Pokémon Legends: Z-A trapped me in a Potemkin village

Z-A struggles to push the series forward to the same degree as Pokémon Legends: Arceus, but I still enjoyed much of my 60 hours.

A Potemkin village, according to Wikipedia:

[…] is a construction […] to provide an external façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it actually is.

Thoughts

This game has that Breath of the Wild juice: there’s always another little thing to do right around the corner from your current location. A big laundry list of tasks to keep you occupied. But while it might keep you busy, it lacks the spirit of adventure that keeps Pokémon games engaging. Exploration is largely dead, in favor of grinding and side quests.

I’m a huge fan of both Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Shin Megami Tensei V—games that bring open worlds to more traditional RPG series—but this game misses the mark. It’s not even that I have a problem with a small setting: Dragon Age II is my favorite in the series, and it famously takes place in a single town.

I don’t want Pokémon to feel chained to its past incarnations, but this game is just so lacking in execution of its ideas. You’d really hope that the world’s biggest media franchise could afford to more quality into their video games. But I guess the profit numbers don’t match my dissatisfaction, so who knows when things will improve.

Maybe I should pick up Digimon Story Time Stranger… I’m still not sure why they saw fit to release the same month as a new Pokémon game. But before I get to that, I think Shin Megami Tensei IV is next on my menu. And I also have Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 lying around, in case I want to play the sequel to the Game Boy Color game I enjoyed back in 2019.

Summary

The good

• Catching Pokémon is still largely fun, like in Legends: Arceus

• Many of the new Mega Evolutions are fun and interesting

• Boss theme music is fantastic

• Jacinthe and Lebanne were an entertaining duo

• Canari, Corbeau, and Mable were all fun

• Rooftop traversal is an interesting puzzle mechanic

• The fluidity of fighting/catching in wild zones is remarkable

• Alpha Pokémon and Pokémon swarms made me yelp with fear

• Switching out PP and Accuracy for cooldowns and animation frame advantages is really interesting—I’ve barely scratched the surface of the strategic potential here

The bad

• Lack of voice acting feels like an odd choice given the level of detail put into the scene writing—at least give us “beep beep beeps” when they talk!

• Fast paced trainer battles feel like they lose any strategic interest

• Brutally long “on rails” tutorial segment for the first few hours

• Urbain/Taunie continues the tradition of annoying and braindead ally “rivals”

• Lumiose City is flat, unconvincing, and uninteresting

• You can enter almost zero of the buildings

• The city day/night songs are repetitive and grating

• No bicycle or surfing!

• Real time combat is awkward, especially in small areas with uneven terrain

• Moves don’t lock to their targets or use AoE circles like in MMOs, and hitboxes have a lot of issues

• Holding ZL and ZR so much made my hands hurt

• $30 DLC sold on day 1, with the update slated for February 28, 2026

• NPC draw distance is abysmal and distracting

• Wild Zones are claustrophobic and frustrating compared to Sword/Shield, Legends: Arceus, and Scarlet/Violet—like hunting at a petting zoo instead of a forest

• Final post-credits boss is a bit annoying due to trainer death mechanics

• You literally never leave Lumiose City, and the game even teases you about it if you try

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