Pokémon Z: How Would You Have Done It?

[Bolt Strike]

As much as I would love sequels, XY is actually the perfect game for an AU considering how it set up the whole multiverse theory, making third versions very apt in a way. This is especially since there's a lot of ways by which the games can be improved. For me, I would want every gym leader to at least appear outside of the gym at least once lol. They were so detached from everything.

AUs would be fine as long as they change the game to a similar degree as BW2. Which they can do, an AU could change as much as it wants. The larger issue is that BW2 was such a significant step up from third versions that showed that a revisit to a previous region could be so much more than a copy/paste job with a smattering of extras that traditional third versions would be seen as a disappointment. And as USUM showed, they were. XY especially needs this treatment because it was so barren and unpolished in nearly every aspect of the game, which is why it was so crushing that it got absolutely nothing.

 

[yudgefudge]

Alright, let's begin.

Spoiler: Mechanical Changes/Pokemon Changes

Rhyhorn and Skiddo racing. On Route 22, there's an unused track. Might as well use it for some fun postgame content.
10 New Kalosian Mega Evolutions. These are the 3 starters, Pangoro, Heliolisk, Vivillon, Talonflame, Aegislash, Noivern, and Barbaracle. The starters because of course they should, Pangoro because its Tierno's new signature. Heliolisk for the same reasons as Pangoro, but for Trevor. Vivillon for Viola, Talonflame for Malva, Noivern for Drasna, Aegislash for Wikstrom, and Barbaracle for Siebold.

Spoiler: Team changes

Viola: The same.
Grant: The same, the battle was tough as heck.
Korrina: That mega storyline never happened. It was dumb and stupid. No Lucario, the Guru gives you the Mega Stone of your starter instead.
Ramos: Jumpluff, Victreebel, Trevenant and Gogoat.
Clemont: Emolga, Magnezone, Raichu, Heliolisk
Valerie: Aromatisse, Florges, Mr. Mime, Sylveon
Olympia: Slowking, Delphox, Claydol, Female Meowstic
Wulfric: Avalugg, Beartic, Aurorus, Mega Abomasnow
Malva: Pyroar, Torkoal, Chandelure, Houndoom, Mega Talonflame
Siebold: Clawitzer, Starmie, Gyarados, Walrein, Mega Barbaracle
Wikstrom: Klefki, Scizor, Bisharp, Excadrill, Mega Aegislash
Drasna: Dragalge, Druddigon, Altaria, Goodra, Mega Noivern
Diantha: The same.

Spoiler: Story Changes

Part 1 - Beginnings.
So, it starts as normal. You wake up, change to your PJs, and then leave. Once you reach Aquacorde, you get your starter, return, give your Mom the letter, then head off. Once you reach the Santalune Forest, there's a large tree there.

This tree.
Trevor speaks up, and narrates the legend of Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde. But its all bits and pieces, and he says he needs to research more. You continue, on to Santalune, and challenge the gym. Once you reach Lumiose, Sina and Dexio tell you about Zygarde, and you have a choice to mention the tree or not. If you pick yes, they head off there after giving you directions. If you say no, the game proceeds like it would.
You meet Sycamore, and get the choice of collecting a Kanto starter, so youcan just say "No" and receive no starter.
The game continues, with the Snorlax and Ambrette Town.
Then in the Glittering Cave, you battle Team Flare, send them away, then the crystals light up, revealing a brand new and previously unseen path.

