When a new Pokémon game arrives on one of the fastest-selling consoles of all time, it’s time to pay attention, and now here we are with the review embargo lifted for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, out this Thursday, October 16.

Reviews are coming in, and Pokémon Legends: Z-A is reviewing decently enough. As I write this, it has an 81 score on Metacritic with a few dozen reviews in. On the low side for an incredible year of mainstream games, but not out of band for recent Pokémon games. Here’s where it fits in the list of the last few:

That’s about a decade back and all the way to the 3DS, so you get the idea. It’s close to fellow Legends game Arceus, and the other two mainline games besides that have sunk pretty low, as critics grow frustrated with the franchise, even if it continues to sell. Though a good amount of fans wish Game Freak and The Pokémon Company would make more progress than they have. Specifically, Pokémon games were specifically cited as having horrible Switch graphics when other games showed it was possible to do much better on that hardware. What does Z-A look like on Switch 2? Here’s the trailer:

I mean, it’s better, but it’s not exactly bringing the roof down, and I expect a lot better-looking games on the Switch 2 in short order, if they’re not here already.

What are critics saying about the game? Here’s a sampling:

It’s a wide range, but even the lower scores have a lot of positive points in them. It does feel like that if you like Arceus, then you will probably like Z-A as well. The other, more recent games may be disappointing, but the Legends series seems to be well on track at the moment.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.