Pokemon Legends Arceus vs. Legends Z-A – comparison and deciding which is better
The Pokemon franchise has had a rocky few years, to say the least. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl, Scarlet, and Violet all launched with shockingly poor optimization and performance, respectively, which understandably wound up damaging the franchise’s reputation. That said, things haven’t been all bad for Pokemon – Pokemon Legends: Arceus was by far and away the best-received Pokemon game on Nintendo Switch, and despite the recent backlash towards Pokemon Legends: Z-A that has become typical for the series, it’s been received very well too.
They say comparison is the thief of joy – but that phrase is tossed out the window when it comes to video games, because comparison is the foundation of most discussion around games these days. So today, we’re comparing Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Legends: Z-A to decide which one comes out on top. We’ll be looking at three categories: gameplay, presentation, and story. Do note that we’ll be discussing story spoilers for both games, so keep that in mind before you continue.
Gameplay
Starting out with arguably the most important part, we’ve got gameplay. Both Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Legends: Z-A have significantly different gameplay loops compared to main series titles. While Arceus retains turn-based combat, it also adds Strong and Agile-style moves that burn additional PP at the cost of changing their power and speed. Pokemon Legends: Z-A ditches the turn-based system entirely in favor of gameplay much like Xenoblade Chronicles. It also includes Mega Evolution, which is built up via a meter. Of these battle systems, I think Legends: Z-A is the clear winner – in Arceus, Strong and Agile-style moves feel half-baked. In that game, a Pokemon’s Speed determines how many times in a row they get to move. That creates situations where a fast Pokemon like Weavile spamming Agile Ice Shard can move three times before you can even move once, which makes the whole system feel rather unbalanced, especially when multiple Pokemon team up against you all at once.
Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s combat, while not perfect, feels much more balanced. Moves now have an area of effect, which means you have to be extra careful considering which ones you want to run on your Pokemon. The Mega Evolution gauge can even be used by Pokemon who can’t Mega Evolve thanks to the inclusion of Plus Moves. As a result, battles in Z-A are much more dynamic than in Arceus. Positioning matters, whereas in Arceus you do have to just stand there and command your Pokemon to use a move. Which isn’t bad at all, but it doesn’t feel as immersive as it does in Z-A, where it feels like you really are telling your Pokemon what to do like you tend to see in the anime.
Though I’m giving the point to Pokemon Legends: Z-A here, it’s important to note one thing Arceus has that Z-A does not: Ride Pokemon. They are kind of annoying to switch between at a moment’s notice, but they offer a degree of variety that Z-A doesn’t have. Other than that, both games have very similar movement systems that let you roll to dodge enemy attacks. They’ve even got similar boss battles, with Noble Pokemon in Arceus and Rogue Mega Evolutions in Z-A.
Presentation
This one’s tough. Pokemon has never been known for its cutting-edge graphics, but one thing they are known for is music. Just about every Pokemon game has excellent music, and Arceus and Z-A are no exceptions. Pokemon Legends: Arceus’ music all stems from Sinnoh, and classic tracks from Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are mixed into entirely new compositions that feel completely different than their originals. You’ve got music like the Heartwood and Crimson Mirelands 2, which are immediately recognizable as Generation 4 tracks with their own unique twists. And then you have original compositions like Obsidian Fieldlands and Alabaster Icelands, which provoke a sense of wonder and mystery unlike any other Pokemon game. None of this is even mentioning the battle music – the themes against the Legendary Pokemon and final battle are incredible even to this day.
Pokemon Legends: Z-A has great music too, with the battle themes in particular standing out as particularly memorable. That said, Pokemon Legends: Arceus has excellent battle themes too, plus it has five distinct areas that all have two unique themes each. Pokemon Legends: Z-A takes place entirely within Lumiose City, which means the Lumiose City theme is going to be playing for a big portion of your gameplay. The day and night themes for the city are very catchy and elegant, but Legends: Z-A is generally held back in terms of variety by being constrained to Lumiose City. Both Arceus and Z-A have high-quality soundtrack, but Arceus uses its music to create different atmospheres and moods in a much more versatile manner than Z-A does.
Then we have graphics, and again, Pokemon Legends: Arceus has an advantage thanks to its variety. Pokemon Legends: Z-A has drawn some criticism for its flat buildings, but other than that, the game’s actual graphics are of a higher quality than in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. That being said, graphical quality and choice of art style are two different things – Z-A has higher-quality graphics, but Arceus arguably has a more unique and memorable art style, if that makes sense. Again, though, Pokemon Legends: Z-A somewhat falters for two reasons: one, it takes place entirely within Lumiose City, whereas Arceus has grasslands, a beach, a swamp, mountains, and a tundra. Z-A’s higher quality graphics are nice and all, but they’re a bit less nice when you’re always in a city with no visual variety to speak of. Furthermore, Pokemon Legends: Z-A takes advantage of Nintendo Switch 2 for a higher resolution and frame rate. It also has a Switch 1 version, though, which is mostly on par with Pokemon Legends: Arceus in terms of resolution and frame rate.