There, you find a large boulder thing lodged in the crystals. Then, Tierno comes barging in, and he talks about how that might be Yveltal's cocoon, and then you both leave the cave, and outside, he challenges you to a battle.
(Team: Fletchinder, Corphish, Pancham)
Part 2 - The Plot Mega Evolves
So, you head over to Shalour City. Trevor meets you there instead, checks your Pokedex, and challenges you to a battle.
(Team: Clauncher, Floette, Heliolisk)
You enter the tower, and then it happens as normal, but Shauna mentions the Tree in Santalune. Gurkinn explains the legend in full detail. Then you battle, Gurkinn gives you the Ring and Mega Stone, and then you challenge Korrina.
You continue to Coumarine, where Shauna challenges you instead of Serena/Calem.
(Team: Delcatty, Sliggoo, second stage starter)
The Power Plant area is obviously accessible, so Tierno, Trevor and you storm the Plant and defeat Team Flare. You challenge the Lumiose City gym. You head over to Laverre (that Scary House thing never happens, its pretty dumb). You drive Team Flare out of the factory with Serena/Calem, you get your sixth gym badge. Things proceed as normal, Anistar City, then you go to Lysandre Labs with your multiple rivals.
Part 3 - The Mystery of Zygarde
It continues as normal, then when you reach Lysandre, he's not there! Its Sina and Dexio, along with the four scientists. Sina and Dexio are working for Team Flare! Maybe Sycamore as well? But there's no time for that. Your rivals battle the four scientists, and you battle Sina and Dexio in a double battle.
Sycamore rushes, and explains that Lysandre was in a plane, and was headed towards Santalune Forest to awaken Xerneas! It was time to move.
You decide to split up.
Serena/Calem and Sycamore stay behind.
The player and Shauna head to the Forest.
Tierno and Trevor head to Yveltal.
When you reach there, its too late. In a magnificent cutscene, Xerneas awakens, and Lysandre captures it. Then, the game moves to Tierno and Trevor. In another cutscene, Yveltal awakens. Tierno and Trevor look on in awe, but they didn't die. They were protected by something.
Lysandre heads off to Terminus Cave.
Everyone heads over, then in a cutscene, you see the six of you, The Player, Calem/Serena, Tierno, Trevor, Shauna and Sycamore, run into the cave, and watch Zygarde Complete be caught by Lysandre.
You challenge Lysandre to a battle, then once you defeat him, you seize Zygarde, and release it. Then it continues as normal, except on the bridge, the teams are changed:
Shauna: Sylveon, Goodra, Delcatty, and Mega Starter
Tierno: Hawlucha, Talonflame, Crawdaunt, and Mega Pangoro
Trevor: Florges, Clawitser, Slurpuff, and Mega Heliolisk
Then you challenge the League, fight AZ, Floette returns, and the game ends.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Add Houndoom (she's eeeeevil)

Houndoom's pretty much perfect for Malva (and the anime further solidified the thought for me).

 

[Defiant]

I'd have gone with sequels X2 and Y2, with the 2's stylised to look like Green Z's.

X2 would centre on the Blue core from the anime, with Thousand Waves as its signature move, and Y2 would have Red Core and Thousand Arrows.
You get the core pretty early on, after the first gym badge, similar to how you got the egg in Johto.

Neo-Flare is back, led by Xerosic, they have the Core that you don't, captured in Terminus cave. While you can get a Zygarde up to 50% with 1 core, to get the Perfect Zygarde (100%) you need both cores. intend to use Perfect Zygarde to help them catch the Xerneas/Yveltal they didnt get originally and want to use perfect Zygarde's inverse ability to beat them. It's Dragon type attacks now being Super Effective against Fairy type Xerneas / its Ground type attacks now being Super effective against flying type Yveltal.

In the post game you can get the other legend you didnt catch, so X2 you can find Yveltal, Y2 can find Xerneas.

To get perfect Zygarde for yourself you can trade over the main zygarde from the alternate version, OR you can transfer the Terminus Zygarde from your original. So retrospectively the Zygarde from Terminus in X is deemed to have a red core, to match your Blue one in X2, and the Zygarde from Terminus in Y is deemed to have the Blue core, to match your Red one from Y2.

Upon merging the 2 50%'s into perfect zygarde you get the option to teach it core enforcer, only usable in Perfect form.

 

[SerenaToAlola]

Here's how I would fix the gym leader teams. Viola will get a Mega Vespiquen inspired by Marie Antoinette in the postgame. Everyone from Korinna onwards uses Megas. Ramos would get a Mega Trevenant.

 

[Bolt Strike]

View attachment 133151
Here's how I would fix the gym leader teams. Viola will get a Mega Vespiquen inspired by Marie Antoinette in the postgame. Everyone from Korinna onwards uses Megas. Ramos would get a Mega Trevenant.

What Mega would Grant get then? Would Tyrantrum get one?

 

[SerenaToAlola]

What Mega would Grant get then? Would Tyrantrum get one?

Oh I haven't thought about it then but I thought it wouldn't be fair to make him chose between Tyrantrum and Aurorus. I just came across a really cool design for Mega Carbink where he becomes a knight so maybe that instead.

