Pokémon Legends: Z-A is the second installment in the franchise’s sub-series, bringing players back to the Kalos region first introduced in 2013’s X and Y.

Instead of travelling to the distant past, Z-A takes place in the present during an urban redevelopment project in Lumiose City. The entire game takes place in this location, which is being overrun with wild Pokémon spontaneously Mega Evolving – a mechanic that sees specific Pokémon briefly change into a much more powerful form.

Like Legends: Arceus before it, Z-A spins the traditional Pokémon formula on its head. This time around, it introduces a new combat system and battle structure, enabling Game Freak to introduce and test mechanics that may or may not be implemented in the mainline series.

However, Z-A is currently sitting at a Metacritic score of 79 at the time of writing – slightly lower than its predecessor Arceus, which has maintained a rating of 83 (it was a little higher at the time of publishing our review roundup of the game).

“Enjoying modern, Switch-era Pokémon games […] is often a question of how much you’re happy to let slide”

Chris Tapsell, Eurogamer

Writing for Eurogamer, Chris Tapsell surmised in his three out of five stars review that “enjoying modern, Switch-era Pokémon games as someone familiar with the good old days is often a question of how much you’re happy to let slide.”

“For many the sheer power of this series’ basic, essential formula – battle, trade, collect, plus a bit of found-family theming and the lasting message it carries, of creating human-to-creature, human-to-nature bonds – has proven to be enough, even in a game that can barely hold itself together.”

Tapsell did note that it seems reviewers only had access to the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Z-A prior to launch, so the verdict is still out on how the game will run on the original Switch.

He asserts that Z-A improves on core aspects of the Pokémon games that came before it, while also stumbling at common issues such as graphics and repetitiveness. One thing that did stand out, however, was Z-A’s approach to narrative.

Anime-esque adventure

Unlike past mainline games, critics found that Z-A heavily leans into the overall anime with a diverse range of characters and various side stories playing alongside the main questline.

“Z-A’s plot honestly feels like it could be from a Pokémon movie and that’s not a bad thing,” VG247‘s Lottie Lynn points out in her four out of five stars review.

“It’s a nice change from the typical ‘Become the Pokémon Champion and complete the Pokédex while you’re at it’ affair the mainline games typically follow. Though the tutorial does drag, the storyline benefits from being well paced and not being afraid to introduce a wide cast.”

“If anything from Legends Z-A becomes a standard, wild Pokémon co-existing in towns is near the top of our list”

Jordan Miller, VGC

VGC‘s Jordan Middler agreed, giving the game a five star rating. He felt the game “finally captures the feeling of Ash and the gang arriving in a new city, observing the residents and Pokémon coexisting in harmony. If anything from Legends Z-A becomes a standard, wild Pokémon co-existing in towns is near the top of our list.”

For Eurogamer’s Tapsell, Z-A culminated in being a “hybrid” of Sword and Shield, Legends: Arceus, and Scarlet and Violet.

“It comes wrapped in a layer of enchantingly goofy comedy, as well, with a revival of the series’ signature off-beat humour and oddball characters,” he explained. “It is, in a lot of ways, a bundle of joy. Though there is again a trade to be made for it: for all the invention and charm, Legends: Z-A is also smaller, more confined, a little repetitive. It’s a huge improvement from Scarlet and Violet, but I’m not sure I’d call it a comeback.”

Tapsell continued: “Despite the vagueness at times though, Z-A’s writing is for once a bit of a strength.”

“Altogether it’s a story that returns to the series’ reliable and well-loved beats: a cataclysmic threat, ancient lore, a pleasantly moving, warmly familiar story about both being the chosen one and also being an ordinary kid with just a really strong bond with your Pokémon. And several intermittent baddies with non-sequitur motivations. It’s all very Pokémon X and Y – and that’s just fine.”

Real-time battles

As Arceus did to catching mechanics, Z-A switches out the decades-old, turn-based formula to real-time battling where trainers and their Pokémon move independently from each other. Moves are no longer restricted by Power Points (PP), instead they have cool-down timers and can be used as much as players want in battle.

It takes some time getting used to, as GamesRadar‘s Catherine Lewis found in her four out of five stars review, but “the more you lean into mastering it, the more you’ll have a tactical blast.”

“From the newly dubbed ‘trap moves’ like Spikes and Whirlpool which set up obstacles on the field, to moves like Volt Switch and U-Turn which allow you to play around with the positioning of your ‘mons, there’s now much more to consider in battle,” Lewis explained.

“After learning proper spacing and the best times to retreat and attack yourself, the whole thing comes alive, and the fast, fluid nature of the fights feels delightfully anime-esque.”

