The Pokémon Company has changed its way of making video games in the last five or six years. All it used to do in new games was add new Pokémon and cities, combat gimmicks like Megas or Z-Moves, and release the game. Since Pokémon Legends: Arceus, it all changed. The series suddenly got modern game mechanics like crafting, stealth, and open worlds.
This commitment to change is still there in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, as we can see in the first-ever real-time combat system on consoles. Now, it's time for The Pokémon Company to take it one step further and make my wish come true: add difficulty levels to Pokémon.
This shouldn't be a hard ask, but I know why some people reading this will think I'm delusional. There's no way Legends: Z-A will have difficulty levels, even if they're as simple as easy, normal, and hard. As a feature, difficulty has never existed in the mainline Pokémon games, mostly because it's tied to the opposing Pokémon's level. But this is artificial difficulty: If your opponent's level is too high, farming experience to level up your Pokémon should be enough to win. Even in Gym Leader and Elite 4 rematches, like in HeartGold and SoulSilver, leveling up is enough.
Pokémon Emerald's Battle Tower and Battle Factory are probably the best examples of the kind of difficulty I wanted to see in Pokémon Legends: Z-A: Your opponent's team, their moveset, and the strategies they use are all stronger the higher your win streak, since Pokémon levels are all the same. I want a "hard mode" Legends: Z-A to simply have trainers and wild 'mon that are smarter than average, that will try to counter me, and that will have a synergistic team and strategy.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A is the perfect opportunity to introduce difficulty settings because this is a common feature in other action RPGs. Today, games in this genre actually have New Game+ instead, where you keep some of your progress and replay the game against stronger opponents. This would also be fair in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and something that Nintendo already did in other titles like Metroid Prime: Remastered, where you can play the game in Hard Mode after you beat it in Normal.
Higher difficulty in Legends: Z-A could come in many forms. Wild Pokémon could have extra moves, trainers could have more Pokémon, Rogue Mega Evolutions like the Mega Absol from the Gamescom demo could have different movesets and attack patterns, and certain Pokémon could simply have improved AI to counter your team with super effective moves more often.
These difficulty changes would make Legends: Z-A more fun for veteran players. They have already been adding artificial ways to make Pokémon games harder with challenges like Nuzlocke, where you force a level cap on your team and release Pokémon that faint. Having this kind of built-in difficulty would cater to a player base that thinks Pokémon is too easy. Since The Pokémon Company is always thinking about ways to cater to wider audiences (just look at how many Pokémon game genres exist today), it's time to also cater to hardcore gamers.
That's why my wish for Pokémon Legends: Z-A is that we get difficulty settings. Deep down, I know this won't happen, but I still hope The Pokémon Company remembers how bold it was to add stealth, crafting, and open-world areas in Legends: Arceus, things nobody ever thought a Pokémon game would have. It's time to break the pattern once again and give something to Pokémon that everyone thought it would never have.
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The post My unrealistic wish for Pokémon Legends: Z-A would sound reasonable for any other RPG franchise appeared first on Destructoid.