 

[IndigoEmmy]

I'm sure i'm not the first person here to say this, but i feel like they should have had the zygarde cube mechanic in pokémon Z

 

[SeanWheeler]

The Zygarde thing from Sun and Moon should have been in Z. And the Z-moves probably wouldn't have been referred to as such if Pokémon Z was released, unless the Z crystals were introduced in Z. If there should be any changes to the Pokédex, it should be shrunk down and not split into three. The Kanto starters and legendaries should be cut from the Pokédex along with others that are there for pandering purposes. The Battle Maison should be replaced with the Battle Frontier that should have been in ORAS. And if it was released in 2015 while amiibo and Toy-to-Life were all the rage, it should have an amiibo line with all the Pokémon posed the same way as their Ken Sugimori art on a Poké Ball base, and a Key Item to unlock the amiibo mechanics that allows you to battle using the special Pokémon within the amiibo. The Super Smash Bros. amiibo of Pokémon characters can also be used with movesets based on their Specials in Smash, but non-Pokémon figures like Mario are incompatible. And since the Kanto starters would be cut, Professor Sycamore won't give you one until after you become the champion and he gives you the National mode. That Mega Lucario battle will still happen, and every Gym Leader since then will have a Mega Evolving Pokémon. And Kalos Pokémon such as your starters could Mega Evolve.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

Like the title says, I believe Pokemon Z is the perfect game that never happened, and the topic of this hypothetical/possibly scrapped game titled "Pokemon Z Version" has always interested me, because there is such an obvious hole in Generation 6 that Z would so obviously fill, yet it never happened for one reason or another, many believe it was likely in early development but the idea was scrapped so Sun and Moon could be finished as the 20th Anniversary titles, while many believe it was never going to happen at all. I could be remembering completely wrong but I swear back in the day somebody uncovered a trademark for "Pokemon Z". I know "Pokemon Grey" had its own trademark in a similar fashion, despite being reworked into sequels, but I truly believe Pokemon Z was not only in development for release in late 2015, but that if it had come out, it would've been the perfect Pokemon game, at least at that time's standards.

Generation 6 inherently had a lot of issues with both titles.

XY felt incomplete, Team Flare's goals didn't really make sense, Zygarde had absolutely no relevance to the story and there was clearly the framework to develop Zygarde in a later title, with Thousand Waves and Thousand Arrows existing in the code of the games despite going unused entirely.

ORAS, while complete in their own rights, irked many people including myself by blatantly taking the lazy way out, copy-pasting the Battle Maison, and then putting a model of the Battle Tower with a sign that says "The Battle Frontier Project has started!", indicating to us, the players, that perhaps the facility will be available in a later game.

Pokemon Z had the opportunity to tie-in both games as the definitive "master game" of Gen 6, in the same way many of us view Emerald or Platinum as the master games of their respective generations. Z could've more closely followed the plot of the XY&Z anime, with Team Flare having two Zygarde Cores, one of which escapes and becomes known as Squishy by, I guess in the game canon's case, the player character, the other gets used by Team Flare to destroy the Kalos region. In the post-game, instead of the Battle Maison, maybe you can board a ferry in Coumarine City in the post-game with a ticket that allows you to travel to and from the Hoenn Battle Frontier after it is completed, this would have been an AWESOME way to give longtime fans of Hoenn and ORAS detractors some payoff with regards to the absence of the Battle Frontier.

Pokemon Z could've included:
-the Hoenn Battle Frontier
-all Megas from ORAS
-The Zygarde Cube, cores, cells, and moves/abilities from SM
-a Team Flare plot closer to what is seen in the anime
-Alain as his own canon character as a rival to the player, who was directly referenced by Steven if shown the event shiny Beldum in ORAS
-AZ's Floette

A combination of all of this to tie all the elements of Gen 6 together would've made for an awesome game and I might have considered this game to be the best Pokemon game of all-time.

I imagine changes to the Kalos story would go something like this:

Up to fighting Korrina, the story would largely stay the same, but you might meet Alain sometime around then, but you'd be in the dark about his relation to Team Flare until far later in the story, regardless, he would become a new rival to you and you'd battle him and his shiny Charizard occasionally (side note but how cool would it be if a main character had a shiny Pokemon? That has never happened that I recall, only a few easter egg shinies in Gen 3's Trainer Towers exist, I think). You would eventually stumble upon Z1, or Squishy, and it would be temporarily added to your part as an unknown Pokemon, you would have to call Sycamore or visit him in Lumiose City to discern what it is and you'd be handed or delivered a Strange Cube to store it in by Sina and Dexio, after discovering some Zygarde cells, your Z1 would spontaenously transform into a Zygarde 10% form midway through the game, and the Strange Cube would be renamed Zygarde Cube, and you'd be able to officially add Zygarde to your party, although you could separate it back down to Z1 by storing it directly in the Zygarde Cube, Team Flare would possess and construct their own Zygarde from Z2 after capturing it and controlling it to destroy Kalos, Alain would initially be sided with Team Flare before you sway him to the good side, and eventually you would defeat Z2 and be able to combine both Zygarde's into a 100% Zygarde complete with its signature moves and the Ability Power Construct. They could even make it to where Alain is the initial Champion, similar to N in BW, with Diantha only replacing him in post-game Pokemon League runs, similar to Alder in BW.

