Pokemon Legends: Z-A hands-on: With overhauled battles and denser exploration, I'm shocked at how fundamentally fresh this could feel

Surprisingly, for such a busy series, Pokemon Legends: Z-A has felt a long time coming. When Pokemon Legends: Arceus was released in 2022, it was the biggest example of developer Game Freak tiptoeing just outside the boundaries of its decades-long comfort zone, reframing the formula with a more open foundation that seemed ever-so-slightly influenced by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Arceus was arguably ugly and too basic, yet was still the first awkward shuffle toward something new. After playing for myself, it's clear that Pokemon Legends: Z-A remains a little ugly, but an ugly duckling – Quaxly, whatever – who's slowly waddling forward.

While Arceus more or less had the same ol' turn-based mechanics as the mainline titles, Pokemon Legends: Z-A's fights take place almost entirely in real time. Trainers hustle around the battlefield alongside their chosen monster ducking and weaving through Razor Leaf barrages and Poison Sting shots. Attacks aren't back-and-forth, tit-for-tat affairs but are instead dictated entirely by cooldowns.

It's a shocking change that's immediately more interesting than lackadaisically thumbing through each encounter and pummeling the allowance out of some poor pre-teen trainer without paying much attention. My initial bout against a tiny Fletchling is a lot more chaotic than I expect since juggling which attack to perform while being pecked at isn't something I'm used to after over two decades of turn-based fights that have only gotten more stale over the years. The new menu for choosing attacks catches me off guard, and my innocent Chikorita pays dearly for it (sorry, my leafy-green Gen-2 friend).

Just repetitively hammering home the strongest attack probably isn't going to cut it anymore, and there's actually a reason to use debuff moves since there's little else to do while the offensive ones are unavailable. For once, Growl is a move I use on purpose, and I can only hope the other abilities like this aren't the wastes of slots they used to be.

Positioning during these cooldowns is important, too, since players are encouraged to physically move around to keep their Pokemon safe from enemy attacks. This led me to using a blitzkrieg-style offense where I'd unload as many attacks as possible and then skip around the field in the hopes my opponent would whiff during my four cooldowns, which seems like it might be a more engaging style down the line. Attacks now accommodate this new style, as well. Stealth Rock, as an example, places rocky mines around the playspace instead of previously only hurting enemies when they were released from their Poke Balls, according to a Pokemon Company representative.

Even though many of the attacks in my demo were of the tamer variety – think Tackle and Thunder Wave – knowing that the more complicated moves have been overhauled is promising since their variety, if done thoughtfully, could yield a welcome amount of depth.

Mega hesitations

Mega Evolution battles stretch these mechanics in a different way by combining these real-time elements with Noble Pokemon fights – the marquee boss fights from Arceus against glowing Pokemon that had players tediously evading the same attacks over and over. But instead of throwing a few dozen balm balls and praying to the Poke Gods for it to be over, players have to dodge around unique attack patterns with their Pokemon in order to suck up enough orbs to get their own Mega Evolution going. For example, the Mega Evolution of Absol that introduces these mechanics sends out shockwaves that have to be jumped over and then punished with an array of Lucario's attacks. It's not suddenly a soulslike where I had to have split-second reflexes, but this approach is a better mesh of the aforementioned Noble Pokemon fights and more traditional battles.

Beating the orbs out of a boss like they're Sonic the Hedgehog rings while picking the right time to attack and evade their energy beams has some potential, but all of the other novel changes feel, admittedly, a little mashy in my demo that was ripped from the early sections of the game.

This manic pacing opens the door for more questions and possibly more weaknesses. Is timing and spacing going to be that important, or is cycling through cooldowns without much strategy going to be enough? How many of the attacks have been consciously retooled? Will the Pokemon AI follow the trainer fast enough to avoid attacks consistently? Game Freak doesn't seem to have much experience in this space, and there have been some excellent real-time fighting systems (or turn-based ones with great real-time elements) over the years, so while it's conceptually promising in these introductory battles, Pokemon Legends: Z-A's combat is not quite in the clear.

Lumiose’s restrictive tour

It's difficult to tell how the other systems in Pokemon Legends: Z-A will fare because the demo was frustratingly limited in scope. Traversal is a pain in the ass in Arceus – it's always pathetic when the protagonist can't hike up a meager incline without stumbling and sliding down – and it's been expanded in Z-A, but it's hard to assess how since the designated sections were limited to a small back alley with a few trainer battles and a rooftop fight against a rogue Absol with an attitude problem.

The new Roto-Glide gadget gives explorers more verticality, but how that affects the game and what freedom it offers is unknown. Wild Zones let players roam Lumiose City for the chance to capture wild Pokemon, yet it remains to be seen how Z-A's improvements fare in this creature-collecting context. Catching Pokemon is my favorite part of these games and one of the highlights of Arceus, so not being able to see if these other changes affect it was disappointing.

Lumiose City, being a dense urban area, is also less open, seemingly to address Arceus' many technical woes. Pokemon Legends: Z-A probably literally can't have as bad of pop-in if the horizons are much more limited and blocked by skyscrapers, but that only merely touches on the Copperajah in the room: Z-A just doesn't look that technically impressive.

Despite running on the very hardware powering stylistic showpieces like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, Z-A features the same basic presentation that has plagued the last handful of Pokemon titles. The streets and rooftops are bare and lack personality and, while appearing to be a bustling metropolis, Lumiose City is strangely quiet. The limited character animations are also quite noticeable. It does make me wonder if the game is underwhelming in these areas because Z-A is still chained to the archaic original Switch compared to its more powerful successor.

But that shouldn't absolve the Pokemon games for continuing to come up short, especially when other games on both of these Nintendo platforms have found ways to stun with limited resources. In an era of diminishing visual returns, not every game needs to take seven or so years to cook with the budget of a mid-size Marvel movie.

Does Naughty Dog need to spend nearly a whole console cycle perfecting every shaved hair follicle on protagonist Jordan Mun's head in Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophecy? Probably not. But there has to be a middle ground between that and Pokemon still looking like this, despite being one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.

Even with a dated presentation, Pokemon Legends: Z-A builds on Pokemon Legends: Arceus' foundation with some noteworthy adjustments. On the surface, having more direct control in the real-time fights is a welcome change that gives this sub-series a distinct style that breaks from the tradition seen in the main installments.

But, much like the many buildings in Lumiose City that obstruct the greater picture, the limited demo makes it hard to get a look at how Z-A's other mechanics have progressed or how its new developments will shake out in the context of the full game. Game Freak has taken steps forward, making Z-A an enticing game to look forward to, but it's also worth still being at least a little skeptical regarding how this evolution will shape up.

Need some monster catching now instead of waiting? Check out our list for the best Pokemon games for help on what to play next!