Snintendog Pokemon Legends: Z-A Review

Pokemon Z-A POTENTIAL WASTED. Combat is Clunky: the pokemon have HOME next to you so they run up attack run back during the LONG COOL DOWNS between move use. The Enemy AI has no Cooldown and can Spam Attacks this becomes a MAJOR ISSUE if Multiple pokemon spawn or in the Battle Royal mode. But the Pokemon Homing only applies to trainers but due to the move spam its rarely an Issue for the AI. You can ONLY EVER ATTACK WHILE LOCKED ON. ENEMY AI CAN SWAP LOCKS INSTANTLY. Issue in Royal Mode No Double or Triple or any other format of battle. The Items do pause combat but the use of them is NOT Instant there is a wind up time. Trying to fight a pokemon in the water is just a Sisyphean task if the pokemon isn't a water type. They just stop and smash into a invisible wall like you are. Quick TIP. Aerial Ace will be your friend it seems to ignore all the rules to guarantee a hit in close quarters. Really good to Sneak attack with. Also Stalling works wonders. Poison, then Trap the Pokemon by a wall and just WAIT. Overworld Gameplay: To Be honest Aggravating is the ONLY way to describe it. 20 Hour game where 15 of it is UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES that go ON and ON.(Story section for this issue.) You can stealth Kill Everything that isn't Scripted. Yes the "Tournament" Allows KOing pokemon with backstabs... IF IT WORKS. 50% of the time the trainers are Unable to see 1ft in front of them and the other 50% Clear across the map with you "Hidden" in the bushes. To add Injury The other trainers are fine with attacking the trainer for a quick Game over but you ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ATTACK THE TRAINER. This is HILARIOUSLY FRAMED in the Tutorial with Pictures of you stalking a trainer around corner and into an Alleyway to mug (battle) them though. Next is Wild pokemon... Same issue but now they can Run away on sight and fade like a ghost after 2 second of running. This makes certain hunting FAR WORSE. And Finally we hit the Z-A system... You can grind BUT DON'T if you grind it AT ALL you will be over leveled AF for even ONE letter Increase. This is Story gated anyway. The STORY will Put you to rank F within the first 2 hours if you just Blitz it and not worry about the optional EXP grinding. During certain handholding scenes you can get stuck between NPCs and Environment objects if you wander off a little too far and the auto correcting scene has you ping ponging your PC between them before the Path finding finds a way out... the issue. Its about as smart as a roomba to do this so it can last quite a while. and Given how often they do this this can and likely will be a problem encountered. The Parkour system is EXTREMELY Limited and BUGGY. You can leap a full story at times and then struggle to step up an ankle high platform. It is Very inconsistent too. Many time for the Rotom Phone Roof to Roof action it just fails to trigger. and you just fall. Other time it fail MID Trigger and you bonk your head on Schrodinger's Invisible wall. Bosses: Very easy even without Grinding so long as you get used to the BS of the Combat system.. It is just the same but the Bosses have a SUPER BUFFED Def Special Defense and HP The Attacks hit the same. Making it just a HP Sponge Battle usually with the Story team. Music: Its a weird mix of Okay and passable tracks and just BAD. Highly subjective but nothing sounds POKEMON its more Generic than 4kids filler songs. ALL JAZZ NO TUNES. Honestly I have heard better AI songs in the same genre. Visuals: Switch 1 or 2 they are BAD. Major Aliasing issues same as Scarlet and Violet, Arceus, Sword and Shield. HORRIFIC TEXTURE WORK. For 4K textures the World looks WORSE than the 3DS games Blown up to the same internal rendering Res. On top of that There are Insane amounts of Texture seams all over the map and some in cutscenes. One of the worst ones are in the water. You can see the water flowing in two directions due to this in many areas. Clipped Textures are also seen EVERYWHERE Many Building just have half windows going into a different square building. HORRIFIC MODELING WORK. You like Isekai Circle city with Nonsense Primitive made into building with NO Depth? That's all you get. Trees still have SWSH issues. The Entire map is one large model made of primitive shapes for the building and the obstacles placed to stop progress are given a slight tint to them making a glow like effect on them. Due to this they look really out of place.. but big boulders their favorite in the middle of town just look wrong in the first place. Hitting it all home is the Texture work many of them are improperly placed as stated above. But lets not Forget about the Lovely TUMORS all over the city for materials. They can be found on some UNFORTUNATE spots. Needless to say they just LOOK PASTED INTO POSITION CARELESSLY. All of them make no sense and some are for travel too. The Trainers all have a favorite Idle animation and the usual Extreme clash of Modern Human model in pokemon vs the pokemon themselves is. Jarring to say the least. Many NPCs also love to phase out of exist and if you talk to another NPC but this occurs within touching distance too. Pop in is also bad in general. Also many NPCs ten to just randomly Blair witch at walls and corners. To a point I wonder if the game is haunted and ready to give HYPER REALISTIC BLOOOOOD. Pokemon Models are still High quality thanks to Creatures being insane they look fine but Everything else looks