Summary
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Pokemon Legends: ZA promises action -packed battles and exploration, with leaks that indicate new mega developments.
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The potential grass/river type for meganium in ZA can create challenges for Feraligatr and Emboar's secondary types.
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A moose/combat/steel Trifecta for secondary types can be bad news for both Feraligatr and Emboar.
Although it may be a disappointment for some fans to have to wait until the end of 2025 on a new main line -game after a longer delay than usual, Pokemon Legends: ZA Seems to promise action -packed battles, a lot of exploration in Lumiose City, the return of Mega Evolution and more. Players will have a lot to look forward to, and it seems as if Pokemon Legends: ZA will contain an unexpected mega for a gen 1 Pokémon, according to LEAKS. It is unclear now what the game will do with its starters at this stage, whether there are new forms or mega developments, but in any case, Chikorita can make another starting life more difficult.
Pokemon Legends: ZA have a lot to live up to after the problems of Gen 9 games and the crushing success with PlaNew gameplay loop, which means it may need to behave as the best possible mix of these games to find their own niche. The fighting seems different and interesting enough to achieve it, so it will ride the shoulders on new critters, shapes and mega development. If Chicorite's disarming voting movement in the trailer is any indication, it can paint an odd image for the remaining starters, but for various reasons.
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Pokemon Legends: ZA may not be able to repeat legends: Arceus's best trick
Pokemon Legends: ZA looks to make some distinct changes from Legends: Arceus, and thus it can prevent the game from repeating an achievement.
Pokemon Legends: ZA's start trios type combinations can already be clear
One of the most common trends in modern mainline Pokemon Games are that the three starters have a secondary type that either makes them stronger or weaker against attacks of the remaining two types. An example is Genesis 9, where meowscarada is grass/dark, which means it is weak to skeledirge's fire, but strong against its ghost type. Similarly, skewing is weak against Quaquaval's water, but does not take any damage from the battles and so on. As such, about Pokemon Legends: ZAMeganium is grass/moose as disarming voice suggests, this can determine the secondary types for Feraligatr and Emboar.
Secondary types to the first usually follow either no special trend, such as Gen 5 where Samurott and Serperior both had a type and Emboar was fire/fighters, or they try to create a kind of trifect. In this case, a trifecta with meganium as a grass/elk may mean that one of the remaining critters must fight and the other steel. Since Emboar is already fire/battles, it would need another type combination, so fire/steel in this specific case. In the same way, Feraligatr would then have to fight as a secondary type of the same reason. If this happens, Pokemon Legends: ZAStart trio may have difficulty shining.
Fairy, Fighting and Steel form a kind of Trifecta because Fairy is strong against battles, which handle twice as much damage to steel, which is in return against Fairy. This is a “half trifecta” as not all these types are also resistant to each other.
Why meganium was grass/moose would be bad news for feraligatr and emboar
Gen 9 had only one water/battle starter with Quaquaval, which would potentially make a new Feraligatr form with this combination less appealing, while fire/steel would have a 4x weakness to the ground that can make Emboar less appealing in battles if it does not also have large statistics and abilities. It is possible that meganium will not be grass/moose or that it will not determine what types of both feraligatr and emboar in Pokemon Legends: ZABut given that these type combinations have never been used for a starting trio, it seems likely.
Another option would be to have a dark-type Pokémon among the starters to be weak against Fairy, but this would be the third main line in a row to do so, which makes it unlikely. There is also an argument for Emboar to have the unused combo of the Pokémon type of fire/moose, but it seems unlikely about Chicorite's movements and appearance is something to pass by. As such, if meganium stops having Fairy as its secondary type, it can spell problems for its co -starts and force Game Freak to make different choices with the trio.
