Pokémon is one of the most iconic media franchises in the world. Totaling 1,025 unique species, you’ve likely seen one of the adorable creatures in your daily life.

Pokémon Legends Z-A is the latest video game in a new series of spin-offs to release and drawing a lot of attention from gamers. Many players enjoy the game’s new mechanics and interesting story. Others believe it to be under par and “too safe” of a game for a franchise this big, wishing for boldness and risque.

For the past three decades, the Pokémon video games have been standard turn-based RPG’s with a consistent formula: catch Pokémon, travel the region, defeat eight gym leaders and beat the Pokémon League Champion to become a Pokémon Master.

However, despite the evolution of these games over time, the main games’ continued reuse of this formula left some gamers feeling this franchise has become repetitive and bland. While it’s difficult to figure out how many gamers have this particular critique, it appears that Game Freak, the developers of Pokémon, noticed these gamers’ outcry.

Game Freak began to experiment with the formula of Pokémon by making a series of spin-off games that stands out from the rest called Pokémon Legends.

In Pokémon Legends Z-A, the players find themselves moving to Lumiose City in the Kalos region. Once there, the player joins a team of trainers called Team MZ, who aim to climb the ranks of the city’s Z-A Royale. They are dedicated to protecting their city from dangerous rogue Pokémon powered up by Mega energy.

The game is set within a large open-world city with a variety of wild areas sectioned off for the player to explore and capture the untamed Pokémon, adding to their team and Pokédex. During the day, the player can relax with Pokémon at cafes, take on restaurant battle challenges or complete a large number of side quests around the city.

Then, when nighttime hits, a section of the city will be closed off for the city’s Z-A Royale.

Within this closed off area, players can challenge other trainers to a battle by stealthfully sneaking up on a trainer and attacking their Pokémon to get an advantage in battle. While the previous Legends installment highly utilized the Pokédex system now used in this game, Legends Z-A focuses much more on evolving the battle system. This leaves the game with a relatively small Pokédex with only 220 available Pokémon to catch and battle with. While this is a con overall, it allows the game to focus on developing the Pokémon included and encourages players to experiment with new teams during their playthrough.

Legends Z-A trades the standard turn-based RPG gameplay of previous games for an action RPG combat system. While battling, players and their Pokémon freely maneuver around the battlefield and utilize various offensive and defensive moves. Moves do not have a limit on how many times they can be used. Each move now requires a cooldown before it can be used again.

In addition, the fan-favorite mechanic of Mega Evolution returns after 11 years. The player is able to Mega Evolve their Pokémon by building up Mega Energy overtime during battle to fill a meter.

Alongside Mega Evolution, players are able to use part of this meter to enhance regular Pokémon’s attacks as Plus moves so even if you don’t have a Pokémon who can Mega Evolve, you will still find some use for the meter you build.

The list of Pokémon that have Mega forms has increased, with many fan favorites like receiving awesome new Mega Evolutions. Unfortunately not all Mega forms are of equal quality with some feeling underwhelming, while others have become huge memes online.

After beating a certain number of trainers at night and reaching parts of the game’s story, the player is able to challenge rival characters to a rank battle. The outcome will decide if the player can advance further in the rankings or not.

Speaking of rival trainers, the game’s cast of characters, new and old, are fun additions to the franchise and a joy to watch interact with each other. New characters like Naveen, Lida, Canari, Corbeau and others have made a name for themselves and found fanbases.

Older characters like AZ, Emma and Mable return to play a role in the game’s story and world. Eagle-eyed players will be able to identify references to other favorite characters and events throughout the game.

Not everything is perfect though. Regarding the games characters, the lack of character voice acting prevents the cast from obtaining their full potential and animated cutscenes feel awkward.

The game looks much better graphically than previous Pokémon games, but there are still odd textured buildings which look flat upon closer inspection. While my playthrough of the game ran well on the Switch 2, showcases of the game running worse on the original Switch with framerate drops and lag affecting gameplay. It’s an improvement over Pokémon Scarlet and Violet though, which were notorious for running extremely poorly and often crashing.

Although the game has many good attributes and is fun overall, it’s hard to recommend this game given the price point. It’s no secret Triple-A games are expensive at $70-80. This game is no different. However, Pokémon Z-A has a couple hidden costs that, while not being a pay to win game, locks multiple features the player would want access to.

In order to access the ability to play online in Pokémon Z-A, a Nintendo Switch Online account is required. This costs $3.99 per month or $19.99 per year for a basic plan. Without this, features such as online trading and battling are locked as well as the ability to access in-game screenshots from other devices.

This may not sound horrible to someone who prefers not to play online games, but you will not be able to access all that this game has to offer. Trade-exclusive evolutions and special Mega forms are rewards for players ranking high enough in online battles.

In the build up to Legends Z-A, three Pokémon received Mega forms. The announcement had many fans excited for Chesnaught, Delphox and Gerninja. However, the only way to access these new Mega forms is by playing the online battle mode and obtaining “Rank K”.

Only one Mega is available for unlock per season, so if you want to get all three forms, you have to obtain “Rank K” within 20 days three times.That will take around 60 days to unlock them!

The DLC for Legends Z-A, Mega Dimension, was announced a month before the game was even released. This made many gamers feel the game was incomplete and content was purposefully being withheld from them behind a pay wall.

If players want the best experience possible, it’s recommended that they play on the Switch 2 retailing for $450. There is a bundle available that includes a Switch 2 and Pokémon Legends Z-A for $500 for those looking to save a little money.

So, if you have a Switch 2, a Nintendo Online account and have the cash to spare, I would recommend Pokémon Legends Z-A. If you only have an original Switch and/or don’t have an Online account, it becomes more difficult to recommend. There are other fun games that cost a lot less that provide a similar experience, but this fun entry adds spice to the Pokémon franchise.