24/10/2025
I hate to say it, and I know it sounds like bandwagoning, but Pokémon Z-A just isn’t a good game. Were there some fun parts? I mean other than seeing the story conclusion, not really.
The game takes place in a city under construction and the main mode of travel is on foot or climbing ladders and scaffolding that adds verticality to the map. I guess it was this way to make travel more interesting, but ironically it just makes it more tedious.
I finished at about 28 hours, 3/4 of the Pokédex finished and 32/50 on research. I just found that the lack of things I’ve gotten used to were all ripped from the game. No gyms, no camping, no cooking, no other towns or biomes, no breeding, etc.
The collectibles in game like the rainbow bolts and mega shards were pretty useless less than half way through the game as getting mega stones, experience, and catch rate are already incredibly manageable.
I never completely lost a battle and I’ll say that I’m an “okay” Pokémon player, and have lost on the other games. Most battles are easily brute forced with even the incorrect match ups. I only really had partial difficulty on two fights.
The ending is epic and I feel like it wraps up the storyline for the main arc, but I can’t help but feel that your team itself is only glossed over liked nameless npcs even with the few sentences you learn about them, nothing really comes of it.
I’m seriously hoping that the DLC has better and more thought out story as well as a different area that is not super small.
The ending of the story I give 7/10
The game itself, 4/10
