It’s Time For Pokémon Legends Z-A To Steal The Anime’s Best Idea

14 July 2025

5

it’s-time-for-pokemon-legends-z-a-to-steal-the-anime’s-best-idea — It’s Time For Pokémon Legends Z-A To Steal The Anime’s Best Idea

Pokémon Legends: Z-A has a lot of people sold on it thanks to its interesting setting, brand-new combat model, and cast of characters. There is already a lot to love about Legends: Z-A, especially for those who have become a tad disillusioned with the franchise as of late. However, as much as it will certainly shine at launch, at least when it comes to its innovations, there is still plenty that Pokémon Legends: Z-A can do to both win over fans and newcomers alike and push the series forward even more.

In fact, there is a particular feature Legends: Z-A should improve, one that the video games have always flirted with and occasionally temporarily implemented, but never fully committed to. With this feature, Legends: Z-A would offer an experience unlike any Pokémon game before it and truly take the series in a new direction, one I firmly believe would be far superior to what we’ve gotten so far. It is absolutely time Pokémon started to feel a lot less lonely by fully borrowing the anime’s very best idea.

It Is Strange Pokémon Never Featured Companions

They’re Only Ever A Temporary Mechanic

One feature I’ve always wished Pokémon had, or at least fully implemented, is companions. Unlike most RPGs, the Pokémon video games have never truly committed to adding companions to the experience, only ever having a character follow the player for a short while before leaving the party. Rarely are there ever two or more characters at the player’s side, and even when there are, it is usually only for a particular story mission. Simply put, you can’t complete an entire Pokémon game with a companion by your side.

Pokémon borrows from popular RPGs all the time, so I’m surprised that Game Freak never considered a game that revolved around playing alongside another character. The closest we got was Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee and Pikachu, but even then, it was a player rather than an NPC companion, and they completely trivialized the experience. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet finally give you companions for the very final area, and it is an amazing sequence. Still, it is only temporary, a brief, frustratingly tantalizing tease that makes you realize just how fun it’d be.

Crucially, the inclusion of companions, even if it did make combat a little easier, would absolutely be worth it, as it would bring the games that one step closer to being like the anime.

Of course, I understand from a gameplay perspective that it would be challenging to balance having two or more people in your party at once. Every battle would be a double battle at least, and that could be a lot. However, it isn’t that different from turn-based JRPGs, which just pit you against greater numbers of enemies the more party members you collect. Crucially, the inclusion of companions, even if it did make combat a little easier, would absolutely be worth it, as it would bring the games that one step closer to being like the anime.

Companions Would Make Pokémon More Like The Anime

It Would Make Adventuring Less Lonely

Two trainers standing side by side battling an opponent in Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu.

The Pokémon anime and video games have never really felt like similar experiences, even if they share a lot of the same iconography and even ideas. Sure, gyms pop up in the anime, but they’re rarely the sole focus. The same Pokémon also appear in both the video games and anime, but they never share the same intent. In the anime, gyms are supplemental to the human narratives happening between the main cast, and Pokémon have more personality and behavioral quirks that make them endearing, rather than moves for the player to use.

Bridging the gap between the anime and games can only come about by Pokémon undergoing a major overhaul, and that rarely happens. With each game feeling stagnant in its design, it has never felt like a priority for Game Freak to deliver an experience akin to that showcased in the anime. Perhaps that’s intentional, but it is disappointing, as there’s so much the games could do that would both make them more like the anime and, in their own right, be far better experiences.

Adding more questlines separate from the main story that flesh out the game’s particular region and cast of characters would inject that much-needed human aspect. Companions would give players a Brock and Misty to get to know and fight alongside, allowing them to build connections. Continuing to make legendaries more integral to the overall experience would help the player make meaningful bonds with their Pokémon. Legends: Z-A has the opportunity to implement some or all of this, but I really hope it adds companions, as I think that is the feature the games need most desperately.

It Would Greatly Elevate The Franchise

The key art for Pokemon Legends Z-A featuring two trainers surrounded by Pokemon in Lumiose City.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A adding companions would not only massively elevate its narrative and gameplay experience, but also finally give the series the ingredient it has been missing this whole time. I’m not just referring to a companion that, like in past Pokémon games, comes and goes all too quickly, nor am I referring to Pokémon that walk by your side. Rather, I really want Pokémon Legends: Z-A to add permanent companions that players can either recruit or are added to their party at specific points in the narrative.

Pokémon has always flirted with the idea of rivals and friends, but they never actually accompany you, instead just popping up at key points in the story and then disappearing again. It has always meant that Pokémon is an incredibly lonely experience, a journey the player always takes on their own. Pokémon should celebrate friendship, especially as it is targeted, largely, towards a younger demographic. Having permanent companions that are integral to both gameplay and story would give it a way of doing that.

Trainers from Pokemon Legends Z-A and Arceus with gameplay from Brilliant Diamond and X & Y behind them.

Pokémon Legends Z-A has the potential to be truly amazing so long as it retains the best part of its predecessor, Pokémon Legends Arceus.

It would also go a long way in helping make Pokémon feel less outdated, as RPGs have had this feature for a while, and it is baffling that Game Freak still hasn’t found a way of implementing it. It feels like a no-brainer to me to add companions to Pokémon, especially as they’ve been a constant in the anime since the start. I hope that Pokémon Legends: Z-A finds a way of introducing them, as, after all, the whole point of the Legends spin-off series has been to experiment with new ideas that could help make the mainline games better.