Discover everything you need to know about the best beginner’s guide for Pokémon Legends Z-A, including some tips and tricks.
Pokémon Legends Z-A is set entirely in Lumiose City, in the Kalos region. Lumiose City is undergoing an urban redevelopment led by a company called Quasartico. Pokémon and humans share the city, and Wild Zones exist inside the city where wild Pokémon live. Your objective is to advance from Rank Z to Rank A via promotion battles. Pokémon sometimes suddenly Mega Evolve and go berserk.
Combat in Pokémon Legends Z-A is real-time, not strictly turn-based. Trainers and Pokémon can move, dodge, and act in a 3D space. You build up a Mega Energy gauge by dealing damage. You can Mega Evolve your Pokémon temporarily when filled. Battles in this game involve positioning, cooldowns, and timing. In this guide, we’ll discuss the beginner tips in Pokémon Legends Z-A, including how to overcome the challenges.
1. The Three Starting Partners
From your second generation, you’re picking from Chikorita, Tepig, or Totodile. So, Chikorita is your leaf Pokémon, a grass type to start with. Tepig is a fire pig Pokémon. So, obviously, it’s a fire type to begin with. This will evolve into Embor. Lastly, we have Totodile, which is a big-jaw Pokémon, also a water type. This evolves into Feraligator and its mega version at the end.
- Chikorita: A Grass-type starter from the second generation
- Tepig: A Fire-type starter from the fifth generation.
- Totodile: A Water-type starter from the second generation.
2. Mega Evolution
Mega Evolution is a key point of this game. In the middle of a battle, you might see or even do a mega evolution yourself. This will massively change the fighter’s potential in that fight. So, it’s like temporarily boosting the power of that Pokémon. Not only will they visually change, but you may even get new types there, so new options. This is done through the keystone that the trainer’s wearing.
You’ll see through the game that a lot of different trainers and special characters have that keystone in different cool designs and places. So, you’re not going to start with a keystone, but you will unlock it through the game.
You’ll need to look out for other trainers with theirs, too. This is a Legends game, and you’re turning to familiar concepts and expanding upon them. You have quite a few new mega evolutions, but you also have a massive amount of returning ones like your Mega Charizard that comes in X and Y versions.
Mega Lucario is a fire-flying type and has two versions of mega evolutions. The X version becomes a fire dragon type with this ability, tough claws. Whereas the Y version of that mega evolution remains a fire-flying type with the drought ability.
It is an important aspect of the game to understand what your mega evolution is and what might change about it, and how that might change the tide or use of a Pokémon in a fight. Mega Stones revealed that Raichu will be a mega evolution in the dimension DLC.
Each version can be attainable, but will require its own mega stone instead of being able to use one to do both evolutions.
3. New Battle System
Pokémon Legends Z-A uses real-time combat here, where you’re able to run around in the middle of a fight. After that, command your Pokémon to follow commands like normal. However, a part of the gameplay mechanics is about timing your moves. Your Pokémon swaps in a real battle. So, there’s still definitely this aspect of turn-based combat, but as it’s happening in real time.
You need to be a little bit more engaged and involved in those battles. You’ll be spamming your abilities as much as you can to make sure they’re going out on time. There’s a move that is cast, and then the Pokémon will actually do the move, and then you have your next opportunity. With the fact that you’re in a 3D environment and you’re running around, though, you’ll be avoiding attacks and going behind enemies as well.
The limit on that turn-based or real-time combat version is the cooldown mechanic where as you use an ability. It’s not going to be instantly usable again. So, you will be cycling a lot more than maybe normal. It literally means their cooldowns are shorter. So, you can use them faster and more often. The more speed your Pokémon has, the better the cooldowns.
4. The Z-A Royale
Pokémon trainers are invited to compete in these high-stakes tests of strength. You begin at rank Z, and the goal is to rank up all the way to A. You do this by winning Pokémon battles against other competitors. So, at night, you see the battle zones that spawn in with these holograms.
It’s like a fenced-off area, and inside, you’ve got enemy Pokémon trainers. So, in very classic Pokémon, if you walk in front of an opposing trainer, you’ll be forced into a fight as they spot you. This does mean you can hide behind objects and use line of sight just like against Pokémon and sneak up on these trainers.
This actually lets you start the fight with a surprise attack. So, that’s a critical hit and well worth attempting. But through this system, you rank up right in the daytime. Then, you’ll be trying to make use of your time well. If it’s the morning, it’s the afternoon, the day, you’ll be working your way through wild zones, training your team, or maybe hunting down specific new Pokémon to add to your team and start working in. Spend all the currency you’ve earned to maybe have the items you might need in those night battles.
When the sun sets and the battle zone spawns, you go in there and make the most of your rank progression chances. To rank up, you need to win promotion matches. You have to defeat other trainers of similar rank to do that. They have the same goal. But to go into a promotion match, you need a challenge ticket. So, we get those via ticket points. You can get it in a few ways, like defeating trainers in the battle zones. However, you can also get more points by finding bonus cards in the battle zones and then fulfilling their special challenges.
5. Best Settings to Change First
Starting with these game-changing settings, you want to open up your menu by pressing X and hit the L button on the bottom right. You’ll see help and setting. You can then head over to the settings tab over here.
Now, at the beginning of the game, there is so much text that happens on your screen. So, to speed it up, just go ahead and tab that over too fast. If the controller rumble bothers your hand, you can completely disable that. If you want your mini map to rotate with you, you can select the rotate button.
