Given how much I enjoyed Pokémon Legends Z–A — more than most people, if some parts of the internet are to be believed — I was really looking forward to the Mega Dimension DLC. The good news is that the best bits of Z–A are still there, along with a bevy of Pokémon missing from the base game and a slew of brand-new Mega Evolutions to keep things interesting. The problem is that getting between the exciting new bits is a bit of a slog.
So, what is this DLC in a nutshell? Basically, after the near-apocalyptic ending of the game, a young girl called Ansha shows up with her friend, Hoopa, and asks for your help making some donuts. Being the do-gooder that you are, you accept — it’s honestly not the weirdest request you’ve had since getting to Lumiose, so you set about getting the one missing ingredient you need. Events transpire and you wind up in Hyperspace Lumiose — a sterile-looking pocket dimension mirroring a small chunk of the city you have just come from.
The main difference between the real world and Hyperspace Lumiose, other than the very muted colour palette, is that the Pokémon here aren’t native to Lumiose. Oh, and they’re all over Lv100. Your first foray here sees you getting absolutely wrecked by a gang of over-levelled Mankeys.
If you’re not already at or around Lv100, you’re going to really struggle, and thus the grind begins. Your goal now is to research Hyperspace Lumiose, use donuts to open hyperspace rifts, jumping in and doing three of a limited pool of missions. Pick up 10 shiny items, destroy 5 floating Poké Balls, catch 3 Pokémon, etc. The kicker is that you have a very short mission timer based on the quality of the donut you used, meaning that you have to work fast to finish the randomly generated map.
Within each pocket you will find three different Pokémon, two of which you’re likely to have already, and the third being something unique to the DLC’s hyperspace Pokédex. Finding and catching these new Pokémon is, of course, exciting. It’s a little rough though that you fight them at over Lv100 and they’re reduced all the way back to Lv20 when you catch them. Sure, a lot of the thrill of Pokémon is in the chase, but when your Lv100 Feraligatr needs to use multiple attacks to take them down, you want to catch a Pokémon with some of its bulk remaining.
Do enough research and you unlock the boss fight — a brand new mega evolution to call your own. These fights can be incredibly tough. While it’s 3-on-1, rather than the 2-on-1 of the base game, you still have the mission timer, alongside the fact that these things hit like a truck (no surprise when you’re fighting a creature at Lv140). Sure, your donuts give you a temporary level boost, but you’re not going to be matching their level.
Fortunately, if you run out of time you can simply pick up where you left off with zero penalty, removing the difficulty of the actual boss fight. It’s obvious why this is the case — the game is tough as nails in these fights — but to me it underscores that the developers knew how frustrating these could be.
Beat the boss and you unlock a new tier of pocket dimension, offering more Pokémon of higher difficulties, as you might expect having played the main game. Outside of this gameplay loop, what else does the DLC offer? There’s a string of new side missions using the new Pokémon you caught, but other than that, not much.
So… is Mega Dimension good? Honestly, it feels like it would have been post-game content a generation or two ago, rather than a paid DLC. We’re no strangers to the grind in the world of Pokémon, but I’m struggling to find a time when the struggle felt like such a chore.
The idea of randomly generated dungeons is cool, but we need a less intense timer and more variety (and colour) inside each one. Doing the same missions again and again in order to get to the next boss (and eventually the chance to try to find a Legendary Pokémon) gets a bit stale, pretty quickly. If you miss the chance to catch the Legendary, it’s worse still. The difficulty spike could also benefit from being toned down a notch.
