Pokemon Legends: Z-A – Mega Dimension review

System: Switch 2 (reviewed), Switch
Release date: December 9, 2025
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo

To differing extents, every new Pokemon release is met with some level of scrutiny. For Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, this scrutiny was completely understandable – the game launched in a buggy, laggy state, and it remains that way on standard Nintendo Switch consoles. Thankfully, Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s launch generally went over much smoother with hardcore Pokemon fans. While it isn’t perfect by any means (check out my review for more info), it’s a solid entry that will no doubt please anyone who enjoyed Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Now, Pokemon Legends: Z-A has received its corresponding DLC pack just two months after launch. And it’s very easy to sum up: if you liked Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s base game, you’ll like the DLC. If you didn’t care much for the base game, Mega Dimension won’t win you over.

The Mega Dimension DLC starts after the conclusion of Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s main story, which means you’ll need to defeat the final boss before you can access any of its contents. A giant wormhole has opened up over Prism Tower, and these portals lead to a mysterious area called Hyperspace Lumiose. All sorts of new Pokemon appear within these pocket dimensions, and you need to make special donuts so that Hoopa and its new friend Ansha (who is very clearly Diantha’s daughter) can allow the player and their friends to enter Hyperspace Lumiose in the first place. While this sounds like it has roguelite elements, I don’t think this really counts as one. Making donuts is very similar to making sandwiches in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet – berries, the main ingredients, can be used in different combinations to create donuts with different effects. These effects include things like a catch rate boost, a defense boost, and even a Shiny encounter boost, among other things. Hyperspace Lumiose portals come in five different difficulties, and Pokemon in them can actually be up to Level 200. While your Pokemon can’t truly level up beyond Level 100, Hoopa’s donuts do add additional, temporary levels to them depending on the ingredients you use. The amount of time you can stay in each dimension is also dependent on the ingredients. Once you’re inside Hyperspace Lumiose, you can accomplish on-screen tasks like catching Pokemon, destroying floating Poke Balls (which function as item crates), and the like to earn Hyperspace Survey points. You’ll be doing a lot of this, because this is one incredibly grind-heavy DLC.

Of course, many Pokemon players actually like grinding, and that’s true for me too – to an extent. Catching new Pokemon is as addictive as ever, and Mega Dimension actually brings back some really cool choices. There are plenty of Pokemon from Galar and Paldea present in Hyperspace Lumiose, and it feels really neat to see Pokemon like Thievul, Runerigus, and Tinkaton in Pokemon Legends: Z-A. They feel like they don’t belong, but in the best way possible. Mega Dimension also introduces several new Mega Evolutions, and while their designs might not match the consistency of the base game, I really like more than a few of them. I won’t spoil any of their identities here, but the new designs are a hit for the most part. And since this is a Pokemon game with wormholes and portals, you know what that means – an excuse to shoehorn in some random Legendary Pokemon!

Usually, Pokemon games with portals will use those portals to transport you to a very standard and forgettable Legendary Pokemon encounter. In Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon, you could enter Ultra Wormholes to catch pretty much every major Legendary Pokemon up until that point. And this started a trend – Pokemon Sword and Shield’s Dynamax Adventures and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s snack system also let you capture many Legendary Pokemon. And while I do understand that it’s necessary to give out legendaries on a regular basis (since otherwise you’d have to buy an excessive number of other Pokemon games to get them all), the encounters always felt kind of rushed from a story standpoint. This time around, Mega Dimension actually has you fight several Legendary Pokemon in the same style as Rogue Mega Evolutions in the base game. After defeating them, you get a guaranteed capture with any kind of Poke Ball. This winds up feeling much more worthwhile, as well as memorable. The legendaries are still shoehorned in to an extent, but I really appreciate the extra effort given to them.

Mega Dimension also retains Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s good writing. The story is good – I liked it about as much as the base game’s story. The characters are the main highlight here; there’s a lot of text to read, but it’s all well-written. Lumiose City contains some very unhinged people, and that vibe is perfectly kept for the DLC. If you loved the character interactions in the base game, there’s even more of that to enjoy here, plus dozens and dozens of new side quests to keep you occupied. And while the game does quickly become a grind, there’s plenty of content here to justify the price tag. Some might take issue with the fact that the DLC is launching a little less than two months after the base game, but I feel like that’s less an issue with Pokemon and more an issue with gaming in general. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s DLC released about a year after the base game, and I found it much more underwhelming than Mega Dimension even though it released relatively sooner.