6. Movement Tricks
There are two big movement tricks that your character can do in this game. The first one is pressing the B button to dash. Make it a habit not to hold down the B button, as you don’t need to do that, and your thumb needs to be free while you are fully sprinting away from an enemy. Use this during your Rogue Mega Evolution battles or whenever you’re in trouble.
Keep in mind that when you do slow down, your character stops. The full run stops. So, you have to repress the B button again to run. You have another utilization, which is the Y button. You can sprint at the same time and use Y to cover a greater distance than non-sprinting and using Y. So, it just gives you a little bit of momentum, not too much, but just a little bit extra that you may need.
You need to learn how to combo these when fighting Rogue Mega Evolution Pokémon. Note that you cannot use the dodge button or the run sprinting button when you are targeting and locked onto an enemy with the ZL button. So, if you want to run around, you can do that. When you’re fighting rogue mega evolution Pokémon and you don’t want your Pokémon to get damaged. You can simply withdraw them, and they will not take any damage at all.
7. Hard Save Trick
One of the biggest mistakes any player can make in this game is not placing a hard manual save before you are encountering a rare Pokémon or a shiny Pokémon. This can be even if you’re trying to catch an overlevelled, powerful alpha Pokémon. If you notice that a Pokémon looks like it’s hard to catch, place down the hard save and then throw your Poké Ball at it. If it’s not able to be caught, then you can go ahead and reload your game, and you’ll be in the exact same spot.
You can get right to the point where the Pokémon is knocked out with stars on its head and then save the game right there. After that, when you load the game, the Pokémon will load up with the stars on its head, saving you time from having to knock it out again.
8. All Floor Item Types
There are four different types of items that you’ll find on the floor or on platforms in this game. Red Poke Balls are going to contain Eevee training items, evolution stones, or leveling-up items, and a ton more. Yellow Poké Balls are always going to contain TMs. If you don’t know, those are going to be Pokémon moves that you can teach your Pokémon.
These are a permanent usage and don’t break after using them. Purple Poké Balls have one purpose in this game, and they’re going to be for getting an item called colorful screws, which can be used for upgrades.
There are also sparkling items on the floor, but you don’t have to pick these up. You just have to walk with your character over it, and it will automatically go into your inventory. So, avoid the habit of pressing A when you’re walking on top of them. After you visit Mable, make sure to teach your Bunnelby Rock Smash. That way, you can break the rocks.
9. Use Fast Travel
The first thing you should do once you get freedom in the game is to create fast travel points across the map immediately. This is something that should take you between 15 to 20 minutes. However, this will make your life very easy when you have to get around Lumio City.
Head to every Pokémon Center and step inside. You’ll get a notification of its unlocked. If you walk by cafes or plazas, you’ll also unlock them as fast travel points. Walking into wild zones also acts as a fast travel point. If you come across any restaurants, you must walk inside them to make them fast travel points.
10. Character Customization
This feature is big in Pokémon Legends Z-A, and there are various locations where you can buy outfits and change up the style of your character. If you open up your map, anything with a shopping bag will reveal a ton of clothing stores. If you zoom in further on the mini map, you can then hover over every single clothing store to read the description of each one. This allows you to see what shops may interest you without having to travel all the way there.
11. Earn Pokedex Rewards
One of the major mechanics of the game is the Pokedex and the Pokémon research mechanics. You will be asked to level up your Pokedex by completing specific objectives. Some of the objectives through the system are things like catching specific types ok Pokemon.
However, the important part of this is the rewards from it because this importantly gives you a whole bunch of TMs along the research level-up path. This can be quite useful in its own right. The final reward at the end of it all is the Shiny Charm for increased shiny Pokémon appearance rate. This is a massive deal if you do want to get into shiny Pokémon hunting in this game.
12. Z-A Battle Club
The format of this game mode is four-player free-for-all with a real-time combat system. You gain one point for every last hit that you get. Meaning the player who scored the killing blow, specifically when a Pokémon dies, is the one who gets the point. After a three-minute timer of this gameplay loop, the player who has the most points will win. This is a ranked competitive game mode similar to the story progression as well. The ranks will go up from Z at the bottom up to A at the top.
13. Bonus Misc Tips
Any building that shows up as darker means that it is enterable or explorable in some fashion. The actual color of things on the map does shift, but it’s always that ones that are in a darker shade. If you don’t know this, you would miss a bunch of buildings. This necessarily mean that you need to enter every single one that you come across, but it’s nice to know which ones they are.
Outside of the Poke Centers, there will be a ball collector NPC. His entire job is picking up any Poké Balls that you throw that don’t actually connect with a Pokémon. If your aim is bad, you aren’t straight-up throwing balls in the trash. You can just put them aside to pick up again later. This does not apply to Poke Balls that you throw, his Pokémon with, and then they manage to escape.
14. Mable’s Research
Mable’s Research is another way to get these TMs, which are the skills you can teach to the various Pokémon. They are not consumable by the way, so they will permanently be in your inventory for you to teach to any other new specimen you capture. But in this case, one of the best ways to progress in the research and get more levels is by basically capturing everything.
You get hundreds of points by just collecting a few of different types of Pokémon, like neutral, water, fire, and so on. This will progressively increase in the tiers, but also in the number of points you are given. As you progress in Mabel’s research, this is going to give you access to even more of these skills, and some of them are actually super powerful.