This fresh take is a welcome one, though VGC’s Middler suggests it will “likely prove divisive amongst fans” – particularly those who aren’t prepared for the jump between turn-based to real-time.

Though, as VG247’s Lynn points out, the traditional mechanics are still there: “It’s often no different than having to simply wait your turn. The trick is to find the right moveset combination which ensures you’re always – or close to – able to attack your opponent.”

Middler added: “It’s a brilliant twist on the Pokémon battle formula that captures the frantic spontaneity of combat we’ve seen in the anime series. Because everything is real-time and fast-paced, players need to have their wits about them, lest they get jumped by a rival trainer.”

However, like with many other aspects of Z-A, the combat can become repetitive. No two battles are the same, and Eurogamer’s Tapsell reckoned the mechanics could have gone “a smidge deeper.”

“At times combat does descend into button mashing as you wait for something to come off cooldown, or cycle through equally-effective alternative moves while you wait for it. And at other times, still, it feels enjoyably intense, the little symbols for super effective, effective, or not-very-effective that appear on your moves becoming something for you to hyper focus on in a kind of split-attention flow state, as you time move commends to your own dodges, lock-ons and hurling Pokéballs.”

Gotta catch ’em all

Combat takes centre stage in Legends: Z-A, but catching Pokémon doesn’t fall to the wayside. Instead, creatures are relegated to ‘Wild Zones’ throughout the city, that simulate natural habitats – well, as natural as you can get in a city environment.

For many critics, these Wild Zones felt somewhat lacking. “Admittedly, this is less about exploration and catching Pokémon than Legends: Arceus is, but it restricts that sense of discovery and magic that even the mainline ‘Gen’ games have,” Nintendo Life‘s Alana Hagues expressed in review, rating the game 7/10.

“No longer am I walking out into a field and seeing Magikarp in the rivers and Bellsprout in the grass; instead, they’re constrained to tiny pockets of land, most of which are just little parks, boxed-off little streets, or construction sites.”

She continued: “I’m glad Arceus’ catching system is back and still snappy, and you still have to put yourself in danger to ‘catch ’em all’, but in revisiting Lumiose, in being restricted to this city and these zones, and in a Pokédex that lacks variety, it all starts to add up. The return of Mega Evolutions does help to alleviate that somewhat, but I really miss the sense of discovery I get from going to a new place or finding Pokémon in unexpected places.”

Mega Evolution goes hand-in-hand with the new combat system, particularly for Rogue Mega Evolution battles (in which wild Pokémon change form without a trainer). Lynn described these new types of raid encounters as “the closest Pokémon will most likely ever get to a Soulsike.”

“Rogue Mega Evolution battles are fast paced and intense. So much in fact, I occasionally found it a little hard to keep up with what was happening. This doesn’t stop them from being my favourite part of Z-A despite the flaws in the real-time battle mechanics. Each one is a solid improvement over the Legends: Arceus’ boss fights and, unlike Scarlet and Violet’s Tera Raids, it’s a battle I’d actually play online.”

Hagues had a similar experience: “To me, they’re like MMORPG raid battles – watch the attack patterns, try to dodge, expose the ‘mons’ weaknesses, then Mega Evolve for some big damage numbers.

“Because I was actually battling the Rogue Mega and not just running and throwing things, I felt engaged in these fights. They weren’t just an obstacle, but they helped me understand the importance of space and movement in combat. There were even times where I had to recall my Pokémon and hide behind an obstacle to avoid taking damage. It’s another layer of strategy that I wasn’t expecting from Pokémon that I really appreciate – even if those fights can get a little too chaotic and hard to track.”

However, Tapsell judged Mega Evolution in Z-A as another “inventive mechanic that’s fun in isolation but can, by the end, become a little bit of a dirge by virtue of a very rigid structure and repeated visuals for their environments (they all happen in another swirling non-space, as opposed to the real world – not that Lumiose City is enormously varied itself).”

No escaping Lumiose City

Unlike in Pokémon X and Y, players can only explore the Kalos region’s central hub in Z-A – Lumiose City. Staying within this Parisian-styled metropolis is a departure from every mainline Pokémon game, which is a decision that some reviewers including Nintendo Life’s Hagues “[held] the whole game back.”

Hagues found herself “pleasantly surprised” by the density of the city, describing it as “full of alleyways to get lost in and packed with life,” but felt its charms were too quickly exhausted.

“But while I was wandering around the cobbles of Lumiose, I realised it all felt very compact. The city is essentially one big open zone, with a fair amount of verticality […] that means I’d run through and explored the entire place within about five hours. Sure, more Wild Zones unlock as you progress, bringing more Pokémon to catch. But it left very few surprises for the entire game.”

The nightly Battle Zones – where trainers battle each other to take place in the game’s Z-A Royale tournament – also appear in different areas across the city, but Tapsell found this to “get quite repetitive” over time.

