Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 30: From Z to A

Last time we left off, the climax of Pokemon Legends Z-A is in full swing. Zygarde has assumed his 100% form and is flying around launching missiles like a damn Dragon Ball character at the giant mutated flower-architecture kaiju that is Hyper-Rogue Ange Floette. And I face off against two giant flowers that have sprouted on the ground, both of them launching different energy beams at me. 

And this is it, this is the final battle of the game. Not going to lie, I kind of wanted to fight the giant tower itself instead of two flowers connected to it, but it is still something. 

My party is around level 70-ish, and I just spam attacks as I attack the two blue and red Hyperrogue Ange Floette flowers. It is admittedly a bit of a strange fight. I suppose the blue and red flowers are meant to represent Xerneas and Yveltal; since they do share the colours of the mascots of X and Y, but none of the type matchups seem to make sense. Heck, they don't even exactly make sense for pure Fairy-type either, with would be Floette's typing. They just shoot beams of energy, little balls of pink energy, or create little shockwaves. 

And... this isn't anywhere as interesting to talk about compared to the Rogue Mega Evolution gauntlet, if we're being perfectly honest. It's challenging enough, sure. And it is different. But all in all, compared to something like Eternamax Eternatus or the previous Rogue Mega Evolutions in this game or whatever, it feels just a bit weird. Not that I hate it or anything, I'm just not the biggest fan of it. 

I also suppose that it's not as hard for me because I quickly figure out that my starter, Meganium, is particularly good against these things because Meganium is one big tanky dinosaur... who also has access to Giga Drain, constantly healing her HP. I did switch some of my party members in, but they get damaged quite often and I even had to use my little hoard of healing items! Again, eventually it becomes easy as well as I realize there are little pieces of convenient rubble I can hide behind. 

After taking down the flowers, I get to control Zygarde Complete for a bit. It's actually a cool little cutscene as Zygarde lands behind my character, flies up... and I actually have to 'target' the giant mutated Prism Tower and pick from one of Zygarde's three special signature moves: Thousand Arrows, Thousand Waves or Land's Wrath. For the first time, I picked Thousand Arrows, and we get to see the little hexagons rain down like... well, like a thousand arrows down upon the tower. This one is actually epic. 

Thousand Waves, which I selected for the second attack, was also cool, creating waves on a plane in the sky that roils around the Ange Tower. 

After the first time I used Zygarde's attacks, Hyperrogue Ange Floette 'opens' its 'mouth/head' and shoots beams into the air, which splits up into little meteors that rain down the battlefield. This probably fucks up a ton of property in Lumiose. But as far as I'm concerned, I just run around where Zygarde is at, and Zygarde creates a little forcefield out of his little hexagons to protect me from the destructive Light of Ruin. It's neat. 

This goes on for quite a while, until I beat down Hyperrogue Ange Floette down for a third time. Zygarde forces me to use 'Core Enforcer' at this point, its Dragon-type signature move. And we get a cutscene of Zygarde Complete flying up the vines like a damn superhero, facing off against Ange Floette's "face", and starts warming up a ball of green energy... and then like a goddamn Dragon Ball Z protagonist, we just get a smash-cut to Zygarde already swooping down. And then a Z-shaped slash erupts on the side of the tower. It's cooler than my descriptions make it out to be. 

And then the Prism Tower explodes in a gigantic, green eruptiin... and Hyperrogue Ange Floette seems to stop glowing and become dormant. 

The game tells me: "you put an end to Ange Floette's rampage". Huzzah!

Lida, Naveen and Vinnie congratulate me on the ground as they walk up to where I was fighting the flowers. The other allies also start showing up via holograms. Jacinthe makes it all about herself, of course, and Corbeau just sounds so exhausted and just handwaves her comments away, agreeing with her making it much easier to hush her down. Taunie also calls me and confirms again that she's okay. It's time for Quasartico to make a party, and for her and Floette to get off the tower. Everyone ignores Jacinthe's suggestion that we have a celebration in Hotel Richissime, and then they sign off. All is well.

But just as Floette is about to disconnect from Prism Tower and re-take control of Ange... of course, things doesn't quite end yet. Quite silly, I think, that everyone else that was 'on the call' doesn't even try to react to this. But dramatic effect, I suppose. The metal 'cage' clangs open, and the flower bud opens up and glows with bright blue light, not dissimilar to the XY depictions of the Ultimate Weapon. And it prepares to fire off Light of Ruin again.

Everyone panics, insisting that this would result in all of Lumiose City being wiped off the map... and then something shivers in my bag. 

