The Pokemon series has been in need of serious evolution recently. 2022’s “Pokemon Legends: Arceus” switched up the traditional Pokemon RPG formula by introducing real-time combat elements, a semi-open world, and a new way of story progression. It was a breath of fresh air for the franchise that had a stagnating turn-based battle system.

Whereas “Arceus” was a prequel to the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl games, the newest entry “Pokemon Legends: Z-A” is a sequel to the “Pokemon X and Y” ones. This time around, Z-A makes a few bold changes from “Legends: Arceus” for the better, but also some for the worse. Z-A’s battle system has been much improved, but the game is hampered by bland exploration. It also runs incredibly well on Nintendo Switch 2, but its presentation in other areas is lacking, especially in the graphics department.

“Pokemon Legends: Z-A” takes place five years after the events of the “Pokemon X and Y” versions. Lumiose City is currently going under a redevelopment plan, and that has caused the rise of Rogue Mega Evolutions, where certain Pokemon are forced to undergo further changes to make them even stronger. Players must uncover the mysteries behind the Rogue Mega Evolutions while also climbing the ranks of the Z-A Royale, a Pokemon battling tournament. As players make their way to the top, the winner will be allowed to have one wish granted.

Pokemon has never had the most complex stories, and “Legends: Z-A” is no different. However, what’s baffling is that, after all these years, Pokemon games still don’t have voice acting. It’s really jarring to see NPCs in cutscenes “talk” but emit no sound whatsoever. What makes the experience even more confusing is that NPCs will make exertion noises. For example, if a character whips their arm to throw a Pokeball, you can actually hear the sound effect of an arm going through the air. There are some emotional scenes involving key characters from Pokemon X and Y’s storyline, but those scenes fall flat due to the lack of voice acting.

It is so difficult to feel invested in “Legends: Z-A”’s story that, halfway through, I just started ignoring it. However, what kept me engaged until the end of the story was Z-A’s fun battle system. Whereas “Legends: Arceus” had modified turn-based combat, Z-A completely commits to real-time action. This makes for more exhilarating battles, and the attacks have been cleverly fitted to take advantage of it.

In the mainline Pokemon games, it was easy to get by having your Pokemon know four attacking moves and leave the other non-damaging ones alone. For example, moves like Tail Whip would lower your opponent’s Defense stat, but you’d want to maximize your damage output, thus getting rid of that for an attack that does actual damage. However, with the new real-time combat system, these non-damaging attacks are suddenly more important than ever.

Each attack has a cooldown period, and so in between the waiting time, you’ll want to use other moves. That’s where moves like Tail Whip can come in really handy. While you’re waiting for your Tackle attack to recharge, you can use Tail Whip and lower the opponent’s Defense stat, ensuring that the next Tackle will knock it out. While this strategy works just as well in the purely turn-based mainline Pokemon games, the nature of these real-time battles recontextualizes them, making “Legends: Z-A” stand out compared to its predecessors.

The day and night cycle is utilized in this game where you’re able to challenge other NPCs to battles during the night time in designated Battle Zones. By defeating trainers and completing side objectives such as hitting a specific weakness a certain number of times, you can earn points to win a Challenge Ticket. This usually progresses the story by letting you fight the next boss, a welcome change to the typical Gym Leader structure that mainline Pokemon games had.

During the story, you’ll also be asked to take care of Rogue Mega Evolved Pokemon in order to keep Lumiose City safe. If you take down these giant Pokemon, you’ll earn their Mega Stone, which allows you to summon their respective Mega Evolutions, given that you have the proper Pokemon. I really enjoyed these as they switched up the game’s pace.

The biggest disappointment with “Legends: Z-A” is how boring Lumiose city is. In “Legends: Arceus,” players have the entire Hisui region to explore. But all of “Legends: Z-A” is confined to just one city with designated Wild Zones to catch Pokemon in. These Wild Zones are entirely too small and with the new battle system, fights can feel claustrophobic. These Wild Zones lack any discernable features and look as muddy and uninspired as the rest of Lumiose City.

Outside of the Pokemon and character models, Lumiose City is so boring to explore. Buildings are dull, and the columns and windows aren’t even in 3D. The textures are quite literally flat pictures copied and pasted onto the buildings themselves. Lumiose City is so unimaginative, especially coming from the open regions in “Legends: Arceus”.

