If you or your loved ones have been personally victimized by the fiery leonine in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, you may be entitled to compensation — or at least a little compassion from your fellow trainers. Anyone who has ventured out into Wild Zone 17, one of Lumiose City’s late-game areas, knows exactly what I’m talking about. The game suggests that fans should be around level 44 to traverse zone 17, but nothing can really prepare you for the onslaught that will transpire the moment you set foot in there. The Pyroar in zone 17 are relentless enough that the experience has become a meme for fans who manage to survive the ordeal.
Wild Zone 17 is a large segment composed of two main areas spread across a dirt landscape and some rooftops. The area spawns a collection of monsters that include Diggersby, Klefki, Lampent, Chespin, Gible, and Skarmory. Then there’s Pyroar, the main antagonist of zone 17. The issue isn’t that Pyroar is strong, though it is. It’s that Pyroar tends to spawn in large numbers that can overwhelm the player quickly. Pyroar can also assault fans with Earth Power, a strong move which hits players even if they’re far away, on a rooftop. Earth Power also looks menacing, as the animation has the ground cracking open in an explosion.
Going in with a water-type helps, but even elemental weaknesses can’t save you from having multiple Pyroar target you at once. Heck, you can be a higher level than the creatures in zone 17, and you’ll still have a hard time there. You can try fleeing to the rooftops, but the Pyroar can also neutralize you before you get to the top of the stairs. More often than not, players will find themselves running out of the area with a bloody screen as the game informs them that Pyroar has popped Earth Power multiple times in the span of a few seconds. Some fans are comparing the experience to Dark Souls.
“I will never…. NEVER step foot in this wild zone ever again,” reads one exasperated Reddit thread.
“Wild zone 17 causing me insane amounts of pain and stress,” another thread, which calls the area awful, says.
“Lord, if you’re real please get them to nerf the fuck out of wild zone 17,” one tweet pleads.
Part of the issue is that players want to complete their Pokédex, which requires capturing every monster in the game. Zone 17 is one of the only areas where you can nab Skarmory, except the metal bird is cursed with a relatively low catch rate. This means that players keep tiptoeing into zone 17 looking for Skarmory only to regret their entire life. Naturally, there are also players who want to shiny hunt there, or they want to collect every Pokémon starter available in the game. Avoiding zone 17 is difficult, basically.
“You haven’t experienced true terror until you try catching a Skarmory in Wild Zone 17,” one tweet proclaims.
Making matters worse, zone 17 also hosts an alpha Pokémon who is even stronger than its pride. The alpha is a male Pyroar who will roar the moment he sees you, and he’s typically surrounded by a small army of female Pyroar who are ready and willing to kill any trespassers. There are arguably ways to make things more manageable, for sure. You can try sneaking through bits of grass. If you go in at night, they’ll all be sleeping — but one wrong step, and it’s over. Some guides go as far as calling zone 17 one of the hardest portions of the entire game.
Leaving the area only reinforces how ridiculous it is. Pyroar will all gather by the zone entrance and try and attack you through the gate as if they’re daring you to come and try it again.
While we can’t undo the PTSD that Wild Zone 17 has inflicted upon players, if there’s one positive thing to come out of all of this, it’s the jokes. Players are commiserating over their zone 17 experiences with all sorts of excellent memes:
