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News Pokémon Legends Z-A announced for Nintendo Switch, releasing in 2025

Cool.
Hopefully they'll improve the combat system compared to the first game. Some form of online interaction would be a good addition as well.

Z-A makes me, and i'm sure many others, think of AZ more than anything else.
Although right now it makes me want to play through Mega Man ZX.
 
Man the best part of this announcement is the tacit confirmation they're continuing the Legends series. It getting an announcement instead of a ILCA remake and Let's Go, despite Arceus selling less than either (iirc), is a great sign for the future of the series as a whole

The fact that it's probably an open city game, instead of just sticking to what worked with Arcues, is imo even better. I like the fact that GameFreak is actually open to trying new experimental stuff these days.
 
I've been so excited for Z-A that I didn't even realize there were no NSO updates! I was really hoping for Gens 1-3 on NSO (+Expansion Pack for Gen 3)
 
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Wockio said:
I doubt Pokemon will attack you in this one, unless Lumiose starts out as a barren wasteland
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Could you imagine just trying to get a cup of coffee in the morning and having to deal with a Hawlucha jumping off a building to slam into you
 
I hope they go full on switch 2 port, because I think GameFreak has been hiring for next gen game development since 2022, I’ll see if I can find this information.
 
My boy Zygarde getting the respect it deserves finally.
In my dream scenario and how i envisioned a Legends Zygarde they can fuse the PkmnLA system of HM Pokemon and SV Koraidon/Miraidon and give us a companion Zygarde from 10% to maybe a 25% (flying/gliding pokemon) then the 50% for rocks and stuff then a 70%/75%/80% battle focused and the 100% for the finale epic battle (then unlocked by the true ending like Arceus in LA after battling it) and of course the core cute one as the shoulder cute Pokemon that Koraidon and Miraidon lack.
It's perfect!.
 
pinetree said:
I don't think so, the Z completes the A. Also they're calling it Legends ZA.
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"Z-A" is probably easier to say than "Z-Lambda". But the third stroke of the Z completing the A is weird given the style differences. If that was their intention, I say it doesn't come across well
 
Leo said:
Ok, I see what you mean. Although I think GSC was more the case of the game being essentially a GBC game that was down ported to the GB, since Crystal came later and wasn't compatible anymore.

GF does love these little (and imo overcomplicated) gimmicks using different paraphernalia, but I don't think that indicates they will be willing to work on an enhanced game experience for PLZA on the Switch 2. They might have some small feature like that unlocking when you play on/connect with the Switch 2 somehow, but in the end, I think they're not going to take the "let's work more on polishing this because the hardware allows us to" approach when they are always on a tight schedule and could just... Not do it.
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It shouldn't take a huge amount of effort or polish. Compile, bugfix, increase the resolution (and/or framerate if the engine allows it).

I wouldn't expect much if anything beyond what's cheap, fast, and marketable, like resolution.
 
If nothing else, I’m extremely glad that Z-A isn’t being rushed for the 2024 holiday season.

Giving Game Freak enough time to make a game with performance that matches their creative vision is the key to them producing good games, no caveats needed.
 
JB2448 said:
If nothing else, I’m extremely glad that Z-A isn’t being rushed for the 2024 holiday season.

Giving Game Freak enough time to make a game with performance that matches their creative vision is the key to them producing good games, no caveats needed.
Click to expand...
That's not a guarantee regardless of when this game launches in 2025.
 
Wockio said:
I doubt Pokemon will attack you in this one, unless Lumiose starts out as a barren wasteland
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If Pokemon are attacking you there are some pretty big problems with this city planning

There's a freakin' Gyarados in the canal
 
BassForever said:
That's not a guarantee regardless of when this game launches in 2025.
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Content wise, I've been quite happy with their output. In terms of performance and polish, it's clear they've been rushing more and more from Sword and Shield to Legends Arceus to Scarlet and Violet. This is the first off year for core series Pokémon content of any kind since 2015. I believe in this studio.
 
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There's a lot to love about this announcement, but the part that clicks the most for me is having the game set in one big city. One thing I feel Pokemon has been struggling with after shifting to 3D is properly scaled urban environments. Big 3D cities are tough, and I remember reading multiple game designers point out how it's not a coincidence that most big open world games either take place in one big city, a tolkien style fantasy land, or a post apocalyptic world. PLA solved this by being set in the past and focusing on a developing village as the main hub, and S/V "solved" this by having the cities be a joke and nothing more than set dressing.

But part of me always thought the setting of PLA lost a part of the charm that came with Pokemon. It was always positioned as contemporary and I felt a big part of its appeal was the idea that the Pokemon world is not THAT different from ours outside of the Pokemon themselves. It makes for the perfect escapism especially for kids. So making a legends style game set in one big city and having the focus be specifically on Pokemon and people living in harmony within the city is a pretty cool concept.

