Catching powerful Pokemon in Pokemon Legends: Z-A can be a double-edged sword. An overly strong Pokemon will not respect the trainer who caught it, and will refuse to obey commands in the middle of battle, making it unusable in real battles until players can figure out how to make it listen.
Thanks to the presence of Alpha Pokemon in the game, there are actually quite a few instances where a Pokemon will be too high-level for the trainer at the time it’s caught. Players who want to use these Pokemon in battle will need to know how to make them obey. Here’s how.
Every Pokemon in Pokemon Legends Z-A (Complete Pokedex)
Discover the complete Pokedex for Pokemon Legends: Z-A, featuring 230 Pokemon and 64 Mega Evolutions.
How to Make Pokemon Obey in Pokemon Legends: Z-A
How to Make Pokemon Listen to Commands
Obedience in Pokemon Legends: Z-A is directly tied to the trainer’s Rank in Z-A Royale and the level of the Pokemon when it was initially caught. Each Rank corresponds to a level. Pokemon caught at or below this level when the trainer is at that Rank will obey, whereas Pokemon caught at a higher level will not.
You can check your current level limit by making a hard save in Pokemon Legends: Z-A. It is displayed directly above “Save Progress.”
If a Pokemon is not obeying commands in combat, the only way to make it obey is to increase your Trainer Rank in Z-A Royale. Every rank-up in Z-A Royale increases the level limit by five levels. So, if you are at Royale Rank Y, where you can command level 25 and below Pokemon, reaching Rank X will increase the level limit to 30. At Rank A (max), all Pokemon will obey the trainer.
If you manage to catch a level 32 
Gyarados at Z-A Royale Rank X (level limit 30), it will not obey you. But when you are promoted to Rank W (level limit 35), it will start obeying you. If you then increase the Gyarados’s level to level 36, for example, while remaining at Rank W, the Gyarados will still obey. The only criterion that matters is the level of the Pokemon when it was caught, not its current level.
At Rank V (level limit 40), you will be offered a special promotion to Rank F (level 60), as part of the main story. This is not optional.
How to Make Traded Pokemon Obey
Traded Pokemon are considered outsider Pokemon by the game, and obedience for them works a little differently. The level at which a Pokemon is traded to the player is the level the game will look at when determining whether or not that Pokemon will obey you, essentially treating it as if you had caught that Pokemon at that level in the wild.
This does not hold true for Pokemon that are traded away and then traded back, as they are not considered outsider Pokemon when they return to their original trainer (OT). If, for example, you evolve your Haunter into a Gengar by trading with a friend, that Gengar will not be an outsider Pokemon when it returns to your world.
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 79 /100 Critics Rec: 66%
- Released
- October 16, 2025
- ESRB
- Everyone 10+ / Fantasy Violence, In-Game Purchases
- Developer(s)
- Game Freak, Creatures Inc.
- Publisher(s)
- Nintendo, The Pokemon Company
WHERE TO PLAY
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
