows that have burrowed so far into the earth they’ve reached bedrock. But now, in 2025, it’s time to revisit the setting and world of Pokémon X & Y with the newest release in the series, Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
Legends: Z-A is the second game in the Legends sub-series, following the rather excellent Pokémon Legends: Arceus in 2022. These games are designed to be somewhat more experimental than the main series, taking the gameplay in new directions without compromising the traditional turn-based style of games like Pokémon Scarlet & Violet. With Legends: Arceus, the focus was more on capturing Pokémon and learning how they exist within their ecosystems. This time, Legends: Z-A has placed an emphasis on battling and combat.
The biggest thing players will need to understand and get to grips with right away in Legends: Z-A is that the turn-based battling system we’ve all become accustomed to for the last nearly 30 years (writing that just made me crumble into dust) is completely absent and has been replaced with a real-time battling system instead. For many, this might be sacrilegious, but the real-time battling works very, very well and has brought that long-sought-after power fantasy of the anime series to the games, stacking last.
In battles, you are able to move around with your Pokémon in order to reposition and even dodge incoming attacks. As well as this, all of a Pokémon’s moves are now on a cooldown-based system. You can use one move after another in rapid succession, and some moves will have a faster cooldown than others. For example, a move such as Aqua Jet in the main series would grant increased priority and let you move first. In Legends: Z-A, this same move has a massively increased cooldown, letting it be used more frequently.
You’re also able to tactically recall and throw out different Pokémon on the fly as well, which can result in some nuanced strategies such as recalling your Pokémon at a precise moment to dodge an attack and avoid damage, reposition, and then throw out something more suitable. It’s honestly great fun and adds new depth to battles that are very much welcome.
Of course, in order to battle, you’ll need to actually catch some Pokémon, and that feels like it would be difficult when the entire game is restricted to one city, right? Well, it is, but there are wild areas scattered across Lumiose City where you’re able to catch new Pokémon as you progress through the game. Selections of Pokémon can be quite sparse and limited, especially in the early game. More wild zones open up as the game goes on, but it still feels very restrictive compared to every other game in the series.
As well as that, it’s imperative to mention a returning mechanic from X & Y that players have been clamouring for for years since its last appearance, and that is mega evolution. Mega evolution allows certain Pokémon to undergo a further transformation past their final evolution and become even stronger by gaining an extra 100 points in their base stats, and even changing their types in certain scenarios. The way this is implemented in Legends Z-A is slightly different from that in the turn-based games, however. By landing enough attacks and having your Pokémon hold a mega stone, you can build up a meter, which, once full, you can then press the right stick and mega evolve your Pokémon. This means you are on a time limit for how long your Pokémon can stay mega-evolved.
Most of the Pokémon that could mega evolve in past games, such as Charizard, Lucario, and more, are once again here in Legends: Z-A. However, there are now 26 new mega evolutions as well, such as Dragonite and Victreebel (who is definitely one of my favourites). Whilst there are no new species of Pokémon themselves in the game, seeing and discovering the new mega evolutions was a complete joy, especially in battles where main story NPC trainers would throw out their “ace” Pokémon and surprise you by mega evolving them.
Speaking of characters, Legends Z-A features some very strong and creative ones who are a joy to interact with. There are some returning characters from X & Y, too, but I’ll refrain from name-dropping them here for spoilers. One of the main premises of the game is to advance
through a battle tournament called the Z-A Royale. When night falls over Lumiose City, battle zones are activated, and a free-for-all starts. By participating in these battles, you’ll earn points that will amass until you’re awarded with a challenger ticket. You’ll then use this ticket to battle a tough opponent in order to be promoted to a higher rank. These trainers are the ones who are integral to the story of Legends: Z-A, as they seek to rise the ranks to become the strongest trainers in the city. There is a reason for this; however, I’ll once again refrain from elaborating due to spoilers.
Needless to say, you’ll encounter characters who are some of the best and most memorable in a Pokémon game in a long time, such as Corbeau (who essentially heads up a mafia-type organisation in the city) and Jacinthe (the head of a connoisseur’s battle club), being two of the standouts. If I had to offer a critique, though, it’d be that Pokémon games desperately need some form of voice acting at this point. Cutscenes with characters moving their mouths with nothing coming out have gotten more and more jarring as time has gone on, and Legends: Z-A highlight just how odd it is. If other Nintendo properties can embrace voice acting, then I can’t see why Pokémon can’t either.
This core loop of participating in the Z-A Royale and ranking up makes up the bulk of the gameplay, and whilst it’s a good time, it also does unintentionally drag the pacing of the game to a snail’s pace when you least expect it. You might be happily plodding along in the story before all of a sudden you’re hit with a roadblock to go and do more Z-A Royale. You can pre-empt this by simply doing it when it suits you and acquiring a challenger’s ticket, but sometimes you’re preoccupied with other things.
Which brings us to another core loop of the Legends: Z-A gameplay experience; rogue mega evolved Pokémon. As part of the story, you’ll be tasked with taking down wild Pokémon that have mega-evolved across Lumiose City, a phenomenon that is not normally possible without a strong bond between trainer and Pokémon. You’ll enter into a battle arena to take them down, and they’re more akin to a raid-type boss than the battles you’ll encounter against other trainers. Unfortunately, this is a part of the game that I found severely lacking and, honestly, a bit meandering. These bosses can only really be damaged by mega evolving your own Pokémon, so each one ultimately boils down to you doing minuscule chip damage to them to fill up your mega meter, before getting a huge chunk of damage while mega evolved.
There are also “plus moves” that can be used while your Pokémon isn’t mega evolved, which do chunks of damage as well, but using these eats into your partially charged mega meter and, as such, I never felt incentivised to use them all that much. It’s a real shame because the similar boss battles in Legends: Arceus were a standout of that game, so it feels as though we’ve gone a little bit backwards here.
The one upside to these battles, though is the accompanying soundtrack. As with pretty much every Pokémon game, the music always hits just right. You’ve got some remixes of old classics, such as the X & Y trainer battle and wild battle themes. To new arrangements accompanying each of the strong trainer battles you’ll face as you progress through the Z-A Royale. Even long after I’d put the controller down, I’d have the music stuck in my head.
At this point, it’s probably best to address the elephant in the room. The past few Pokémon games have caught a lot of flak due to their graphical fidelity. A lot of this criticism has been valid (especially in the case of Scarlet & Violet), but a lot of it also hasn’t been. Legends: Z-A isn’t going to win any awards for graphical fidelity either.
Lumiose City, whilst fun to explore, looks and feels very flat in its environment, especially when you notice some of the wall textures. But the fact of the matter is that I’m engaged in the gameplay, and my focus is on the battles happening on screen and the interactions with the characters. I’m not sitting and staring longingly at flat textures on a wall and composing my 968th angry post on Reddit about how Game Freak is a lazy developer. Again, there is valid criticism to be levelled in areas. Could the game look nicer? Of course it could! But I’m not a game developer, so I don’t know what trade-offs there would have to be to get there. What I really want to emphasise most here is that the overall gameplay experience of Legends: Z-A is great enough that it draws my eyes away from what others so willingly nitpick at.
