I am not a Pokemon purist by any means. Spinoffs, side projects, manga… No matter the medium, there's no one way to engage with the franchise that's more right than others, despite the series' gaming origins. It's why I am always willing to do something new and different when it comes to the latest and greatest Pokemon games, but Pokemon Legends: Z-A has made me regret this open-mindedness with its most annoying enemy: scaffolding.
The Legends series of Pokemon games shakes up the traditional formula in ways I truly love. From the moment I saw it in action, I suspected that Pokemon Legends: Z-A's combat would finally allow me to live out my dreams of anime-style fights – and it does! It's a welcome change of pace, and that's coming from someone that loves turn-based RPGs more than just about any other kind.
But while I am the exact target audience for running around arenas, dodging moves and tossing out my own, the platforming challenges are something else entirely. Tediously crawling up beams and slanted walls while rolling to try and cover gaps is meaningless at best, and it's boring at worst.
It's not very effective
It doesn't help that this is basically the extent of your movement options. A single ability to use your Rotom phone as an odd single-use bouncy glider is eventually unlocked, but its fuzzy movement isn't exactly simple to predict and makes for a frustrating addition. Because you activate it while falling, more than once my dashing protagonist barely missed the lip of a roof purely because I'd dropped just slightly too far before hitting the button to activate the Rotom. And if you, like me, find climbing the scaffolding to be mind-numbing the first time, let me assure you that doing the same simplistic climbing puzzle over and over is much worse.
It's a limited set of potential movement options with a city full of basic climbing puzzles and lots of roofs. It gets old quickly, and that's even while I'm genuinely enjoying pretty much the entire rest of the game. Yes, there are a ton of Pokemon Legends: Z-A tutorials, and the post-game can be an absolutely massive grind, but the core gameplay loop – cribbed from Pokemon but altered to allow for real-time combat – is maybe the most thrilling Pokemon as a franchise has been in years.
In the grand scheme, maybe this is a minor annoyance. I am willing to entertain that there's every possibility that I am in a slim minority, and the fact that Pokemon Legends: Z-A's platforming bothers me so much is not due to it being truly bad, but simply less good than the rest of it. I'm baffled to report that every single one of my GamesRadar+ colleagues I've spoken to prior to the publication of this piece has described the same platforming as "fine" to "good," even. At first, I assumed they were giving me guff, but no, they appear to truly believe that.
And look, the scaffolding does serve a narrative and mechanical purpose, so in that sense it is technically successful. The enhanced verticality of Lumiose City requires some method of mechanically reaching the rooftops, and the construction going on throughout the city provides a narrative justification for the scaffolding's existence at all. (I don't want to talk about Colorful Screws right now, but I don't hate them; they might hate me, however.)
But maybe, just maybe, Game Freak could simply… add a jump button next time.
Pokemon Legends: Z-A is currently available for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. If you're curious to see how it ranks, be sure to check out our coverage of the best Pokemon games.