It's... it's the pebble. It's the pebble that doggy Zygarde gave me way earlier in the game. I grip it tightly, and in my inventory it starts rumbling, shining, and breaking apart to reveal the Zygardite. Oh! A Mega Evolution for Zygarde! Of course.

We then get another cutscene as I climb up the side of the building and hold the Zygardite in my hand. Zygarde Complete flies up like a goddamn superhero, takes the Zygardite... and I strike the Mega Evolution pose as Zygarde floats with its tentacles whipping around in the air. 

Zygarde gets wrapped in mega evolution, compacts down into a sphere... and we get the revelation of Mega Zygarde.

Which... uh... okay. It's still humanoid, but all of the black armour of everything from the shoulder down is stripped and piled up together to form a big cannon connected to Zygarde's shoulders by flat wires. The rest of the body being pure bright green is what gets me, though, he just feels... naked. Not my favourite design, especially compared to Complete. And I'm not even the biggest fan of Complete!

Ange fires its ultimate weapon laser, a sparkly deadly beam that flies into the sky and arcs back down towards Lumiose City, which is the same imagery used in AZ's flashback on how he used the Ultimate Weapon to wipe out the war back in the day. 

Mega Zygarde points his own cannon up... and I get to target the falling beam and command Zygarde to use Core Enforcer... or rather, its new name, Nihil Light. The cannon has lines that shine bright with the letters 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' (which... doesn't really make sense in-universe, actually). The cannon cracks open, creates a giant pink hexagon... and unleashes a beam made up of hexagons up. 

Two beams clash with each other in the sky, all Dragon Ball Z style, before exploding in a huge fireworks display above the ruined Prism Tower. And so, the threat of Ange is done for with this little bit of bonus cutscene.

Taunie skids down the rubble with AZ's Eternal Floette cradled, limp... and for a moment it seemed that Floette has been slain or died after the whole chaos. Turns out Floette is just passed out, though, and wakes up soon enough. Okay, then. Taunie and I do a fist-bump, as Floette wakes up. 

The game then cuts away to AZ, who is watching the fireworks explosion from the rooftop of Hotel MZ. He gives the ending monologue about the choices of today affecting our own tomorrows, and thanking Team MZ, his friends, as the camera pans up the fireworks in the night sky. 

The credits then play, showing the title of the game and a shot of Prism Tower -- hollowed out, with the two 'cage halves' of the top of the tower hanging on top like a pair of deer horns. The credits roll over static images. We get to see Jett doing an apology on public television, and then all our named allies doing some repair work. It's all nice and stuff, we get a shot of everyone doing a group fist-bump; some nice shots of our allies shifting rubble and rescuing people, with my favourite being the showcase of Grisham and Griselle serving coffee to the survivors.

We get a shot of Mable seemingly in the Lysandre Labs, and Lysandre himself stalking away into the night with a hood up... and then everyone gathered around the hollowed-out Prism Tower; which now is a grass/moss-covered giant skeletal building similar to the real-world Eiffel Tower moreso than the ugly modernized 'sleek' shape it was in the 3DS games. Zygarde, in his dog form, looks at us and hops off.

And as the title screen shows, we cut to the empty loby of Hotel MZ, lingering a bit too long for what is comfortable...

And we get an epilogue. Team MZ is gathered around a grave. AZ has passed away in-between the climax and the epilogue... quietly, and after seeing his life's work and his past sins paid for. The fact that AZ died isn't a surprise narratively, although it most definitely is a surprise that Pokemon would show a character passing away as part of the main story and not even shying away from it. 

We get a bit of explanation about how AZ has taken care of all the preparations himself, and Naveen is a bit baffled that this has happened without him realizing it... even though there has been signs, like AZ asking to be 'fitted for a new suit'. Taunie resolves that AZ can rest easy since we'll help push AZ's vision for Lumiose City as a city of harmony between humans and Pokemon. 

Lysandre mutters from a distance about how for 3000 years, AZ has bid farewell to many living things, and now we bid farewell to him. I suppose his life essence might be tied to Ange somehow? Or I guess he just passes away out of relief after seeing all his unfinished business done with.

It's a nice end to AZ. Again, it is a bit of a shame that he ultimately did nothing but give us some information, but that has been the crux of AZ's story. He has done an unforgivable sin, he has wandered and witnessed for so long, crushed by guilt and time... and finally, he has managed -- even though not actively -- to atone for his sins, even if he has to mentor a new generation to do it for him. And that generation is off to continue doing what they do, heading off to have a good meal as we go from 'Z', the end, back to 'A', the origin. 