I really don’t understand how Pokemon can be the one of the most profitable media franchises in the world yet still can’t produce a decent looking 3D mainline game. Other Nintendo properties like “The Legend of Zelda” and “Donkey Kong” have received complete artistic overhauls and creative design directions, but Pokemon games don’t receive the same level of meticulous care. Along with the lack of voice acting, these games continue to look and feel cheap.

At the very least, Legends: Z-A runs incredibly well on the Nintendo Switch 2, a far cry from the technical woes plaguing the last mainline Pokemon games. Although there are still some distracting pop-in issues with characters and Pokemon sometimes appearing out of nowhere, the game is smooth and playable.

“Pokemon Legends: Z-A” continues the experimental direction of “Pokemon Legends: Arceus,” opting for real-time combat which makes battles more strategic and engaging compared to the traditional turn-based format. However, the game suffers from uninteresting exploration, dated graphics, and the continued absence of voice acting. Despite this, if you’re a Pokemon fan, this game still might be up your alley. Even as it stays stuck in the past, it’s a difficult franchise to leave there.

A copy of Pokemon Legends: Z-A was purchased by the reviewer. It is now available.

★★★★

Set on a pastel painted Earth, parallel to our own and, thus far, unburdened by the weight of the cumbersome perplexities of the MCU, The Fantastic Four: First Steps serves up a breezy continuation of Marvel’s recent revival in legitimate entertainment. It’s ‘no homework required’ – in the words of Kevin Feige himself – fun and so game for good times that it squeezes the titular quartet’s entire origins story into a five minute montage. Wise move. Those in the know, know already that the Four are to join the main fray in next year’s hotly anticipated Avengers: Doomsday. Those who couldn’t care less can sit back, relax, and switch off – assuming they haven’t already, in a different sense of the phrase. Never mind first step, it’s a stride back in the right direction.

The film is directed by Matt Shakman. An understanding of this should go some way toward explaining First Steps pleasing specificity and individuality in tone, visual identity and interactional dynamics. Shakman was responsible also for the Disney+ series WandaVision. Combining mid-century costumes and vintage shop windows with flying cars and robots, the vogue here is a buoyant retro futurism. It’s New York but not as you know it. Even the digital billboards of the film’s alt-Times Square recall chunky 50s TV screens – a fabulous visual. The effect may defy sound logic but elevates just about everything else. Herbie the cassette eyed robot, drawn from 1978’s “The New Fantastic Four” cartoon series, is a hoot.

Homaging the same sitcom vibes that powered much of WandaVision – from The Dick Van Dyke Show to I Love Lucy, with more than a little of the Bewitched – the film posits a familial Four as a house sharing unit. Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby bring stoicism to the ostensible grown ups in the dynamic – Reed “Mister Fantastic” Richards and Sue “Invisible Woman” Storm – with Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach amusingly infantilised as Johnny “Human Torch” Storm, Sue’s younger brother, and Ben “Thing” Grimm, Reed’s closest friend. In the stead of tiresome moodiness and rote fracturing – vis-à-vis every other attempt to bring the Four to screen – is a team who share mutual respect and genuinely appear to enjoy each other’s company. Time is even devoted to the evening meals they sit down and eat together each day.

First Steps’ real trump card, however, lands in the form of a pint sized newcomer and the early revelation that Sue is cooking up a super-baby. She and Reed had been trying for two long years and had all but given up. It’s their dreams answered. We assume the little tyke will be born a supe – his dad stretches and mum can wield force fields, after all – but it’s an unknown weighing heavily on the worrisome Reed, even before Julia Garner’s Silver Surfer sweeps in to announce all of humanity is doomed.

Indeed, the world-chomping Galactus (Ralph Ineson) looms large on the horizon. He’s munched his way through at least five local-ish planets already and, with a whiff of some Manhattan foliage, come to the conclusion that Earth-828 will prove a satiating amuse-bouche. There is one bargaining chip with the power to change Galactus’ mind, though, albeit a terrible price. With so many Marvel films dependent on total carnage and globalised threat these days, a shift to more microcosmic steaks – while just as monumental – feels sincerely welcome. One life in First Steps hits harder than fifty per cent of all life did in Avengers: Endgame. Watch for the affecting sequence that sees the Four prioritising a city-wide evacuation to ensure that not one soul is harmed in the final showdown. It could be a first for the franchise.

