Nintendo Direct Reveals Aura Shift In 'Pokémon Legends: Z-A' Nightlife With Z-A Royale

Plus: Take a look at Virtual Game Cards

Exactly a month ago, the Pokémon Day Pokémon Presents’s second trailer for Pokémon Legends: Z-A ended with a tease that featured the Rotom phone waking the player up for a “promotional match announcement” with a mysterious logo. On Wednesday, a new Nintendo Direct was announced for Thursday morning at 10 AM Eastern. It would be exclusively original Nintendo Switch content, considered one last hurrah for the console considering the Switch 2 Direct being next Wednesday. It seems no one expected Legends Z-A to have a presence in the presentation, but it did, and very much delivered on that cryptic tease.

While once again no new Megas were unveiled, the Patrat line and the Pansear, Panpour, and Pansage lines were confirmed for the game. Sure, they were in the original Kalos Pokédex, but they had not been in Switch games yet, now making all Pokémon available on the console. The first minute+ pretty much reiterates the basics of what’s been revealed so far, before affirming that Pokémon can be battled and caught outside the Wild Zones too, allowing encounters from just wandering or even traversing the rooftops. Things take a dark turn as night falls. The city’s aura transforms when the Z-A Royale tournament takes highly-skilled trainers to Battle Zones. Like with catching Pokémon in Legends: Arceus players can strike from behind for surprise attacks in battle. Trainers have to rise up through 26 ranks, thus Z-A Royale, each rank corresponding to a letter, with the promise of having a "wish granted" upon success.

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Now personally, I’m not a Switch owner, so there wasn’t a lot else that interested me. I don’t even remember what else I saw. That is, aside from the introduction of digital Switch games having become Virtual Game Cards. Virtual Game Cards can be swapped back and forth between consoles for people with multiple at will, and even borrowed by family members. Local communication between the two systems is needed, but only at first. An internet connection is required when “ejecting” or “loading” a Virtual Game Card, but not at any point after to actually play it.

There are no restrictions on the number of accounts on a Switch that can use the Virtual Game Card. It’s functionally like a physical game card, and unlike the previous digital purchases, which can be used by every account on the owner’s primary console, but only by the owner on a secondary console. An internet connection is needed to work on a secondary console. Virtual Game Cards can be lent to other family members whose accounts are grouped together. The loans last two weeks, and then the Virtual Game Card is automatically returned to its owner. Only one game can be lent to each family member at a time. Finally digital libraries can be shared.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A releases on the Switch later this year.

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Source: IGN (1, 2), Polygon