Pokémon Pokemon Legends Z-A General Discussion

[Halloqueen]

I'm sorry, I thought this was Kalos, not Johto. Right out the gate, I have to say that I'm quite disappointed that they went with two starters from the same generation when there are 9 generations of starters to choose from.

I'm a bit concerned about the changes to the battle system, particularly the whole thing about moves having different ranges; I'm open to them trying new things, but I'll have to see how it all feels when the game releases. Hopefully they're changes made for the better, but they can potentially, just as easily, make things more restrictive. The ability to have your Pokémon move out of the way is cool though, I like that.

Other than that, looks fine so far. As others have said, I definitely hope that the character customization is back and I have to imagine it is, considering Kalos is home to the Boutiques.

I gave it some thought and I think there might be two possibilities for the starter lines in this game. Like Legends Arceus, the starters are supposed to feel special so evolving them might give us something special. (Hopefully not Megas...) Here are two possibilities I came up with and predictions for their typings.

1) Regional Forms:
Like with Legends Arceus, we get new regional forms of final evos.

"Kalosian" Meganium: Grass/Fairy
This is largely to it knowing Disarming Voice now for some reason. Maybe based on a fairy garden?

"Kalosian" Emboar: Fire/Steel
Fits nicely with the type triangle like the original Kalos trio. Maybe it can have a "knight" theme to it?

"Kalosian" Feraligatr: Water/Fighting
Completes the new type triangle. Continues tradition of a Fighting type or fighting themed starter mon. Maybe based on a sewer croc?

2) Regional Evolutions:
Introduced in Gen 9 were regional evolutions. For example:
Mime Jr -> Galarian Mr. Mime -> Mr. Rime

Perhaps this game gives us the first regional evolutions to starters?

Chikorita alt final: Grass/Fairy

Tepig alt final: Fire/Poison or Fire/Steel

Totodile alt final: Water/Fighting or Water/Dragon

After you mentioned Kalosian Emboar and a potential Fire/Steel typing with a knight theme, my mind made some connections and I kind of want that now. Like, the middle evolution is named Pignite...so it would be cool to make it an actual pig knight. Then, from there, throw "or" on the end of Emboar and you get Emboaror, like emperor, so they can give it a regal appearance. It would be really neat and definitely something I'd like to see, haha.

Guys hear me out...
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Oh no, lol. I love Fire/Ghost typing and love both Hisuian Typhlosion and Skeledirge, but I'd rather switch it up.

 

[Hyoon]

things i liked:
- kalos city looks nice? and definitely seems like an improvement on scarlet/violet

things i didn't like:
- kalos city cause like why are we trapped in this city like attack on titan? are there titans out there? why can't we leave? honestly this reeks of cost cutting measure as usual from gamefreak. like where is all the money going? at least this is from my understanding that we don't have areas outside of the city, but correct me if i'm wrong.
- the new battle system. i was not a huge fan of arceus so i'm not quite into this whole dynamic battle or whatever. i think i much prefer the normal turn based battles, but i am open to trying it so maybe this is a neutral for now.
- the new protags cause what are those outfits and just overall look? once again, it is a step up from the scarlet/violet protags but gosh the standards that scarlet/violet set are so low that anything is better. i genuinely hope there are a bunch of customization.
- gender locked rivals cause like... why? it's 2025. what is the reasoning here? are we supposed to think of our rivals romantically so only the straight option is available? i do not get it.
- still no voice acting cause once again, it's 2025. why can't we have a fully voiced pokemon game?

overall while it looks like there are improvements from scarlet/violet (again the bar is in hell), it's still very much just a pokemon game. we know what to expect and it's nothing new. i do not think we will ever get innovation from gamefreak and it's sad.

 

[PacV]

I really like the game overall, no complains here. Still, i'm waiting to see the starters final evos and megas (assuming they do receive a regional final evo and a mega) to make my choice.

 

[matt]

Having just watched the trailer from my perspective, the graphics are a considerable disappointment. Where's the progress in the leap to Switch 2? The visuals look far too similar to recent games and there's a bizarre lift on the outside of a building, as opposed to inside like before in department stores where you could go to the roof. Seems incredibly lazy and don't think I'll be buying it.

Also- A kids game showing the player leaping off the roof. Great choice.

 

[Snek]

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[Giddy]

I've viewed a few videos and responses about the new game, not as much, actually have one I need to watch.
I can understand feeling unsure or disapointed, I also understand that you don't show everything in one video. And I am sure there should be more trailers or so out later on, but we are also just seeing the start of the game from what it looks like.

I noticed someone saying in a comment that it is undergoing urban deve,opment, so what we have seen so far is probably not the final look, like we can help adjust the urban look and development to a city that is growing in more ways than one.

I am also really interested in the end of the trailer, with rotom showing up, there seemed to be like a glitch? Like a sussy glitch.

 

[LittleMissPanda]

Honestly I'm feeling a bit conflicted. While I do love that they chose Tepig for the available starters (it sure was a surprise, but it made me really happy because I just recently finished a playthrough of Pokémon White with Tepig as my starter, it's my 2nd favorite Unova starter) the very first thing I said to myself was, "Why two Johto starters?"

