Topic: Pokémon Legends Z-A

@UpsideDownRowlet Considering the platforms Champions is coming to (Switch/Switch 2/mobile), its existence allows the competitive community to thrive irrelevant of how Switch 2 performs in terms of hardware sales.

@VoidofLight thought I sent this but apparently I didn't...

I checked the list of pokedex icons again and it does look hella small at a glance with all the forms and megas. You're right tho, it's not that much less. Also depends on how you count, tho. I don't really see megas as unique pokemon but if you wanted to count them on their own ZA actually has a bigger roster.

Yay for knee-jerk reactions 😅... but I still don't think it's gonna be a game I want, personally. Also because a lot of the new designs are... Uhh, unique.

@Dom_31 I haven't seen many of the new designs, but some of them I've seen looked really weird in still images. They were better with their animations, but for a good bit they were kinda uncanny or strange compared to what we've gotten before.

@Mgalens @darkfenrir Digimon Story games are typical RPGs and Digimon World games are the ones where you raise Digimon with life cycle!
Plus: even how much I wanna play that New Digimon Story Game atm (Digimon is my 2nd favorite franchise), for now I'm waiting until they reveal at least NS2 version to buy it there! And if buy on PC I waiting till 57,15% or more sale aka when I can find game for 29,99e or cheaper, because I almost never gaming full price on PC!

@SViper yeah I know that, I just want more digimon world games with even better story XD

Really need to play redigitize decode one of these days since I know it got fantranslation....

@darkfenrir I wish they made NS1/NS2 ports or remakes or remasters for Digimon Story: DS, Dawn, Dusk, Lost Evolution, Xros Wars Blue/Red and Digimon World: Re:Digitize Decode that we could play then officially especially the ones that never was released outside Japan.
PS: I edited my primary message while posted yours, so!

@SViper Haha it happens. Yeah those kind of remakes or remasters a la Megaman collections will be really good. XD

Anyway this is a Pokemon topic so we probably should go back to it I have given some looks at some of the leaks and build a team so I'm pretty happy overall with ZA right now--just can't wait at all for it to release.

Gosh, why is it 16 October and not NOW. XD

If there's one thing I'm very curious about now is how the base Switch version runs on the Switch 2 and how much of an upgrade the Switch 2 version is. I am willing to part with $10 is that's what's needed for a better framerate and textures, but I can live without a higher resolution.

The reviews are starting to appear! When I looked on opencritic, the game's getting 83 on the overall score so that's pretty strong

Definitely can't wait for this game gosh, it's coming in less than 2 days...

@darkfenrir Opencritic only includes 5 reviews so far and 3 are 9s and 2 are 7s 😆 Too early to say what the consensus will be, but the unfavorable comparison to Arceus on Nintendo Life's review was a bit disappointing.

@FishyS xD metacritic might be more? I skimmed the rpgsite one, which gives it a very glowing review (9/10) with fun traversal and verticality going on, which makes me mooore excited! I can't wait honestly :3

(I honestly kinda skimmed the review since I want to leave many things a surprise haha)

@BrazillianCara probably a locked 1080p/30fps if I had to guess. If you want higher resolutions, frame rates and textures you have to pay

Still had some vouchers left on my account since I basically haven't touched my Switch since I played like two hours of Mario Kart over the Summer. Think the Switch 2 upgrade cost about 8 quid. So between the voucher and the upgrade, think that works out to about 15 quid cheaper than buying the game directly as the Switch 2 version. Sucks as of next year we can't do this anymore, but oh well. Honestly will just be nice to have an excuse to use my Switch 2 again.

The difference between switch 1 vs 2 it seems

It feels like the outlets that are comparing the game to Legends Arceus were expecting the Wild Zones to replace the open field areas in PLA- when the whole city itself is the "Open field area," Wild Zones and all. Wild Zones are basically just what you'd expect of parks from the looks of it.

I think the biggest thing with reviews is that it feels like there's two different camps. One camp that understands that the game is trying to do something different- with it sort of being the "other side of the coin" for PLA (focusing on battles and taking to an Urban/Modern setting), while the other camp was mostly just looking for Legends Arceus 2- rather than a game that's trying to experiment with what this series can truly be.

I've seen a few outlets just say "This is an X and Y sequel being touted as a Legends game," which feels more charged towards the belief that in order to be a Legends game, you have to be a prequel or take place in the past. Internal memos from Gamefreak make it sort of clear that Legends games are just them expanding more on past regions and revisiting them instead of flat out remaking them and the stories associated with them. That means that they can be sequels, prequels, or just games that take place within the region as a whole.

@VoidofLight Yeah! Overall I think RPGSite is the few that meets it head on about what the game wants to be I think, this is a tweet from the reviewer:

There's also two extra tweet below but yeah

@VoidofLight I'm definitely in the 'want Arceus 2' camp 😆 It's not what I expected, but it's what I hoped for. Arceus is the best game in the series in my personal opinion. I can understand there being a lot of fans similar to myself disappointed even if it's not really fair.

I quite like the idea of a Pokemon game in a purely urban environment. That said, something like this needs very careful execution, but judging off of gameplay footage and early reviews, it does not seem like PLZA does this execution well. From what I can gather (correct me if I'm wrong), it seems most non-story related buildings cannot be entered, which is not ideal for a city game. Furthermore, the apparent lack of detail, variety, and expansiveness of the environments makes for what I imagine would be a lackluster open world experience. Finally, from what I have seen, the Wild Zones are just super haphazard "okay we just released a bear on First Street" which doesn't seem totally immersive.

I hope in the future Game Freak tries a single city game again---perhaps in a region based off of Singapore---and use the lessons they have learned from this game to make a better urban open world.

@darkfenrir I remember being sent one review's ending blurb that felt like it matched my thoughts perfectly. It was screenrant's review, where they mentioned that the game is effectively just the other side of the same coin when it comes to PLA. That Z-A is pretty much the inverse, taking the Legends game into the directions that PLA didn't.

I definitely think that liking this game hinges on if you like or dislike the urban setting or not. It's why the reviews were pretty varied- because people were hoping for more of an iterative sequel that took you out and around the region rather than something solely confined to the inner-walls of a city.

@FishyS A lot of the mechanics that made Arceus great are still here, it's just that the setting is pretty different. I don't blame anyone for not being able to get behind the city setting- but I still feel like it's an interesting experiment to see how this series handles being confined to one life-sized location rather than going from town to town and beating each gym.

@VoidofLight Makes sense yeah. Honestly as long as it's fun I don't care where Pokemon brings me xD and this sounds like huge fun! Have some people who have already played and they reiterate the same so it's cool.

Less than 24 hours to release too...