The older I get, the less time I have for playing games. This is just a fact of life: as we age, more and more responsibilities are heaped on our shoulders, leaving little time for hobbies like gaming. This is why I like to occasionally take a day off from work, slyly taking a sick day here and there to fill it with gaming, and yesterday proved to be the perfect day to do so with the launch of Pokémon Legends: Z-A. I decided to treat myself, and thanks to the short reprieve, I now feel recharged, ready to face the harsh realities of the working world once again.
Sometimes it pays to ignore work and focus on yourself
As silly as it may sound, treating yo self isn’t the worst idea for a healthy psyche at work. Sometimes you need to spoil yourself, as it’s rare others will, and to me, there is no better way to heal my mind than to take a day away from the rat race to exclusively play games while ignoring the rest of the world.
Sadly, gaming isn’t in the best shape in 2025. AAA is floundering, and prices are reaching absurd levels. It’s grown rarer and rarer for a game release to get me hyped enough that I’m willing to take a day off. Case in point, until yesterday morning, I had no plans to purchase Pokémon Legends: Z-A. To say the series has grown stale under Game Freak’s control is an understatement. Legends Arceus felt half-baked, and frankly, both Sword/Shield and Scarlet/Violet were unoptimized letdowns. That’s all to say, I expected Legends: Z-A to be another snoozefest. I was wrong.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A doesn’t need to be perfect to offer a good time
I’ve been having fun with Legends: Z-A
In a world where publishers are increasingly looking to strike gold with games that are costing hundreds of millions to make (Concord was a $400 million failure for Sony), it would seem that Game Freak’s conservative budget and simplistic graphics are adding up to a recipe for success, and this is precisely where Nintendo shines. You don’t have to create a costly, realistic-looking game for it to be fun, and while I’m no fan of Nintendo’s current pricing, especially for Switch 2 titles, I feel Game Freak is onto something by keeping a game’s scope smaller and manageable; more devs should take heed.
For me, I wasn’t all that enthralled with the idea of running around a small city catching Pokémon. It’s not like the city in Legends: Z-A looks much better than what was offered in Scarlet/Violet, but at the end of the day, I was hearing the action combat battle system was fun, so I wanted to check things out for myself. Not only does the action combat work, but it also offers an addictive hook, letting you chain moves for total destruction.
You can say I was busy yesterday, catching Pokémon
Hype didn’t push me to take off to enjoy a day with Pokémon Legends: Z-A; it was my craving for something simple in scope (catching Pokémon) that I already had no expectations for. I went in mostly blind, having ignored the press surrounding the game, and in the end, I came away pretty pleased. Legends: Z-A may not be a perfect game, the city feels lifeless, there’s a severe lack of voicework, and there’s way too much handholding with unskipable scenes, and yet catching and battling Pokémon is as fun as ever. Sure, the game may look like something from the PS2 era, but I can say it performs fine on the Switch 2, something the last generation struggled with on the Switch 1. For once, Game Freak has managed to optimize a game, which pleases me greatly.
I feel refreshed after a day of gaming and no responsibilities
Honestly, I could have taken the day off yesterday and played any game; it didn’t have to be Pokémon Legends: Z-A, though the added benefit of playing on release day did help to keep things fresh. Skyrim could have filled my time just as easily, but you have to admit knowing you’re part of a group experiencing a game for the first time certainly carries some cachet.
Pajamas, check. Cozy blanket, check. Snuggling pups, check. Switch 2 w/ Legends: Z-A, check
The point of this exercise was to give my mind a bit of reprieve, and while I luckily discovered Pokémon Legends: Z-A was the perfect title to play for such an endeavor, setting the mood was also important. When I woke up, my dog didn’t want to get out of bed, preferring to sleep in and stay cozy under the sheets. Not only was I empathetic to the feeling, but I also decided to join the pups, which started my hunt for a game to spend the day with as we lay snuggling under the warm blankets. This is when I remembered Legends: Z-A was launching on the 16th, so I quickly navigated to the Nintendo Store on my phone to see if the game had launched, and it had; it was kismet.
Much like the days of my youth, when I’d take off school sick and watch movies like Goonies and play games like Contra, yesterday I put on my nostalgia hat and embraced the feeling of ditching my responsibilities to focus on some me time that I could also share with my pups. We had a good day, perhaps great, lounging around as I gamed to my heart’s content. And while I wish I could take off every day, what makes sick days like this special is that they are rare — or at least rare enough not to interfere with work (seriously, y’all, don’t take off too often; employers don’t like it).
Taking care of yourself is a big part of staying productive at work
Source: Peacock
Let’s face it, no matter how great the job, it can wear you down after years of performing the same tasks. After a while, the annoyances can add up, and for me, there’s no better way to help refresh my body and mind than to take some time for myself. Now that I’ve cleared the cobwebs, I’m ready to tackle my work with gusto. I feel productive once again, and all it took was playing hooky during a notable game release.
This is also something I’ve told many a writer working under me: always take care of your health before worrying about work, and that includes your mental state. I work in a field that’s rife with burnout, and very few companies care about the pressures that result in constant employee churn, which means it’s up to you to ensure your mental state is sound, and if that means you take off a day or two a couple times a year to enjoy a big game release, so be it. There’s no better feeling than blowing off work for a day of fun. So maybe the next time you see a big game release, instead of heading to the office, you should stay in bed and treat yo self.