Final thought I had about the reveal has to do with the whole Legends subseries. I have a feeling they won't treat it the way they used to with remakes, and won't approach these as the "Sinnoh" legends game and the "Kalos" legends game. Instead, I think they want the subseries to focus on any possible stories in existing regions, with the setting and time period varying depending on the game concept rather than the other way around. It gives them a lot of flexibility here, and could lead to really interesting ideas later down the line. Maybe next we get a Pokemon Legends Ultra Space? Or something even more left field like Legends Kitakami? Might as well go full experimental compared to how formulaic remakes used to be.
 
I see that no one commented on these details.

It seems that Lumiose City is set in the present or the near future.
This is because in the trailer you can see that the NPCs that appear are wearing current clothes, they are not wearing clothes from the past or anything similar, and you can also see people sitting in present-day cafes having a coffee.

On the other hand, we probably already have the full map of Lumiose City, but I don't see anyone talking about this being the map.

On the other hand, if this is the map, I doubt we will see vehicles moving through the city, since there does not seem to be space for vehicles or a road network, the only place for vehicles would be the 4 large avenues in north, south, east and west, but since they don't go anywhere, they are most likely just parked cars like in Lumiose City when you see the Taxi. That would make it lose the feeling of being in a city, but perhaps Lumiose City's redevelopment plan to make a better place for Pokémon and humans to coexist is exactly about that, and therefore the lack of vehicles makes narrative sense. .

331e9744b1af0f6ff5a8c2faf74edaab.png


On the other hand, speaking of the "Legends" branch, it seems that it is not closed to having a regional order, nor place, nor time, nor game concept, it seems that "Legends" will be a place where they feel comfortable with concepts of gameplay and unique game ideas and design for the concept of each installment of "Legends", this opens up many possibilities to face the appearance of regions, cities, characters, ways of playing, etc. in a thousand ways. For example we could see a Kanto story centered on Silph, or a Hoenn story centered on outer space, or a Johto story centered on the Goldenrod City Radio Tower (to say some crazy ideas and nonsense).

For example, if Legends Arceus focused on exploration, fighting against nature and Pokémon in the wild, with hardly any trainers. Here the concept will be different, we will face the urban environment, while in PLA everything was wild Pokémon and non-existent Trainers, here it could be the opposite, many battles against Trainers in the City and few wild encounters. The concept of the game is totally different.

I love that "Legends" is going to be a branch that allows you to do unique things, and even this allows you to repeat regions within the same branch of "Legends", I could return again to Kalos or Sinnoh, or have two "Legends" of any region in different generations.
 
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Magic-Man said:
I wonder how they're going to handle the raging Pokemon in a city like this. Heck, I wonder how they'll handle the city period. That kinda goes against how Arceus played.
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I think expecting the Legends subseries to have similar gameplay is probably not a safe bet. The title may just be what they call their ambitious, experimental titles now

At most I'd expect them to keep the collect-them-all aspect, but maybe recontextualizing it somehow. Perhaps you have to study Pokemon to see how they'd best integrate into the city?
 
Magic-Man said:
I wonder how they're going to handle the raging Pokemon in a city like this. Heck, I wonder how they'll handle the city period. That kinda goes against how Arceus played.
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I had a fever dream idea (while playing Ghostwire Tokyo of all games) of a Legends style Pokemon game set in a big city like Tokyo where you get quests similar to urban legends centered around specific Pokemon and you go to different parts of the city following a chain of events to investigate and catch that Pokemon. Think PLA's legendary Pokemon quests crossed with in-game event Pokemon like Rotom or Lapras. Could be a cool concept to apply to a city like Lumiose as well, and it allows them to keep a similar quest/catching focused structure like Arceus while dropping the early Pokedex angle.
 
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NabiscoFelt said:
I think expecting the Legends subseries to have similar gameplay is probably not a safe bet. The title may just be what they call their ambitious, experimental titles now

At most I'd expect them to keep the collect-them-all aspect, but maybe recontextualizing it somehow. Perhaps you have to study Pokemon to see how they'd best integrate into the city?
Click to expand...
I don't think they would completely remove everything that people loved about Arceus, there has to be something here we're not seeing. Maybe something happened to the city and we have to go in and fix it?
 
NabiscoFelt said:
I think expecting the Legends subseries to have similar gameplay is probably not a safe bet. The title may just be what they call their ambitious, experimental titles now

At most I'd expect them to keep the collect-them-all aspect, but maybe recontextualizing it somehow. Perhaps you have to study Pokemon to see how they'd best integrate into the city?
Click to expand...

