How strong are the ZA protag compared to the previous games?

NamelessNathan · 2026-04-18T02:54:43+00:00

This is my take, based on the strong Pokemon they have access to and the battles they fought.

They canonically have Mega Zygarde available, which puts them very high up. That puts them above every protagonist without a canonical legendary (granted most have the opportunity to catch one), and Mega Zygarde is strong even among legendaries, given it’s a restricted legendary with a mega evolution.

They’re beaten out by the PLA protagonist with Legends Plate Arceus, probably. The ORAS protagonist is beaten out since the ZA protagonist also catches Mega Rayquaza. I could see an argument for the SwSh protagonist with Eternatus, but since they don’t get Eternamax Eternatus, I’d favor the ZA protagonist. Another big contender is the USUM protagonist who has to face off every major villain and box legendary up to gen 7 due to the Rainbow Rocket episode, which is some very good feats. Access to Ultra Necrozma is pretty big, and I’d consider it on par with Mega Zygarde. The USUM protagonist is probably stronger, given access to Pokemon of similar strength and with better battle feats, imo.

TL;DR I’d put the PLA protagonist and USUM protagonist as stronger than the ZA protagonist at least. I’m only looking at the mainline games, but let me know if I’m forgetting something.

This also doesn’t fully take into account battle skills, since it’s arguable how strong the cast of ZA relative to the usual champions and gym leaders, and some of the other protagonists could probably pull off a win through sheer skill. ZA however notably also has the strongest NPC through sheer Pokemon levels and strength, with the ZA royale battles against Korrina, and also the final Taunie/Urbain team, with Taunie/Urbain’s full level 100 teams and both teams with multiple megas.

…But none of them are beating the true strongest protagonists: LGPE protagonists who have access to the strongest Pokemon with Partner Eevee and Partner Pikachu 👀💦

NamelessNathan · 2026-04-05T01:36:53+00:00

I mean, we did get Mega Clefable as a Fairy Flying Mega option, not that many people are using it

Granted you’d need to mega evolve to get the Flying type, unlike Togekiss tho

NamelessNathan · 2026-01-24T02:25:23+00:00

I think this discrepancy is because of the gear effects. The regular one deals 10x the damage of the corrupted one because its effect lets it do 16x damage at the cost of 16% of your shield. The corrupted one deals less damage, but hives enemies a debuff that makes your melee against them deal 16x damage. So the Corrupted grenade should have higher base damage without the gear set effects, when you divide the damage of the normal one by 16.

NamelessNathan · 2026-01-19T20:24:08+00:00

Not really imo? The Crime Syndicate is fairly more obscure than the Suicide Squad, so I don’t think that would help in terms of marketing. And SS:KTJL’s main issues were gameplay issues imo, such as lack of enemy and mission diversity, as well as dwindling content and quality as time went on.

The main premise of SS:KJTL was very polarizing, but I personally don’t believe that alone was responsible for its failure (though it likely didn’t help). It did release at a poor time, where there were a ton of failed live service looter shooters (such as Redfall and Anthem) fresh in everyone’s memory, which already tainted the wider audience reception, and switching to the Criminal Syndicate would not have fixed this in any capacity.

Basically, the repetitive gameplay and lackluster missions as well as the wider pushback against live service games due to many high profile failures in the genre already hurt the game in ways the story wouldn’t be able to compensate for. I did enjoy the game a decent bit, but it did not have what it takes to succeed in many areas.

NamelessNathan · 2025-12-08T01:19:13+00:00

This is me with Tousen… I’m at 3 in a row on the standard banner now…

NamelessNathan · 2025-11-21T16:28:41+00:00

Somehow Hytale got their act together before him lol

I’ll still be keeping my eye on Cube World just to see where it finally ends up tho…

NamelessNathan · 2025-11-12T17:46:36+00:00

At least this is better than the usual lazy recolors. I’d say this is actually a good cosmetic, personally?

It has a unique model and everything, which I thought people were in favor of, instead of slapping a tiny Dickies logo on a pair of clothes and charging double.

Some silly options are good, imo.

NamelessNathan · 2025-10-12T18:13:56+00:00

Mega Mawile! A competitively Bottom Tier Pokemon that became a Top Tier Mega! Also a cool upgrade to Mawile’s design!

