Pokemon Legends Z-A Is Disappointing
Oct. 17th, 2025 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glitteringstarsSo, I've played about 5-ish hours of the new Pokemon game, and I gotta say, it's not all that fun nor engaging.
For the record, I have a high tolerance to mid and buggy games. I played and enjoyed Pokemon Shield and Scarlet. I've played the PS4 port for Digimon World: Next Order. I've sunk in dozens of hours into Rune Factory 5. These are all games I've found some enjoyment in, be it the story or the gameplay loop.
PLZA, unfortunately doesn't hit on either. The first five hours failed to really hook me in--the player character goes to Lumiose City with a carpet bag. To do what? Who knows, but they're now forced to stay there as they're wrangled into three different jobs. The characters don't offer much of a hook either besides Urbain, who is looking for someone. Who exactly? Who knows or cares because they don't seem to bothered by it.
So early into the game, there is a complete lack of story stakes or motivation. PLA gave it to us right away through the whole isekai shtick. Sure, ultimately, the player character is still stuck in the past by the end of the game, but it's at least there. Immediate goals were to prove oneself to not get kicked to the wilds. In PLZA, there's nothing! Battle in the Royale because!
Game play wise, it also feels like so much of the early game is on guardrails. I wanted to explore Lumiose, but the game forces you to stick to the "follow me" missions that it became frustrating. It would have been one thing if it the arbitrary quarantine was done with hazards or goofy "this section is off limits" situations, but no, I'm constantly being called to follow the leader to get exposition dumped on. I just want to play the game, damn it.
The action RPG combat system also feels incredibly underbaked. It's not hard, but there's just too much downtime. Coming off of playing 35+ hours of Dragon Age: Inquisition and Origins and hundreds of hours put into the Xenoblade series, this feels incredibly clunky. It wasn't until I watched a video by Imported Cheese that helped me really put my thoughts together on it. I'm not a particular fan of the tone of the video (it's incredibly harsh), but the host makes some good points in regard to what he was anticipating for the gameplay.
Anyway, TLDR: A pokemon fan finds PLZA unfun.
Unrelated, but the game also gave me motion sickness. I also got it when playing DAI until I turned down the camera sensitivity. I turned PLZA's camera sensitivity as low as it would go in anticipation for this and it didn't help. :(
For the record, I have a high tolerance to mid and buggy games. I played and enjoyed Pokemon Shield and Scarlet. I've played the PS4 port for Digimon World: Next Order. I've sunk in dozens of hours into Rune Factory 5. These are all games I've found some enjoyment in, be it the story or the gameplay loop.
PLZA, unfortunately doesn't hit on either. The first five hours failed to really hook me in--the player character goes to Lumiose City with a carpet bag. To do what? Who knows, but they're now forced to stay there as they're wrangled into three different jobs. The characters don't offer much of a hook either besides Urbain, who is looking for someone. Who exactly? Who knows or cares because they don't seem to bothered by it.
So early into the game, there is a complete lack of story stakes or motivation. PLA gave it to us right away through the whole isekai shtick. Sure, ultimately, the player character is still stuck in the past by the end of the game, but it's at least there. Immediate goals were to prove oneself to not get kicked to the wilds. In PLZA, there's nothing! Battle in the Royale because!
Game play wise, it also feels like so much of the early game is on guardrails. I wanted to explore Lumiose, but the game forces you to stick to the "follow me" missions that it became frustrating. It would have been one thing if it the arbitrary quarantine was done with hazards or goofy "this section is off limits" situations, but no, I'm constantly being called to follow the leader to get exposition dumped on. I just want to play the game, damn it.
The action RPG combat system also feels incredibly underbaked. It's not hard, but there's just too much downtime. Coming off of playing 35+ hours of Dragon Age: Inquisition and Origins and hundreds of hours put into the Xenoblade series, this feels incredibly clunky. It wasn't until I watched a video by Imported Cheese that helped me really put my thoughts together on it. I'm not a particular fan of the tone of the video (it's incredibly harsh), but the host makes some good points in regard to what he was anticipating for the gameplay.
Anyway, TLDR: A pokemon fan finds PLZA unfun.
Unrelated, but the game also gave me motion sickness. I also got it when playing DAI until I turned down the camera sensitivity. I turned PLZA's camera sensitivity as low as it would go in anticipation for this and it didn't help. :(
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 10:53 pm (UTC)But yeaaah, I definitely fell for the FOMO.