Pokémon Legends: Z-A (Coming 2025)

[Salamander]

If the game has a big enough map, then it shouldn't be too much trouble to scatter all the Vivillon forms around it (saving maybe one or two for special events, raids or whatever).  Paldea easily had room for a dozen more Squawkabillys.

Edited February 27 by Salamander

[Lorekitten]

1 minute ago, Salamander said:

Paldea easily had room for a dozen more Squawkabillys.

That's a scary thought.

[Salamander]

Not saying it would've been a good idea, mind... but they could have done it!  Just treat the Vivillon forms as collectibles and scatter them around in suitable locations.

[Sonictrainer]

Here's a Map of Lumiose City from X & Y

[Tornado]

I'm legitimately shocked. I expected nothing and still assumed I would be let down. Never in a million years would I have thought that they were going to

1. Not announce the inevitably shit B/W remakes.
2. Not have it come out in like three months from now or something.

So for them to be announcing another Legends, and to have it come out next year.

 

 

 

Wow.

[Sega DogTagz]

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

So for them to be announcing another Legends, and to have it come out next year

That suckers gonna monkey paw and Ship Jan 1st

 

 

I don't trust anything Pokemon anymore. I thought Mega Evolution was the best mechanic, and the idea of getting another round of new forms of that is intriguing - but even that isn't enough to move the needle for me on another entry on the Legends side. Our first look at gameplay better be polished to high heaven or people are going to riot.

[Lorekitten]

10 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

I don't trust anything Pokemon anymore. I thought Mega Evolution was the best mechanic, and the idea of getting another round of new forms of that is intriguing - but even that isn't enough to move the needle for me on another entry on the Legends side. Our first look at gameplay better be polished to high heaven or people are going to riot.

I will admit that after the utter travesty that was ScVi's frame rate, I don't intend on buying any more Pokemon games day one. That doesn't mean I'll never buy this one at all; it only means I'm more cautious, and I absolutely understand why anyone else would be after what we've been getting.

[Maple Syrup]

1 hour ago, Lorekitten said:

I will admit that after the utter travesty that was ScVi's frame rate, I don't intend on buying any more Pokemon games day one. That doesn't mean I'll never buy this one at all; it only means I'm more cautious, and I absolutely understand why anyone else would be after what we've been getting.

Especially with Pokémon games, we need to wait for the review. That's what I usually do instead randomly buying video games.

Edited February 28 by Maple Syrup

[Salamander]

10 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

That suckers gonna monkey paw and Ship Jan 1st

I don't trust anything Pokemon anymore. I thought Mega Evolution was the best mechanic, and the idea of getting another round of new forms of that is intriguing - but even that isn't enough to move the needle for me on another entry on the Legends side. Our first look at gameplay better be polished to high heaven or people are going to riot.

I looked back at the Legends: Arceus announcement back in 2021 (i.e. pretty much a year before it was released), and that had actual gameplay footage - pretty remarkable considering that it was also competing for space with BDSP.  Legends Z-A just has a concept trailer, though.  That tells me that the game's visuals aren't ready to show off yet, and so it's almost certainly not due until mid-2025 at the earliest.  I'm reasonably confident that we're looking at the transition to four-year generations here... but it's a fair shout that we can't be sure about that until the next time we see any footage from the game.  I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't until next year's Pokemon Presents.

[Lorekitten]

Arlo did a video about Legends ZA's release date and speculated that they may have delayed it specifically so it can debut on the Switch's successor (which is rumored for a 2025 release), which is entirely possible except that it doesn't actually fit their past trends of not having their games released for new systems on the first year that system's out. I say 'entirely possible' because they have bucked trends before and they shall buck trends again because that is just what they've been doing, but personally I wouldn't be surprised either way.

Edited February 28 by Lorekitten

[Rabid-Coot]

Cross gen games are incredibly common now I could easily see them doing that and having a crusty Switch version and a better new system version.

[Kuzu]

17 hours ago, Tornado said:

I'm legitimately shocked. I expected nothing and still assumed I would be let down. Never in a million years would I have thought that they were going to

1. Not announce the inevitably shit B/W remakes.
2. Not have it come out in like three months from now or something.

So for them to be announcing another Legends, and to have it come out next year.