AWFUL. FPS is NOT Solid on S2 or S1 They are Wildly Fluctuating and there is no real reason WHY. They AIM for 30 on S1 and 60 on S2.. They don't get either and often stutters are seen all over the place. This is Docked mind you. Res On S1 and S2 are BARELY Noticeable increases Despite S1 being internally 720p Dynamic AKA 360-540p with a Cheese to get 720p out. Impressive how they got it to look so bad. Animations? Same stuff from Scarlet and Violet so don't expect much there have been NO improvement again. Once again there is Almost no interiors to the world at best 2 places are enter able. The Camera is also very dangerous.. Many times i got crotch shot of trainer throwing pokemon into walls and being summoned at their crotch..... Yeah. The Camera is bad with Geometry. Story: Its exactly what you think Bland Basic the Main Gimmick of the Game the Z-A ranks doesn't MATTER AT ALL. F-A are Story gated so the whole tournament is basically handed to you anyway and the post tutorial "boss" just grants you F. No matter if you are still Z or not. The Game is Endlessly Handholdy Literally telling you solutions to Puzzles that you have already solved BEFORE BEING ASKED TO SOLVE THEM. The Team MZ... Dear Lord they just don't SHUT UP. If you thought XY was wordy with that group this one is so bad you can be MASHING A for 30 Minutes STRAIGHT NOT READING and have not missed a SINGLE story or plot point that is important... yeah they are so unimportant to the Plot and wasting of your time the game could ONLY Benefit its 5 hour gameplay loop by REMOVING THEM. MGS4 Hold NOTHING on the Slice of life BS they force on you via Text. The Plot itself was so predictable every fan theory from XY was correct about the City and Zygard...Just a waste of time since the fans already wrote this out before at higher quality. And Finally the Cutscenes.... ZOOM ROTATE SNAP. TIKTOK GRADE EDITING. Same BS we have seen since SWSH Models are DEAD and rotate in place the camera Zooms in to a fade into black and stuff happens off screen and WHOOOO Progress. Now repeat this for everything in the plot. At least the MC emotes a little this time. Big Bad is a little charming this time around... but just like the darkest day its such an idiotic plot its aneurysm inducing. Lore is basically Forgotten and ignored just a nod here and there the bare MINIMUM. But BIG BAD CORPO is BIG BAD. Also Croissants are the New NPC Obsession in the game. Remember the ENTIRE Game is on One map the Small tiny City about the size of a small part of Jubilife. THE EVIL: Game is 80$ Face it the S1 version is no deal and the s2 is the only one with 30+ frames. DAY1 DLC 30$ for that and its bad. ONE Promised DLC and a 2nd in the works for ANOTHER 30$ all for what Pokemon compatibility that should have been in the game from the start and getting any transferred pokemon STUCK in Z-A due to them Tweaking the PKSMfile saving. 110$+ for an incomplete buggy trash piece of a game that doesn't even function right with no hope for updates that are worth anything. That looks Horrendous that PERFORMS Horrible has no polish or care and locks stuff behind a paywall from the start and time gates exclusive items with a POSSIBLE BATTLE PASS that has been DATA MINED. Lets Not forget that the ONLINE Multiplayer is needed to be played in the first few months to get RARE items for the pokemon starters of XY to Mega Evolve. FOMO tactics. But lets not also forget some Evil Real world inclusion such as Anti Homeless benches, Remember Pokemon was supposed to be the Utopian version of our world with only a few super natural issues cropping up here and there. DEI Negatives: Just to rub salt into the wounds. 1. As it is we have the Forced Diversity throughout the entire main Cast. Gotta get ALL the tokens. 2. Random Core NPCs IE Joys are just Randomly and Haphazardly changed from time to time. So No more clones BUT they are all Diversity with the same face and hair just new skin tones or stoner eyes. IRONICALLY in the opening of the game You get your bag stolen and they choose... Ill Fitting NPCs to be the ones that stole from you. 3. You have the Avoidance of Proper Pronouns for Males and Females Again through the entire game. 4. We have Retcons of past pokemon games such as replacing Characters from XY with new Diverse ones. (not like the XY Characters were any good in the first place still principle of the Matter. ) 5. We have a PLETHORA of new Clothing and Hair cuts all Mirroring the Typical Candy fades and fashions that these types like being available to both genders but at this point I cant tell which of these UGLY STYLES are Male or Female Based. But The Typical Skirts on Males is an option. Females As usual don't have a lot of Options in general for Femininity so tomboy or Punk is generally what you will get if you don't want the modern hipster fashions. 6. Lots of HIP YOUNG Lingo is added to the translation that wasn't in the JP translation so we have Localization Vandalism On top of everything else. 7. Vtuber Slop. Of which paints her abuse towards her grandfather as a quirk. Overall:1/10 <0 BROKEN BAD GAMES 1-3 Horrific Games, 4-7 Passable Games, 8-10 Good Games, 11 The Most perfect game in the world.> Game is BROKEN the Combat is a COMPLETELY BOTCHED SYSTEM and More of the Same Otherwise. Same bad story, Same Bad Visuals, Same bad difficulty being all Artificial. The Price is LUDICROUS. Solution: Just go play Gen 6 and Back pokemon games. This was HOT GARBAGE. Or Better Yet Play Palworld and Digimon Time Stranger.