I get one last line to say at the grave, either thanking AZ for everything or promising that we'll take care of everything from here, before walking off, allowing the dead to rest and for the game to give us a 'FIN' on the corner of the screen as the game focuses on AZ's grave with flowers.

That's nice.

The game resets with me in my room, and there's a Pokeball on the table. A Lucario's Poke Ball is on the table, and that's the Lucario that AZ lent me all the way back near the beginning of the game. A letter from AZ is next to the Lucario, noting that AZ was gifted that Lucario by another trainer to keep him safe. That trainer is Korrina, as we can see from Lucario's original trainer. AZ tells me to inform Korrina about this should I ever meet her. AZ thanks me for being a Pokemon trainer of the highest caliber, and as he's about to pass away, memories flit through his mind. Obtaining Floette for the first time from his mother, witnessing Mega Evolution, meeting the legendaries of Kalos, randomly 'the dark day over Galar' which is a nice Sword/Shield nod... before leaving us with some wise words about memories ultimately fading away and it's up to the new generation to carve our own story.

And on that nice, somber note, I'll end this bit and leave the rest of the postgame for another segment!

This has been a great climax.

Not perfect, no. 

I really wished there was a bit more with AZ, showing a bit more of his thought processes as he technically doesn't atone for his sins properly. I've spoken a bit about how I wished the single Zygarde cell was a bit more relevant; but most of all I do think the two segments -- the Flower boss fight is a bit repetitive and honestly not as epic as the giant Eiffel Tower kaiju made it out to be. And I'm just not the biggest fan of the Mega Zygarde design in general, especially as epic as Zygarde Complete looked. Was it the 'Pokemon Z' that I wanted, that fixes a lot of the hollowness of the original Kalos games, that fills in the lore about AZ and ancient Kalos, and Zygarde? It does succeed in those in some ways, and not in others. I really do wish that those stories were given a bit more of a focus, but on the other hand Legends Z-A succeeds a lot better compared to a lot of other Pokemon games in making a supporting cast that really mattered as characters throughout the story. Really did feel like we might be missing some Team Flare lab notes about the nature of Zygarde as well, which would've done a lot in giving context to the climax to people like me who aren't well versed with Zygarde's anime lore.

As much as I do have some criticism about the narrative of this game, it's still a great story and a great climax. I don't think it's my favourite game or story -- it's got a fair number of flaws, I feel -- but it definitely ranks quite highly as far as more narrative-driven Pokemon games go. Good stuff, good stuff. We'll see what the postgame brings. 

Random Notes:

• In other news, official 'Sugimori-style' artwork has dropped for all of the new mega evolutions, which means I'll probably be starting work on the 'Gotta Review 'Em All' segment for Legends ZA soon! 
  
• Ange Floette's "head" also has some metallic debris that coincidentally have blue and red spikes to form like a 'dragon head-fin' thing. Again, the blue and red corresponds to Xerneas and Yveltal, but the game doesn't really give a reason or any thematic sense about that other than a bit of a cheeky wink-wink-nod.
  
• I think the 'pebble turns out to be a power-up device' is the same thing that happens with... Rayquaza's stone in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire?
• Nihil Light, of course, is a pun on 'annihilate'. 
• I don't know what I wanted from Mega Zygarde, but it honestly wasn't this. I don't mind the cannon specifically, but I kind of felt that Zygarde Complete was already a bit 'extra', to quote modern slang, so having it just go ultra-mega-ridiculous like this felt a bit odd. I don't know. I get that they needed to escalate, but in that case I really would've preferred Zygarde getting aspects of Xerneas and Yveltal instead? Like, wings and horns? That would at least be more thematic than the random giant cannon with glowing letters. 
• There has been a theory that Zygarde travelled to Alola to 'learn' from Solgaleo and Lunala as well, with some of the colours in Zygarde's chest matching up with the Alolan legendaries. Something that brings them to mind, or even Ultra Necrozma, would've been something. 
• The radio antennae above the big public TV is actually shaped like a Rotom! I didn't notice that before.
• AZ's gravestone is the same 'throne' that Taunie and Floette tried to control Ange from, which I thought was a nice touch. 
• AZ confirms that his Floette has the black flower from way back then, and it's not something that she gained through the Ultimate Weapon resurrection. 
• The fact that we don't actually get Zygarde and Floette during the course of the climax, and only briefly partner up with them, I think, is a nice little touch and a bit of a hint that we have a fair bit of post-game to run around in.