Pokemon Legends: Z-A Reviews
Pokémon Legends: Z-A shows that Game Freak benefits from stepping outside its comfort zone. The urban adventure in Illumis brings a breath of fresh air with its vertical exploration, real-time battles, and revamped Mega Evolutions. The game remains visually modest, but offers excellent fluidity on Switch 2 and generous content. While not revolutionary, it's a masterful and enjoyable evolution that gives the series a nice dose of energy and modernity. I really enjoyed the experience and am happy to see that the team has made solid improvements to enrich its Pokémon Legends spin-off series. I sincerely hope that Game Freak continues down this path, as I'm becoming more and more attracted to this formula.
Review in French | Read full review
Pokémon Legends ZA is a game designed to make you angry. Not because it's difficult or poorly designed: in terms of gameplay, even though it doesn't innovate much and instead relies on tried and tested formulas (real-time battles add a little extra excitement), it works. Aesthetically and technically, however, we are talking about a title that borders on indecency, and no, it cannot be blamed on the Nintendo Switch. ZA is a potentially very interesting video game, trapped inside a terrible shell.
Review in Italian | Read full review
So where does that leave us? For me, Pokémon Legends Z-A is a strong, positive step forward in the “Legends” branch of the series.
Pokémon Legends Z-A is a hilarious game that captivates you for hours and offers tons of things to do, with an entertaining and dynamic combat system that never feels repetitive, as well as an interesting story. A combination of things that kept us glued to the controller for the nearly 25 hours it took us to finish it.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Pokémon Legends: Z-A sets a new technical benchmark for the series, achieving a smooth 60 FPS on the Switch 2 while revolutionizing combat with an engaging real-time system. Despite its strong narrative cohesion and challenging boss fights, the adventure is slightly muted by the absence of voice acting and the overly simplified 'wild zones,' which remove much of the excitement of natural discovery.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A is a perfectly decent game, but it needed a little more planning and better ideas. The new combat system works very well in many cases, but in some cases it fails completely. The plot itself is quite schematic and follows a repetitive pattern throughout most of the game, which works to the detriment of this game. However, overall, it is not a bad game by any means, but simply contains elements that needed modification or improvement.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Pokémon Legends: Z-A successfully balances the mechanics that worked in its predecessor, incorporates other essential aspects of the main series, and presents a highly entertaining adventure alongside the pocket monsters through Lumiose City. The title isn't perfect, of course, but with an innovative combat system and such a well-represented exploration of human-Pokémon interactions, it's impossible not to see Legends: Z-A as a major step in the right direction for the franchise. Now, the expectation is that the next generation of games in the main series will follow the same path of creativity and exploration seen here.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Pokémon Legends: Z-A is more than just a book in the series. It is a complete transformation. It demonstrates how, even after thirty years, Pokémon can still astound you.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A captures the dream that the series was always based on: not just catching creatures, but living with them. You can do this by exploring rooftops at sunset, finding secret species in back alleys, or just sitting at a café with your favorite Pokémon.
Pokémon Legends Z-A delivers fast, real-time battles and a focused story set entirely in Lumiose City. The new combat system feels fresh, and performance on Nintendo Switch 2 is rock solid. While early fights are a bit easy, its style, polish, and city detail make this one of the best Pokémon experiences in years.
Game Freak is at their best when they’re allowed to break from the usual formula, and Pokémon Legends: Z-A is proof of that. Just like Legends: Arceus before it, this game shows how much potential the series still has when it stops trying to follow its own rules. Even after nearly three decades of trainer battles, there’s still room for Pokémon to grow into something that feels fresh without losing what made it special in the first place. Sure, there are still some technical mishaps and few tragic traditions (no voice-acting, for one), but Legends: Z-A has that magic that breathes new life into the franchise. If this is the kind of creative direction Game Freak is setting up for Generation 10, then there’s plenty to be hopeful for in Pokémon’s future.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A dares to reinvent itself with action-driven battles and a lively world, but stumbles over its own ambitions. The ideas are strong, the execution less so. A step forward, but far from a revolution.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
Pokémon Legends: Z-A wins you over with its simple yet mystery-filled narrative, open-world design, and easy Pokémon management, but it's the dynamism of the new real-time combat that kept me playing long after the credits rolled. It's a very fun and easy-to-play game, which suffers from poor graphics quality.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Pokemon Legends Z-A delivers fast, polished battles in Lumiose City, but limited exploration and shallow side content hold it back from being truly great.
It's an adventure as strategic as it is spectacular, which finally gives the series back that little bit of magic we thought was lost.
Review in French | Read full review
It's not the perfect Pokémon, but it is one of the bravest and most consistent in the evolution that the Legends series is beginning to consolidate, with the added benefit of a successful localization for Latin America.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Aside from the weak environmental graphics, the setting is also impressive. It's been a long time since we've felt so much desire to simply explore the world in a "Pokémon" game, inspecting every alley and every rooftop. The developers' courage to try something new has certainly paid off. As long as real-time battles aren't a no-go per se, Pokémon fans can buy it with a clear conscience.
Review in German | Read full review
A decent enough game that fails to innovate in the same way Legends Arceus did, Pokemon Legends Z-A feels like a wasted opportunity that may only be worth it for die-hard fans.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A offers a great, new way of play while offering an expansive city to explore. Though the game isn't pretty in the slightest, it's hard not to enjoy everything this package has to offer.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
Pokemon Legends: Z-A changes the pace with an exhilarating new combat system and exciting new Mega Evolutions to discover, all centred around a familiar yet oddly different setting that pays tribute to one of Game Freak’s most underrated regions.