Ansha, a donut maker who keeps her identity a secret, and the Renowned Mischief Pokemon Hoopa are the main characters in the new gameplay feature of Pokemon Legends ZA. In the upcoming Mega Dimension area of the game, gamers are going to be working with Ansha to not only come to the Hyperspace Lumiose by collecting berries and making donuts which in fact, will serve to open portals to other dimensions. Hyperspace keys being made of donuts? Yes, that’s right!
The official account of Pokemon gave a hint about the special donuts showing that not only does the consumption of these donuts by Hoopa opens the portals for hyperspace exploring but also the strengthening of your Pokemon team. This is the most extreme level of Pokemon, and the community seems to be divided into two equal groups, one being excited and the other being confused. “Making a donut to open a portal is such a peak pokemon energy!” remarked one player correctly.
What is the Mega Dimension Content exactly? It sounds like an expansion of the Pokemon Legends ZA that takes place in Lumiose City but is different in that it is through the hypotenuse portals literally. But already the idea has divided people. The most creative ones are commenting things like ‘this event sounds super fun and creative, the idea of mixing cooking with exploring hyperspace is really unique’ while others are not so enthusiastic and are skeptical about the new characters and side mechanics.
A concerned player said ‘hmm, I am not sure this new character and side mechanics focus will benefit the game… honestly, I would prefer a strong focus on the core Lumiose city rebuild. Based on the latest teaser, the city layout still seems mostly the same as in X/Y. Shouldn’t the reconstruction be the main thing with just a donut-making mini-game as a side thing?’ This raises a very valid question as to whether such new features will drown the central theme that Legends ZA had been built around and that had made it so mysterious at the time of its announcement.
Despite this, there has been a lot of praise for the character design and many commenters point out how adorable Ansha, the donut chef, is. A player made an extremely simple yet strong comment stating, ‘Her cuteness is through the roof,’ while another laughingly commented that he was interested in her recipe. The presence of Hoopa is very reasonable given that it has indeed developed opening portals powers which were already hinted at in its previous appearances; still, the players are doubting whether this will be the cause for the mythical Pokemon to get new forms or just its existing capabilities will get utilized.
In the event of berry gathering, some players are even making connections to the past games in the process. A comment said, ‘I wonder if Berries gathering implies that we will see more of the Apricorn system coming back from Legends: Arceus? That was so handy.’ This could mean that creating items, which was a feature in earlier titles and worked well, would be reintroduced but this time applied to making donuts instead of PokeBalls.
The portal mechanics still have their share of skeptics, however. One such player expressed their doubts saying, ‘If the portals lead to different locations other than just a grey-painted Lumiose then I will think about it,’ meaning that the hyperspace locations need to be one of a kind and worth visiting instead of just being more colorful versions of already existing places.
A few players are somewhat surprised by the timing of this news and are hurrying to finish the main game with one of them saying, ‘I’ve got to speed up and finish the main story. aaaaah! I want to be there on day one when the DLC drops (already bought) but I’ve been struggling/restarting my game so much that I’ll probably not be done in time haha.’ So, the Pokemon community is still competing with their own fresh content through the latest releases.
An academic comparison with various other Nintendo franchises will be hard to avoid, with one comment replacing it with a question about a second trailer for Super Mario Galaxy, thus showing how much the attention can be split already with different game announcements. And, naturally, there are always the usual requests for physical copies and other game localizations, which tend to pop up when such discussions occur.
The donut theme has quite literally taken over the creative minds of the players as there are already several comments speculating that Hoopa might be in love with donuts and one guy even wondering, ‘What if the donuts ARE the portals? You have to fit through one… No wonder Hoopa likes donuts.’ Such imaginative projections are the lifeblood of Pokemon community discussions and what makes them so enjoyable to follow.
Some players are starting to see the practical side of things, as they discuss shiny hunting potential and the possibility of these hyperspace areas containing rare Pokemon or special challenges. Being able to power up your Pokemon through this mechanism implies that there might be stat increases or temporary boosts which could make competitive battles even more fun.
