Hands-On: One hour with Pokemon Legends Z-A highlights big changes to the series

Pokémon is, and has been for a while now, a legacy franchise.

Next year the series will turn 30 years old, and while the roster of Pokémon has exploded to over 1000, from a mechanical perspective the latest twin entries Pokémon Scarlet and Violet share a lot of DNA with the original Red and Green.

That’s why when Pokémon Legends: Arceus was first revealed, fans were so excited by the game’s total departure from tradition. Many had worried that the critically acclaimed spin-off, which saw players travel back in time to a historical Pokémon region, would be a one-off.

However, in 2024, The Pokémon Company announced that Legends would return, this time set in Lumiose City, which debuted in the 3DS titles Pokémon X and Y.

Pokémon Legends Z-A is out next month on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. Ahead of the final game’s release, we had the chance to play an hour of the upcoming game, including our first hands-on time with the game’s Wild Zones, the Z-A Royale, and a Rogue Mega Pokémon battle.

A Wild Pokémon appeared!

In Pokémon Legends Z-A, Wild Zones are areas of Lumiose City where players can battle against and catch wild Pokémon. Lumoise City is full of these zones, each of which features distinct Pokémon. If the player opens the map, they can see a checklist of the Pokémon that can be found in that area.

Catching Pokémon operates in the same way it did for Legends: Arceus. Players can sneak up on Pokémon to have a better chance of catching them (indicated by a small icon next to the Pokémon’s name), or they can battle the Pokémon to weaken them.

The speed with which Pokémon can be caught is as satisfying as it was in the first Legends game, and is as close as the series has come to the idea of being a bug catcher sneaking up on a rare creature, the inspiration for the series as a whole.

Pokémon will also contextually appear in Wild Zones where you’d imagine they would (if there’s an applicable terrain). We found Magikarp in a stream under a bridge , a flock of Swablu nesting on a roof, and a Meditite training on a sports pitch. It feels like a much more realised world, filled with Pokémon in a way that would make sense.

The catchable Pokémon in each area aren’t the only Pokémon you’ll encounter, as Alpha Pokémon make a return from the first Legends game. These powerful, glowing red-eyed Pokémon are found throughout Wild Zones, and must be defeated before the player can attempt to catch them.

Some of these make contextual sense, like the Alpha Houndoom that we encountered, which was guarding a pack of Houndour. Others appear as tough challenges for trainers to test their skills, like the Alpha Pikachu we encountered on a rooftop that was more than double the level of our strongest Pokémon.

What’s currently unknown is how different these Wild Zones will be from one another, and how many there will be. It’s very unlikely that they’ll all be city streets, but it’s understandable to worry about the locked setting of Lumoise City causing some repetition. The city rooftops have been shown in a lot of pre-release material and featured in our demo, so there’s certainly going to be some verticality to the zones. Similarly, a river that runs through Lumoise could be seen on the other side of the Wild Zone.

While not present in our demo, screenshots have been released from The Pokémon Company showing off a catacomb-like area, which suggests there’s much more to Lumoise City than has been shown off so far. The City also seems massive from the quick glimpses of the map we saw during our demo, so we’re not particularly concerned about the size of the game.

Z-A Royale Rumble

The next part of our demo saw us taking on the Z-A Royale, the game’s main trainer battle mechanic. During the Z-A Royale, the player moves around the Battle Zone and takes on other trainers. Doing so will give them points towards a promotion in the Z-A Royale.

This is where we got our best look at the game’s brand-new active battle system. For the first time in a mainline Pokémon game, the battles in Pokémon Legends Z-A aren’t turn-based. Pokémon and trainers move around independently, and moves are contextual to where the battle is taking place. For example, if a Pokémon attempts to use Iron Tail, and the other Pokémon is too far away, it’ll fail to connect.

This means that, as well as keeping track of your own Pokémon’s health, and strategizing what you plan to do next, you have to be moving around and dodging in order to succeed. This battle system is the closest that a Pokémon game has ever come to recreating the action of the anime series.

Battling in Z-A will take a lot of getting used to. During our promotion battle – which saw us taking on a trainer in an enclosed area – it worked perfectly, but in the open world we ran into some problems. Pokémon would occasionally get stuck on geometry, and moves that seemed like they would guarantee to hit, didn’t.

These are likely eccentricities that we’ll be more comfortable with once we’ve learned the game’s combat from the beginning, but it’s a jarring change for anyone who has been playing the turn-based games for 30 years.

One smart change, and one that will make the game significantly more challenging, is that in Pokémon Legends Z-A, healing and reviving Pokémon is now on a cool-down. This means that if your Pokémon is getting battered over and over again, you can’t spam healing items.

This was gated in previous games by making the act of healing your Pokémon take up a turn, but since the game is no longer turn-based, changes like this are not only necessary, they add a layer of challenge.

Industry Plant

The final section of our preview saw us battling against Rogue Mega Victreebel. The newly announced Mega Pokémon is hilarious to look at, but deadly in the context of a Rogue Mega Battle. The challenge for this boss is that the Pokémon will shoot poisoned sludge at both you and your Pokémon throughout the battle, meaning evasion and keeping track of your Pokemon’s health is a must.

You’ll also have to collect Mega Energy from around the battlefield in order to Mega Evolve your Pokémon and do the most damage. Having now battled Mega Victreebel as part of this preview, and Mega Absol as part of the first hands-on at the Pokémon World Championships, it seems that each of the Rogue Mega Pokémon battles will have their own gimmicks, which should keep each fight fresh.

There is so much more in Legends Z-A that we want to dig into, and this hour with the game only makes us more desperate to get under the hood and see what makes the rest of the game tick.

Will the Wild Zones feel repetitive, or will each of them be varied enough and full of enough different Pokémon that will make filling up the Pokédex as much fun as it was in the first game?

Will the new battle system make more sense when contextualised through the game’s early missions, or will some fans struggle to adapt to the change? And what Rogue Mega Battle gimmicks are left to discover in the final game? This is not to mention the fact that during our demo, we got virtually zero insight into the game’s plot.

When a new traditional Pokémon RPG is released, fans typically know what they’re getting into. Sure, there will be new Pokémon to surprise them, and perhaps the gym formula will be refreshed, but it won’t blow their mind. The most exciting thing about Pokémon Legends Z-A is that we have absolutely no idea what’s left to discover in the final game, and we can’t wait to find out.