Conclusion and Predictions
In closing, I’d have to say that Legends: Arceus is the best Pokémon game I’ve played since the Gold, Silver and Crystal versions. Johto and Hisui are now my two favorite regions of the Pokémon world. But now we come to the true purpose of this post, which is to use what we know about Legends: Arceus to try and determine what sort of things we’ll see in Legends: Z-A. Now bare in mind that every single one of the predictions I’m about to make could be totally wrong. We won’t know anything for sure until Pokémon Day finally rolls around.
So the first question is, how far into the past of the Pokémon world is Legends: Z-A going to take us? Well, considering how far back in time Legends: Arceus took place, what we know of the history of the Kalos Region, and what little we saw in that trailer for Legends: Z-A a year ago, my guess is we’re only going to go back a few hundred years. Now the great war that was touched on in X and Y took place about three thousand years before the events of those games, so I think we can eliminate the possibility of the game’s story taking place during that war. That being said, I imaging AZ will likely make some kind of appearance in the game since he is a tragic immortal (really, what immortal isn’t tragic?), but anything relating to him or the war will likely only be side quest material at best.
Returning to the matter of the setting for Legends: Z-A, the initial trailer for the game indicated that a major focus of the game would be a version of Lumios City that’s under construction. So I imagine the starting point for the game will either be a settlement that’s the future site of Lumios City, or a more antiquated version of Lumios City that has a different name and is going to eventually be renovated. My guess is it’s the latter since it follows the same pattern of the Sinnoh Region being Hisui in Legends: Arceus. Turning back for a moment to the time period of the story, I’m guessing we’re going to see something similar to France in the mid to late 1800s or perhaps even the early 1900s. It might in fact be the early 1900s since the the game looks like it’s going to be partly about modernizing an aging city.
As for the plot in Legends: Z-A, we know that Zygarde is going to play a central role. Given Zygarde’s nature as a living environmental defense system, my guess is that it’ll view the construction of a new Lumios City as a threat to the environment of Kalos and will try to stop it. So the player’s role in the game’s story will be to resolve that conflict. I’m guessing Xerneas and Yveltal will also play some kind of role in the story, though I don’t know what that role will be. The exact relationship Zygarde has with Xerneas and Yveltal was never explored because Pokémon Z never became a reality.
As for returning game features and mechanics, the first question is whether or not this will also be another open world exploration game where the wild Pokémon of the region can attack the player. My response is it had damn well better be. Actually, the big question I’ve had on my mind is if the entire game is going to take place solely in the future Lumios City, or if we’re going to be allowed to go beyond the city limits. I know from what I’ve read that Lumios City is pretty big, but I can’t see setting an entire game solely in that area. Plus I imagine that one of the game’s major objectives is to catch all of the Pokémon of Kalos, and that can’t be done in Lumios City alone.
If we do get to go beyond the city limits in Legends: Z-A, I should point out that this older version of Kalos probably won’t be the same untamed wilderness that Hisui was. The kingdom of Kalos continued to thrive after AZ unleashed the ultimate weapon, so while we won’t see the same level of development as modern day Kalos, I imagine that we’ll see a good number of small villages and settlements scattered throughout the region. These settlement of course would be early versions of other major locations in Kalos. If one of the goals of the Legends series is to do more world building, how could they not do this?
As for a return of some of the other game features and mechanics from Legends: Arceus that might make a return in Z-A, I’m honestly not sure. Poké Ball crafting could come back, but it’s hard to say for certain. As for the Strong Style and Agile Style moves, I highly doubt those will be making a comeback. For one thing, the martial arts theme that mechanic has doesn’t really fit with a setting like Kalos. Plus Mega Evolutions are going to be making a comeback in this game, and I think that’s going to be the central battle mechanic. As for the “Frenzy Battles” making a return, I think that’ll depend a lot on the game’s overall story.
The final question is whether or not we’ll be seeing any new regional forms or evolutions in Legends: Z-A. My prediction is it’s not impossible but it is highly unlikely. One of the reasons I say this is the fact that Mega Evolution is taking the center stage again. The main reason I make this prediction though is because given what we know about the Kalos Region, there shouldn't be any different environmental factors in the Kalos of the past that don’t exist in modern day Kalos. Of course I didn’t see the new Hisuian forms and evolutions coming either, so I could be totally wrong about this.
So if we won’t be seeing any new regional forms or evolutions in Legends: Z-A, this raises another question. Will we see any new Mega Evolutions? This all depends on whether or not Mega Evolution is going to make a return to the main series games. There is a theory floating around out there saying that Mega Evolutions will be the central gimmick of the main Gen. 10 titles, and I think it’s a very plausible theory. Every generation starting with X and Y has had to have some sort of big gimmick to make the battles more interesting, and at this point it makes more sense for them to bring back an older gimmick instead of trying to come up with something new, and what more could they come up with?
Plus here’s something else to consider. If you think about it, Legends: Arceus was essentially a prototype for Scarlet and Violet. All three of those games share some very similar mechanics. It wouldn’t surprise me if Legends: Z-A is an experiment of Game Freak’s to see how well the return of Mega Evolution is received. The other compelling argument for the return of Mega Evolution is the fact they totally skipped over doing any new games set in the Unova Region to give us a Kalos game.
I think that about wraps it up. Now like I said, it could very well be that all of the predictions I just made in the final section of this post will turn out to be complete and utter crap. We’ll know soon enough when Pokémon Day finally roles around.
