5 major hurdles Pokemon Legends: Z-A needs to overcome to become fan favorite

Pokemon Legends: Z-A is the next project set to come from Game Freak in 2025. Following the beloved Legends: Arceus game, many players felt that the first attempt at the new side series was good but had the potential to be so much better with a little more development time.

With Pokemon Legends: Z-A not coming out until 2025, many fans are hoping Game Freak listened to the community and gave its team more time to cook this title up. There are still some massive hurdles the game will have to manuever in order to truly live up to the anticipation.

Note: This list is subjective and solely reflects the opinions of the writer

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5 shortcomings Pokemon Legends: Z-A will need to navigate in its development

1) Old hardware

The Nintendo Switch is starting to show its age, so making the game look graphically appealing will be a bit of a challenge (Image via Nintendo)

While the Switch’s graphics are decent for its time, many other consoles are entering their next generation, leaving Nintendo leaps behind of the competition in terms of power. This is starting to show, with many large-scale games needing to cut back for the sake of preserving a consistent experience for the consumer.

With Pokemon Legends: Z-A set to arrive on the Nintendo Switch, many players are lowering their hopes for the game's performance and graphical quality, something every recent entry in the franchise has been criticized for.

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2) Weak narrative

While mainline Pokemon games are more light-hearted and can get away with a weaker plot, these Legends games tells a much more serious story (Image via Game Freak)

Many Pokemon games are known for having relatively weak plots, with some serious moments thrown in on occasion. This results in the narrative not really receiving much focus in the main series, often taking a backseat to the flashy battle gimmick instead.

However, if what we saw in Legends: Arceus is anything to go off of, Pokemon Legends: Z-A will feature a much more serious story, with the lore of the Kalos region being incredibly deep and violent. With this in mind, the narrative should receive extra-close attention during development.

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3) Lack of voice acting

The Pokemon franchise is one of the few remaining Nintendo properties to not be at least partially voice-acted (Image via Game Freak)

One of the glaring flaws in every recent Pokemon game is its lack of voice acting. While Legends: Arceus featured a couple grunting sound effects for the player character, the game's honest attempt at telling a compelling narrative was buried under boxes of unspoken dialogue, leaving the experience empty and devoid of emotion.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s extended development date may imply that Game Freak is planning on implementing more details to help the game's story, like better writing and voice acting. If the title lacks this crucial part of story games, it will most likely fall flat emotionally, similar to its predecessor.

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4) Not rewriting Kalos' history

While it could use some elaboration, the history of the Kalos region is already an interesting subject as it is (Image via The Pokemon Company)

When Game Freak revisits an older region, it tends to overwrite its original narrative and history, changing many of the characters fans loved. While there is little that the community knows on the ancient king of the Kalos region, AZ, many fans would be disappointed to see him change his goals and motivation because the new playable character had to be there.

With so many interesting angles Pokemon Legends: Z-A could take with its story and gameplay, Game Freak should focus more on the lore established in Pokemon X and Y and cater to the more serious story it provides instead of telling another one about the power of friendship.

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5) Lack of post-game content

While Legends: Arceus had a couple post-game quests, it would be nice to see a new area, or maybe a place for players to grind harder Pokemon battles (Image via Game Freak)

Post-game content has seemingly fallen out of focus in the eyes of Game Freak following the success of the expansion pass DLCs for its mainline games. However, it would be great to see some long-term post-game content that fans can sink their teeth into.

While Kalos did have something similar by introducing the Battle Maison, and Legends: Arceus had a few interesting post-game sidequests, it is unsure whether or not Game Freak will try to find a good middle ground between the two for Pokemon Legends: Z-A. Something like a Pokemon arena with randomly-generated trainers would make a great addition to this upcoming title.