“When you’ve done a dozen or so of these, all on largely identical streets, rooftops and alleys, all with actually-identical visual textures, it eventually becomes a grind. Pokémon has always had grinding, of course, being an old-school RPG at heart, but without that thrusting purpose of building up to take on a greater challenge which drives the old XP-grinding of previous games, it’s a grind of the bad kind by the end.”

While Lumiose City doesn’t feel like “a proper Pokémon journey […] in a traditional sense,” as GamesRadar’s Lewis wrote, it instead offers “a different kind of adventure.”

“Crucially, living and breathing city life for an entire RPG means the return to Kalos feels like a true slice of life in the Pokémon world that you’re a part of. That dream sold to us by the Pokémon anime? It’s right here, clearer than it ever has been in the actual games […] The lack of regional adventure may not be to everyone’s taste, but if you’ve ever fantasized about living in the Pokémon world like I have, there’s a lot to love here.”

Lacklustre graphics

One thing that stood out to many critics, though, was the underwhelming graphics and textures on the city’s buildings – particularly when character and Pokémon animations have markedly improved.

“Lumiose has a few lovely sights here and there, but on the whole, Legends: Z-A appears lifeless. Arceus wasn’t a graphical showcase, but that watercolour-style aesthetic gave it a really unique feel,” asserted Hughes.

“New Pokémon Snap looks so much better and more vibrant than this. If clothes can swish around and hair flow through the wind, why can’t we have windows that aren’t just flat textures or shadows that don’t look like bleeding ink blotches on the floor? It’s a little better docked, but not much.”

VGC’s Middler described Z-A as “very much a Nintendo Switch game with a Nintendo Switch 2 patch.”

“Overall, Lumoise City suffers from low detail and flat, repeated textures, which leaves players with the feeling that it was scaled back for Nintendo’s weaker machine, which is a shame.”

Lynn agreed. “What lets it down is the Achilles’ heel of all modern Pokémon games, the graphics and performance. The cracks are present even in the Switch 2 version and, for a franchise entering its thirtieth year in 2026, you’d expect Z-A to be far more polished.

“It undercuts the obvious effort put into development, especially when it comes to the Rogue Mega Evolution fights. Thankfully, these flaws don’t stop Z-A from being an incredibly fun game with a great atmosphere Pokémon fans will enjoy sinking into.”

Z-A does not, at least, seem to be plagued with performance issues as Scarlet and Violet was at release.

“Something I hope Game Freak and The Pokémon Company can keep up on Switch 2 is smooth performance,” Hagues remarked.

“I wish I wasn’t so shocked here, but they’ve managed it in Z-A. Running at a very consistent 60fps in both handheld and docked, with only a few slight dips in extremely busy, late-game battles and some fast menu cycling, it’s honestly a relief. Load times are also relatively snappy in both formats. I wasn’t able to test out the Switch version for review […], but on the newer console at least, it’s a success. If only the visuals were as consistent.”

Overall consensus

As the second installment of the Legends franchise, Z-A left critics optimistic for the future of Pokémon games despite its shortcomings.

“The Legends series appears to be turning into Game Freak’s way of experimenting with the Pokémon franchise,” VG247’s Lynn concluded. “In this way Z-A is mostly a success in how it brings Mega Evolution to the forefront again, returns longtime players to an old region and almost achieves its goal of changing up the battle mechanics.”

Eurogamer’s Tapsell sums Z-A up as a “bridging game” – which he thinks was the purpose of them in the first place.

“[Z-A is] a breezy, charming in-between entry that could argue its limits needn’t be a problem, if only the games it was arriving between were a little sturdier. Instead what we have is a kind of proof of concept. But the concept is so good that you can’t help but feel a little frustrated to be teased with it.”

Nintendo Life’s Hagues, while also appreciating the game’s new additions, concludes that their impact is lost by focusing the game on a single location.

“Instead of feeling like a fresh new spin on the Legends formula, Legend: Z-A squeezes it into an X & Y-shaped sequel,” she wrote.

“The Legends series appears to be turning into Game Freak’s way of experimenting with the Pokémon franchise”

Lottie Lynn, VG247

“In many ways, it’s more focused, but Z-A loses a lot of charm and the smaller environs don’t entice me to dig into every nook and cranny of the city. It’s so close to being a great Pokémon game thanks to that combat, which alone makes it worth picking up. But ultimately, it’s just a good one.”

Hagues concluded: “Pokémon Legends: Z-A should be celebrated for its fabulous real-time combat and its largely smooth jump to the Switch 2, but in condensing things down to one single location, it loses part of the Pokémon magic that Arceus and many other entries managed to amplify.”