Legends Z-A Pokemon Legends Z-A General Speculation & Discussion

[TheCapsFan]

With the Pokemon Presents posted up on February 27th, 2024, a new Pokemon Legends game was revealed to be in development, called Pokemon Legends: Z-A. The game will take place in Lumiose City, where a major urban redevelopment plan is taking shape to transform the city. The game currently has a release window for the 2025 calendar year. View the trailer below:

Spoiler

Feel free to use this thread as a general discussion/speculation point for Pokemon Legends: Z-A! If you have something more specific you want to speculate on or discuss, you can make a thread for it using the Legends Z-A thread prefix.

Very excited for this one personally!

 

[Greninjaman]

I wonder what the starters will be? Will it be the original three (Chespin, Froakie & Fennekin), or will it be a trio of starters from different generations like in Legends: Arceus?

 

[c la fet]

Does the game take place in the future, in the present or in the past ?

 

[FelipePR]

Now, with more time, I watched the trailer with subtitles.

First Point: It is stated that the images presented do not correspond to those of the game, so we should not relate this, visually, to anything presented in the trailer.

Second Point: The Trailer refers to the Lumiose City urban development plan. Drawing a historical parallel, I believe the game is referring to Haussmann's renovation of Paris which took place between 1852 and 1870. Therefore, I think the game will have a setting based on that period. In fact, we can see that the city's first scribbles have a 19th century style.

On the other hand, I believe that the technological city that is shown to us is the current city of Lumiose, or rather, the result of the proposed urban plan that transformed the place into the main hub of the region.

Well, it could, of course, be the opposite, that is, that in the future the protagonist will discover secrets related to the city's project from centuries ago. We have to wait and see.

NOTE: This trailer has an extreme focus on Lumiose City so I wonder if we will have other cities in the game, or if this will only be focused on the capital and its surroundings.

 

[TheCapsFan]

I wonder what the starters will be? Will it be the original three (Chespin, Froakie & Fennekin), or will it be a trio of starters from different generations like in Legends: Arceus?

It's a good question. I personally think it depends on when exactly this game takes place. There's a lot of possibility on that front - we know Kalos is one of the oldest established regions, so this "redesign" could be the modernization of Lumiose City into what it is in XY, or it could be a more extensive modernization going into the future. Which, in my opinion, is what the trailer hints at. So if Kalos already exists in that respect, then it'd probably be the original three, yeah? Since those are the ones native to the region?

That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a mix of generations though to keep it consistent across the Legends branding.

 

[System Error]

fans: "UNOVA!"
also fans: "JOHTO!"
gamefreak: "nah how bout kalos"

Gotta say this is pretty based, has the potential to be very different, especially since it's apparently set entirely in the city according to some early reports. Long wait for it, but hopefully, a lot of development team means a lot of quality.

 

[skynerel]

I was not expecting Kalos at all, but now I’m exited!!

 

[techitisJ]

So Nintendo quote tweeted the trailer saying this adventure is set entirely in Kalos, and it has me a bit concerned. Are we not going to be able to leave the city?

I will fully admit, one of my favorite parts of Pokemon games is exploring new, nature-filled areas. In fact, the natural enviornments are probably some of my favorite parts of any game. Until Paldea, Kalos was my favorite region aesthetically, so seeing this tweet worries me in that front. I don’t want to be limited to an urban area, even if there are little suburban parks. One of the best parts of Kalos was it’s insane diversity in its region, and I want to see that in a way we could not before. If we truly can’t leave Lumiose City to see the outer world, no matter how big they make Lumiose in scale, it still will be somewhat disappointing for me

That being said, it is a cool concept and I think I’ll still be able to enjoy it for that. The main series games have just barely touched on the idea of being able to catch Pokemon in towns and cities. Of course there’s gifted Pokemon, but if I recall correctly the only time you’ve ever been able to catch infinite Pokemon in towns and cities is with fishing. Nothing else is coming to mind (I might be forgetting something very obvious). But can you just imagine. Exploring this crazy looking city and there are just wild Pokemon everywhere? Groups of Bunnnelby digging their way through the parks, Fletchlings and Pidgeys sitting on telephone wires. The elemental monkeys hanging from balcony fencing. We’ll be able to see Pokemon in a way we never had before, and that will be interesting for sure.

