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The Pokemon Presents gave us a new trailer for Pokemon Legends Z-A. It showed us a few different aspects of the game, such as the Pokemon starters, to the world, to the battle system. Now, we’re diving into all of that.
The World
From the trailer, it looks like this world was inspired by a Paris in the early 1930s or not quite in the modern day. It is one centralized city, but there are lots of locations to visit, as well as NPCs to interact with. I am curious how gym battles will work or if there are any in it at all, but hopefully, we get more info on that at a later time. It doesn’t look like there are any options to travel outside of the city, but I think it would be neat if they made this an option in a future expansion or a sequel if this game gets a good reception.
Gameplay
Now this is an interesting to chat about. Instead of the traditional battle screens and turn based battles, they have kept the turn based part, but have turned the gameplay into more of an action based RPG. It’s also worth noting this will be the first entry in the franchise that allows for dodging attacks and battling in real time. This meaning, it will show your trainer and your Pokemon in front of you, firing off different attacks. They’ve also brought back mega evolutions after 7 years.
Another thing to note is they’ve added more interactive elements in the environments. For example, the trailer also revealed you will be able to possibly glide over buildings and there will be some other platforming elements, to get to different puzzles, items, or areas of interest. This is a nice throwback to the earlier gen games where you had to go through a certain story set of puzzles before you were able to fight your way in a gym.
Characters
The character selection in the game seems to be your standard variety. You can pick between a female or male protagonist and of course, you’ll have a rival that will match that. Since this game is in the same vein as (paid link) Pokemon Arceus, it shares the similar color palette and clothing styles of all characters you interact with.
There also looks to be a usual antagonist or rival mastermind behind the scenes cooking up some scheme to prevent you from continuing your journey, as well as ruining the standard good storyline each game has when you first start out.
Last thoughts
For a yearly event that covered a snippet of the Pokemon world, this presentation covered just enough to tell us what we look forward to but vague enough not to give everything away. I want Pokemon to keep pushing the envelope about what they bring to the gaming field, even if it’s small steps to grow what Pokemon started, all those years ago.
Charle Subketkaew is a passionate gamer, storyteller, and daydreamer. When he's not immersed in a fresh new video game, he also enjoys creating art, graphic design, spending time with friends, watching movies or anime, listening to a podcast or custom playlist, writing, collecting, working out, and scouting out his next weekend adventure.
He runs a design page and website, Fortis Ideas. This is an evolution of his design and media career over the span of a decade. He works with different creators in different disciplines on a multitude of projects to push himself to create new ideas.
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