Corona Jumper: Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Part 6

Thursday, April 9, 2026

Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Part 6 - Champagne-Ardenne

Joan Jett is the President of France! My God! "Don't Lose Your Head" plays as she stands around.

How weird is it that Ash Ketchum's name was Ash Ketchum, and he grew up to be a Pokémon catcher? It's the most wildly appropriate coincidental name since San Antonio Spurs superstar Tim Duncan. One of my top 3 favorite players ever, along with Magic Johnson and, of course, Michael Jordan. Wonder what all those guys are up to these days. Anyway, time for more (groan) Pokémon.

This GAME is a nonstop procession of "bad luck"

The guy that Urbain owed all that money to...decided to forgive the debt.

Indeed. This is a clever pun, as this guy uses grime-element Pokemon. Or whatever the hell things like Muk and Koffing are.

Urbain, being let off the hook without learning any actual lessons, proceeds to immediately go into more crushing debt. That scamp!

Next up, Lida Caine finally battles Cataluna. Her main 'mon is Staryu, and she refuses to evolve it into Starmie even though Starmie can Mega-Evolve. She's like all those Elden Ring players who refuse to use spells or summons or pets and then go around scaring other people away from the game by complaining about how impossible it is.

After losing the fight, she realizes she'll have to evolve Staryu to be competitive.

YA THINK?

Oh yeah, Ultra Balls are for sale now, along with Max Potions.

Believe it or not, I made it through about 90% of this game without knowing how to use heal potions during battle. I just used them between fights to recharge. Only in like the final couple of areas did I actually need to heal mid-fight to survive. This game...is very easy.

I briefly consider getting Cataluna a cute hat, but she reminds me too much of Pharrell Williams here.

Oh nooooooe. 3 more bosses have sprung up. ::makes a wanking motion in the air::

Right, I'll get right on it then

First up...wait a minute, is that? My God! An actual appealing mega boss! That's Venusaur!

This guy unleashes plant hell, including generating adds that have to be dealt with before they get more powerful. There are actually some decent MMO mechanics in some of these rogue mega fights; they'd be interesting if they were multiplayer battles.

...........

.......no. No, man.

Things go right back to weird with the next one, Altaria. Meanwhile Lida is constantly barking about what to do, even if it's things I've heard a dozen times already. This is like those "modern game" parodies on Youtube where nobody can shut the hell up!

I gain the ability to freeze bridges and cross to new rooftops. All this is doing is making me wish there weren't energy walls everywhere and I could jump down freely like Assassin's Creed.

Froslass is a problem, with a vicious blizzard AOE that destroys my character repeatedly. Turns out, you have to hide behind the ice walls that pop up. That was definitely the hardest of these fights, just because it caught me off-guard with the ferocity of the unavoidable blizzard AOE.

Next boss fight is this hot maid. She offers our heroes a taste of her goods. Actually, it's more like she orders it:

"TASTE MY GOODS!"

I don't know what's happening anymore. Let's just get this over with.

I've got a bunch of mega stones now, and pretty good coverage on who in the party can use mega evolve: Four out of six. As for the two that can't... My sixth spot has gone to Abomasnow just to absorb some hits, basically. And Fennekin's final form still can't get a stone without doing a lot of multiplayer, which I still think is a bunch of BS!

Next up is a Wrestlemania 4 style tournament. Note how the woman running the tournament is just seeded straight to the finals. WTF.

ABUSE! OF POWER! YOU! ABUSE! OF POWER!

First fight is a rematch of one of the earlier boss fights, Canari. Basically the same fight, everyone is just a bit higher level now.

Been waiting for this one. To no one's surprise, the sensei guy makes it to Round 2. He's pretty simple to beat, as usual with bosses that heavily prioritize Fighting types.

Surprisingly, Urbain didn't flop his way into the semifinals the way he seems to always flop his way into success. He lost to the guy he took out a loan from.

Said loan guy uses poison-types and a lot of carcinogens, and is pretty tough. With the real-time nature of this game, any sort of poisons or damage over time will add up REALLY fast.

Finally, the second-to-last ranking fight of this infernal game. Winning this will put me at Rank B (or Rank 9). Apparently this woman is the one that installed laser walls all over the city.

It's GARDEVOIR VS GARDEVOIR. This is a real fight, probably the toughest fight in the game yet. She's got Psychic and Fairy type moves and a well-balanced team. I...actually had to figure out how to heal, finally.

Gardevoir is one of the better / more interesting Pokémon out there. Good choice for an in-box bonus.

Elsewhere, the oddly-named (and oddly-tall) AZ says something ominous.

After winning the tournament, our now B-Rank heroes (yeah, Urbain too, SOMEHOW) now deal with POLITICAL INTRIGUE with the mayor. I don't know, I don't care.

"I wish she'd put ME on her shoulders" mutters Lida nearby.

This guy makes a good point. We can't read minds. All we can do is furiously project.

Ever notice how Golem is basically flipping everyone off?

........Oh My God.

The next mega rogue... is TYRANITAR.

My favorite of all Pokémon, this makes up for all the lame megas. ...though his Mega redesign here is pretty bad. I defeat him and move on.

Here's the Mega Starmie that Lida needs to domesticate, so she teams up with Cataluna to stop this dynamo of water.

Finally, Mega Dragonite, the strongest of all of the megas. It took them until the last set of bosses, but they finally gave us three really appealing choices for this last trio.