When Pokémon Legends: Arceus was released, the overwhelming thoughts on it, including my own, seemed to fall along the lines of: this is good, but I wish it were bigger, ran better, and the creams and yellows of this world didn’t look so ugly on this console. Now, I can’t say for sure that Pokémon Legends: Z-A is going to play much better than its predecessor on the original Nintendo Switch; however, it is going to run a lot better on the Nintendo Switch 2, the console Nintendo is, unsurprisingly, making sure all of their games are at PAX Australia. 

The demo that attendees at this year’s convention can check out is broken into two parts. You’ll check out the first, an example of the battle areas in the game, before moving to the next demo screen, and playing through a story-heavy section that ends with what is more or less a boss battle for these games.

As I’ve sort of teased in the opening paragraph there, the game runs very well on the Nintendo Switch 2. The first thing I did after getting hands-on with the controller was begin circling the character and spinning the camera around. It’s night and day straight away from the first Pokémon Legends game. It’s running at 60fps, so although technically running as well as the frame rate of the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet games now, thanks to the Nintendo Switch 2 update, the visuals here look a lot sharper, the Pokémon models more detailed, and the environments feel more filled in. Considering this game, as far as we understand, is set in one city, it makes sense that it would feel more complete. 

The first demo gives you a handle on how the combat will play out here, and although it’s far from a technical third-person action game that will require twitch-based reactions, it is much more reactive and interactive than any of the battles in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Whereas that game was more-or-less about throwing your Pokémon at the wild ones, or the few battles you’d do, and watch them, for the most part, auto-attack their way to victory with some inputs from you. Here, you now need to stay more engaged with what’s happening around you — swapping Pokémon out on the fly to engage weaknesses felt good. When you accidentally press the wrong attack from spamming buttons, you’ll be punished, as you now need to wait for that attack to finish before you can react with the correct one. 

The combat and its increased interactivity are the highlights of the second part of the twenty-minute experience here at PAX AUS 2025. You come face-to-face with a Mega-Evolved Absol, and after getting a Lucario to team up, you’ll need to lock in to best the battle (and thus earn an exclusive pin from the show, mind you.) Absol will not only attack Lucario, but also you, as a trainer, which will lead to a game over. Holding ZL, you can lock on to Pokémon and then command yours to attack, but you’ll need to let go of this trigger to be able to dodge with the Y button, and also move around and pick up any Mega-Evolution energy that is dropping off Absol during the battle. Collecting enough will enable you to Mega-Evolve Lucario, and then you’ll be able to turn the tide on the fight. Another moment here that reminded me I couldn’t just spam attack was that Absol would do an AOE attack. I’d need to ensure not to send Lucario in with an attack, as it would then get caught in the damage and instead be patient, waiting for the Absol attack to finish before moving on with the battle. 

I was always going to play Pokémon Legends: Z-A as the fan I am, but after getting to play it at PAX it’s good to know not only that it will play and handle very good on Nintendo Switch 2 consoles, but that the game is also doing some new things and building on what was loved about the first Pokémon Legends game to create a new kind of Pokémon Expericne that players loved the first time around. 

[Explosion Network attended PAX Australia 2025 with a provided Media Pass.]