Pokemon Legends: Z-A - 8 Best Changes To The Franchise's Gameplay, Ranked

Pokemon Legends: Z-A came out on October 16, 2025, marking the longest wait between two mainline Pokemon games. (The last one, Scarlet and Violet, released on November 18, 2022, almost three years ago). Naturally, expectations surrounding this title were high. Despite some issues, it seems like fans of the series are not disappointed.

Legends: Z-A is not only the most recent mainline entry, but also a direct follow-up to Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which was praised for breaking the classic Pokemon formula in inventive and refreshing ways. Legends: Z-A follows in the footsteps of its predecessor by making even bigger changes to the gameplay of the franchise, with the following being the most important.

Better Clothing Options

Players Can Wear Any Clothes Or Accessories, Regardless Of Their Avatar’s Appearance

Pokemon Legends: Z-A is the spiritual successor/follow-up to Pokemon X and Y, the first game in the series in which players could customize their avatar’s clothing and hairstyles. Legends: Z-A brought back customizable avatars back, and now they’re bigger and better than ever before.

The options for clothing, accessories, satchels, and hairstyles are almost endless, and what’s more, they’re no longer locked behind whichever body type the player chooses at the beginning of the game. Previous titles (like X and Y or Sword and Shield) were criticized because the masculine-looking avatars had a more limited selection of clothing than the feminine-looking ones, but that’s not a problem anymore. In Legends: Z-A, anybody can wear anything they purchase, including skirts, crop tops, shorts, dresses, and more.

Wild Zones

Most Wild Pokemon Appear In These Specific Areas

Exploring a Wild Zone - Pokemon Legends Z-A

One of the strangest (and most polarizing) aspects about Pokemon Legends: Z-A is that the entire game takes place within Lumiose City, which limits the number of places where players can find wild Pokemon. To solve this issue, Game Freak created a brand-new group of distinct locations called Wild Zones.

Wild Zones are small abandoned areas in which players can catch a variety of wild Pokemon. While some of them can appear outside these designated zones (like on the city’s rooftops), most of the catching in Legends: Z-A is done inside these areas. This feels a tad weird at first, but it was a clever way of allowing players to catch wild Pokemon at random, without breaking the urban atmosphere of Lumiose City. The best part is that players can unlock new Wild Zones the further they progress through the story, which keeps things interesting.

Battle Zones

Random Trainer Encounters Are A Thing Of The Past

A wide shot of Lumiose City at night - Pokemon Legends Z-A-1

Wild Pokemon are not the only element relegated to specific parts of the city. Pokemon trainers also have designated locations of their own, which are known as Battle Zones. Every night, a different part of the city will be chosen at random, and all trainers who are participating in the Z-A Royale will congregate there to face each other in intense Pokemon battles.

This means that forced random encounters against trainers are pretty much non-existent in Legends: Z-A. Pokemon battles take place within one zone, which helps make the experience feel more engaging and focused. Having a time limit to achieve as many victories as possible may sound frustrating at first, but the fast-paced nature of the real-time combat system allows players to complete a surprising number of fights before the sun comes out. Additionally, re-activating Battle Zones is as easy as sitting on a bench and pressing one button to make the in-game clock advance faster.

Sneaking Around Opponents

Get The Advantage In Battle

Attacking a trainer's Stunfisk without being noticed - Pokemon Legends Z-A

Legends: Arceus made catching Pokemon more dynamic and less reliant on turn-based combat, since trainers could sneak behind a wild Pokemon and increase their catch rate by throwing a Pokeball before being noticed. Legends: Z-A implements a similar (but very different) mechanic, seeing as this game focuses more on trainer battles and less on catching wild Pokemon.

When walking around a Battle Zone, players can crouch and sneak around enemy NPCs. If they avoid detection, they can send one of their Pokemon to attack their opponent’s, which can deplete a good chunk of their HP or even knock them out before the battle officially begins. This is one of many new additions that keep the gameplay of Pokemon Legends: Z-A refreshing and challenging, because sneaking around other trainers can be quite tricky.

Bonus Cards

Get More Rewards By Completing Specific Objectives

By defeating trainers inside Battle Zones, players can get medals that will be changed into money when the night ends and Ticket Points that they can use to unlock the next Promotion Match. However, players can increase these rewards even further by collecting Bonus Cards that are scattered throughout the Battle Zone and completing their respective objectives.

Bonus Cards contain many different conditions: using a move from a specific type, knocking down an opponent before the battle begins, Mega Evolving a Pokemon in combat, etc. They add some much-needed variety to the gameplay, while also giving the player an extra challenge to look out for in case they’re over leveled and battles are getting easy. Hopefully, Bonus Cards (or a similar mechanic with a different name) will carry over to the next mainline Pokemon game.

Rogue Mega Evolution

Boss Fights Are Intense, Challenging, And Very Fun

A Rogue Mega Victreebel - Pokemon Legends Z-A

One of the best changes to the formula in Legends: Arceus was the addition of boss fights against Noble Pokemon. Players had to confront these mighty creatures and avoid their attacks before sending out their own Pokemon to deplete their large HP bars. These new boss fights were the breath of fresh air the franchise needed. Fortunately, Pokemon Legends: Z-A not only brought them back, but also made them a lot better.

In this game, wild Pokemon can suddenly Mega Evolve and go berserk due to a mysterious phenomenon known as Rogue Mega Evolution. Players will have to both avoid their powerful attacks and send out their own Pokemon to defeat and appease them. These chaotic, challenging boss battles are a major highlight of the game, and feel like the natural evolution of the fights against Noble Pokemon. Future Pokemon titles should keep these types of bosses, especially for important story moments.

Temporary Mega Evolution

Legends: Z-A Fixed This Battle Mechanic’s Biggest Problem

Gathering orbs of Mega Power in a fight against Mega Dragonite - Pokemon Legends Z-A

It’s not hard to deduce why Game Freak removed Mega Evolution in Gen 7, seeing as this battle mechanic was unbalanced and downright broken. If players equipped a Pokemon with their respective Mega Stone, all they had to do was press a button, and they’d immediately get access to a powerful new transformation that could sweep through the opposing team until the end of the battle. Plus, defeating one was extremely hard, especially without the assistance of another Mega Evolved Pokemon.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A is not only the first mainline game in over seven years to feature Mega Evolution, but the mechanic itself was also retooled to make it more balanced. Players who want a Pokemon to Mega Evolve will need to fill up their Mega Gauge first, which they can do by landing attacks on opponents and collecting orbs of Mega Power. Once the Pokemon Mega Evolves, the Mega Gauge slowly depletes itself until the transformation is deactivated, and the creature is forced back to its regular form. This was a necessary change, and it has made Mega Evolution much more accessible and enjoyable.

The New Combat System

Pokemon Has Finally Dipped Its Toes Into Real-Time Combat

Taunie and the protagonist facing each other with their starters - Pokemon Legends Z-A

The Pokemon franchise has stuck to a static, turn-based combat system for decades. It has worked quite well, especially when Game Freak added interesting new mechanics (like Double Battles, Triple Battles, Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, Terastal, etc.) that spiced things up. Nevertheless, fans have always wanted to play a mainline game with dynamic real-time combat, and Pokemon Legends: Z-A finally fulfilled that lifelong dream.

Battles are very different in this game, as both the trainer and the Pokemon can move around the battlefield to aim their moves and/or avoid incoming enemy attacks. As a result, the action is fast-paced, chaotic and surprisingly strategic. This change has been received so positively by fans that it will likely have an impact on the development of future Pokemon video games.