 

 

 

Wow.

Having low expectations is a good thing. You can always be surprised when something good happens.

[Salamander]

Jumping promptly onto a new console isn't really how GameFreak rolls; and hanging back gives them more time to get to grips with said new console and develop a little technical expertise (which has been a real problem area for them in the Switch era).  So long as the Switch 2 is backwards compatible (it will be), Nintendo won't mind GameFreak taking their time a little - though only a little.  We know they weren't enormously happy with B2W2 being released on the DS over a year after the 3DS came out and Iwata had to put the boot into GF to make those games something really special.

[Lorekitten]

29 minutes ago, Salamander said:

Jumping promptly onto a new console isn't really how GameFreak rolls; and hanging back gives them more time to get to grips with said new console and develop a little technical expertise (which has been a real problem area for them in the Switch era).

Yeah. The fact that Game Freak had previously done all their mainline Pokemon titles on handhelds didn't really prepare them at all for Switch hardware, and watching them progressively crash and burn over the entire console gen was painful from every perspective possible. They have literally the biggest multimedia franchise ever in the history of the universe, and they have no idea how to manage it.

While the announcement of the game everyone wanted and no one expected has filled me with renewed hope for the franchise, I'm cautiously optimistic because they've shown their capacity for messing things up. Still, the fact that they're actually listening to what the fandom wants means I'm willing to give them a chance. I'm still probably not buying this thing day one because I've been burned too many times and it's gonna cost sixty bucks or more, but the fact this game exists at all is a step in the right direction.

[Zaysho]

When they announced gen 9 a month after Arceus released, I got the impression TPC had sent that game out to die basically (though as I understand it did well) so I'm very pleased we're getting another game in the series. I personally liked XY so getting to see more of Kalos could be a good thing since it was pretty underdeveloped compared to other gens and most of the gaps we had filled in for it were the anime and shoving Ash-Greninja and the Zygarde forms into SM with zero fanfare.

[Sega DogTagz]

13 hours ago, Salamander said:

  Legends Z-A just has a concept trailer, though.  That tells me that the game's visuals aren't ready to show off yet

Both Sc/Vt and Legends launched -and remained to this day- with visuals that other companies would consider not ready to show off yet.

All I'm saying is any good will GF gets by actually letting this one simmer in the oven goes right out the window if we see a choppy 10 FPS windmill in the eventual reveal trailer.

 

Edited February 28 by Sega DogTagz

[Sonicka]

2 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Both Sc/Vt and Legends launched -and remained to this day- with visuals that other companies would consider not ready to show off yet.

All I'm saying is any good will GF gets by actually letting this one simmer in the oven goes right out the window if we see a choppy 10 FPS windmill in the eventual reveal trailer.

 

10 frames? That’s pretty generous for GF actually

[Sonictrainer]

Many fans are thinking Snivy, Scorbunny, and Piplup might be the Starters this time around

• The Snivy Family has French influence in their designs
• Scorbunny's the only Fire Starter with a Pure Fire FInal Evolution. Not to mention Soccer's popularity in France
• People think Piplup might be the Water Starter because of Empoleon

Also, there's already fanart of Mega Charizard Z, which was something I didn't even think about

[Salamander]

I actually wouldn't be surprised if the starters were just the classic XY trio of Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie.  Those three have been waiting for their second innings for over ten years now, and whatever the starters would be then they're less likely to get new regional forms than they are to get Mega Evolutions, so it really just makes sense.  Though the XY trio will be getting new Megas regardless of whether they're still the starters or not.

In fact, in general I would imagine things like hypothetical Kalosian forms will be taking a back seat in Z-A in favour of new Mega Evolutions, largely focussed on Gen VI Pokemon.  Mid-generation games only get about a couple dozen new additions, and once you've given Megas to all the Kalos Pokemon who would've gotten one in Z then that doesn't leave you many slots.  Ironically, there's a pretty good chance Zygarde won't be getting anything new.  Arceus didn't, and Zygarde already has a clutch of forms that just got shoehorned into Sun/Moon without ever getting the spotlight; this is their moment.

