Pokemon Legends: Z-A is finally gearing up for release later this year, and while we only just found out who its director is in the last week, we've just figured out something else about him that I for one am hoping might have an impact on the upcoming RPG – he appears to be a Xenoblade Chronicles fan.
Haruka Tochigi has been credited on multiple Pokemon games since Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, but Legends: Z-A will be his first time directing a game. Clearly though, he's got very good taste in games himself, as yesterday he took to Twitter to share that he'd bought the newly released Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition. As content creator Aero so succinctly puts it, "oh we fucking won."
The director of Pokémon Legends Z-A is a Xenoblade fan— oh we fucking won 😌 https://t.co/XiHozw0OCwMarch 20, 2025
Now, we've already seen the gameplay footage for Legends: Z-A, and we know that, visually, there's a bit of a difference between the Nintendo Switch Xenoblade games and their lush, detailed open-world environments, and the more simplistic look of Lumiose City in the upcoming Pokemon game. In fact, a number of criticisms of Legends: Z-A's visuals have actually compared directly to the likes of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, highlighting the latter as an example of a particularly impressive-looking Switch release. However, the visuals aren't really what I'm looking at here, but rather Legends: Z-A's gameplay.
Right when Legends: Z-A's real-time battle system was revealed, I noticed that your Pokemon's moves have a cooldown after being used, and specifically pointed out that the way their icons refill as they gradually recover was very akin to the Xenoblade games. Hell, even the layout of the diamond-shaped icons on the screen reminds me of Xenoblade Chronicles 2's battle UI. Now, knowing that Tochigi has probably played these games before, I'm feeling rather validated.
We can't know for absolute certain that inspiration was definitely taken from Monolith Soft's games here, but as a phenomenal real-time combat JRPG series, it'd make an awful lot of sense if Pokemon Legends: Z-A was influenced by the genre greats that came before it. I'm also now wondering if there are any other similarities between them that we've not seen yet – we'll just have to keep a close eye when any new gameplay is revealed.
