Pokémon Legends Z-A is the newest property coming from the Pokémon Company, after a turbulent last 2 releases is this game going to change the negative reputation the Pokémon Company has gained as of recent.

Pokémon is a global phenomena, it has been going on for 3 decades, and is by far the most profitable single media franchise of all time. At 98.9 billion dollars in revenue it is a giant in media and in the public consciousness. Pokémon started as 3 games released in 1997 and has exploded since then, at its time in handheld markets it was a stellar use of the resources of the time and widely beloved. As time has marched on the games a lot of fans have issues with the direction of the new games.

Quality control has been an issue that the Pokémon Company needs to fix, glitchy games are all too common in this modern age of Pokémon. Colton Kittredge, a devoted follower of the games since his youth shares these sentiments, that when recent games Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl released all he saw was, “Terrible, game breaking glitches were all I remember seeing”, not a glowing review. The community was in total outrage and to this day nothing truly fixed how bad those games were perceived.

As Kittredge mentioned the newest generation have been some of the most hated, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have community wide, been seen as lazy cash grabs. They are remakes of the 4th generation game Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, and while the Pokémon Company has made many remakes before they often are some of the most loved. They are loved because of the effort to modernize older games and reimagine them. The Pokémon Company however has defied expectations in the worst way and in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, in the words of Kittredge, “they’re hardly transformative enough to constitute a ‘remake’”. In the eyes of many Pokémon fans the modern games are a failure of expectations and define a trend of a lack of effort from the Pokémon Company.

Legends Z-A is a remake of the 6th generation of Pokémon games, Pokémon X and Y, and it on paper fulfills what it means to be a good remake. It both modernizes the game by placing the game on a 2017 Nintendo Switch console instead of the 2011 3DS. The gameplay will be reimagined as it will be more open world and the combat will be far more dynamic than Pokémon X and Y. This game will come out in this current era though, leaving many fans waiting to be angry, and ready to tear the game apart for any mistake.

Legends Z-A comes at a bad point for Pokémon, as the games for many dedicated fans are feeling lazier and lazier. This game doesn’t have to be stellar but it has to be good to beat the allegations of laziness and greed that the Pokémon Company faces pretty regularly nowadays.