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According to former Nintendo marketing managers Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang, the Metacritic score for Pokemon Legends: Z-A likely won't reach the "90s or anything like that" – and it all boils down to fans being "very resistant to change."
Ellis and Yang look to past entries in Game Freak and Nintendo's beloved creature collector series, including Pokemon Legends: Arceus as well as Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, as examples of games that potentially didn't score as well as they could've for this very same reason. Asking Yang if she can "predict the Metacritic score for Pokemon Legends: Z-A" – a question she answers with a predicted score of 84 – Ellis dives into older Pokemon ratings.
"So, for context, Arceus got 83," recalls Ellis. "Scarlet and Violet got 72. That was a big drop." Yang chimes in, "We looked at it this morning, and I was like, 'Whoa, that's lower than I thought!'" She's not wrong to have thought so – in fact, judging by all of Metacritic's review scores for the entire Pokemon franchise, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet actually rank the lowest of any other mainline games (not counting spin-offs like Mystery Dungeon).
Scarlet has a 72 while Violet sits just underneath with a 71. Ellis and Yang continue, with the latter reiterating her guess of 84 for Pokemon Legends: Z-A – and the former offering his own prediction: "I'm going to say 82 for Legends Z-A, which is one point lower than Arceus." Why does he propose an even lower score than Yang has, though? As Ellis explains, it comes down to change, or more so, longtime fans being "resistant" to it.
"Pokemon has become such a flash point franchise where a lot of people love it, hate it," says the former Nintendo marketing lead. "Again, some people are very resistant to change, some people are very open to change. I think it makes it a hard game for it to really get the high high score." Yang agrees, saying, "I'm not thinking it's like 90s or anything like that." That doesn't mean the two believe Pokemon Legends: Z-A will be bad, however.
"No, I think it'll be very solid," as Ellis puts it, "but again, I think some of the things that they're introducing might be a little bit divisive, which is probably why it's landing on the lower end of 80, and again, below Arceus." His deduction here makes sense. After all, the new game, although exciting, features a very different setting from even Arceus, with the same open-world exploration and move away from the traditional town-to-town loop.
Here's hoping the score somehow exceeds Ellis and Yang's expectations – I know I personally loved Pokemon Legends: Arceus, anyway, and felt it was a breath of fresh air for the series. Nostalgia is important, too, of course, but change really can be good.