Overall, Pokemon Legends: Arceus gets the point here, but only very narrowly. The tipping point for me was the variety it offers in its atmosphere and areas. While Pokemon Legends: Z-A has superior gameplay in my opinion, it really needed some routes that took place outside of the city. Even if they were all grasslands or forests, it would provide a much-needed break in repetition. Pokemon Legends: Z-A does have the sewers and the rooftops, but these are more extensions of the city than completely unique areas. If Pokemon Legends: Arceus received a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition with higher quality graphics and an enhanced frame rate, it would far exceed Legends: Z-A thanks to its varied visuals. Unfortunately, Switch 2 Editions for past Pokemon games (other than Scarlet and Violet) seem very unlikely now.
Story
Compared to your average main series game, Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Legends: Z-A have solid stories. By the way, we’ll be discussing each story in full, so you might want to come back later if you haven’t beaten the main campaign for either game. Getting right into things, at the beginning of Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Arceus itself sends the player back in time to recover extinct Pokemon and prevent Volo from wreaking havoc on the world. After becoming integrated into the Galaxy Expedition Team, the player helps calm down rampaging Noble Pokemon, who are attacking people and Pokemon around them. Along the way, the player becomes acquainted with the Diamond Clan and Pearl Clan, and once the final Noble Pokemon is defeated, the space-time rift in the sky grows larger and the sky turns blood-red. Since the player arrived from a space-time rift in the first place, Jubilife Village suspects the player to be responsible for this, and they’re exiled from town as a result. With the help of Volo and Cogita, the player crafts the Red Chain and battles Dialga and Palkia to fix the rift and earn their place back in the village.
Afterward, the player teams up with Volo to collect all 18 of Arceus’ plates. Volo betrays them after 17 plates have been collected, however, and reveals that he commanded Giratina to open the space-time rift to summon Arceus in hopes of harnessing its power. Volo battles the player with Giratina as well as his entire team, but ultimately fails to come out on top. He wonders why Arceus hasn’t chosen him despite all of his research and dedication, and promises to harness its power no matter how many centuries it takes. In the end, the player challenges Arceus itself and receives a piece of it to add to their team.
In comparison, Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s plot is a bit simpler. Lumiose City is redeveloping itself to become more friendly to people and Pokemon, and in recent months wild Pokemon have been randomly Mega Evolving and terrorizing the city. Soon after the player arrives in Lumiose, they’re recruited into Hotel Z, where they become a part of Team MZ. They battle through the Z-A Royale until they reach the highest possible rank, meeting all sorts of additional characters along the way. As it turns out, the Z-A Royale was set up to find the strongest Mega Evolution user – so that they could Mega Evolve AZ’s Floette and stop Prism Tower, which actually houses a second ultimate weapon of sorts called Ange. The player’s rival, Urbain or Taunie, ultimately Mega Evolves Floette to try to destroy Ange, only for it to go haywire and start firing blasts of energy all over the city. The player teams up with Zygarde to stop Hyperrogue Ange Floette, eventually Mega Evolving its complete form to destroy a huge blast of energy large enough to obliterate the entire city. After Ange is destroyed (along with Prism Tower), AZ dies and Eternal Flower Floette is given to Urbain or Taunie.
In my opinion, both games have solid storylines. If I had to pick one, though, I’d say that Pokemon Legends: Arceus is more consistent from start to finish. Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s story is fine, but most of the cool stuff happens at the very end of the game. That said, Z-A seems to have more memorable characters, but that could also very well be due to recency bias. It’s impossible to actually evaluate which game has a more memorable cast until a few years have passed. Personally, I’d give the point to Pokemon Legends: Arceus here – Volo is one of the franchise’s better villains, and being exiled from the village gives a sense of hopelessness (even if temporary) that other Pokemon games can’t capture. I think Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s finale is stronger, but in my opinion Arceus is a bit more consistent all the way through.
That means that overall, Pokemon Legends: Arceus has the win for the purposes of this analysis. I do think it’s held back by being on Nintendo Switch and not Switch 2 – playing Pokemon Legends: Z-A at 60 frames per second is great fun – but if Arceus were technologically up to par with Z-A in terms of frame rate and resolution, we’d have something really special on our hands. There are other aspects of the games that haven’t been taken into consideration here – notably, Pokemon Legends: Z-A has much more longevity thanks to its inclusion of online battles, whereas Arceus didn’t have any form of multiplayer battling at all. In short, Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Legends: Z-A are both good games, and they both have their strengths and weaknesses over each other.
Which of the two games did you like better? Do you vibe more with Pokemon Legends: Arceus’ setting and atmosphere, or did Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s gameplay loop draw you in? Feel free to let us know in the comments down below.
