The Pokémon Company announced a new game in the Pokémon Legends series called Pokémon Legends Z-A. This game is a follow-up to Pokémon Legends Arceus, which was released in 2022. It will be set in the Kalos region, first featured in Pokémon X and Y on the Nintendo 3DS in 2013.
Details about the game are scarce at the moment, and all we have is a tweet. However, the announcement during the recent Pokémon Presents stream revealed that the game will take place in Lumiose City, the central hub of the Kalos region. This is different from previous games, as both Pokémon Legends Arceus and its predecessor, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, and Shining Pearl, were set in completely new regions.
The announcement trailer showed Lumiose City undergoing major urban development, hinting at a potential focus on the evolving relationship between humans and Pokémon in the region. The official Pokémon Twitter account also suggested this theme, stating that Miare City (the Japanese name for Lumiose City) is being redeveloped to create a city where humans and Pokémon can live together.
I know a bit about animation thanks to my degree in computer animation. Nintendo is known for its trailers that show gameplay, but this isn’t gameplay. In fact, it’s faster to do than regular animated trailers because they didn’t have to work on skins. If you look at the trailer, you can easily see it looks almost like AR; this may be so they didn’t have to render it with high-quality images.
The reason, in my opinion, is that this trailer is for a game that isn’t ready to announce yet, especially since it has a whole year. The trailer looks like it was quickly put together, Pokémon thrown around with no real story to the trailer. This is Nintendo paying for a fast trailer so they can react to Palworld, in my opinion. They want to remind everyone that they are top of the food chain because Palworld is attacking that spot.
We’ll see what the game is about much later, but looking at this trailer tells me that Nintendo really does see Palworld as a threat. This is nowhere near the quality of Nintendo trailers I’m used to.
Comments