Last time I checked, this is Kalos. I thought for sure they would feature Froakie because it was the fan favorite out of the three, and we had Cyndaquil as a starter in Hisui, but at least in PLA we had Oshawott from Gen 5 and Rowlet from Gen 7, but why two Gen 2 starters? I have nothing against Chikorita or Totodile, they're both really great in their own ways, but it would have been neat to have more variety. Literally any combination like Tepig/Treecko/Totodile, Chikorita/Froakie/Tepig, know what I mean? I would have been okay with anything, just as long as it excluded Sobble, Scorbunny and Sprigatito, since their finals stages completely suck no matter what, in terms of design, imo of course.

But I'm kind of not okay with having two starters from the same Gen, especially because we already had a Gen 2 starter in the last game. Might as well be "Legends Celebi" at this rate. Oh well, I'm still pretty interested in seeing what their Megas/Kalos regional forms will be, assuming they get any.

 

[Midoriya]

Honestly I'm feeling a bit conflicted. While I do love that they chose Tepig for the available starters (it sure was a surprise, but it made me really happy because I just recently finished a playthrough of Pokémon White with Tepig as my starter, it's my 2nd favorite Unova starter) the very first thing I said to myself was, "Why two Johto starters?"

Last time I checked, this is Kalos. I thought for sure they would feature Froakie because it was the fan favorite out of the three, and we had Cyndaquil as a starter in Hisui, but at least in PLA we had Oshawott from Gen 5 and Rowlet from Gen 7, but why two Gen 2 starters? I have nothing against Chikorita or Totodile, they're both really great in their own ways, but it would have been neat to have more variety. Literally any combination like Tepig/Treecko/Totodile, Chikorita/Froakie/Tepig, know what I mean? I would have been okay with anything, just as long as it excluded Sobble, Scorbunny and Sprigatito, since their finals stages completely suck no matter what, in terms of design, imo of course.

But I'm kind of not okay with having two starters from the same Gen, especially because we already had a Gen 2 starter in the last game. Might as well be "Legends Celebi" at this rate. Oh well, I'm still pretty interested in seeing what their Megas/Kalos regional forms will be, assuming they get any.

Completely agree to be honest, I'm not sure why they felt the need to include two from the same region, lol. It'd be one thing if one of them was a double-type starter like Bulbasaur, but that's not even the case, so....

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Also, just came here to say regarding the final form typing discussion. I'm going to make a probably wildly inaccurate, but funny guess, and say Tepig's final form in this game will be Fire/Flying type. That way it won't be weak to Ground type moves, and we can now finally say that pigs can fly.

 

[Snek]

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[Giddy]

To add to the possibility of Chikorita becoming a fairy type - just realised this.

But if Chikorita's fairy move was baby doll eyes, I wouldn't have jumped on the side that it could become grass/fairy; due to the fact that many non-fairy types can learn that move, it's a move you don't interact with much as it does no damage.
But disarming voice? Oh yeah, if you look up who can learn that, it is restrictly just fairy types. You can breed non fairy pokemon to have it, but since this is our low level starter, I am way more confident now.

Also a little nickpick about our choices of being female/male and who are player will interact with, Taunie or Urbain.
I get that they want the diversity of you choosing one gender, and the rival with be the oppisite gender, but I actually really like the male player and Urbain a lot more this time around (def if we can't change our clothes or hairstyle), and its annoying I cant have the male character and Urbain. :/ I mean, I do like Taunie too, but I wish we could choose?

 

[Halloqueen]

While I'm open to this whole possibility of a potential Kalosian Meganium being Grass/Fairy, and while I love the whole thing Snek and I were talking about earlier with a potential Kalosian Tepig line being Fire/Steel and going for a knight and emperor theme, I've been thinking about which other starters I would've liked to have seen in Legends Z-A instead of what we got with the two Johto starters.

Honestly, if we were going to have a Unova starter in this then I would've loved for it to have been Snivy. Give me extravagant, aristocratic Serperior. I've loved Serperior since Generation 5 and it would've been cool for it to get the spotlight here.

Meanwhile, if we were to have Snivy, to avoid double Unovan starters and having this whole situation repeating, Torchic would've been a nice choice for this setting as the Fire-type starter. The Gallic rooster is staring you right in the face, Game Freak, and it is judging you harshly. Kalos is Pokémon France, for crying out loud.

 

[Snek]

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[ShinyDungeoneer]

Regarding the whole starter situation, I'd have preferred we get Popplio instead of Totodile. Kalos is KNOWN for fashion, and Game Freak could do so much with Primarina in that context. Want Water/Dark? Make it a gothic seal. Water/Flying? Dress the thing up as an angel. Water/Steel? you get the idea, DRESS IT AS A KNIGHT.

 

[LittleMissPanda]

Hmm, and it looks as though the rival will choose the starter that yours is strong against. No surprise there. That's been a trend since Gen 6 because GameFreak thinks we can't handle a lv 5 Tepig with our lv 5 Snivy, even though neither one of them knows a STAB move at that point. But nowadays, starters have a STAB move available immediately which, to me, isn't as satisfying as training them until they learn it.

