Hello all. So it's Pokémon Day, which means a brand new Pokémon Presents video. I thought I'd go ahead and post the video here and share a few of my initial reactions to what was revealed. So, here we go.
Now, I don't play Pokémon Sleep (or any of the mobile games), but I will say it's appropriate that they're doing a Darkrai event for the game.
The newly announced Pokémon Champions game certainly looks interesting. I do like that both Mega Evolutions and Terastilization are both going to be present. It makes one wonder if every single past gimmick from the core games will be present.
But let's get to the main reason why everyone wanted to watch this video, Pokémon Legends: Z-A. I have to say, while the game looks amazing, it is not at all what I had expected. Given what we had with Legends: Arceus, I was expecting we'd be traveling once more into the Pokémon world's past, but this game clearly takes place after the events of X and Y. I mean we have AZ and his Floette running a hotel in the story. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it does feel like kind of a letdown because it's sort of a missed opportunity for more world building.
The fact that this game takes place in modern day Kalos post X and Y also means that we likely won't be seeing any new regional forms, which is probably bad news for the final evolutions of the three Starter Pokémon in the game. On that note, the three starters they chose for Legends: Z-A is a little odd. Legends: Arceus gave us more of a mixed bag, while this game just gives us the other two Johto Starters not in Legends: Arceus and Tepig. I'm not saying this is a bad thing; it's just kind of a weird surprise. These are three Starter Pokémon who's final evolutions could certainly benefit from getting a regional form, but since that's unlikely to happen it's possible they may be getting new Mega Evolutions.
Mega Evolutions do look like they're poised to make a major comeback. Not only is the gimmick front and center in Legends: Z-A, they're also making a return in that upcoming Pokémon Champions game seen earlier in the video. So it could be that they may not be brining back Mega Evolutions for the next generation of core series games, but they are bringing them back for Champions. Which any potential new Mega Evolutions that show up are likely intended for Champions rather than that core Gen.10 games. I could be totally wrong about this, but that's the feeling I'm getting right now.
Getting back to Legends: Z-A, the story certainly feels like it had a lot of potential. This corporation doing the updates to Lumios City certainly feels like they could turn out to be another villainous team, which I'm rather hopeful for. We haven't had a really hardcore evil organization in a Pokémon game since Sun and Moon (I'm talking about the Aether Foundation, not Team Skull). I'm guessing though that a big part of this game's story is that the company doing these renovations to Lumios City is going to somehow tick off Zygarde, which would track with Zygarde being a living environmental defense system. The only thing about Legends: Z-A that has me raising an eyebrow at the moment is the game's battle system, which has you leading your Pokémon around to avoid attacks.
So the big thing we still don't know about Legends: Z-A is its specific release date, but at least we know a lot more about the game than we did a year ago. One thing we know is that a lot of my previous theories about the game are crap. This is not a repeat of Legends: Arceus where we get to go into a region's distant past. The feels more like the Pokémon Company's attempt to give us Pokémon Z, the definitive version of X and Y that we were denied years ago because all of the company's energy went into developing OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire and then Sun and Moon almost immediately after X and Y came out. In any case, I'm really looking forward to what this game is going to be like. We should hopefully be getting more updates about it here in the near future.
As for the announcements related to Scarlet and Violet in the video, I'm kind of indifferent to most of them. A lot of the events they have coming up feel pretty insignificant to me.
But yeah, I think that covers all of the major revelations from the video. Until we meet again.
Update: A little more on the battle system for Legends: Z-A. These are apparently going to be more like the kind of battles one would expect to find in a modern day RPG type of video game. Another video I saw indicated that attacks will even have a cooldown period after using them. So I feel like I'm a little more prepared for this after playing the Sword Art Online video games, Fatal Bullet and Fractured Daydream. But yeah, this sort of goes beyond even the types of battles that the Pokémon anime has given us in the past. I also feel like Mega Evolutions are a better fit for this type of battle. In fact I wonder if Mega Evolutions will have some sort of time limit in these battles? I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.
Of course another question that comes to mind is whether or not we'll continue to have these live battles in the next generation of core series Pokémon games (which likely won't come out until 2026). It'd certainly change a lot of things if they did. I feel like it'd affect competitive Pokemon gameplay, but maybe that's why they're coming out with Pokémon Champions. Again, only time will tell.
Update 2: It just occurred to me that with this new battle system for Legends: Z-A, Legendary Pokémon battles are likely going to be intense! The wild Zygarde encountered in the game will likely have three HP gauges or something. Hopefully these battles won't be as intense as the frenzy battles against the Noble Pokémon in Legends: Arceus, but we shall see.
