The last game you completed, and rating (Console Edition)
- Thread starter Mark1989
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Soldato
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So 'finished' Pokemon:Z-A the other day (completed the main questline, around 25 'mons above level 65 or higher); and got to say, it's actually a LOT better than I was expecting, except for my god the ending felt like filler (my wife found it so boring seeing glimpses of it on my copy, that she made me play through it for her on her copy on her Switch 2), and the start drags and really overexplains for a good 3-4 hours; the core main middle section of the game is actually a blast.
It's a really wierd feeling game, it feels like at least some people inside Gamefreak genuinely wanted to make a next gen Pokemon game...and then someone in management came around and kneecapped said developers about 2/3 the way through development when they realised they were cooking a bit too hard; if you know what I mean? I'm an almost 40 year old guy, so I realise I'm looking at this through the lens of 'not the target' audience, but I've grown up with the series, so I kinda wish they'd embrace the fact there's a substantial userbase now who've grown up with the series, and would now like MORE from it.
The Pokemon themselves are nicely animated, although a little flat in terms of textures, and the entire game holds up better than I was expecting on Switch 2 - very little slowdown overall I think I only saw a few blips noticeably below 60 FPS in my entire run through, and the entire thing looks sharp, even on a 65" OLED, it felt like it was running at a high enough resolution (whether than be 1200/1600/2048p + DLSS or whatever), the game's presentation felt crisp. MASSIVE upgrade in that regards from the Switch 1 era, albeit my biggest issue with the presentation is not the buildings (they're second), but more the shadows. That might sound wierd, but sometimes shadows are present, and sometimes they're...just....not...and that leaves things feeling floaty and a bit wierd. The entire game feels like it needed some better SSAO and permanent outdoor Pokemon/NPC/Player/World shadows to just help bond the world together. Textures are actually big step up from what I'm used to in one of these games, especially after the Scarlet/Violet and Arceus blur mess, and a lot of them looked good; so...more of this please in the next Pokemon mainline game.
Building DESIGN/MAP was my next biggest issue, not graphics, but the step BACKWARDS from massive regions ala Arceus, or a semi open world as per the last few Pokemon mainline titles, the map just feels a bit too small. It's dense, but, the VAST majority of buildings are non-enterable, which, for a game set in a city was a MASSIVE let down, there were a few times you went indoors, and they were nicely done, but fundamentally the game would have felt so much more involved and much larger, if all/many/most of the buildings could be entered. For a game set in a City, that just felt really lazy or rushed, and if they had taken a few months extra to do that, I think it'd have really helped. MAYBE the DLC will help here; either way, the base game should have had a larger maps OR featured more enterable buildings IMO. I mean, without spoilers, there was a location later in the game you could take an elevator to 3 floors. Floor 2 is literally just an empty short hall that for lack of a better words feels like was MEANT to have a level, and they just didn't finish it in time, so took it out?! Why even have that 2nd floor still accessible, just make it a 2 floor location...
Building GRAPHICS, I probably barely need to say this, but the fact most of them were flat textured blocks was just lazy. Something that very feels like a rush to avoid the need to optimise more.
The new realtime combat is occasionally a little clunky and doesnt respond/target as you expect, and some moves need a refactor to fit the new combat mechanics, and not be useless, but otherwise that was great; felt the closest we've had to being 'in' the anime, or BEING a pokemon trainer, in the sense of giving commands, the the things going on are actually impactful on the field, so you too can get knocked out if they fire a beam move etc. More of this please in future 'mon games!
VOICE ACTING - there were so many properly animated and video style cutscenes in the game, along with loads of decent ambient and pokemon sounds, along with player 'grunts' so the lack of character voice acting for even the most major cutscenes just feels very jarring, and I feel like this isn't even really a cost thing, but more a 'time to market' thing, as voice actors really wouldn't cost that much in the scheme of things, to voice a few of the main cutscenes. Im not sure why they even bother animating the mouths, if they're not going to bother doing voices? Just something about this whole situation feels off.
Leads into my final point which is PLOT - this was always going to be contrived and a bit threadbare to basically hold the game together; but there were major plot beats that were just left hanging, again I assume for the DLC, but...just felt a bit wierd here. Even the much lambasted Sword+Shield had a better rival/friend and completed rival/friend story (plus the 'english vibe' was nice), vs what you get here with Urbain/Taunie which is essentially just unfinished, hinted at, built up as a plot point multiple times...and then just never goes anywhere?
Hopefully the DLCs really put in some good work on actually finishing the story of this game before they move onto the next mainline title. Again, I realise the game is designed and written with younger people in mind, but this was a glaring presentation point to me.
Also doesn't feel like, at least in the base game there is much in the way of a post game - just go do more of the same battles for rewards, but no real plot or otherwise; just feels wrapped up way too quickly.
I'll do a few of these for the fun of it, but... endless grind for the sake of it...I'll play something else thanks lol
I'd probably give it a 4/5, or 7/10 (Its closer to a 4/5 than a 3/5, but I can't write 3.5 or 3.75/5) overall, the game does SOME things really well, and I'd love to see them investing more time in polishing those up, and fixing the weaknesses, as this was so close to being a REALLY GOOD Pokemon game, but it just feels rushed in a few avenues that drag it back down, and remind us they don't give these enough time in the oven between games.
I'm kinda hoping the DLC will address some of these issues (that IMO should have been resolved in the base game), but the base game is probably good enough I'll pick up the DLCs and actually play them, as long as they're not plain bad!
