Pokemon Legends Z-A, Mega Dimension, featured artwork in one of the first video trailers of the DLC found on the Official Pokémon YouTube channel
The most recent installment of the Pokemon “Legends” series, Pokemon Legends Z-A, recently obtained its first paid DLC (paid content to a game after its release), called Mega Dimension. This franchise, and its publisher, GameFreak, has been around for nearly 30 years and has made a very big following amongst nearly the whole world. With this massive following, people have put very high standards on the franchise. These high expectations led people to notice flaws that slipped through the initial development.
Over the years, the Pokemon Company has become iconic for its turn-based combat against two Pokemon with each having four moves to choose and gives many variations for ways to approach combat. As the development team grew, they have added many new mechanics and new Pokemon to make a nearly infinite amount of teams to try. Things like abilities or special effects of moves gave each pokemon its own special niche and a way to use them in your playthroughs and fit into many teams.
With the release of Pokemon Z-A, a divide was made of the Main Line and the “Legends” Pokemon games. The Main line games are set in a new region with new pokemon and places to explore, while on the other hand, the Legends series games are in a past region and alters the battling mechanics in some ways. This was first shown off in the first Legends game with Pokemon Legends Arceus which added two styles of attacking along with many other changes to battling. Pokemon Z-A brings in real time battles and makes the whole experience more tense by the need to make quick decisions before you attack. “I really appreciate how the Legends games change the battling mechanics in such interesting ways and I hope this style of battling won’t be a one off” said Kit Bianchi, an owner of Pokemon Z-A and the Mega Dimension DLC.
There was a fair amount of controversy around the DLC before the full game actually launched. Normally, GameFreak decides to let the full game be released for a few months, and then releases a paid DLC for extra content when many people have time to make decisions on the game. Pokemon Z-A was different from this normal formatting. The DLC was on the store the same day as release for $30 on top of the original game being $60 which displeased some players. “I find it a bit concerning in my opinion. Nintendo is so bold in their success of the game that they knew a DLC would sell before people actually knew they liked the base game,” said Molly Izzi, a player of Pokemon Legends Z-A
In recent years, Pokemon and many major video games have been rapidly increasing their prices because of competitors selling $70 or $80 games. Compared to past installments, Pokemon Z-A’s DLC is $5 cheaper than the last DLC Pokemon released. This is mainly because the last DLCs (Scarlet and Violet’s Hidden Treasures of Area Zero) had two expansions under one price tag of $35. “I would say the DLC is pretty expensive, so I hope they put more content to compensate for the massive price tag,” said Izzi.
While many games have a whole region to explore, Pokemon Z-A entirely takes place in one city, Lumiose City. This was more apparent before the game launched with the community being curious on how they will go about giving a game’s worth of story into a single city, but they pulled it off. “Lumiose City was literally the middle of the map in Pokemon X/Y and you were continuously going back to it throughout your pokemon adventure the more you play the game,” said Bianchi.
One of the most wanted additions to Pokemon games for many years has been to add voice acting to the characters. The writing put into a character’s dialogue or their character development as a whole is very important to making a good game. Voice acting adds the last finishing touches to the character and helps add more emotion than a silent animated 3D model. “Some of the few final cutscenes obviously having a character talk, but the animation style and no voice acting whatsoever lessens the impact of the scene severely” said Bianchi.
One of the most beloved mechanics Pokemon has ever made is Mega Evolution. Mega Evolution was introduced in the Kalos region, which is the region that Lumiose City is in, and is where you awaken a Pokemon’s power and make it change form and make it much stronger in the process. Many people were hoping that GameFreak would’ve taken inspiration from players’ concept arts while designing the new megas for Z-A. Instead of that idea, GameFreak made many new designs with many having very good outlooks, while some had less positive outlooks from the community. One of the most prevalent “bad” mega designs is Mega Starmie where many players complain how this pokemon only gained legs and opposable arms. On the contrary, some adore this new design because of how goofy it looks with the crowd of more intimidating mega forms. “I really love some of the megas, but hate the others” said Izzi
With all this controversy, people may only look at the bad elements of these games and be drawn away from them because of it. With how these games are always being added to with DLCs and overall gameplay updates, in no time, Pokemon Z-A will eventually get to a point of it being an amazing Pokemon game like the ones before it. “Play the game and have fun. Make whatever teams you want, and it will make the game so much more enjoyable,” said Bianchi.