Mining its humour from lived-in relationships, First Steps enjoys warmth and tonal gentility. It’s a world away from the laugh-out-loud snarks of James Gunn’s Guardians trio but earns its consistent, heartfelt smiles. The film feels refreshing for simply expressing its own simplicity in so undemanding a form. It’ll be a shame to see the Four brought into the fold next year but one hopes the move will be temporary. Earth-828 has mileage enough to remain self-contained.

T.S.

For most of human history, it’s generally believed that there is only one good Fantastic Four movie, and that’s The Incredibles. For some reason, Marvel’s first family has not had the best run of theatrical adventures. This dates all the way back to the 1990s when a film spearheaded by the King of Cult Roger Corman was being developed, but was ultimately never released outside of bootlegs and restorations that you can actually watch today. They tried again in the 2000s with two films, but they just couldn’t stand up against the age of Spider-Man and X-Men. And finally, one more attempt was made in 2015, and it was such a disaster that it kind of made the director have a full on breakdown. I dunno, maybe the Fantastic Four were just Doctor Doomed to fail at every point, but maybe the Marvel Cinematic Universe could break the cycle. It’s not like they’ve been on a march of mediocrity for the past couple years.

But lo and behold, a good Fantastic Four movie is possible. First Steps was a solidly fun time that managed to give a familiar machine a new coat of paint. The characterization of these icons are phenomenal and endearing from the jump, while the retrofuturism feels fresh for the franchise and births one of the most visually unique and enjoyable films Marvel has produced in a long while. But, like I said in my also positive review of Thunderbolts, this still doesn’t feel like the game changer the MCU is looking for. Outside of the new characters and scenery, this is still the MCU formula at its core, doing little to break the mold by relying on bare minimum directing and writing that makes this feel like it could be directed by anybody. It comes so close to making this feel like a movie about actual people, but like most attempts in the MCU, it just doesn’t hit the mark. Even with my issues, this is still a good time at the theater, though for a film subtitled First Steps, I was kind of hoping these movies would be moving forward rather than staying in the same place.

Set on an alternate Earth from the rest of the MCU, The Fantastic Four are the sole protectors of their planet, the safety of which becomes threatened by the imminent arrival of a space being named Galactus. With Galactus’ intent to devour Earth made clear, the four must work together to solve an impossible decision to save the lives of everyone on Earth as well as their recently arrived space baby.

Look, I know we’re all probably thinking we’ve been seeing a little too much Pedro Pascal recently, but his role as leader Reed Richards is just further proof of how good he is. He really does feel vastly different here from a lot of the roles we know him for, portraying Reed as a neurotic and overtly-paranoid genius who tries to be ahead of the curve on everything. His drive to solve every problem put in front of him is both a gift and curse, as his drive to be analytical can often drive him to think with his brain when he should be thinking with his heart. And he knows this and is somewhat burdened by it as he comes to realize he cannot predict or prepare for everything. This is clear from the very first scene where he and Sue find out they’re pregnant after giving up trying a year ago. Reed has a lot of parallels to Tony Stark, but the film does a solid job at differentiating them in minute but impactful ways. Reed is easily the most layered character of the group, and Pascal does a fine job at shutting the naysayers down.

After Reed, I’d say Johnny Storm, played by Joseph Quinn, gets the second most amount of play. Portrayed as the proverbial little brother of the group, he is often straining to prove his usefulness not just as a burning man cosplay, but an intelligent being in his own right. He’s highly cocky and confident in himself, but he puts in the work to add value to a situation beyond what is expected of him. As for the remaining members, Sue Storm and Ben Grimm, it feels like they got a bit shafted by comparison. Vanessa Kirby’s Sue does have some big moments of emotion, but the film doesn’t really delve too deep into the theme of motherhood with her, which is kind of what she feels saddled into later in the film. There’s moments of strain between her and Reed, but at times, they just seem to come out of nowhere as we’re told of their issues rather than being shown them, causing quite a bit of whiplash. Finally, Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s The Thing is honestly just kind of there. He’s a joy to be around, don’t get me wrong, but he’s mostly given nothing to work with here narratively. He has a bit of a crush on a weirdly cast Natasha Lyonne, but that doesn’t get fleshed out at all. I’m guessing they wanted to avoid him wrestling with the loss of his human appearance so as to not retread trampled ground, but it ends up making him feel like a side-character rather than an integral part of the cast.

