Pokémon Legends: Z-A introduces a real-time combat system with cooldown mechanics that evoke Xenoblade Chronicles — a bold change for Game Freak. It feels fresh and exhilarating, but I quickly discovered a glaring quirk: the system is surprisingly easy to exploit. My Pichu, an ostensibly fragile baby Pokémon, went from underdog to dominant force in no time.
Normally, raising a baby Pokémon involves careful management: they’re slow, fragile, and you’re supposed to nurture them through safer encounters. I tried to keep Pichu on the sidelines to soak up experience through party-wide EXP sharing, yet it outperformed nearly every teammate. Type disadvantages barely mattered. By stacking debuffs, slowing foes, and taking advantage of very short cooldowns, a simple mix of Tail Whip and Quick Attack became unexpectedly potent.
Image: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo via Polygon
I started to feel a little monstrous — sneaking through Wild Zones with a supposedly harmless infant, paralyzing Pokémon, then finishing or catching them before they could react. They stood no chance. Even the lower-tier trainers in the Z-A Royale barely provided resistance, which may say as much about their design as it does about my tactics. (Zach, being stuck at Rank Z for eons makes more sense now: an infant embarrassed you.)
For a while I wrestled with how to judge the combat: is it too simple, too shallow, or more inventive than I first assumed? Ultimately, I settled on a pragmatic view — it’s competent if not fully refined. Early experiments rarely land perfectly; many franchises iterate over several installments before finding the deeper sweet spot. That said, Legends: Z-A often doesn’t demand the same layered setup that mainline Pokémon encounters traditionally require.
Now that Pichu has evolved into a full Pikachu, decisive wins are slightly more expected, but the core tactics that began with the tiny spark are still effective. Boosting a Pokémon’s speed (shortening its cooldowns) or applying speed-reducing effects to opponents essentially gives you the freedom to execute uninterrupted chains. In the main series, turn-based pacing limits how much you can do in a single turn and forces careful prediction; here, a well-timed debuff can be followed by a flurry of high-power moves and the game is practically over.
Image: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo via PolygonAnd then you repeat the formula. Swap in another Pokémon when a severe type mismatch appears. Rogue Pokémon can blunt these tactics because they hit hard and force you to adapt, but I haven’t reached a point where my tried-and-true approaches feel unusable. Even the infamously lethal Wild Zone is intimidating without becoming insurmountable.
“Just stop using those tricks,” is fair advice — and one I’ve taken to heart. The strength of Legends: Z-A’s combat is its flexibility: it makes previously underused or niche Pokémon viable in ways that feel rewarding. Binacle (and its evolution Barbaracle) — historically hampered by low HP and sluggish speed — suddenly has moments to shine with a quick Screech–Rock Throw setup followed by Bulldoze. Pokémon that relied on narrow move pools, like Gourgeist, can try different roles. Oddities such as Inkay and Malamar become experiment-worthy rather than liabilities.
I won’t pretend the system doesn’t need more friction. At times I wish encounters demanded greater planning or counterplay. Still, the payoff is enjoyable: I’m experimenting with teams I never would have considered and getting a kick out of sending unlikely champions into battle. It’s a reasonable trade-off for now — though I hope the next entry tightens balance and makes the game a little less exploitable for baby Pokémon.
Source: Polygon
