Pokemon Legends: Z-A Couldn’t Exist Without Pokemon’s Best City

Way back in 2021, just a few months into my time at TheGamer, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I wrote about Lumiose. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon's City of Lights, the Parisian centrepiece to the French-coded Kalos, is one of Pokemon's best slices of world building. It's rare that a town post-Gen 3 captures the personality of those before it, whether it be the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:highs of Goldenrod or the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:lows of Cianwood, but Lumiose, built around the Prism To🍌wer, managed it. Now, people might finally realise that.

There was no particular reason for me to be writing about Lumiose back in 2021. I just liked writing about Pokemon - still do - so when I didn't have anything all that timely in front of me, my attention often turned to Pikachu and company. But now, there is a reason to celebrate Lumiose again. It will be the setting for the upcoming 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and the latest trailer g🌜ave us a deep dive into what weꦇ can expect.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A Seems Nothing Like Legends: Arceus

16ꦑ8澳洲幸运5开奖网:Z-A is going in a 🌺very different direction to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Legends: Arceus. The original Legends game took us back in time, to a feudal era of Pokemon where the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokedex was still being invented, and was written by hand. Poke Balls were carved out of wood, and catching Pokemon was an exercise in cataloguing a species we still꧃ knew little about. With this, the lands were open and free to roam. Cities and townscapes had not been built, letting us wander freely across wild terrain.

I had feared, from the original Z-A trailer, that we'd get something similar. It offered us 16🅰8澳洲幸运5开奖网:a Tron-style cybernetic look at Lumiose, and I wondered if we'd be part of some cosmic building꧟ process where we'd see the foundations of what would become an iconic metropoli🌳s. But in the latest trailer, we see Lumiose as we know it in the modern day, with bustling streets, busy roads, sky-high buildings, and a cosmopolitan buzz of activity.

On the one hand, this raises the question as to what a Legends game really is. It seemed as th𓂃ough it had an identity as an anthology of the past seꦺries, and the sequel is moving away from that. Part of me is worried about what purpose Legends serves in that case. On the other, I'm very excited to go back to Lumiose again, and that's all I care about.

Lumiose Is The Star Of Pokemon Legends: Z-A

Legends: Z-A gives us Lumiose as I remember it, but with a much needed glow up. The latest trailer shows off parks, shopping centres, and hotels, and it's a city that feels lived in. So many Pokemon towns are just there for you to pass through, and so they only have a few narratively or thematically important ಌbuildings, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:some quite nonsensical houses, and🅘 a lot of space to roam. Because Lumiose is much grander, it can still offer lots to interact with, but seems 🌠designed for the people who spend their lives there as much as the trainers who are passing through.

Legends: Z-A tries to keep the themes of Arceus as we see the city is undergoing a "hi-tech redevelopment plan". It's not quite the frontier spirit we got in Hisui, but if we generously call Z-A the future, we can still see a theme. Maybe in the full game th🐼at will have a larger bearing on things. We see solar panels on buildings and cybernetic holograms walking around, which does leave me apprehensive. Lumiose is beautiful because of its architecture, and futurising it just to look cool takes away its appeal.

Hopefully this links to the Wild Zones, clearly playing off 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the Wild Area of Sword & Shield, which is where you can catch and interact with Pokemon despite remaining in the city. It feels like a clever way to divide the city from the wilderness in a place that is all city, and hopefully means focus stays on Lumiose and the grandeur it can offer. Staying in one place will mean it needs to be denser, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a far cry from the emptiness of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Scarlet & Violet, and could finally see Pokemon get the open-world stuff right. If it does, it would be fitting for it to happen in Lumiose, a place that has always deserved more respect from ꦡthe P𝓰okemon fandom.