Playtime wise, this took me about 50 hours, so averaged about an hour a day as recieved it on release day, which in reality was a few longer stints, and a little time most nights; wife has easily put in 120+ with her copy; I ended up picking up a copy each, remembering how long it took for her to not have Arceus semi-permanently embedded in her Switch 1 haha
It's a really wierd feeling game, it feels like at least some people inside Gamefreak genuinely wanted to make a next gen Pokemon game...and then someone in management came around and kneecapped said developers about 2/3 the way through development when they realised they were cooking a bit too hard; if you know what I mean? I'm an almost 40 year old guy, so I realise I'm looking at this through the lens of 'not the target' audience, but I've grown up with the series, so I kinda wish they'd embrace the fact there's a substantial userbase now who've grown up with the series, and would now like MORE from it.
The Pokemon themselves are nicely animated, although a little flat in terms of textures, and the entire game holds up better than I was expecting on Switch 2 - very little slowdown overall I think I only saw a few blips noticeably below 60 FPS in my entire run through, and the entire thing looks sharp, even on a 65" OLED, it felt like it was running at a high enough resolution (whether than be 1200/1600/2048p + DLSS or whatever), the game's presentation felt crisp. MASSIVE upgrade in that regards from the Switch 1 era, albeit my biggest issue with the presentation is not the buildings (they're second), but more the shadows. That might sound wierd, but sometimes shadows are present, and sometimes they're...just....not...and that leaves things feeling floaty and a bit wierd. The entire game feels like it needed some better SSAO and permanent outdoor Pokemon/NPC/Player/World shadows to just help bond the world together. Textures are actually big step up from what I'm used to in one of these games, especially after the Scarlet/Violet and Arceus blur mess, and a lot of them looked good; so...more of this please in the next Pokemon mainline game.
Building DESIGN/MAP was my next biggest issue, not graphics, but the step BACKWARDS from massive regions ala Arceus, or a semi open world as per the last few Pokemon mainline titles, the map just feels a bit too small. It's dense, but, the VAST majority of buildings are non-enterable, which, for a game set in a city was a MASSIVE let down, there were a few times you went indoors, and they were nicely done, but fundamentally the game would have felt so much more involved and much larger, if all/many/most of the buildings could be entered. For a game set in a City, that just felt really lazy or rushed, and if they had taken a few months extra to do that, I think it'd have really helped. MAYBE the DLC will help here; either way, the base game should have had a larger maps OR featured more enterable buildings IMO. I mean, without spoilers, there was a location later in the game you could take an elevator to 3 floors. Floor 2 is literally just an empty short hall that for lack of a better words feels like was MEANT to have a level, and they just didn't finish it in time, so took it out?! Why even have that 2nd floor still accessible, just make it a 2 floor location...
Building GRAPHICS, I probably barely need to say this, but the fact most of them were flat textured blocks was just lazy. Something that very feels like a rush to avoid the need to optimise more.
The new realtime combat is occasionally a little clunky and doesnt respond/target as you expect, and some moves need a refactor to fit the new combat mechanics, and not be useless, but otherwise that was great; felt the closest we've had to being 'in' the anime, or BEING a pokemon trainer, in the sense of giving commands, the the things going on are actually impactful on the field, so you too can get knocked out if they fire a beam move etc. More of this please in future 'mon games!
VOICE ACTING - there were so many properly animated and video style cutscenes in the game, along with loads of decent ambient and pokemon sounds, along with player 'grunts' so the lack of character voice acting for even the most major cutscenes just feels very jarring, and I feel like this isn't even really a cost thing, but more a 'time to market' thing, as voice actors really wouldn't cost that much in the scheme of things, to voice a few of the main cutscenes. Im not sure why they even bother animating the mouths, if they're not going to bother doing voices? Just something about this whole situation feels off.
Leads into my final point which is PLOT - this was always going to be contrived and a bit threadbare to basically hold the game together; but there were major plot beats that were just left hanging, again I assume for the DLC, but...just felt a bit wierd here. Even the much lambasted Sword+Shield had a better rival/friend and completed rival/friend story (plus the 'english vibe' was nice), vs what you get here with Urbain/Taunie which is essentially just unfinished, hinted at, built up as a plot point multiple times...and then just never goes anywhere?
Hopefully the DLCs really put in some good work on actually finishing the story of this game before they move onto the next mainline title. Again, I realise the game is designed and written with younger people in mind, but this was a glaring presentation point to me.
Also doesn't feel like, at least in the base game there is much in the way of a post game - just go do more of the same battles for rewards, but no real plot or otherwise; just feels wrapped up way too quickly.
I'll do a few of these for the fun of it, but... endless grind for the sake of it...I'll play something else thanks lol
I'd probably give it a 4/5, or 7/10 (Its closer to a 4/5 than a 3/5, but I can't write 3.5 or 3.75/5) overall, the game does SOME things really well, and I'd love to see them investing more time in polishing those up, and fixing the weaknesses, as this was so close to being a REALLY GOOD Pokemon game, but it just feels rushed in a few avenues that drag it back down, and remind us they don't give these enough time in the oven between games.
I'm kinda hoping the DLC will address some of these issues (that IMO should have been resolved in the base game), but the base game is probably good enough I'll pick up the DLCs and actually play them, as long as they're not plain bad!
Playtime wise, this took me about 50 hours, so averaged about an hour a day as recieved it on release day, which in reality was a few longer stints, and a little time most nights; wife has easily put in 120+ with her copy; I ended up picking up a copy each, remembering how long it took for her to not have Arceus semi-permanently embedded in her Switch 1 haha