Topic: Pokémon Legends Z-A

I know. The mainline games have only 8 gyms. Even with the rank skip from V to F, you still have a total of 11 ranks (equal to 11 gym challenges) to go through. Then rank C to B is basically the Elite trial, as you have to battle elite trainers in a tournament first, win it and then you get the Promotion match with the champion. Then lets not talk about all the story stuff in between you need to do in lower ranks (like Rogue mega evolution outbreaks, etc, before you can even unlock the next promotion match. The game has more than enough content in the base game and then we get even more with the upcoming DLC.

Granted. Pokemon Scarlet/Violet are vastly bigger games with way more content, reaching obscene levels with the two excellent DLC. It's why its my favorite game now, but only when it got the Switch 2 upgrade.

@Jeronan I would honestly love to do a fresh playthrough of SV, but knowing I lose all of my progress with no way to back it up, just kinda sucks to me. I know I will probably never go back and play any of that game so it doesn't really matter, but it still feels bad.

@Pizzamorg Can't you just use another Switch profile? Each profile gets its own save file.

@Late Omg thank you! No one on the Google results suggests to try that and so it didn't even cross my mind of doing it that way. This is amazing, now I can do a full Switch 2 replay after ZA.

@Pizzamorg Glad I could help.

After finishing ZA, it’s safe to say that man, while I know they’re newer, I’d love to see X and Y remakes/ports. They’re such fun games, and I think would definitely sell well. But at this point I’m guessing we won’t get it, especially after the mega data mine 2.0

I got the game.

I may have uh... overestimated my ability to protest Game Freak. I cannot fight that I am a Pokemon fan at heart.

@UpsideDownRowlet I know that feeling

Unfortunately, that leads to Game Freak doing the bare minimum and getting the maximum profits

Honestly other than the terrible buildings, I think it got tons of things done- like the animation for so many mons are so good

I love seeing how eelektross swim in the water it was so cool

@UpsideDownRowlet @Zuljaras the buildings and a bunch of the textures are ass but I'll give them that they seem to have put more effort into the game. There's many places in the city that genuinely look nice, nothing mind-blowing, of course, but this is a massive leap over the state Gen 9 started in. And the game itself is fun so far (feel like I may be about halfway through, I know the final fights levels and I'm roughly around the halfway point of that, at the very least)

I wish ScaVi didn't sell those stupid amounts, they certainly don't deserve it, because it'll be hard for ZA to do more and MAYBE give them the message that, you know, people appreciate better products. If Gen 9 actually bombed we might've had a chance lol

You csn backup all your Pokemon and items like Master balls (by giving them to Pokemon) to Pokemon Home and then reset your game.

It’s exactly what I did and also done threw times now with Sword/Shield over the years.

That is also an option, next to the Pokemon Home one.

@Jeronan,

"You can backup all your Pokemon and items like Master balls (by giving them to Pokemon) to Pokemon Home and then reset your game."

Bit of a correction here, items can not transfer into Pokémon HOME. If you send a Pokémon in that is holding an item, the item stays behind in the game it is from, specifically back to that save's bag. I know that because I tried doing that to send items from Shield to Violet (specifically the Rusted Shield and a few other items), and none of the items transferred with the Pokémon.

Edit: huh. I guess you can do something like transferring items from Sword to Shield but not something like transferring items from Sword to Scarlet since they are different generations. My oopsie, I guess 🤣

@Dom_31 I'm still hoping that they at least see that people like this game and its style. I think if Gen 10 is anything like this, it would sell like hot cakes

There is plenty here I hope they carry forwards. The one thing I hope they don't carry forwards is the combat system. At least not without reworking it from the ground up. I gave it a good 15 hours before I decided I just don't like it, and yeah I just don't like it.

I think the control scheme is part of the problem, but there is just a lot of jank baked into it which makes it feel worse I think. Inputs can sometimes have massive delay with nothing on screen to explain what the delay is, the need to lock on before you can use any moves is oftentimes infuriating because the lock on will sometimes just break, stuff like that etc

I think being able to move your trainer around, and position your Pokemon around (sorta) is well intentioned, but it just sorta clutters the control scheme and doesn't offer enough value in return to make it worth it (you only really need to think about this in boss battles, in regular battles it doesn't matter at all basically).

I also feel like while it may betray somewhat the reason this combat system exists, I kinda wish they'd slow it down, or at least give you the option to put it on a lower speed. Sometimes you will get your doors just absolutely blown in here and it happens at such an insane clip you don't have a single second to process what even happened.

It is funny, cause in an earlier post I praised this for being the first Pokemon that actually made me want to use debuff, and buffing skills, but I'm realising there are even less uses for these than in the turn based games. Combat is so insanely fast, there isn't time to stack some buffs and go for a big attack, or besiege the opponent with debuffs. If you are critical of the old games and finding that one OP move and just spamming it until the enemy team is defeated, this in some ways makes that even worse, as you'll find the best way to win regular battles at least during the story is finding the four lowest cooldown moves your pokemon can do and spamming those until your wrist aches. About the only thing that matters in this combat system is who gets a hit in first, which makes combat more mindless than if it was just turn based.

Experienced my first Mega-Evolution and caught every Pokémon in the first six wild zones. Just taking my time and enjoying the game.

Not all items I know, but I have transferred Pokemon holding a master ball for example. That is why I now have like 5 Master balls on my last save.

Yea, I gotta say, I would actually rank the graphics as “nice” overall on the Switch 2.

Nothing crazy, but relatively pleasant. The animations are above average for me, and some of the interiors and vistas can be pretty.

(Really trying to hedge my language lol)

Well..I just spent a couple minutes floating in mid air two stories up while a pokemon attacked me by sticking its head through the side of a building. 😆

14 hours in and that was the only major glitch I have seen but it was a kinda impressive one.

@Pizzamorg What I've found so far is that now after reaching rank D and with enemies around level 45+ in Battle Zones, there's more and more room for strategy because Pokémon will often be using stronger attacks with longer cooldown. So things like purposefully holding back on ordering my own Pokémon until the enemy has wasted and missed with some long cooldown heavy attacks, as well as applying DoTs and field hazards like Stealth Rock are starting to shine.

Combined with Bonus Cards that are getting more interesting, it's made Battle Zones in particular feel like they have at least as much room for strategy as the turn based system does, if not more so due to positioning, hitboxes, etc.