Pokémon Legends: ZA finally solves one of Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ saddest stories

Pokémon Legends: ZA is out now. We're loving it so far, and it has its own interesting story about a group of young people learning to love and protect their city and all the people and Pokémon in it. But there's a moment in ZA that makes us think about another story entirely, one contained in Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

You see, there is a museum in the city of Lumiose in ZA where you can visit an exhibition about the Emerald Land, which is where Arceus took place. While most of the exhibit consists of fun Easter eggs from Arceus, at least one exhibit resolves a dangling plot thread left at the end of Arceus. It's also a big deal because it finally brings a happy ending to a character's tragic story.

I won’t say more without warning you of spoilers. We won't spoil anything about ZA here, but we will spoil the museum's exhibits, and the entire story of one of Arceus' supporting characters. Continue reading at your own risk:

I’m talking about the story of the character Ingo. First let me pick you up. Ingo actually appears in Black and White, where he joins his twin brother Emmett as a boss in Battle Metro. Ingo wasn't a particularly important character in these games, but his importance increased significantly when he appeared in Arceus. You see, Arceus' story takes place in the distant past, but the Ingo we meet there is definitely the same person, as he talks about vague memories of his brother and the era he comes from. But Ingo also doesn't know how he got to Emerald, or how to get back to his brother and the Pokémon companions he left behind. We speculate that Arceus, the god of the Pokemon world, will most likely teleport Ingo back in time, much like he teleports the protagonist back in time at the beginning of the game.

Frankly, this sucks! Ingo clearly misses his brother and partner, but doesn't understand how or why this happened to him. He was very frustrated the whole game. It just…never works out. At the end of “Arceus”, Ingo is still trapped in the ancient emerald with no way back. But luckily, ZA seems to have finally given Ingo a happy ending via the museum.

You see, there's a diagram in the training ground museum where Ingo hangs out in Arceus. The image is captioned: “There are records of a man named Ingo providing guidance in Pokémon battles, but he reportedly disappeared a day after saying 'It's time for me to come back.'”

While it's not certain yet, it seems to hint that at some point after the events of Arceus, Ingo inexplicably returned to his hometown and was eventually reunited with his brothers and Pokémon. We'll never know for sure, but the museum's exhibit is clearly meant to prompt the player to imagine that he's finally freed from Arceus' time-travel torture. I'm personally excited about this because Pokémon Arceus' kidnapping spree is one of The most confusing part of the game's plot to me.

mine Review of Pokémon Legends: ZA is in progress It's live now, if you want to check out my impressions from the first 24 hours, a full review will be posted next week. If you are entering Pokémon Legends ZA, please select your Getting Started Pokémonand check out what we're doing Pokémon Legends: ZA Walkthroughmore of our Side mission list Make sure you don't miss a thing. we have one more Pokémon Legends: ZA Picture Bookand most importantly, guidelines All clothing stores and clothing in Pokémon Legends: ZA This way you can capture them in style.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter at IGN. You can find her posts at BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Have a story tip? Send it to [email protected].