Pokémon Presents - Pokémon Day 2025 - Pokemon ZA Info & Pokemon Champions Announced

Crafting is probably not returning like the LA unique balls, which, while makes sense, I am going to miss a lot. LA as a whole really felt like a concept that was asking to be more refined.

As for the side of Luminose...am I the only one not concerned at all? Maybe my expectations have been incredibly low after learning it's just a single city months ago, but I'm just not expecting much. I genuinely think people arguing the extra year is going to be some massive improvement are just asking to be disappointed. The mentioned Lewtwo, for instance, was talking even before the Presents about how big the game must be and...I'm just not seeing it? I genuinely just believe this extra year was only even considered because of two things: Gen 10 coming on the 30th anniversary and the backslash about LA and specially SV's perfomance. I see no reason to believe ZA is going to turn out to be this massive incredibly groundbreaking title because of the extra year...and not just that without that extra year the game would be yet another overambitious, poorly optimized game. It really seems like people are overhyping that we got nothing on a year despite being asking for that for a long while. And jumping straight to the opposite side of a single year suddenly being a magic fix for everything.

Like, call me a doomer if you want, but even as much as I love and defend both LA and SV, both clearly needed more time in the oven, and a single extra year would have just avoided the final mess we got, not created inmortal masterpieces. The fact that we know from the teraleak and the TCG the game was supposed to come out in 2024 (and it already had a playable and pretty complete build) just doesn't make it likely to me that there was some crazy changes and shakeups in a single unplanned year. Maybe that's why I still don't see what was disappointing about the trailer but really, for all we know it will just not have the many glitches SV does and come out as a more polished game overall, even if not in graphics. That's it. I don't think the game is some crazy milestone GF holds in greater regard than LA or Gen 10, and I would even argue they have never even suggested otherwise, it's all on fans' heads. I doubt such drastic things as the battle system were already not finished (or at least, working good enough to release the game) by last year.

I'm not saying the game will be bad or Luminose small or whatever. Just that I don't get why people assume this is suddenly a crazy change that means GF is putting all their energy in a very important release, the two teams are still nlt even working together.

Yung Dramps said:
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Guys. I'm crying and shaking rn. I don't see any sign of my beloved PR Video Studio here or anywhere else on the map. We can't lose PR Video chads, can we? Not like this bros... not like this.....
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I will be completely honest I had not even idea this was a thing until I ran into it on my current replay of Y. And it was the cringest thing I have seen in a long while (trough maybe because of the localization to my language?). Maybe a hot take but I see no problem on losing them. I don't think I would have even liked this back in the day

CynicalGiant said:
they can randomly have Zygarde be mad and change a lot of the city, by just randomly adding sand or snow

I mean this would make sense. People are claiming to trying to make a place where both human and Pokemon can coexist while giving a bunny like a square of grass in the middle of the road to live and be happy. The keeper of the ecosystem should be mad about this rather than spending time literally all over Hawaii.
 
AquaticPanic said:
I get what you mean but for this specific example they'd probably size-lock the starters (which iirc is the case for both SV and PLA)
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This is true, a starter definitely wasn't the best example for that hypothetical scenario.

Volt-Ikazuchi said:
That would potentially be messy with Home transfers and whatnot

With that said, I do think these ranges are plausible for Gourgeist, but they'll probably be set after the form is defined as usual.
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I had not thought of that, and it's a very good point given that Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist can already be caught in SS. While the Scale value doesn't exist in that game pair, all Pokémon have two other values generated for them despite being unused, that being Height and Weight. Can all forms of Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist caught in SS have all possible Height and Weight values? For example, can a Small form Pumpkaboo have 255 value in Height and/or Weight? Conversely, can a Super Size form Pumpkaboo have 0 in Height and/or Weight?

The reason I bring that up is because from what I've read, when a Pokémon that doesn't already have a Scale value enters LA or SV from HOME, it has its Height value copy-pasted as its Scale value for use in those two games. This could have future ramifications for Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist if all of their forms can have any Height value. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can chime in on this? I personally have no way of viewing these internal values.

Perhaps HOME will make a special case for Pumpkaboo/Gourgeist transferred into LZ-A, in which it will disregard their Height value and generate a Scale value based on its form using similar ranges to those that I outlined. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how the forms of those two Pokémon are reconciled with the Scale value.
 
Yung Dramps said:
This is an intriguing video. tl;dw OP does some some fuckery with measuring screenshots to figure out how big Legends Z-A Lumiose City is compared to Hisui and comes up with a range of anywhere between 1/3 and 2x the size of Obsidian Fieldlands. I've felt the physical size was a bit small like many others but it's good to have decently solidish confirmation.
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This sounds extremely bad lmao.
 
