You've Boarded a Train
To Lumiose City
This page is dedicated to my Pokemon Legends Z-A playthrough that started October 16th, 2025. On this page I have documented a short description of my feelings about my playthrough, some information about my playthrough team, and any projects I'm doing within the file!
This is my first time making a playthrough page on my website, rather than just documenting the team I had! I had a lot of fun making this page and adding all the trackers and fun story stuff about my playthrough. This page will hopefully be the first of many playthrough pages I make in my time with this site. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it!
As a warning, the trackers further down the page may take a little while to load.
Overview
Game Started: Oct 16, 2025
Credits Rolled: Oct 23, 2025
Starter: Chikorita
Team
While I did use a few other Pokemon on my playthrough, these six are the ones that made it through to the end of the game, I realized a bit late I should've been taking more pictures with them as I went along my playthrough, but I'm glad I at least got a few baby pics. Click on the Pokemon to see more about them!
Naming Pattern: Food and flavor names!
Trainer Notes
Hibiscus Lv. 100 ♂ Meganium
This Pokemon is pretty Jolly by nature
We first met one another 10/16/2025
Location: Lumiose City
At the time, this Pokemon was Lv. 5
It likes to thrash about!
Current Moves
Gallery
Trainer Notes
Cinnamon Lv. 100 ♀ Delphox
This Pokemon is pretty Lonely by nature
We first met one another 10/17/2025
Location: Magenta Sector 2
At the time, this Pokemon was Lv. 14
It's alert to sounds!
Current Moves
Gallery
Trainer Notes
Blueberry Lv. 100 ♀ Shiny Ampharos
This Pokemon is pretty Bold by nature
We first met one another 10/17/2025
Location: Wild Zone 1
At the time, this Pokemon was Lv. 11
It's often lost in thought!
Current Moves
Gallery
Trainer Notes
Sloppy Joe Lv. 100 ♂ Garbodor
This Pokemon is pretty Calm by nature
We first met one another 10/17/2025
Location: Rouge Sector 3
At the time, this Pokemon was Lv. 14
It's often lost in thought!
Current Moves
Gallery
Trainer Notes
Starfruit Lv. 100 ∅ Alpha Starmie
This Pokemon is pretty Jolly by nature
We first met one another 10/19/2025
Location: Wild Zone 2
At the time, this Pokemon was Lv. 30
It's alert to sounds!
Current Moves
Gallery
Trainer Notes
Crabcake Lv. 100 ∅ Shiny Metagross
This Pokemon is pretty Rash by nature
We first met one another 10/23/2025
Location: Lysandre Labs
At the time, this Pokemon was Lv. 49
It takes plenty of siestas!
Current Moves
Gallery
Playthrough
Getting the game!
Pokemon Legends Z-A came out on October 16th, 2025. I preordered the Switch 1 version of the game through the Pokemon Center website, which gave me a preorder bonus of one randomly chosen sitting cutie plush of one of the starters (Chikorita, Totodile, or Tepig). On October 16th, my game arrived at 3pm, and I got Totodile as my random sitting cutie. I didn't pick Totodile as my starter though, instead I chose Chikorita. I had just gotten back from my trip to Europe about 3 days prior, so I was still dealing with jetlag, and having been awake waiting for my game to arrive since early in the morning, I only managed to play a couple hours on the first day before I went to bed.
Style time!
My second day I made a ton of progress, and finally got my first outfit! Because the default blue hair options were lacking in bright colors, I went with a pink and yellow theme. I originally thought I would have my Pokemon team match color-wise, but eventually decided to just go with whatever Pokemon I ended up liking most. I was really happy to find that you could unlock more hair colors and eye colors! The hairstyles need a bit more variety, but I still managed to get my trainer looking pretty cool!
Early thoughts!
I really had a great time with the new battle system, it felt like the way battles felt in the Pokemon anime and manga. Being able to physically dodge attacks is amazing, even if it is a bit hard to do. And the story and characters were incredibly fun! I also loved being able to goof off and take pictures wherever I wanted to.
Canari is my favorite character in the game. Not only does she have my favorite color scheme, she also plays tetris professionally! I used to spend hours training in tetris to try and be faster at the game, I didn't get nearly good enough to be a pro (my fastest sprint was 1:46.43), but I definitely enjoyed my time with it and Canari reminds me of that. I also think she's really funny because imagine being a rage quit tetris streamer. I also really like Tarragon!
⚠ MAJOR SPOILER WARNING FROM HERE ON OUT!! ⚠
Tournament Arc!
I really enjoyed the Jacinthe tournament, I spent a lot of time taking pictures with everyone gathered together. Getting chased down by Jacinthe was super funny, and I thought it was hilarious how insane the brackets looked by the end of the tournament.
Endgame!
On October 23rd, 2025, I finished the main story of the game, I took a lot of pictures. The scenes were amazing and I loved how everything came together story and mechanics-wise at the end of the game. Getting to do a big lap around Lumiose with all the characters you've met along the way was incredibly satisfying. I loved getting to fist bump with everyone, something that called back to the very first day I arrived at Lumiose. The final battle against Ange Floette was like nothing I've ever seen before in a Pokemon game, it felt like I really had to give it everything I had to win, which I loved.
I had already started organizing my boxes for my post-game project prior to rolling credits, so I went straight into getting the legendaries and Floette. Zygarde was an awesome final battle to finish everything off, it took me two tries to get him! I loved the conclusion to Lysandre's story, I hope we get to see him doing good in the world in future games.
Living Dex Project
For my post-game, I decided I would do a Normal/Alpha/Shiny living dex. This means I get three pokemon for each species, one that's normal, one that's alpha, and one that's shiny (the shiny can be alpha or not). I also have an extra rule that I have to catch all the shinies myself in a Premier Ball. I have the trackers loaded below, but I am updating everything from this google sheet, check it out if you wanna see all the data without my website styling (or if this page isn't loading correctly)! If I finish this project, once it's done, I'll replace the trackers and table with screenshots of my filled boxes! Huge shoutout to my friend Riley who's letting me trade them my extra shinies for alphas I don't have yet.
On 12/11/15 I got a second copy of the game to trade pokemon to for extra storage in preparation for playing the DLC, my normal living dex was traded over, but during the trades I realized that there is no way to trade a Pokemon that evolves via trade Without evolving it. So all those Pokemon are their evolved form for now, I'll catch them again when I do my second playthrough on that copy!
Alpha Living Dex
Shiny Living Dex
| Dex # | Image | Pokemon |  |
 |
|---|
Shinies List
I decided to keep track of every shiny I catch in this game, it's cool to see how many shinies I can get in such a short amount of time, makes me wish I had thought to do this for my other games. After shiny number 50, I decided to go and get the shiny charm to help me do my living dex.
| Date | # | Img | Pokemon → Evolved | Notes | Method |
|---|
The Phasers
I thought it'd be funny to add a visible count of all the super common Pokemon that often pop up shiny instead of the one I'm hunting.
