Loading up Pokémon Legends: Z-A and stepping off the train into Lumiose City, my six year old daughter’s reaction was one of awe, letting out a long “woooow!”.
The naughty bag-nabbing Pancham made her giggle; she made the difficult decision of which starter to pick (Chikorita) and nervously won her first battle. She didn’t, however, comment on the lack of 3D textures on buildings or short draw distances… Strange.
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We kept playing. She explored every detail of her new hotel room, got hypnotised by the spinning holographic outside the Pokémon center, and squealed in delight as a Magikarp — she calls them Magikarpets, which is too cute to correct — jumped up onto the bridge she was crossing. But weirdly, she didn’t point out the static NPCs or the somewhat empty streets of Lumiose City.
Take a look at this
There’s been a lot of online discourse about the graphical quality in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, but it turns out that kids just don’t care about all that stuff — who would’ve thought! Considering Roblox is by far the most popular game for kids, the writing was on the wall. (Please don’t let your kids play Roblox unsupervised!)
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What my kid cares about is fun gameplay and cute characters, which Z–A has in spades. Ditching the franchise’s turn-based battle system for the first time, the new active-battles are a much needed refresh. Running around and firing off orders to your embattled ‘mon feels as close to the anime as we’ve ever been.
Gone are the days of worrying about knocking out a rare or shiny critter, now you fight them down to 0 HP, and catch them while they’re dizzy. You can also try for a quick capture without battling at all, though this won’t always work with stronger Pokémon.
Give them a voice!
The one area my daughter didn’t love was the lack of voice acting. Not for the missed opportunities of connection and emotion they could’ve had in the game — that’s my gripe — but because the lack of voice means EVERYTHING has to be read.
For a six year old who just wants to run around and catch cute critters, it was a bit of an annoyance that quickly turned into a button mash to skip.
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While we adults — deeply entrenched in the Pokémon universe — might want more from the franchise to bring it up to par with other modern games, we have to remember the core aim of any Pokémon game is to be fun and accessible for kids.
Generation 10 is rumoured for next year, so we can only wait and see what graphical and gameplay leaps (or hops) the franchise receives next. Please, Game Freak… Voice acting!!!
Pokémon Legends: Z-A is out now on Nintendo Switch 1 & 2. You can pick it up for around $89.
A copy of the game was provided to Quest Daily by the publisher.