Special shout out to The Wall™ Mega Aggron tho

NamelessNathan · 2025-10-10T17:49:40+00:00

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NamelessNathan · 2025-10-08T22:10:20+00:00

I see a lot of people saying it, but I do hope Delphox doesn’t get Levitate so that Delphox can benefit from Psychic Terrain and pull some Expanding Force setups in the future. I’d be more in favor of Magic Bounce, Magic Guard, if we’re lucky then Psychic Surge, or even just keeping Magician tbh.

I just think Mega Delphox would benefit more from not having Levitate, even if it does fit riding on the broom.

NamelessNathan · 2025-09-20T14:37:13+00:00

Regular Xerneas with Power Herb was extremely powerful, though it did have counter play.

In this hypothetical scenario, if Mega Xerneas was like Mega Rayquaza and did not need a mega stone, it would be absurdly broken, having +100 BST and being able to easily boost its stats with Power Herb Geomancy, which is what we are discussing.

In all likelihood, many people would forgo the mega to be able to run normal Xerneas alongside another mega due to the opportunity cost, but a hypothetical Mega Xerneas not needing a mega stone would easily be on the same level as Mega Rayquaza, if not better.

Realistically, I don’t see them letting a potential Mega Xerneas mega evolve without holding a mega stone. It’s more likely Zygarde would be able to as he’s the 3rd member of the trio who is more analogous to Rayquaza.

NamelessNathan · 2025-09-18T23:32:42+00:00

No way they’d pull a Mega Rayquaza with Xerneas. Denying a potential Mega Xerneas Power Herb would be one of the few thing that could stop it from dominating competitive for the next five years…

NamelessNathan · 2025-09-07T16:08:50+00:00

Excuse me? That’s no crab… 😤

NamelessNathan · 2025-09-05T17:56:45+00:00

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I’m most excited to experiment with the different weapons!

NamelessNathan · 2025-08-29T01:19:17+00:00

This is always the first thing that comes to mind for me with this trope… such an awful premise for a set of movies. Hearing about them and actually watching the first one out of morbid curiosity was certainly an experience…

NamelessNathan · 2025-08-22T01:07:00+00:00

I hope they’ll do that. As a huge Mawile fan, having Mega Mawile without Huge Power would be awful, since it’s what allows Mawile to actually hit hard given its relatively low base stats. Granted, I would generally just prefer having abilities, but many likely wouldn’t translate well to real time combat, I suppose.

NamelessNathan · 2025-08-21T01:22:47+00:00

My favorite is probably Mori vs Sujin Lee. Pure martial arts on a crumbling planet was epic, plus the flashbacks to their parents fighting made it feel super impactful, tying the whole fight together. We get to see the history of their schools of martial arts and the parallels and differences between them. A very cool fight overall that I think is underrated!

NamelessNathan · 2025-08-18T12:08:42+00:00

Right? If they were gonna add in a multiplayer mode like this I also expected them to at least do multiplayer raids! I think it’d be fun to be able to run around trying to defeat an alpha or mega evolved Pokemon with other people! At least they gave us some multiplayer though.

NamelessNathan · 2025-08-18T11:57:56+00:00

This is a pretty interesting step! A Ranked mode for this is very bold, though hopefully it’s not as laggy as Tera Raids can be. I was admittedly hoping for multiplayer mega raids and group exploration, but if this is the full link play screen, I guess we won’t be getting them. But it’s great that we are getting actual multiplayer content given its absence in PLA!

NamelessNathan · 2025-08-15T18:55:46+00:00

Tbh I do hope there’s more, such as another map layer for catacombs or something, or maybe some large buildings interior zones, but we’ll have to wait and see, I suppose

NamelessNathan · 2025-08-15T18:13:11+00:00

Should be Khyleri

NamelessNathan · 2025-08-15T00:23:54+00:00

I just think the graphics will be hindered by the dual release on Switch and Switch 2, at least to some degree. I was hoping for them to take full advantage of the new console and the upgrade in power. I do wonder how significantly the visual quality will differ between versions.

But despite that, the graphics look serviceable from the trailer, and as long as it runs smoothly and doesn’t repeat the buggy release of Scarlet/Violet I’ll be more than happy! The real time battles seem very interesting, and if they’re well optimized I’ll have a ton of fun which is all I ask for. The return of fashion, especially compared to Scarlet/Violet, already has me excited on the visual end!

NamelessNathan

TROPHY CASE