I think the "Legends" moniker now will refer to games set in past showing how the Pokémon World came to be, i.e. how the relationships between humans and Pokémon originated and evolved in different places.

That can still mean something mechanically, as you won't be interacting with Pokémon in the modern world way, so there will be other forms of battling and catching.
 
Leo said:
I think the "Legends" moniker now will refer to games set in past showing how the Pokémon World came to be, i.e. how the relationships between humans and Pokémon originated and evolved in different places.

That can still mean something mechanically, as you won't be interacting with Pokémon in the modern world way, so there will be other forms of battling and catching.
Click to expand...
I don't know if showing the past is so set in stone. This trailer feels very contemporary even. Keeping itself flexible would be in its best interests
 
A LEGENDS SEQUEL WHERE YOU BUILD A CITY? AND POKÉMON Z NON THE LESS? AND THEIR EVEN TAKING THEIR DAMN TIME AND BROUGHT BACK MEGAAAAAAAS
 
Onizuka said:
I see that no one commented on these details.

It seems that Lumiose City is set in the present or the near future.
This is because in the trailer you can see that the NPCs that appear are wearing current clothes, they are not wearing clothes from the past or anything similar, and you can also see people sitting in present-day cafes having a coffee.

On the other hand, we probably already have the full map of Lumiose City, but I don't see anyone talking about this being the map.

On the other hand, if this is the map, I doubt we will see vehicles moving through the city, since there does not seem to be space for vehicles or a road network, the only place for vehicles would be the 4 large avenues in north, south, east and west, but since they don't go anywhere, they are most likely just parked cars like in Lumiose City when you see the Taxi. That would make it lose the feeling of being in a city, but perhaps Lumiose City's redevelopment plan to make a better place for Pokémon and humans to coexist is exactly about that, and therefore the lack of vehicles makes narrative sense. .

331e9744b1af0f6ff5a8c2faf74edaab.png
Click to expand...
my impression was that the "blueprint" footage was what the ultimate goal of the redevelopment plan and not the state of the city at the time of the game being played but obviously there is something to the 5 rings in each of the zones surrounding Prism Tower... but yeah the trailer represented the Urban Redevelopment Plan (ie: Lumiose of X/Y) rather than the setting of the gameplay itself imo
 
I wonder if this game could be closer to Coliseum and XD then Legends Arceus. I know that sounds weird since it has the Legends branding, but maybe Legends is less about the gameplay mechanics and more about the story and breaking from traditional Pokemon design structure.

Also no I'm not suggesting shadow Pokemon and snagging, I just mean a game less focused on catching and more focused on combat.
 
Semi Lazy Gamer said:
Not going through 8 pages, but here's the likely time frame:

en.m.wikipedia.org

Haussmann's renovation of Paris - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
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sick choice for a time period. most people focus on revolutionary france so it's nice to see some post revolutionary france for a change. this quote tho
"Paris is an immense workshop of putrefaction, where misery, pestilence and sickness work in concert, where sunlight and air rarely penetrate. Paris is a terrible place where plants shrivel and perish, and where, of seven small infants, four die during the course of the year."
Click to expand...
cleanest 1800s european city
 
Apopheniac said:
The Gen 6 starters got done dirty in their own game because Sycamore gives out the OGs from Kanto and also their Mega Stone, so the player has a cool starter that can do a neat party trick and then also a second, loser starter that sucks

Keep the Kalos starters, give them a gimmick, and save any other starters for postgame
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Give them Megas for fuck's sake
 
Onizuka said:
That would make it lose the feeling of being in a city, but perhaps Lumiose City's redevelopment plan to make a better place for Pokémon and humans to coexist is exactly about that, and therefore the lack of vehicles makes narrative sense. .
Click to expand...
Nah, Luminose planners are just making a walkable city and saying no to car-based city planning!

Now all they need is trains and this game will be number one with urbanist YouTuber community!
 
2024, the year where game release date announcements at least one year out are more exciting than those landing within the year. At least for me

2025 means Switch 2 support. I’m there.

I’ve parked my interest in Pokemon since Sword and Shield as it felt so…cheap. The stuff that’s come since has looked promising but consistently undercooked. I’m back to being optimistic again, as it seems that games are starting to get more development time, alongside getting the inevitable new generation performance bump. I am concerned that this “ambitious” title is still on Switch (1)*, but I fully expect marketing to focus on Switch 2 given its release timeframe.

Edit: *I never expected the next Pokemon game to be exclusive to Switch 2. I just mean that I doubt they’re going to suddenly start targeting Switch (1) hardware more appropriately than they did with previous games. If anything I’m assuming it to be more ambitious and run worse than S/V.
 