Also, AZ's Floette was in the code for the games but went entirely unused, unlike Zygarde who was at least finished up in Gen 7, AZ's Floette to this day has never been released despite existing in the code. They could've added more with AZ and his Floette, to where maybe you can battle AZ with him using it after he reunites with it. I doubt you'd ever canonically just take the poor guy's partner Pokemon in the game's story, but they could release it for the players via an event.

In my opinion, being that most assets could've been reused from XY and ORAS, Z shouldn't have taken very long to develop, even with the new content added, that it could've probably came in 2015 with Sun and Moon still coming out in 2016 for the 20th Anniversary, and the Zygarde Cube side-story could've been scrapped entirely since that would've happened in Z instead, but obviously it didn't happen that way so we'll never truly know the full potential of Pokemon Z, until maybe 10 years from now when XY receive a remake on the Switch U/2/X or whatever and even then, I don't think I have enough faith in Gamefreak to truly master the art of remakes (see: my issues with ORAS at the beginning of the post).

 

[Silktree]

The good thing about a headcanon/wishlist is that if you give it enough thought, it will be perfect... in your opinion. I also like to wonder about what would have happened if Game Freak had released Gold and Silver for a more powerful system (a GBA prototype was originally supposed to be released instead of the GBC) allowing for the placeholder Pokemon and maps to remain in tact, but alas.

I didn't like the XY games or anime series, so I wouldn't have liked any third version (and to be honest, ideas like yours were discussed a lot in 2015). Also, I don't think that a "perfect" game can be based on a previous game or anime. It's okay if the setting and characters aren't original, but the story should feel fresh. I don't think that Z would have been received any better than USUM were, that is, as being more of the same with some improvements.

I remember a fake Pokemon Z trademark. There were no official hints other than the Zygarde forms and Ash-Greninja, and we all know by now that they weren't really hints.

 

[Hidden Mew]

As much as I liked the way Team Flare was handled in the anime, I'm not really sure if I could have seen a hypothetical Z going that route. Up until the climax of X/Y, Team Flare were rather ridiculous in the games, so I completely changing them for the third version might have been too much of a change for them to consider. Putting Alain in the games also might have been a bit much. Giving him a Shiny Charizard sounds cool, but he was already being overhyped during the last stretch of XY and became a massive Gary Stu, so I don't think that incorporating him into the video games would have been that appealing form e.

I think that Pokemon Z is put on such a high pedestal simply because of fans making their own wishlists of what it could have been. A Pokemon game, third version or not, full of your own ideas/hopes would sound perfect to you, but it would be more subjective to other people and it's hard to say if any of those ideas would realistically be in the actual game too. Granted, I firmly believe that Pokemon Z was never in development to begin with, but I think fans were excited over what it could have been like and kind of stuck with those theories. I also have a hard time believing that a Z version would have been that well received. Depending on what new ideas and concepts they put into the game, I think it could have been good, improved on some issues from X/Y and I probably would have enjoyed it considering I have enjoyed every main series title to varying degrees, but I think it would have been more like a good traditional third version game instead of one of the best titles in the series. Aside from Platinum and Emerald, I don't think that the third version games are really held in high regard among the fanbase, at least from what I've seen online, especially compared to the first games of each generation.

 

[Phosphene]

ORAS, while complete in their own rights, irked many people including myself by blatantly taking the lazy way out, copy-pasting the Battle Maison, and then putting a model of the Battle Tower with a sign that says "The Battle Frontier Project has started!", indicating to us, the players, that perhaps the facility will be available in a later game.
[...]
In the post-game, instead of the Battle Maison, maybe you can board a ferry in Coumarine City in the post-game with a ticket that allows you to travel to and from the Hoenn Battle Frontier after it is completed, this would have been an AWESOME way to give longtime fans of Hoenn and ORAS detractors some payoff with regards to the absence of the Battle Frontier.

Pokemon Z could've included:
-the Hoenn Battle Frontier

Out of all the things in this post, I feel this is perhaps the most wishlist-y and unrealistic in my opinion.

