By Micheal Ortiz

On February 27th, the annual Pokémon titles were announced pending release, and the Pokémon Legends ZA trailer was released that same day. It was confirmed that “Mega Evolution” was making a return after six years, which was very exciting to hear for Pokémon fans. Its return was a huge hint, a gimmick within the 10th Generation games that left people in awe of what occurred this Pokémon day. For those who may not be as informed on Pokémon culture, according to the website smogon.com, a gimmick is defined as “any set that uses sub optimal moves or items to gain a surprise advantage over opposing teams or standard counters” (Alchemator). Not to mention, Lumiose City was also showcased and was based in present-day Paris, France. As of now the release date for Pokémon Legends ZA is scheduled to come out at some point during the year 2025, making this the last Pokémon game of the original Nintendo Switch. 

This new set of Legends games has the potential to hit new gimmicks. For instance, where your Pokémon is able to bond with its trainer given whatever Pokémon once you’ve had a new form. In the more current games that have been released, it is very easy to get your Pokémon to await your directions, one example is by starting a picnic. Picnics are preferred over nurseries because during a picnic breeding can be done anywhere, which gives the game a much more open-world concept. When generation 9 came out it was hinted that there would be a potential for a future where all mainline games going forward would be given this open-world format, we see this occur in Legends Arceus. 

Many Pokémon fans feel that this new generation deserves access to mega forms. There is a chance that the starters picked for these specific legends game will eventually lead to a mega form. The starters however have not been revealed for the title, although there have been rumors that we could potentially get Scorbunny, Sprigatito, and Piplup as starters. One of the reasons why those starters would be picked would be because of Cinderace and how it represents soccer, a very popular sport in France. Cinderace also received a Kalosan Form that would heavily symbolize that same notion regarding soccer.  

The New Legends game could also tell the history of AZ; an illusive figured that appears in pokemon X and Y and is supposedly the former king of Kalos region and the creator of the ultimate weapons, who owns a special form of Floette (a fairy type pokemon introduced in generation 6), and if we can obtain it that would be interesting to see its evolved form; Florgres, maybe even getting access to its mega form. Eventually learning the history of how AZ relates to the secret weapons stored in  Xerneas and Yveltal. Creating the secret weapon that is seen in Geosenge town right near the cave that leads us towards Shalour City. 

Similar to how Legends Arceus foreshadowed the open-world mainline game, we could also see a different approach available in the Generation 10 games. An example of that would be the Syncro machine that was introduced in the Indigo Disk DLC of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, where you are able to have the possibility to play as your Pokémon in this open-world region. In Blueberry Academy, only at this time you would be able to do it throughout the entire region and in certain parts of the DLC when it comes out. The chance that generation 10 could come out in 2026 as that is the 30th Anniversary of the Pokémon franchise, as well as could have a bigger advantage to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet as the games were extremely unlikely on the first day of their release. There were complaints about the lag and the game crashing for absolutely no reason. This can prove that Gamefreak.inc can put in more time especially as the 10th generation would be released for the Nintendo Switch 2, which would mean a new console also being released in the Spring of next year.