Pokémon Legends: Z-A Looks Promising but I Can't Help Feeling Lukewarm About It

Back with another post, and this time about a game, if you can believe it! My recent posts don’t really scream gamer, so let’s change that! Let’s talk about one of my favorite game series, or I guess you could say it used to be one of them.

Truth be told, the recent Pokémon games haven’t been clicking with me. There are several reasons why, which I will go into detail about soon, but for now, a little backstory on me and the series.

Pokémania was in full bloom back in the 90s, and there wasn’t a shortage of people to trade, battle, or just talk about Pokémon! I’ve never had many friends as a kid, and neither do I have now, but that’s besides the point!

The ones I did have, we’re all thanks to Pokémon! It allowed me to connect to people over trades, battles, or just over our shared love of the games, anime, TCG, or any other facets of the franchise. Something that as an introverted autistic kid was hard to do.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this. It may be corny, but I’m going to say it anyway! Pokémon made me the person I am today, and even though I dislike some aspects of it. I can always count on the games to be fantastic! Or at least that was the case.

Recently, ever since the release of Pokémon Let’s Go, the games feel like they’re in a mid-life crisis, losing sight of themselves and becoming more experimental. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s good to break the stale formula once in awhile. I feel like they are experimenting with the wrong elements.

Art and style are really important to me, and I absolutely love Ken Sugimori’s style! It screams Pokémon to me and is symbolic to the series, or at least I think so. But it looks like that’s not the case over at GameFreak, the game company that develops the main-series Pokémon games. Let’s Go went with a different non-cell-shaded style for its graphics. Something that has been a mainstay ever since the release of X and Y in 2013.

Which is weird because they themselves said they decided on cell-shaded graphics as a way to preserve Ken Sugimori’s style going forward.

Now, that would be fine and dandy if it were just those games, but no, they kept experimenting with the style of the games with the next entry, Sword and Shield. This time there isn’t much whiplash from Sun and Moon to Let’s Go, but something about it feels off, and that’s because it merges with some style elements from Let’s Go. a compromise, if you will.

Now I have no idea what’s going on inside of GameFreak, but looking from the outside in, it feels like there’s some disagreements on the game’s graphics within the teams, and so it looks like they’re compromising. Something unheard of since the main-series games kept a consistent style for the graphics before that point.

So maybe this will be the style moving forward? Or so I thought! Legends: Arceus releases, and look at this. A new art style! This time much more consistent with the older games, but with a twist of its own! Using watercolors.

Honestly, I love this style! It is cell-shaded and adds its own unique look; this is what Pokémon games should look like, in my opinion! Unfortunately, my hopes for future entries graphics were crushed utterly by the release of Scarlet and Violet.

Now I’m not going to open that can of worms today. This post is already longer than I expected.

No, I’m only talking about the game’s graphics style and in my opinion, what a huge downgrade it is. Just like Let’s Go is not cell-shaded, and worse, is just uglier?! It feels soulless, not to mention that they added realistic textures to people and Pokémon. Now, this is a matter of taste, but for a fantasy game, I don’t think making it look realistic is the right call. Games are a form of escapism into other worlds from our own, which is emphasized by making them colorful and different.

I can stop asking myself, Why would GameFreak do this? They took so much care to preserve Ken’s Sugimori style that they even pushed back on going 3D earlier due to it.

Maybe it is just that GameFreak has changed? Maybe they have a new vision now? And with new hands taking over some of the veteran staff, maybe that’s just the natural progression?

I can’t say, but I will say one thing: this is not the future I want. For me, Ken Sugimori’s style is fundamental for the series. I can’t look at anything else not resembling it and say, “That’s Pokémon!”. Not without a heavy heart, at least. Maybe I just don’t like change? But one thing is for sure: I won’t be playing these entries. I can’t stomach it, and that may sound silly, but that’s how important it is for me.

But this isn’t the end as much as I would like it to be!

We have a new entry in the series with Legends: Z-A, and it looks promising. We don’t have much information or gameplay, for that matter, but fans are excited for it!

I, on the other hand, look at this with apprehension. I want nothing more than to be hyped for it like I was with Legends: Arceus, but I can’t help but keep my hopes low. I just don’t want to be disappointed again. So all I can do is hope that this time will be different, but that’s all I can do. At least until we get some gameplay, but for now, I’m taking a break from this series. I hope it’s just a short break and nothing more.

Phew! That was a long one! If you read this far, thank you! I appreciate all of my readers. What about you? Do you like how the Pokémon games are heading? Do you feel similar to me? Let me know via email! (•‿•)