※This article is intended for those who are about to play Pokémon LEGENDS Z-A or are considering playing it. It will not mention spoilers that get to the core of the story or important Pokémon.

Hello everyone! I'm Saori from Otaku Republic!

Global sales have exceeded 5.8 million copies! That's amazing...... That title is a smash hit not just in Japan but worldwide, and for those wondering, 'I'm thinking of playing it now, but what's it actually like......?', I, having cleared the game, will quickly answer with my thoughts mixed in!

[Pokémon LEGENDS Z-A] Global sales exceed 5.8 million copies!
Introducing some points of interest for those playing this huge hit title!

The game system and story are both well-received!
But I'll honestly explain the various things you might be wondering about before playing, along with my thoughts after clearing the game!

● Is it better to have played the predecessor, Pokémon X and Y?

I'll be honest! To conclude, I thought it would have been better to play it if possible!

Lumiose City, the setting of this game, is a city that could be visited in the previously released Pokémon X and Y. And above all, it's a very important location for the Kalos region where Lumiose City is located, and grudges from past works and many characters will be involved. You won't completely fail to understand the story, but the emotional attachment is quite different.

However, it's understandably difficult to play a game from several decades ago now...... For those people, the official company has created a short anime depicting what happened in Pokémon X and Y and which characters are important, so let's check that out before playing! With this, you can perfectly understand the important parts!

● Regarding Pokémon battles, I don't know anything. I don't understand Pokémon...... and I'm bad at action games. Can I still enjoy it?

I think quite a few people are concerned about this, but if you're only aiming to clear the game, you can enjoy it completely without any problems even if you're bad at action or don't know much about Pokémon! If you're going for online battles, you'll want a certain level of knowledge, but the difficulty was set so that it wouldn't be too hard if you played slowly and steadily, with things like reduced difficulty on retries and being able to properly defeat strong bosses by challenging them after leveling up sufficiently!

Another good point is that the game's system makes battles easy for beginners to understand, and the support features for ease of play are highly visible! Above all, the Pokémon moving freely are incredibly cute, so I'm actually a little envious of those who are starting Pokémon with this title! A wonderful world awaits, so please enjoy it!

● The story is controversial? What are the characters and story development honestly like?

This is my personal opinion, but the story itself is extremely high quality! It squarely addresses the issues among all the past Pokémon titles, and a proper resolution is depicted in the end, so for me, it's one of my favorite stories in the series!

Regarding the characters that appear, there were certainly some whose actions made you wonder! (I'll be honest here.) But there are so many good, unique characters that outweigh them, and I think a major reason the criticized characters drew flak is not that they have 'bad personalities,' but that the story ended with their 'goals being unclear' and 'lack of depiction of their background or motivation.' Concerning this, an additional DLC is announced for 2025 to supplement the story (depicting the world after the ending), so I'm hoping that some of this will be addressed there......?

Of course, there's a possibility that it won't be mentioned, and there are characters about whom opinions are divided, but it would be a shame to hesitate playing because of that, given how good the story is and how full it is of unique characters, so please give it a try! There are also many good, hidden characters not yet officially introduced, so I truly recommend it!

● I don't have a Switch 2...... What's the difference with the Switch version?

Aside from the beauty of the visuals, I basically didn't notice any difference at all! For example, there were absolutely no issues related to communication or battles, like the game rendering lagging and becoming choppy, or having lag! Certainly, there's a difference of a few seconds in things like loading times, but you can play almost exactly the same even without a Switch 2, and you can upgrade once you get a Switch 2, so I absolutely recommend it because you can easily play with almost the same level of enjoyment!

So! I really want everyone to easily give it a try; I personally believe that among the games released in 2025, the system, characters, story, and also the BGM were excellent, so for those who haven't played it yet, why not casually try out Pokémon LEGENDS Z-A?