As a sleep deprived reporter working the city’s redevelopment beat and dealing with NIMBYs for the past 6 months, I legit thought I was dreaming when “the pokemon urban redevelopment plan” came on screen
 
karmitt said:
I’ve parked my interest in Pokemon since Sword and Shield as it felt so…cheap. The stuff that’s come since has looked promising but consistently undercooked. I’m back to being optimistic again, as it seems that games are starting to get more development time, alongside getting the inevitable new generation performance bump. I am concerned that this “ambitious” title is still on Switch (1), but I fully expect marketing to focus on Switch 2 given its release timeframe.
Click to expand...

I feel like we might be starting to see the payoff of Gamefreak moving into Nintendo's offices and getting the development support they desperately needed.
 
Onizuka said:
I see that no one commented on these details.

It seems that Lumiose City is set in the present or the near future.
This is because in the trailer you can see that the NPCs that appear are wearing current clothes, they are not wearing clothes from the past or anything similar, and you can also see people sitting in present-day cafes having a coffee.

On the other hand, we probably already have the full map of Lumiose City, but I don't see anyone talking about this being the map.

On the other hand, if this is the map, I doubt we will see vehicles moving through the city, since there does not seem to be space for vehicles or a road network, the only place for vehicles would be the 4 large avenues in north, south, east and west, but since they don't go anywhere, they are most likely just parked cars like in Lumiose City when you see the Taxi. That would make it lose the feeling of being in a city, but perhaps Lumiose City's redevelopment plan to make a better place for Pokémon and humans to coexist is exactly about that, and therefore the lack of vehicles makes narrative sense. .

331e9744b1af0f6ff5a8c2faf74edaab.png


On the other hand, speaking of the "Legends" branch, it seems that it is not closed to having a regional order, nor place, nor time, nor game concept, it seems that "Legends" will be a place where they feel comfortable with concepts of gameplay and unique game ideas and design for the concept of each installment of "Legends", this opens up many possibilities to face the appearance of regions, cities, characters, ways of playing, etc. in a thousand ways. For example we could see a Kanto story centered on Silph, or a Hoenn story centered on outer space, or a Johto story centered on the Goldenrod City Radio Tower (to say some crazy ideas and nonsense).

For example, if Legends Arceus focused on exploration, fighting against nature and Pokémon in the wild, with hardly any trainers. Here the concept will be different, we will face the urban environment, while in PLA everything was wild Pokémon and non-existent Trainers, here it could be the opposite, many battles against Trainers in the City and few wild encounters. The concept of the game is totally different.

I love that "Legends" is going to be a branch that allows you to do unique things, and even this allows you to repeat regions within the same branch of "Legends", I could return again to Kalos or Sinnoh, or have two "Legends" of any region in different generations.
Click to expand...
If this game is so urban how will we get our Pokémon then?
Only by catching them in smaller areas or by them randomly joining?
I think one of the strengths of Arceus was that it knew what it wanted to, it was very focused on a few core things and tried to do them well, which was engaging with wild Pokémon and collecting them.
It gave you the best of both worlds by adapting both the classic way of cathing through battle and also the safari zone style popular through Pokémon Go.
Battling felt more like an afterhtought though outside of the boss Pokémon and Volo.
I'm just worried that they will throw all that awy cause all this info we have gives us ideas for the setting, but I don't really see the gameplay loop here.
We will probably be involved in this redevelopment so going off of Arceus we would probably collect resources somewhere.
If it was set in the past you could argue that maybe we could get Pokémon in areas where the city isn't constructed yet, but things seem to hint at modern times, so I'm confused.

I wonder if we are reading too much into it just taking place in the city?
Maybe it won't let us go too far out, but maybe we will be able to explore parts of the neighbouring routes.
 
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Magic-Man said:
I don't think they would completely remove everything that people loved about Arceus, there has to be something here we're not seeing. Maybe something happened to the city and we have to go in and fix it?
Click to expand...
I mean I doubt it's going to be a chill city builder so yeah things are going to go wrong with the city somewhere

But I don't think that means we should expect things like aggressive Pokemon and open fields. It may be that they'll try to fit Legends' overall gameplay to a city environment somehow, but I wouldn't go in expecting that necessarily. Legends is a series of one game right now, we don't really know what it means as a subseries and won't until we know more about this game
 
Tbh this has me hyped, nobody was expecting it. I was never that attached to johto and was obsessed with x and y as a kid and the Paris aesthetic is more interesting than ancient Japan again. Plus with the return of megas we have them AND kalosian forms with a ton of potential
 
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