Earlier, I mentioned that if you didn’t like Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s base game, Mega Dimension wouldn’t win you over. I’m someone who loves Pokemon, but that’s not going to prevent me from offering criticism where it’s due. Mega Dimension’s story is split up into little sections. You’ll have some character interactions for a while, and then be sent off on your way to explore Hyperspace Lumiose and earn Hyperspace Survey points. As I mentioned, you can earn these points by completing on-screen tasks in Hyperspace Lumiose – it’s the same deal as the tasks that appear on-screen during the Battle Zone at night in Lumiose City. And while the new Pokemon selection is entertaining to an extent, I think my biggest problem with the DLC is that it makes no attempt to solve the base game’s biggest problem: it’s completely contained within Lumiose City.

Hyperspace Lumiose’s existence is eventually explained in a way that makes sense, but I feel like the only reason this plot was put into the game was to minimize the amount of effort put into its appearance. Hyperspace Lumiose quite literally takes chunks block for block from Lumiose City and turns them white. These are sections lifted straight from the city that you’ve no doubt already explored, and within an hour of gameplay I was already seeing repeat Hyperspace Lumiose sections. The tasks you have to complete and the Pokemon you can catch change with each portal you enter, but I was very disappointed by the lack of environmental variety. If these portals led to areas outside of Lumiose City with varied backgrounds, I think this DLC really could’ve pushed Pokemon Legends: Z-A to the next level. There are technically new environments to explore later on, but they only arrive in the form of arenas – they can’t be explored and there are no Pokemon to catch. When I think of a Pokemon Legends game, I think of Pokemon Legends: Arceus and catching all kinds of different Pokemon in visually distinct areas. Kalos has so much potential here, from the deep woods of Santalune Forest to the whimsical autumn-themed Laverre City and beyond. To reuse Lumiose City was really a bad choice here, even though I understand going with that choice cut down on development time.

While that’s my biggest issue with Mega Dimension, the problems don’t quite end there. The DLC introduces new double battles, where you and a trainer will team up against two other trainers. These are chaotic, but not too bad – until you realize that all three trainers stop the gameplay to Mega Evolve their Pokemon.So every time you’re in a double battle, the action will stop three times per battle so you can watch the character activate their Mega Stone to Mega Evolve their Pokemon. In Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s base game, there were only single battles, so you only had to watch this cutscene once per battle at most. Every single double battle that I’ve seen in the Mega Dimension DLC has required all three other trainers to Mega Evolve, and it really disrupts the pace of battle in an unpleasant way. Not to mention, if a trainer Mega Evolves right as you click a move, that move’s effect will be canceled but you’ll still have to recharge it.

Another odd problem I found was that Pokemon pathfinding occasionally breaks on the new Hyperspace Lumiose maps – but only certain ones. I’d command my Pokemon to break a Mega Crystal with Earthquake, only for it to run off to the other corner of the map and never use the move. This actually happened very consistently for some reason, and I’m still kind of confused on how exactly that’s happening. A lot of the Hyperspace Lumiose Pokemon also appear to have really low catch rates (possibly due to their higher levels?), which takes a little bit of the fun out of catching Pokemon when you paralyze them, have them at low health, and waste a whole bunch of high-level Poke Balls on something otherwise unassuming like a Torchic or Treecko.

Despite its pronounced flaws, I think anyone who enjoyed the base game of Pokemon Legends: Z-A will enjoy Mega Dimension as well. There’s a lot of potential for Shiny hunting here, if you’re into that, which will no doubt create dozens of hours of play time on top of the extensive content already available in the DLC. It’s still very focused on grinding, though, which might make some players lose motivation to continue after a while. Ultimately, Mega Dimension’s greatest weakness is that it feels like one big excuse to keep the player confined to Lumiose City. I do think the city is well-designed, but I’d really like to see some different environments in the next Pokemon Legends game later on down the line. Mega Dimension’s execution is definitely solid – I just don’t think the concept of more city exploring is a very good one.