Yung Dramps said:

This is an intriguing video. tl;dw OP does some some fuckery with measuring screenshots to figure out how big Legends Z-A Lumiose City is compared to Hisui and comes up with a range of anywhere between 1/3 and 2x the size of Obsidian Fieldlands. I've felt the physical size was a bit small like many others but it's good to have decently solidish confirmation.

So, what does this mean? Well, two options everyone else has already proposed:
1) Lumiose City is going to be extremely dense, every building has 50 things to do
2) There's a huge chunk of map design we are not yet privy to (Going outside the city in a major capacity is copium but I could see the oft-speculated catacombs equivalent or something like that)

Boring answer is a bit of both, I reckon. Even for an urban sandbox we can't possibly have the exact same sights from the first proper gameplay trailer for 20 hours straight.

Good time to remind people that this game is supposed to have 4 years of development time. Like ok, there's no explicit confirmation of this, but it seems like that should be the case given what we know and just the general state of affairs with the brand and its scheduling. Lewtwo seems convinced of this and while he doesn't have insider information if you know him you know that he's studied how these games are made more than basically any other even semi-major community figurehead, so I trust that he knows his stuff. Bottom line is that sooner or later we're going to have to figure out where that extra year actually went: We can rule out a drastic visual fidelity bump-up and while getting the real-time battle system up and running and polishing it up doubtlessly has a part it can't be everything
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Sewers, catacombs, parks, building sites, train stations/tunnels - there's a dozen different ways to make the space that's there bigger than it looks from overhead. There's also the possibility of dynamic areas like the player having to scale a tower from the outside and the exterior being rendered separately from the main game world. There's also the possibility of there being some areas only visited once ala the SS Anne, though I feel that's less likely since it's something that's not done very often.

And let's be honest, buildings tend to be bigger on the inside in video games: Pokemon is far from an exception to that. So there's absolutely every chance there's a lot of dense dungeons and gauntlets inside them.

I'm far from positive about this game but I think trying to calculate the size of the game world based off of one trailer and a (who knows how accurate) map is a bit pie in the sky. Not that making airy predictions is something I'm at all blameless of but I generally try not to conclude "there's no way this could work" based on my guesses.
 
One thing that came to my mind regarding champions is... people could pay for pkhex services at the internet instead of buying the new titles for getting new relevant pokemon. In other words, GF would sell less games. I'm pretty sure they thought about that and so i wonder what they will do to mitigate this.
 
NaK said:
One thing that came to my mind regarding champions is... people could pay for pkhex services at the internet instead of buying the new titles for getting new relevant pokemon. In other words, GF would sell less games. I'm pretty sure they thought about that and so i wonder what they will do to mitigate this.
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Well, that's obvious, innit? :totodiLUL:

People are thinking this will be like Showdown, when it will be a lot closer to PBR at best. :mehowth:

The battle simulator games were all very tied to the games and a way to sell them, so I don't expect anything that would make it possible for people to skip a game, while also giving some nice bonuses for people who have the games.

Interestingly enough, unlike past battle simulator games, Champions connects to Home, not to the games themselves. I don't know how that's going to work.
 
NaK said:
One thing that came to my mind regarding champions is... people could pay for pkhex services at the internet instead of buying the new titles for getting new relevant pokemon. In other words, GF would sell less games. I'm pretty sure they thought about that and so i wonder what they will do to mitigate this.
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I'll say it again, you're overthinking this part.

Large majority of people who buy Pokemon games are kids. They are not impacted in the slightest by the existence of Champions even if it were a literal Showdown clone.
The impact on sales of the existance of such game would be way less than any amount of premium subscription the game could get.
 
Worldie said:
I'll say it again, you're overthinking this part.

Large majority of people who buy Pokemon games are kids. They are not impacted in the slightest by the existence of Champions even if it were a literal Showdown clone.
The impact on sales of the existance of such game would be way less than any amount of premium subscription the game could get.
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People still seem to overlook this constantly
 
Yung Dramps said:
Alright, I don't know how much longer this thread is gonna last before getting locked so hell with it, time to post my craziest plot take: If I were in charge of this game, had unlimited creative control and knew the Ultimate Weapon would be brought back I would have the climax involve a huge section of Lumiose City (perhaps a district or 2) getting blown to smithereens by it.

Like, imagine you beat the last Noble or Gym Leader equivalent. You've received enough clues over the game that something's up but you're feelin' pretty good and then BOOM, big flash of light over the horizon. When you wake up Essentia is lifting a stray chunk of rubble off you and you spend the next 10-15 minutes or so scraping around the wreckage for survivors, all while your Rotom Phone is getting bombarded by breaking news reports of other towns and cities all around Kalos having been decimated (XY characters who didn't make it into the main game could have cameos in these bulletins, e.g. Ramos scouring the ruins of Coumarine on the back of his Gogoat). The postgame would have a few months pass so the area can be playable again, but until then it's cooked.

