As my fellow Nintendo Entertainment Podcast hosts and I noted not too long ago, the latest trailer for Pokemon Legends Z-A was “mixed,” at best. On the one hand, the game does look like an interesting spin on the traditional Poke-formula, with Lumiose City being far more grand than when we first saw it on the Nintendo 3DS. However, with little information about how things will truly work in the moment-to-moment gameplay, the overall story, and how things will be “consistently entertaining” within a single city, not to mention the lack of a release date reveal, many are on the fence about it.
Another element to consider is the game’s visuals, which were attacked by many people over the last few weeks. That includes ex-Nintendo employees and Nintendo Minute personalities Kit & Krysta, who broke down what they thought on the latest episode of their podcast.
For example said at one point:
I understand what people are saying when they’re frustrated with this game because it looks very flat. There’s not a lot of detail
Kit also (rightfully) pointed out that there are plenty of Switch games that have talented teams making the most of the system and bringing out the graphics to the fullest. Krysta added to this by noting:
[Game Freak] is a highly capable studio that has a lot of resources and are very connected to Nintendo. Hey, call them up, ‘Can you help us?’
It’s not hard to point to the teams, both first and third-party, who have done this, including Nintendo’s own internal teams as well as groups like Monolith Soft. Personally, I don’t think the game looked that bad, but I can understand people wanting more than just a slightly enhanced Gen 9 style. Until the game is fully out, though, we won’t be able to judge in full.
