One of the most jarring things about going from Pokémon Legends: Arceus to Scarlet and Violet in the same year was that the latter feels like a significant step backward in terms of how you navigate and interact with the world. As an open-world game, Scarlet and Violet excel thanks to a seamless map that you and your friends could explore together, but it doesn’t have the fluidity of movement and capture mechanics that Arceus does. The Legends name, despite only having one game, already carries certain connotations in the Pokémon community, and that includes the implementation of action-based movement and throwing your Poké Balls in real-time.
Z-A will further establish what the subseries means, as there are no guarantees that it will be beholden to anything Arceus does. But if we’re talking about hopes and dreams? Z-A will be infinitely better if it keeps the best mechanical changes of its predecessor. Let us throw Poké Balls and capture Pokémon in real-time, dodge roll to escape powerful foes, and traverse the environment without the jank of Scarlet and Violet.
