Thoughts on the announcement of Pokémon Legends: Z-A?

_ryaca · April 11

I was shocked to see it's apparently set entirely in the city, though I've never played X/Y so I'm excited to get a taste. I've been thinking about picking up a 3DS to catch up on the few games that I missed and I'm curious where X and Y sit on people's lists.

TheJeffers · April 11

@_ryaca I would probably say it is one of the better 3D games, in that it is merely boring and forgettable.

Lumiose City was somewhat novel for its time in the Pokémon series, in that it was the first game to dabble with a player controlled camera (at very limited points, we had to wait for gen 9 for a full free camera) and a large 3D city environment, though it would still feel empty compared to Castelia City from the previous generation. The controls are annoying in the city, given the lack of a second control stick on the 3DS.

Frustratingly, partly due to the limitations of the hardware, partly due to Gamefreak's poor optimisation, the city is prone to slowdown and stuttering. Other parts of the game also exhibit this problem, most notably whenever there are more than two Pokémon on the battle screen.

Still, if you want to experience XY and Kalos and learn about the setting before Z-A, it's not a terrible game or anything. Just don't go into it expecting a mind-blowing Pokémon experience.

UnovanZorua · April 11

@_ryaca

10/10

Beautiful character customisation, the music makes me hold back tears of joy (or nostalgia?), the world looks breathtaking despite the 3DS being very pixelated (I think 3DS image quality or whatever it's called was like 240p?) (but also Anistar, Laverre, Lumiose, and all the other cities are still gorgeous), it has dozens of hours worth of gameplay (I have over a hundred hours in X and still have a lot of things I could do), and it has the Trainer PR video studio, which in the hands of a creative person, can result in really interesting videos despite them being only 10 seconds long, and it has Fennekin as a starter (Delphox is the best Pokémon ever).

Only downside is the forgettableness of its characters, and the easiness of the game.