TL;DR: Cool Megas, real challenge, too much grind. Mega Dimension is fine—but it should’ve been great.

I went into Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Mega Dimension with that familiar mix of hope and dread that only Pokémon DLC can inspire. Hope, because Mega Evolutions are still the coolest gimmick Game Freak ever cooked up. Dread, because post-game Pokémon content has a habit of feeling like homework dressed up as fan service. After rolling credits on the base game and genuinely enjoying my time with Legends: Z-A, I wanted Mega Dimension to feel like dessert. Instead, it often felt like being handed another full plate and politely told I wasn’t allowed to leave the table yet.

Mega Dimension drops you back into Kalos shortly after the events of Legends: Z-A and immediately introduces Ansha and her Hoopa, which is basically Pokémon shorthand for “get ready to travel through portals and question the laws of space-time.” The hook is simple enough: Ansha spotted Rayquaza, things got weird, and now Hyperspace Lumiose is open for business. What follows is a long, sometimes grueling loop of hopping through portals, fighting Rogue Mega Evolutions, and grinding Research Points like you’re back in your Legends: Arceus grindset era.

Let’s talk about difficulty first, because this DLC does not mess around. Mega Dimension introduces Pokémon that break past level 100, and it wastes zero time throwing level 115 monsters directly at your face. Even though the game won’t let you access the DLC without beating the main story, the difficulty spike is still jarring. One minute you’re feeling pretty good about your optimized team, the next you’re blacking out because you underestimated a Rogue Mega with zero chill.

To its credit, I actually liked this part. Pokémon has spent years being criticized for how easy it’s become, and Mega Dimension finally pushes back. Battles demand preparation. Type matchups matter again. You can’t just brute-force your way through everything unless you’re wildly overleveled. The option to resume certain Mega battles without resetting the boss’s health bar is a smart concession, even if the game occasionally disables it just to remind you who’s in charge. The challenge is real, and for veterans, it’s refreshing.

The problem is everything wrapped around that challenge. Research Points make a return, and while the system worked decently in Legends: Z-A, Mega Dimension leans on it harder. Too hard. The flow between battling and researching often feels awkward, like the game can’t decide whether it wants you to be a scientist or a gladiator. You’ll grind. A lot. And not always in ways that feel satisfying or efficient.

Then there’s Hyperspace Lumiose, a name that promises cosmic weirdness and delivers… grayscale Lumiose City. Don’t get me wrong, it looks cool at first. The stark black-and-white aesthetic gives the areas an eerie, liminal feel, like you’ve fallen into a corrupted save file. But the novelty wears off fast. Most of these zones are just reskinned versions of places you’ve already explored, and they suffer from the same issue that plagued the base game’s Wild Zones: they’re small. Uncomfortably small.

After experiencing expansive DLC areas like Isle of Armor, Crown Tundra, Teal Mask, and Indigo Disk, Mega Dimension feels restrained in all the wrong ways. There are a handful of genuinely new-looking areas, but they’re saved for late-game moments, making the early and mid-game stretches feel visually repetitive. Hyperspace Lumiose is fine, but it never becomes the mind-bending playground its name suggests.

Where Mega Dimension undeniably shines is in its new Mega Evolutions. The designs are excellent. Mega Raichu X and Y are exactly the kind of unhinged, fan-pleasing ideas Pokémon thrives on, and the new Z variants ooze style. For a while, catching and battling these new Megas feels great. Seeing them animated, watching their abilities pop off in battle—it’s pure Pokémon joy.

But then something weird happens. You catch them. You move on. And that’s it.

Despite building an entire DLC around Mega Evolutions, Mega Dimension rarely lets those moments breathe. There’s no real emotional payoff, no sense of triumph beyond checking another name off an ever-growing list. The story exists largely to justify the grind, not to elevate it. If you’ve been playing Pokémon consistently over the last few generations, many of these catches won’t feel special. You’ve done this before. Often better.

That’s the core issue with Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Mega Dimension. It doesn’t feel essential. It feels like post-game content that got spun into a $30 expansion. If you already bounced off Legends: Z-A because of its repetitive loop and battle-heavy focus, this DLC won’t change your mind. It’s more of the same, just louder and longer. Even as someone who genuinely enjoyed the base game, I felt burnout creeping in by the end.

There are bright spots. The DLC runs beautifully on Switch 2. The Kalos callbacks are appreciated, especially if you have lingering affection for X and Y. A few story beats land nicely, and some character moments feel like overdue nods to Gen 6 fans. I don’t regret playing Mega Dimension. I just wish it knew when to stop.

By the time the credits rolled, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Mega Dimension exists because it could, not because it needed to. It’s not bad. It’s just exhausting. And that’s a strangely deflating way to feel about Mega Evolutions, a concept that should always feel like a victory lap.

Verdict

Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Mega Dimension delivers tough battles and fantastic Mega Evolution designs, but buries them under repetitive structure, small zones, and a story that never earns its grind. It’s solid DLC for fans who already loved Legends: Z-A, but it lacks the ambition and freshness of Pokémon’s best expansions.