Although in Black/White it made more sense that your rivals chose different starters, because all three of you start your Pokémon journey at the same time. Cheren is a big boy who knows his type advantages, while Bianca is baby and so she chooses the starter that is weak against yours, but she wants to go on a journey for the funsies. Cheren wants to go for the POWER.

I wish that the rival would just go back to selecting the starter that has an advantage over yours. But something GameFreak also likes to do now is give the starter neither you or the rival chose to someone else so that you face them in a tougher battle. This happens in Gen 7 with Professor Kukui and Gen 9 with Director Clavell, which is admittedly cool, but still.

When Nemona, for example, chose Sprigatito just because I chose Fuecoco, she definitely wanted to go easy on you. I think that's insulting, lol

 

[Midoriya]

Regarding the whole starter situation, I'd have preferred we get Popplio instead of Totodile. Kalos is KNOWN for fashion, and Game Freak could do so much with Primarina in that context. Want Water/Dark? Make it a gothic seal. Water/Flying? Dress the thing up as an angel. Water/Steel? you get the idea, DRESS IT AS A KNIGHT.

I absolutely LOVE this idea and I wish they would have chosen Popplio now and gone through with it instead of giving us two starters from the same region. I know I've been on my soapbox about that for several posts now, but it is kind of ridiculous to be honest when there's so much variety in how many starters exist overall.

Hmm, and it looks as though the rival will choose the starter that yours is strong against. No surprise there. That's been a trend since Gen 6 because GameFreak thinks we can't handle a lv 5 Tepig with our lv 5 Snivy, even though neither one of them knows a STAB move at that point. But nowadays, starters have a STAB move available immediately which, to me, isn't as satisfying as training them until they learn it.

Although in Black/White it made more sense that your rivals chose different starters, because all three of you start your Pokémon journey at the same time. Cheren is a big boy who knows his type advantages, while Bianca is baby and so she chooses the starter that is weak against yours, but she wants to go on a journey for the funsies. Cheren wants to go for the POWER.

I wish that the rival would just go back to selecting the starter that has an advantage over yours. But something GameFreak also likes to do now is give the starter neither you or the rival chose to someone else so that you face them in a tougher battle. This happens in Gen 7 with Professor Kukui and Gen 9 with Director Clavell, which is admittedly cool, but still.

When Nemona, for example, chose Sprigatito just because I chose Fuecoco, she definitely wanted to go easy on you. I think that's insulting, lol

Yeah, I uh... honestly stopped paying attention to the rivals starting around gen 6, XD. The gen 6 rivals are "okay" imo, but honestly forgettable, in both gen 7 AND gen 8 the rivals have pushover personalities which makes me care about them less, and in gen 9 I just didn't really care anymore, lol. Have to agree with someone posting on this site before that Nemona felt very one-note. Like the only thing she ever talks about is battles.

 

[LittleMissPanda]

I absolutely LOVE this idea and I wish they would have chosen Popplio now and gone through with it instead of giving us two starters from the same region. I know I've been on my soapbox about that for several posts now, but it is kind of ridiculous to be honest when there's so much variety in how many starters exist overall.



Yeah, I uh... honestly stopped paying attention to the rivals starting around gen 6, XD. The gen 6 rivals are "okay" imo, but honestly forgettable, in both gen 7 AND gen 8 the rivals have pushover personalities which makes me care about them less, and in gen 9 I just didn't really care anymore, lol. Have to agree with someone posting on this site before that Nemona felt very one-note. Like the only thing she ever talks about is battles.

Her blood type is B for Battle, lol

I thought maybe her backstory would be something along the lines of, "She comes from a rich family but she wants to prove something to others and to herself, maybe overcome some sort of trauma because no one paid any attention to her as a kid and the only happiness she ever felt was through this one battle she had that made her feel worthwhile"

Then maybe, just maybe, I would have cared about her. But nope, she just likes battles

 

[LittleMissPanda]

Speaking of something that isn't about the starters or rivals or Mega Flygon, lmaoo I'd like to see Xerneas and Yveltal get some time in the spotlight again. It would be neat to get an awesome remix of their battle theme. It was literally the only good battle theme in all of XY imo

Also give them actual background stories that isn't just about mass genocide. I've always thought it'd be nice if you encounter Xerneas in its domain, a giant mystical forest, and it's there to protect some sort of secret. And Yveltal could be encountered in a sky domain. Remember how the original XY worldwide trailer, they showed Yveltal soaring in the sky and Xerneas in a forest setting. Something like that would have been cooler instead of just sticking them inside a death machine.

 

[Snek]

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[Snek]

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[Lancelot]

Leaker Khu who correctly teased the new mons Legends Arceus is back. Not sure if Khu is still legit but they just tweeted out a bunch of picture riddles in the spoiler below. Take them with large grains of salt, as always with any "leak".

Spoiler: Riddles

View attachment 614758

Turbo granny Pokemon when. It could be like Alakazam but it holds golden orbs instead of spoons