Pokémon Legends: Z-A makes some pretty notable changes to the series’ typical formula. Its battles take place in real-time, it makes the Mega Evolution mechanic a cooldown, and it has several different mission types to juggle while you’re catching and training monsters. That means even series veterans are starting from zero on some things, so before you head into Lumiose City, here are a few helpful tips to make the most of your stay at Hotel Z.
Read up on Pokémon X and Y’s story
Legends: Z-A is essentially a direct sequel to 2013’s X and Y. The entire game takes place in Lumiose City, a Paris-inspired metropolis you pass through in the original 3DS RPGs. There are returning characters and storylines that come up in Legends: Z-A’s stories and sidequests, so if you’ve never played through the original Kalos games or haven’t played them in a while, I recommend either reading a summary or watching a recap as a refresher. That way, you’ll know why it’s significant that AZ is running your hotel, or that Emma has a full-time detective job, among other bigger reveals later on.
Prepare yourself: This game is handholdy for a while
Sometimes I wish Pokémon games would give me the option to interrupt NPCs with a Ron Swanson “I know more than you” when they insist on tutorializing every little thing. Like, aw, you think I don’t know what a Potion is, or that I’m not on a first-name basis with every Nurse Joy from here to Kanto? AndLegends: Z-A’s tutorial is particularly time-consuming, essentially taking up hours. You’ll be dragged around the city by your companions for several in-game days as you’re taught the ins and outs of everything Legends: Z-A has to offer. Your Rotom phone will stop you from venturing too far from the intended path, and it will get very, very frustrating. But when it comes to an end, the rest of the city is open to you right off the bat.
Your moves do different things than you’re used to
Since Legends: Z-A has a real-time battle system, some classic attacks have been tweaked to fit this new setup. For example, buff moves that once affected your Pokémon for a certain number of turns are now calculated in real-time, lasting however many seconds rather than turns. As you teach your party new moves, familiarize yourself with how they work in Legends: Z-A, because they might be slightly different than what you’re used to.
Positioning and timing are everything
When you give your Pokémon commands, they will move to somewhere on the field that puts them in the right spot to execute the attack based on your opponent’s current position. However, if your opponent moves out of the way, the attack will miss. So rather than accuracy being determined by backend dice rolls, you see the attack land or not as you’re executing it. As such, a big part of learning how to best utilize every attack in your arsenal is understanding where you should be standing when you use it, and keeping an eye on your opponent’s maneuvers and cooldowns to make sure it’s timed well. Some enemies know moves like Protect that will shield them from your attacks, but they will be on a cooldown, so if you can bait your opponent into using it on a weaker move, you’ll have an opening for a counterattack.
Find attack orders that act as combos
This new position-based gameplay means that simply attacking at random and cycling through your cooldowns is not always the best play. As you cultivate your Pokémon’s movesets, finding attacks that can synergize together to create combos can help you get the leg up on your opponents. For example, right now, my Pikachu knows Quick Attack, Nuzzle, and Spark. One of my go-to strategies in battles is to have him use Quick Attack to get in close to an enemy, use that closeness to Nuzzle them into a paralyzed state, then use Spark to run out of the fight with a destructive, electric dash. This combo lets Pikachu be a bit of a hit-and-run character that can get in, do some damage, then retreat to safety. Knowing how your moves can work together is just as important as type coverage, and discovering those will take some experimentation.
Stop locking on as a pseudo dodge
To target enemies on the field, you’ll have to lock onto them with ZL. Doing this will make your active Pokémon square up against whoever you’re looking at, and they’ll stay relatively close to this foe so they’re ready to execute any commands you give them. If you find your partner is getting slapped around and should get out of the scrap, simply stop locking onto an enemy, and your Pokémon will run back to your side. Make sure you’re also out of the way of whatever attack is incoming, too, though.
You can reach any clothing store once you have free rein
The fashion in Legends: Z-A is pretty great. It’s a definite upgrade from Scarlet and Violet, which forced all of us to wear school uniforms. New fits are expensive, but the game is pretty generous about letting you buy whatever clothes you want pretty quickly. Once you’re able to freely roam Lumiose City, you can reach every store without issue. Make a shopping day of running around the city and trying stuff on. Clothes are no longer gender-locked in Legends: Z-A, either, so you can wear whatever you want.
You’ll unlock time skip later
Legends: Z-A loves to withhold basic functions for several gameplay hours, including a time skip feature that lets you skip to the night of its day/night cycle. You can only engage in trainer battles during the night, and some wild Pokémon only come out when the sun is gone, so there will be times when you wish you could just sit on a bench and wait for nightfall. I can tell you that you will be able to do that eventually, but for the first few hours, you’ll get an in-game warning that it’s not the time to be resting every time you try and sit down. Once you’re able to sit on a bench without someone yelling, you’ll be able to skip to evenings or hang out with your Pokémon friends on the bench and take photos.
If you haven’t heard already, Shiny Pokémon don’t despawn
Shiny Pokémon just became a lot easier to capture in Legends: Z-A, and it’s because they no longer despawn. These alternate-colored monsters have a low spawn rate, but in Lumiose City, they’ll stay on the map until you either defeat them or capture them, rather than disappearing as the map refreshes. You can lose a battle, leave a wild zone, or shut the game down entirely, and Shinies will be right where you left them. The hunters have already been exploiting this, but even if you’re a casual Shiny collector, this will be helpful to your efforts.
More Wild Zones will open as the game progresses
Though you can go just about anywhere in Lumiose City early on, you won’t find some of your favorite Pokémon right off the bat. The Wild Zone areas where Pokémon reside will open up as you progress through the story, and later ones will feature monsters you couldn’t find in the early hours. It does mean that popular Pokémon aren’t available until much later, so if you can’t find a specific one, just know that more of these zones will appear as you keep going.
Some story missions pause the day/night cycle
This isn’t a foolproof rule, but it’s something I noticed when I was running around Lumiose City and hadn’t received any notifications that the sun was getting low and the metropolis would turn into a battle zone. I had been neglecting a story mission that was set to take place during the day to do some side quests; then, when it dawned on me that time hadn’t passed, I realized the game world’s clock had seemingly been frozen until I went to deliver a package to a friend. Sure enough, the sun started setting shortly after I completed the quest. I tested this on a later story mission and noticed the sun was moving as it should, so this isn’t a universal truth. Just keep in mind that sometimes you might need to finish a story mission before the evening will come, or you can use it to your advantage to keep the sun shining while you run some daytime errands.
Photo mode is essentially a first-person mode
There have been times in Legends: Z-A when I’ve wanted to examine some objects in the environment that were a bit far away in the game’s usual third-person camera angle. However, if you open photo mode with the minus button, you’ll shift to a first-person perspective that you can walk around in. This is helpful if you want a closer look at an area or museum display.
You can pick up lost Poké Balls from collectors
Part of Lumiose City’s redevelopment plan is that there are now Poké Ball collectors stationed outside the Pokémon Center. These guys are keeping the city clean by picking up trash and spare Poké Balls that hooligans leave lying around the city. If you throw one of these capturing devices and miss, or a Pokémon breaks out of its hold, these guys will be holding onto them at the Center. Before you go stocking up on Poké Balls, check in with them to see if they have any of your litter on hand.
