New essay (fancy word, I know) about some recent observations that I've made about the Pokémon series, in light of the release of Mega Dimension, the newly-released DLC expansion for Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
As for the game so far, it’s pretty good. Sure, there is a lot of ragebait hating on the game, especially the lack of voice acting and those windows. We know that Game Freak is lazy and behind other JRPGs, but it actually performs well on the Switch 2 and does not run like a total disaster compared to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
Scarlet and Violet was just unplayable on the Switch, it ran and look not so great. Even on the Switch 2, while it ran better, some textures just look bad. Not a problem here, and it actually looks good.
Still, Game Freak’s laziness is still there. Ignoring the windows, going into shops and resturants are just a menu iinstead of actually going inside the building. I don’t know why Game Freak wouldn’t allow the player character to go into resturants and shops and see how they are. This is just plain laziness. This is the same with Scarlet and Violet, hardly any buildings you can go into.
The battle system is interesting though, it’s less turn based and more real time as you pick the moves in real time and the position of the Pokemon matters. It’s probably an evolution of the battle system of the first Legends Arceus.
The character customization is an improvement though. No dresses, but at least you kind of have skirts back in the form of skirts and shorts. I would like to see them look more like skirts, but at least it’s better than Scarlet and Violet. Scarlet and Violet character customization is just really bad, only uniforms and no skirts at all.
But despite all the haters and ragebaiters, Pokemon Legends ZA is fun, at least so far. A lot of tutorials, but it’s true with previous installments. I guess part of the hate is the price ($70 for the Switch 2 version and $30 for the DLC). I hope the DLC will add more Pokemon to the roster and possibly more places to explore, besides the story and extra mega evolutions.
Still find this game a lot more fun compared to Palworld, got bored of that game after playing hours of it and obviously not as good or original, especially in the designs. Probably won’t go back to playing it anytime soon.