I am incredibly mixed by the idea of this. But, if this is the case and we truly can't leave Lumiose City, then I hope we'll at least get to see the Pokemon interacting with this urban world in all sorts of different ways.

 

[Volphied]

Second Point: The Trailer refers to the Lumiose City urban development plan. Drawing a historical parallel, I believe the game is referring to Haussmann's renovation of Paris which took place between 1852 and 1870. Therefore, I think the game will have a setting based on that period. In fact, we can see that the city's first scribbles have a 19th century style.

That's a good point.

PLA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkaidō_Development_Commission

PLZ-A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann's_renovation_of_Paris

Interestingly this would mean that both Pokemon Legends games are set in the same time period; the second half of the 19th century.

That could also allow characters from the previous PL game to appear in the latest one.

 

[skynerel]

I hope this means Eternal Floette will be available in this game. I wonder if the lore regarding AZ & the war will be expanded upon.

 

[Greninjaman]

Will these games be exclusive to the the Switch 2? Or will we be able to play the game even if we don't get the Switch 2?

 

[skynerel]

Will these games be exclusive to the the Switch 2? Or will we be able to play the game even if we don't get the Switch 2?

The trailer said switch in the upper right corner so I would think they will be available on the switch.

 

[Norzan]

I wonder what the starters will be? Will it be the original three (Chespin, Froakie & Fennekin), or will it be a trio of starters from different generations like in Legends: Arceus?

Whoever they are i hope they are ones that haven't gotten a Mega Evolution yet. Since that's coming back, it will be the perfect to give more starters Mega Evolution.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

I expect basically everything we didn't get because Z was scrapped, such as Mega Diancie, Ash-Greninja, Complete Zygarde, Eternal Flower Floette, etc. ALL to make appearances in this game. For those who aren't aware, there's quite a bit of evidence to support that Z was likely in early development for a 2015 release before being scrapped, as data for another Kalos game exists in code for Pokemon Bank, that's why stuff like Ash-Greninja and the Zygarde Cube sidequest were shoehorned into Sun and Moon instead, and we only got Mega Diancie in ORAS and we never get Eternal Flower Floette (although you can hack it into XY so it was obviously planned to be relevant at some point). This game feels like Game Freak is going on a Kalos redemption arc for wasting all the potential a Z game had. This was not something I expected at all for at least another 4-5 years, but I'm not at all disappointed. I guess my hopes and dreams of Legends: Ho-Oh and Legends: Kyurem will have to wait.

 

[Handium]

Where did it say that Megas are returning btw?

I think we’re going to get a new form of furfrou or a form for something that maybe doesn’t live in kalos anymore

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

I'm excited to see how Pokémon will handle building structures to scale, if the urban development lens is as important to the game as speculated. Like Legends Arceus, I don't think this game will be a 1:1 to real-world events, so I could actually see the game mixing elements of the Haussmann period of renovations with post WWII to really emphasize the modernization of Lumiose City (I mean, in XY, we can see Lumiose City having a mix between classical architecture and modern skyscrapers). At least, that's my hope lol.

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

Where did it say that Megas are returning btw?

I think we’re going to get a new form of furfrou or a form for something that maybe doesn’t live in kalos anymore

The trailer had the mega evolution symbol at the end

 

[Daren]

*I suspect the game will add parkour elements to add to the action elements of PLA while taking advantage of moving to an urban setting. Parkour was big in urban games for a while.

*Z-A? Yeah, AZ has to feature somehow, right?

*They may want all the starters to be able to Mega Evolve, so either it'll be mostly gen 1/3 and maybe Froakie or we may even get new megas.

*I wonder if getting new Pokémon will be different (like Colosseum and XD) or if the city is going to be overrun with wild critters.

 

[Handium]

The trailer had the mega evolution symbol at the end

I think I thought the trailer was over and didn’t see it thanks

 

[Volphied]

I think I thought the trailer was over and didn’t see it thanks

Yeah, they hid it at the very end, which made it easy to miss.

But even without that hint, mega evolutions are an integral part of the Kalos region, so it goes without saying that they can't skip them over.