Ever since the very first Pokémon games, players have had to endure a somewhat lengthy tutorial before starting their journey. The formula has been consistent: child wakes up in bedroom or arrives in new town, meets parent, chooses a starter, learns how to catch and battle, explores the first route or two, receives a Pokédex, and then at that point, maybe you’re allowed to explore on your own.
In recent installments, the early game tutorials have felt longer than ever. I recall Sword & Shield’s opening beats dragging for hours, and Scarlet & Violet wasn’t much better. It wasn’t as big of a deal with Legends: Arceus because that was a brand-new spinoff that introduced new mechanics. Legends: Z-A also has a few new tricks up its sleeve, but nonetheless, the tutorial is again way too long.
Game Freak, The Pokémon Company, Nintendo, please, I’m begging you: Let us skip, or at least fast-forward through, the tutorials. Some of us have been playing Pokémon games for almost 30 years. We know what type matchups are, we understand that you throw Poké Balls at wild Pokémon to catch them, and we’ve taught our Pokémon thousands of TMs before. We don’t need refresher courses on this stuff. Children and families, aka the target audience for most Pokémon games? Sure, they’ll find it handy (although I’d argue it still holds your hand a little too much) but give us the option to skip it.
Legends: Z-A is by no means the worst offender for this because it does have new mechanics to consider, such as how opposing Pokémon can actually target you, the player, during battle. It’s also been three years since Legends: Arceus, so it’s understandable some players may need their memories jogged. But once we’ve got to grips with it, let us take it at our own pace and skip through the constant railroading.
I’m more than two hours into Legends: Z-A at this point, and still effectively in the tutorial. I was taught everything necessary within the first 30 minutes. Since then, I’ve been following Urbain, the excitable-yet-over-eager chap who you meet as soon as you step off the train at the start of the game, around Lumiose City like a lost puppy.
After the first Wild Zone — which the map seems to imply there’s only six of, but there must be more that will appear eventually — I wish that the game would let me explore the city in whatever order I want. By all means, place mission markers on the map to show me where to go next, but if I try to walk down a side street one more time and have Urbain shout at me for going off the beaten track, my Totodile is gonna Water Gun him straight in his verbose gob.
I’m looking forward to playing more Legends: Z-A when I eventually break free of Urbain’s command, because surely it can’t go on for much longer. Legends: Arceus is one of my all-time favorite Pokémon games because it was such an interesting twist on the formula, and while Lumiose City doesn’t appear to offer quite the same level of exploration, I’m hoping — but not necessarily expecting, given Pokémon’s recent track record — the city environment will allow for a denser map packed full of things to find.
So far, the gameplay loop adds such a twist to the usual Pokémon routine that it feels like Game Freak is onto something. I can’t wait to be given free rein of a city that is friendly and cheerful by day, but dangerous at night if you venture into a designated battle zone. The Legends spinoff series on the whole is such a refreshing vision for the formulaic franchise.
With that in mind, corners feel cut. Building facades are flat textures, despite most having balconies, and every block of apartments looks so repetitive. It’s akin to walking around a toy city, like those Lego blocks with stickers on the side. The models of the Pokémon themselves look brilliant though, with plenty of life and animation.
While performance on the Nintendo Switch 2 shows no signs of stuttering so far, and it looks slightly better than Legends: Arceus did on the first console, both characters and Pokémon do still suffer from pop-in. It’s been said many times over, but it’s jarring how Nintendo can make a beautiful open-world game such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom run so well, but Pokémon games seriously struggle to get anywhere close to it.
With all this said, I’m still only a few hours in. I’ve been craving a new Legends game ever since I beat Arceus, and the story in Z-A already seems intriguing. So until I get free rein of the place, I’ll keep doing as the boy tells me.
