With so much going over my head.
Ahead of its full release on 16 October, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company hosted Stevivor at Nintendo’s Australian office for approximately one-hour of hands-on time with Pokemon Legends Z-A.
Let’s get this out of the way very quickly: I’m a Gen 1 Pokemon fan at best and feel most at home with the likes of Pokemon Let’s Go (Eevee Edition, of course). Legends Z-A is decidedly not Let’s Go, for myriad reasons.
First, Legends Z-A completely changes things up with the introduction of real-time battles. As a newcomer to Lumiose City — a decidedly Parisienne metropolis — you’ll frequently be running into Pokemon or trainers and throwing out Pokeballs to either catch ’em all, or to take on a new opponent.
Frankly, it’s a huge adjustment from calm, cool, and collected strategic thought that normally would take place between menus. We were first let loose upon Wild Zone 6, one of many areas in Lumiose City that function more like wild areas of old. There, I instantly threw out a Pokeball to collect a low-levelled Houndour before stumbling upon an Alpha Houndour that utterly destroyed me in open combat. Actually, it may have been a Houndoom — I was too busy running around the street, throwing out my Pokemon in an attempt to fell the baddie, that I wasn’t fully keeping track.
In these real-time battles, you can control where your trainer character exists, and can swap between a roster of six Pokemon using a Pro Controller’s d-pad. From there, you’ll control your Pokemon’s moveset with the left trigger — noting that abilities aren’t dictated by SP any longer but through cooldowns which activate when an ability is used — and can throw out a Pokeball with the right trigger.
Hitting X will take you into a menu system which lets you apply healing items — or, in my case, revives — and also lets you look at your current Pokemon and, most importantly, their movesets. I can’t speak to any onboarding inside Legends Z-A as we were thrown directly into the deep end, but I was struggling to remember which of my Pokemon were what type, and for that matter, which type was most effective against another. Hitting X at times specifically to figure that all out helped (well, somewhat).
My biggest takeaway from real-time battles is that I was annoyed by just how much my Pokemon would stand still and get directly in the way of enemy attacks — or, in the instance of a fight with Mega Victreebel, walk through poisoned blobs on the ground. If there’s a way to command your Pokemon to go and stand in a specific area or bypass a hazard, I couldn’t find it.
I had the most fun in the Z-A Royale, a city-wide tournament that takes place exclusively at night. Heading to a specific battle zone will allow you to take on other trainers. Each win earns important progression towards a Challenge Ticket, which itself is necessary to battle ranked trainers and move from the lowest rank, Z, to the highest of A.
Another source of frustration reared itself within the Royale, as you can pick up several challenges which help you progress. Most involve sneaking up on an unaware trainer and then hitting them with a move of a certain type. For one, it’s incredibly hard to sneak up on someone staring directly in your direction in a long city street, and for another, I kept forgetting which move types were which and ruined opportunities accordingly.
I just managed to sneak in 11 wins in battles in the Z-A Royale over the course of one night to earn said Challenge Ticket, which I then exchanged to take on ranked trainer and chef Rintaro, who I beat to become a V ranked trainer myself.
While Legends Z-A is decidedly more difficult than that which has come before it, that’s not a bad thing. There’s a real sense of satisfaction that comes through when you finally beat that Alpha Houndour (or Houndoom?), and this is still a Nintendo-centric property we’re talking about — after failing twice against the Mega Victreebel, I opted to keep my recorded damage against it when starting up my next attempt.
It’s also important to note that I previewed the Switch 2 version of Legends Z-A in docked mode. I was not permitted to play in handheld mode, which slightly raises alarm bells. I also cannot attest to its performance on the original Switch — given recent entries by Game Freak, there’s also reason to be concerned there too.
Pokemon Legends Z-A heads to Switch and Switch 2 on 16 October.
Stevivor travelled to Nintendo Australia’s Melbourne-based office to preview Pokemon Legends Z-A at its own cost. Non-alcoholic beverages and snacks were provided at the event.
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Pokemon Legends Z-A16 October 2025Switch Switch 2
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