Pokemon Legends: Z-A Hands-On: Trying Out Real-Time and Mega-Evolution Fights

CNET

3 days ago

I wandered the halls of the Anaheim Convention Center days before it would be flooded with tens of thousands of fans for the 2025 Pokemon World Championships, looking for a tucked-away room to get a taste of a game diehard Poke-nerds would give anything to see. For a brief 20 minutes, I got to play Pokemon Legends: Z-A.
Let's be clear: My time with the upcoming game -- split into two 10-minute sessions -- was hardly enough to reveal every way Z-A will build on its predecessor. The groundbreaking 2022 title Pokemon Legends: Arceus brought the storied monster-training franchise into an open world set in its distant past -- a wilder, less civilized era when Pokemon roamed the land largely unchecked.
Playing a brief demo of Pokemon Legends: Z-A at Pokemon World Championships 2025.
David Lumb/CNET
Instead, Pokemon Legends: Z-A brings the series into the present -- a shift that's stirred mixed feelings among fans. In my brief hands-on, though, I spotted some promising tweaks to the Arceus formula, especially on the Switch 2 (docked mode, to be exact), where I saw no performance hiccups.
The first 10-minute slice of Pokemon Legends: Z-A focused on trainer battles in a sprawling city. I started with a four-monster team which included familiar faces like Chikorita, Mareep and Weedle, and entered the Battle Zone. There, I could challenge (and be challenged by) other trainers. All of it was part of the mysterious, eponymous Z-A Royale, a competitive league where I began at the very bottom: Z grade, naturally.
Combat with a trainer's Pokemon, showing the attack log on the right, moves on the bottom-right, your current Pokemon's HP and status on the mid-left and benched Pokemon on the bottom right.
David Lumb/CNET
The twisting alleys of the Battle Zone hid trainers ready to pounce, but unlike in Arceus, battles here start instantly in the field and play out in real time -- enemy Pokemon will chip away at your HP if you don't send one of your own to fight. Holding L2 targets an opponent, and each of your monster's moves is mapped to the face buttons (A, B, X, Y), each with its own cooldown. That let me slip in stat-affecting moves like Growl between damage-dealing Tackles -- almost like injecting some fast-paced Pokemon Unite DNA into the open-world formula. Swapping Pokemon is simple: Use the directional pad to pick a benched monster, then press up to switch it in.
Like any Pokemon game, trainers can catch you off guard, letting their Pokemon sneak in a few attacks before you send out your own. You can turn the tables by locking on with L2 and choosing an attack from your active Pokemon, making the Battle Zones feel almost like PvP areas. Unlike in Arceus, you can use potions and other healing items between or during battles -- just watch out, as real-time attacks don't pause while you're in menus.
With my party of level-seven and -eight monsters and just a trio of trainers to beat, this Battle Zone felt like an early section designed to help players get acclimated. There's no telling how complex future Battle Zones might get -- or what other environments might allow battles between trainers (or even wild Pokemon). These areas seem tuned to the Z-A Royale competition, with beaten trainers awarding not just rank-improving tickets but also prize medals (earned for wins and forfeited for losses). Battle Zones take place at night, and at daybreak you'll receive prize money based on how many medals you've won or found lying around.
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Pokemon Legends: Z-A's Mega-Evolution battles
The second 10-minute demo, short as it was, held the flashier attraction: a Mega-Evolution battle that served as a hefty, story-driven boss encounter. While Arceus had plenty of big, strong Pokemon to encounter in the wild, Z-A's addition of Mega Evolution lets players face beefed-up versions of regular monsters in longer, more challenging fights.
I started the demo chasing a legendary Zygarde in its dog-like 10% form, which led me to a city rooftop and an Absol radiating Mega Power. It's not the first time Pokemon have bristled with unstable energy -- a mysterious, professorly figure named AZ caught up to us, calling it another Rogue Mega Evolution. Just as the creature evolved into Mega Absol, AZ lent us his Lucario to battle the frenzied Pokemon.
This boss battle took the lion's share of the second demo to beat, building on the real-time combat I'd experienced with trainers and adding its own unique mechanic: When I'd dealt enough damage to the Mega Absol, it would drop colorful Mega Power orbs I could collect. While dangerous to collect -- the Mega-Evolved Pokemon hurled attacks my trainer had to dodge or risk losing health -- filling the bar let me Mega-Evolve my Lucario to carve off even bigger chunks of the boss's HP.
The Mega-Evolution boss battle, with the boss's HP bar at the top and Lucario's temporary Mega-Evolution moves at the bottom right. Colored Mega Power orbs spill from the boss, which players can collect to refill their Pokemon's Mega-Evolution meter.
David Lumb/CNET
What followed was a fun romp and a promising glimpse at the game's boss battles, with me (the trainer) darting around the small arena to dodge lunges and ranged attacks while managing Lucario's move cooldowns to chip away at Mega Absol's health. Some of those moves were damaging, while at least one other -- Protect -- nullified enemy attacks, a very neat application of an otherwise passive, classic Pokemon move.
After a close shave with my health in the red, I defeated Mega Absol and won an Absolite for my trouble -- a stone that would let me attach it to my own Absol to Mega-Evolve it in a future battle.
My 20 minutes with Pokemon Legends: Z-A left a lot of questions unanswered about the upcoming game, which comes out Oct. 16. Would it have the Breath of the Wild-style open-world exploration that made Pokemon Legends: Arceus such a success? What other changes are in store for the switch to a modern-day setting? But at least I can satisfy fan curiosity about the real-time combat: It's engaging, fast and rewards quick thinking to maximize type advantages. Still, plenty of stones remain unturned for Pokemon Legends: Z-A.