I don't think the "The Battle Frontier Project has started!" line was an indicator that the facility will be available in a later games, more than it was just an excuse for why it wasn't present in ORAS despite HGSS's expanded battle facilities. I don't think GameFreak would have the player go to only sliver of another region, espeically considering the can of worms it would open up (why can't the player travel beyond the Battle Frontier? etc). Not only that, but Platinum was released before the Johto remakes and Emerald was released before the Kanto remakes in Japan at least so I don't think Pokemon Z would have come out after ORAS. A pre-ORAS Battle Frontier set in Hoenn would probably have seemed odd and out of place. I could see an expanded battle facility in Pokemon Z, just not that the player travels to the Hoenn Battle Frontier.

Edit: I forgot that January is the first month in the year while September is one of the last.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

Emerald was released before the Kanto remakes in Japan at least so I don't think Pokemon Z would have come out after ORAS.

You're wrong about that, FRLG came out before Emerald in every region.

 

[Bolt Strike]

I think what happened is that Game Freak had bigger plans for ORAS and Z when they first started working on 6th gen, but they vastly overestimated how much content they'd be able to include because the 3D models took up so much more of their time. And rather than delay the games (you know, like most developers that actually give a shit about the quality of their products would do), they just cut the content so they could stick to a yearly schedule and a 3 year generation. I don't buy the excuse that they wanted SM out in 2016 because of the anniversary. There's nothing about the games that really screams "anniversary". It's probably more because they just don't feel like spending more than 3 years on a game for cost/merchandising reasons and SM landing on the 20th anniversary is a convenient coincidence.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I don't buy the excuse that they wanted SM out in 2016 because of the anniversary. There's nothing about the games that really screams "anniversary".

It was a new generation. I think that was enough of a reason.

 

[WyndonCalling]

I don't buy the excuse that they wanted SM out in 2016 because of the anniversary. There's nothing about the games that really screams "anniversary".

The game itself doesn't have to - it just needs to capitalise on the heightened awareness of the franchise generated by other products and media, namely Go. We can't know for certain, but it would be a major scheduling blunder to not have a shiny, new, 'big' title to direct rejuvenated interest towards.

 

[Phosphene]

You're wrong about that, FRLG came out before Emerald in every region.

Whoops for some reason I thought January was later than September.

 

[Esserise]

Whether or not something "screams anniversary" is pretty subjective; for me, SM absolutely do feel conscious of their release date. The story culminating in a brick joke callback to a quirky event from the original games really isn't something that your typical Pokémon games do, and that's on top of all the more tangible stuff - several Gen 1 Pokémon being reimagined with colorful new forms (three of which are yet more arcane Easter eggs), Samson Oak, Red (who is blatantly wearing a '96' logo on his shirt) and Blue returning as adults to captain the Battle Tree along with a few other popular faces from various gens, the Nugget Bridge recreation at Malie Garden (which itself is a reference to the Lake of Rage), the Ash-hat Pikachu series commemorating the anime's entire run, Diglett's Tunnel being an obvious nod to Diglett's Cave, Mimikyu's very existence as a diegetic acknowledgement of Pikachu's role as the mascot, all the talk about how your character comes from Kanto and how Kukui once went to Kanto and made it all the way up to the Indigo League... that's all the overt stuff off the top of my head, there's tons of other Easter eggs including references to the other generations. Sure, every game has nods to old ones, but I think they were pretty clearly infusing Sun & Moon with an unusually high degree of nostalgic value.

Team Flare were rather ridiculous in the games, so I completely changing them for the third version might have been too much of a change for them to consider.

It also presumes that they aren't meant to be funny/absurd. But they are.

Granted, I firmly believe that Pokemon Z was never in development to begin with

I'm willing to entertain that the idea might've been on the table at some point (there is some evidence, beyond it just being an obvious thing for them to think about, such as the two unused Gen 6 game origin IDs in Bank's code), but I definitely don't think it ever entered any level of formal development, yeah.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Sun/Moon were full of nods to Kanto. While that wasn't new in of itself, they really went all out with it in these games. I don't think we would have gotten stuff like Alolan variations for multiple first generation Pokemon, Samson Oak or Red and Blue appearing for the player character to battle if it wasn't set to be released on the franchise's anniversary. Besides all that, starting a brand new generation to capitalize on the 20th anniversary makes a lot more sense than releasing a third version game or remake around that time instead. A new generation would naturally have more new content than a hypothetical Z version would have, or really any third version game for that matter, there would be more hype behind it and it would help to keep the franchise within the public sphere during its anniversary. Regardless of how good a hypothetical Z version could have been, I don't think that releasing it during the franchise's 20th anniversary would have made sense or been a fitting way to celebrate said anniversary compared to having a brand new generation released instead.