The lean towards 60s inspired retrofuturism was definitely a solid choice for this new Earth, and I think it’s pulled off super well. There’s a lot of really neat stylistic designs that pull from the era, such as the robot H.E.R.B.I.E. being reminiscent of cassette tapes, and deep space transmissions being recorded on golden vinyl disks. The film does make some attempts to have this feel like a 60s film with its use of technicolor and transitions, but unfortunately, it doesn’t go all in. The visual style ultimately ends up being the usual affair for Marvel, but I will say, the effects definitely feel a lot more polished and grounded this time around. A lot of the set design looks believable, while a gigantic man with a tuning fork helmet like Galactus looks incredibly impressive for the most part. There are moments of rubberiness, but I do think these instances are far fewer than what we’ve come to expect from Marvel nowadays.

It’s just a shame that while the film chose an interesting art direction, it decided to play it safe when it came to its narrative style. The story itself is fine and actually presents an interesting moral dilemma that…looks, it’s a Marvel movie. It’s not gonna get that deep. But I kind of feel like the MCU needs more courage when it comes to its storytelling nowadays. They think it’s all about introducing new characters while forgetting to give us anything that’s going to surprise us. These movies aren’t trying to be challenging or subversive, and that’s fine, but there’s gotta be more creativity in how these stories are being presented. The script really lacks a personality, with much of the writing being bland and direct while the comedy managed to miss more than it hit for me. And like I alluded to earlier, there’s no real sauce to the direction outside of its action sequences, and even then, sometimes the editing and structuring of it all just feels like autopilot. There’s a certain unspoken emptiness to it; almost a fear to connect to us as humans rather than just fans. Comic book movies can and have been capable of this. I have my issues with Superman, but there is a genuine light of humanity to it. And while I enjoyed quite a bit of this film, it still mostly felt like it was checking boxes and painting by the numbers. 

With that being said, I do think this is one of the better Marvel films we’ve gotten in recent years. There’s an undeniable refreshingness with the new world and even the characters at times, I just wish the creative vision came forward far more in the meat and bones of the film. If you aren’t a fan of the MCU’s factory line way of pumping out movies, this probably isn’t gonna win you back on their side. But, if you’re someone like me, foolishly holding out hope that one day Kevin Feige will wake up one day and decide to put on a different hat, it’s not the worst thing in the world. I’m honestly kinda interested to see what the foursome get up to in the future, but not too interested in whatever tomfoolery Avengers: Doomsday has planned that’s going to ruin everything. Did you know they started filming and the script isn’t even done? That’s like starting a cake before the chicken has even laid the egg.

RATING

HERE’S THE THING

So, I held a poll over on my Instagram to see which Fantastic Four member should be immortalized in cocktail form, and to my slight shock, The Thing won. I wanted to craft something orange and earthy by incorporating a few robust ingredients like carrot juice, turmeric, and chile liqueur. The final product makes for quite the interesting drink, with a rooty and slightly botanical body that almost has a tinge of chocolate to it. But I think it’s safe to say, it rocks. Because he’s made of rocks. Please clap.

INGREDIENTS

• 2oz blanco tequila
• 1/4oz mezcal
• 1/2oz maple syrup
• 1/2oz ancho chile liqueur
• 1.5oz carrot juice
• 1/2oz lemon juice
• Rim: smoked citrus salt (sea salt and orange needed)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. For the citrus salt, combine 1/4 cup of sea salt and 1tbsp of orange zest, then add the mixture to a baking sheet. Bake for about 1 hour at 225 degrees.
2. For the cocktail, add all ingredients to a shaker and shake with ice.
3. Rim rocks glass with citrus salt, then fill it with ice and strain the cocktail into it.