This is pure a hypothetical, not a prediction or request because I am perfectly cognizant of the fact that this is not happening. For one thing it'd require making a whole new map for a relatively small chunk of gameplay, although I suppose that's not an insurmountable obstacle: Make it a small area blocked off by collapsed buildings, something like that. The more obvious issue, though, is that "what if the player foraged through the blast zone of a nuclear terrorist attack" is way too dark of a setpiece idea for a kid's game.
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https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/pokemon-legends-z-a-switch/

So, uh, Legends Z-A's rating is E10+ for "fantasy violence". No previous mainline game, not even Legends Arceus, got this treatment.

You... You don't think...?
 
Yung Dramps said:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/pokemon-legends-z-a-switch/

So, uh, Legends Z-A's rating is E10+ for "fantasy violence". No previous mainline game, not even Legends Arceus, got this treatment.

You... You don't think...?
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I aggressively do not think it will be even remotely similar to what you posit, no

e:
OK I feel like I should have more on this rather than just being pithy.

Rating boards can often have pretty arbitrary criteria on what elevates something, ratings wise.
Did you know that SV & L:A both have "Mild Fantasy Violence" as part of their E rating? You know what game has E10+ and "Fantasy Violence"? Ring Fit Adventure

The descriptions for L:A (SV is pretty similar) & RFA per ESRB
This is an adventure/role-playing game in which players assume the role of an explorer tasked with catching and calming Pokemon. Players explore a strange land, interact with characters, perform missions, and battle various Pokemon. Most battles are turn-based, with players performing attack moves (e.g., bites, elemental attacks) to deplete opponents' health meters. Some battles occur close-up, as players try to calm enraged Pokemon by throwing balms (bags containing the Pokemon's favorite things) at them.
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This is a fitness role-playing game in which players assume the role of an adventurer on a quest to stop an evil dragon. Players use a fitness ring and exercise movements to traverse fantasy environments and battle enemy creatures (e.g., dragons, monster deer, eagles) in turn-based combat. By performing exercise movements (e.g., squats, lunges, knee lifts) players can see such information as heart rate and calories burned, while attacking enemies and draining their life meters. Some players' attacks result in screen-shaking effects; players can also shoot fireballs at rocks and wooden crates from a first-person perspective.
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Nothing at a glance-and you're going to haevb to rust me here that i've played a LOT of RFA- really indicates what elevates RFA from mild to, i assume, "normal" fantasy violence. My only assumption would be it's something about intent and how the attacks are depicted. ie in Pokemon the attacks are generally more abstract, aimed more towards your weird critters, and if YOU Get messed up its by like weird gusts of wind or being rammed or whatever. But in RFA it's things striking you, a human, more directly with more physical strikes. And sometimes dragon lasers.

In that sense the elevation here could be due to the battle system and attack animations. Compared to L:A or SV things are more up close, the animations are all changed again and could depict things that trip the censors a bit more and you're now possibly more in the line of fire since you have to actively move around with the Pokemon. Think of something like mega Kangaskhan using Bulldoze up close to a bunch of Pokemon and how there could be trainers there now, or how Stealth Rock now has ab unch of pointed spikes constantly in the air that you could run into. The exact depictions may not be worth writing home about in passing but to the ESRB they're willing to elevate it.
The lack of a "calming" element might also be in play, sometimes context matters.
 
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As I have said before, I wouldn't care too much about the ratings.
SV: "So the Professor was killed by their rouge mascot, while trying to protect another of their mascots" The ratings sleep
ZA: "So this crocodile is able to spit water to that pig in REAL TIME" The ratings awaken like Pillar Men

I doubt the story would even be as dark as SV in all honestly.
 
I'd say while it's most likely due to the new combat system, PLZA will have a dark story, just like SV's, and XY's lore. There's no way they break the trend this same generation when AZ's backstory is so sad and this character is making a comeback as one of the main NPCs in the game. It seems like GF wants to give him even more spot. In addition, PLA gave us a more complex story than the one we were used to having, so this, as a Legends game, may follow that trend as well. Only time will tell, though, as PLZA is seeking to break many predictions and expectations so far.
 
I think the prospects for Champions having decent single player content are pretty grim tbh. Battle Revolution was infamously already a huge step down from the Stadium duology in that aspect and it was a retail console game instead of a (presumably) free-to-play app for mobile devices. I'd love to be proven wrong but I dunno man, gut feeling ain't good.
 
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