[Johnny Boy]

30 minutes ago, Salamander said:

I actually wouldn't be surprised if the starters were just the classic XY trio of Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie.  Those three have been waiting for their second innings for over ten years now, and whatever the starters would be then they're less likely to get new regional forms than they are to get Mega Evolutions, so it really just makes sense.  Though the XY trio will be getting new Megas regardless of whether they're still the starters or not.

In fact, in general I would imagine things like hypothetical Kalosian forms will be taking a back seat in Z-A in favour of new Mega Evolutions, largely focussed on Gen VI Pokemon.  Mid-generation games only get about a couple dozen new additions, and once you've given Megas to all the Kalos Pokemon who would've gotten one in Z then that doesn't leave you many slots.  Ironically, there's a pretty good chance Zygarde won't be getting anything new.  Arceus didn't, and Zygarde already has a clutch of forms that just got shoehorned into Sun/Moon without ever getting the spotlight; this is their moment.

I wouldn’t mind if the starters in this one were the actual Kalos starters with mega evolutions too. But I still hope there will be regional forms in this, though obviously they’d take a huge backseat to mega evolution. They should probably limit it to Pokemon from gens 7-9.

[Lorekitten]

Since Dialga and Palkia got new forms in Legends Arceus, I want Xerneas and Yveltal to get new forms in ZA. I've had this really cool idea for years of Xerneas and Yveltal wearing 'armor' made of Zygarde cells like they're Venom symbiotes...

[Salamander]

1 hour ago, Lorekitten said:

Since Dialga and Palkia got new forms in Legends Arceus, I want Xerneas and Yveltal to get new forms in ZA. I've had this really cool idea for years of Xerneas and Yveltal wearing 'armor' made of Zygarde cells like they're Venom symbiotes...

So, Zygarde Complete is what you get when a 50% Zygarde absorbs the other 50% of its cells, right?  It's not so great a stretch to suggest that you could have those 50% cells merge with another Pokemon entirely.  A bit like Black/White Kyurem, actually...

[Lorekitten]

4 minutes ago, Salamander said:

So, Zygarde Complete is what you get when a 50% Zygarde absorbs the other 50% of its cells, right?  It's not so great a stretch to suggest that you could have those 50% cells merge with another Pokemon entirely.  A bit like Black/White Kyurem, actually...

That was exactly my inspiration. I was also inspired by Gen 7's Necrozma forms -- if both Gens 5 and 7 had legendary fusions, I wanted Gen 6 to get them as well.

[NegaMix]

Regional forms have been taking more of a backseat recently, especially with Paldea favouring to create divergent Pokémon species instead, with only Paldean Tauros as a direct variant. So I'd be genuinely surprised if they decide to introduce new, Kalosian forms of Pokémon in Legends Z-A.

The return of Mega Evolution already gives the designers an excuse to create new Pokémon variants, so I feel like any new additions will primarily be Mega Evos, with maybe a divergent species or two for variety.

[Lorekitten]

16 minutes ago, NegaMix said:

Regional forms have been taking more of a backseat recently, especially with Paldea favouring to create divergent Pokémon species instead, with only Paldean Tauros as a direct variant. So I'd be genuinely surprised if they decide to introduce new, Kalosian forms of Pokémon in Legends Z-A.

The return of Mega Evolution already gives the designers an excuse to create new Pokémon variants, so I feel like any new additions will primarily be Mega Evos, with maybe a divergent species or two for variety.

First off, Paldean Wooper says hi. (Admittedly, Clodsire replaced Paldean Quagsire, but no one is complaining about that because Clodsire is awesome.)

Second, while I do hope that we get new Mega Evolutions, I'd also like to see new regional forms (and perhaps even more lookalike forms like Toedsool and Wiglett) because unlike Mega Evolutions, these forms won't all get shelved once they leave Kalos behind. Even if we retain the status quo of not every Pokemon makes it into each game, at least regional forms have much more of a chance at returning for the next gen than gimmick forms.