Pokémon Legends: Z-A follows directly in the footsteps of Legends: Arceus, drastically shaking up the series formula. Taking place entirely in Lumiose City, Z-A sports a brand-new action-focused combat system, extensive character customization, new Mega Evolutions, and more. Because of that, even if you’re an experienced Pokémon trainer, Z-A can leave you in the dark with some of its newer, more subtle elements. We’ve compiled a list of quick tips to help with that, focusing on things that Pokémon Legends: Z-A doesn’t properly explain or takes a little too long to do so.
Use Benches to Switch Between Day and Night
Benches aren’t marked on your map, but you can find them almost anywhere.
Z-A uses a night and day system that’s important to both the story and gameplay elements. At night, a Battle Zone will appear somewhere in the city, where you can battle other trainers for points that give you a Challenge Ticket — needed to continue the story and advance ranks. But the catch is that Battle Zones only appear at night, and without doing a specific side quest, you might think you’re forced to just wait for the day to end.
But you can actually change the time instantly by resting at any bench you find scattered across the city. Just walk up and interact with the bench, and you’ll be given the option. And as a bonus, they also make a nice place to snap a cute photo opp.
You Can Change Your Pokémon’s Moves Whenever You Want
You should be switching your Pokémon’s moves every so often, trying to optimize their battle performance
A staple of the Pokémon series is that each creature can only have four moves, and learning a new move means forgetting another. But Z-A’s new action combat system completely throws that tradition out the window, letting your Pokémon permanently remember every move it’s ever learned — and you can use TMs as much as you want as well.
Instead, the big focus in Z-A is picking the right moves for each specific Pokémon, and having your whole party synergize together to take advantage of type weaknesses. To this end, if you open the menu and move the cursor over to any Pokémon, you can choose the “Change Moves” option. This lets you mix and match any move you’ve learned, and you should make sure to check back often as your Pokémon level up or you complete research objectives. The key to succeeding in this new combat system is experimentation.
Wild Zones Can Have Different Pokémon at Night
Wild Zones will show which Pokemo can be found there, but even after catching everything it’s worth going back, as shinies can appear.
While you can sometimes find Pokémon wandering around the city proper, the main way of catching new creatures is by exploring the Wild Zones. If you look at each Wild Zone on your map, you’ll see silhouettes of which Pokémon can be found there — but what the game doesn’t tell you is that some of these only appear at night. In fact, a lot of Ghost or Dark-type Pokémon will be found exclusively at night.
So if you’re having trouble tracking something down and you’ve combed the Wild Zone, head to a bench and switch the time of day, and you’ll be good.
Collect Purple Poké Balls For Huge Rewards
Keep an eye out for this purple glow, typically found around the puzzle-esque scaffolding.
Likely the single most important tip for the entire game is that you absolutely need to be collecting the purple Poke Balls you find sitting on scaffolding puzzles throughout Lumiose. Getting to these requires a bit of platforming, but the reward is well worth it. Each one will give you a single Colorful Screw that you can exchange for tremendously useful items.
Find Racine Construction here, and once you go there a single time, you can fast travel.
To do so, take the screws to Racine Construction in the Southeast and talk to the workers outside. He’ll let you exchange them for plushies with incredible effects, things like boosting the XP your Pokémon get, the money you earn from battles, or even making Pokémon easier to capture. Accruing multiple plushies can make your playthrough of Z-A far more streamlined, so it’s in your best interest to hunt down the screws when you can.
Blitz the Story Until You Get Roto-Glide
Roto-Glide makes it drastically easier to get around Lumiose, integrally changing the game.
Alongside collecting Colorful Screws, about 40 percent through the story, you’ll unlock an ability that makes it drastically easier, Roto-Glide. This will let you press A in mid-air to pull out your Rotom Phone and get a little bump in the air that lets you glide onto faraway platforms.
With that, if you can’t figure out how to get to a purple Poke Ball, skip it and come back once you’ve unlocked Roto-Glide. And we’d also recommend simply mainlining the story and getting this until you start liberally exploring Lumiose, as it’ll make getting around so much easier.
Sidequests Are Surprisingly Important
Keep an eye out for these exclamation points marking sidequests.
Although we’d recommend getting the Roto-Glide as soon as possible, after you do that, don’t ignore the dozens of sidequests that pop up around Lumiose. As it turns out, a lot of the game’s content, items, and even Pokémon are tied to these.
For one, completing sidequests liberally rewards you with experience, money, and valuable items like Experience Shards. But you can also obtain powerful items like the Quick Claw through sidequests, or even exclusive Pokémon — including the likes of Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur. On top of all these, many sidequests have some genuinely fun little stories that dive into people living alongside Pokémon, and the hijinks that ensue because of that — like a restaurant struggling with some obsessive Trubbish.
If you find yourself struggling with the main story’s difficulty, knock off a few sidequests and you’ll be good to go before you know it. If you really want to structure your playtime, you can spend the day doing sidequests and the night in Battle Zones.
Cafes Boost Your Friendship With Pokémon
Cafes are cute and functional.
A few Pokémon, like Riolu and Cleffa, can only be evolved by raising your friendship with them — but friendship doesn’t work the same way in Z-A. Yes, you need to battle with the Pokémon and train it up, but the specific way to raise friendship for evolution is by dining at cafes with your little buddy.
Cafes can be found all over Lumiose, and you simply need to talk to the attendant outside and order a drink to use them. But when you talk to the attendant, make sure the Pokémon you want to dine with is out of their Poké Ball and following you. Once you’ve made your order, you get a nice little scene of your trainer relaxing with their partner, and you can even snap some pictures. If a single cafe experience doesn’t let you evolve the Pokémon, head to another one and do the same thing. As an added bonus, dining at a cafe will also restore your entire party’s health and cure status effects, just like a Pokémon Center.
Fossils Can Be Exchanged at the Pokémon Research Lab
Fossils can also be purchased at the Stone Emporium.
As you explore Lumiose, you’ll likely stumble upon a fossil or two, or even notice them on sale at stores. And yes, just like previous games, you can restore fossils into ancient Pokémon, including Aerodactyl and Tyrunt.
The lab on the second floor of the Pokémon Research Center is where you’ll want to take these. In fact, a side quest will pop up without warning in the early chapters of the game, where the researcher in question wants you to bring him a fossil. At absolutely no cost, you can bring fossils here and instantly get them restored, giving you shiny new Pokémon to run around with.
