Pokemon Legends Z-A will be Pokemon’s most recent game scheduled for release in 2025. Pokemon Legends Arceus the first game of this series took place in old Sinnoh (a region in Pokemon). But the starters were Rowlet, Cyndiquil, and Oshawott. Three Pokemon you couldn’t get in games in Sinnoh. Pokemon Legends Z-A will be placed in the old Kalos region and the starters are yet to be known. The four main criteria for the starters I believe are it can’t be a starter from the previous generation region specific game, it can’t be a starter from another legends game, it can’t be starters from the same generation, and they have to be able to have a new form.

The most important is, it can’t be a starter from a other legends game so it can’t be Rowlet, Cindiquil, or Oshwott. The second reason is they can’t be starters from the same gen. “Legends Arceus” is a gen eight game and those starters are nowhere to be found because they just got tons of focus in their new game Sword and Shield (well for that time not currently). So that means it might not be Sprigitito, Fuecoco, or Quaxly. Third, they can’t be starters previously in the region in which the game takes place so this means it can’t be Chesspin, Fenikin, or Froakie and maybe Bulbasour, Charmander, and Squirtle. Because “Pokemon X” and “Pokemon Y ” are the only Pokemon games to let you choose two starters for two different sets of three. But I do also think maybe later in the story someone will give the player a choice of  Bulbasour, Charmander, and Squirtle because mega evolution will come back in this game. The last reason is they have to be able to get a new form for the last legends game that gave Rowlet, Cyndiquil, and Oshawott final evolutions a new form. Or they could get new mega evolutions too. They could do both but that would be a lot of new forms like two per pokemon extremely unlikely. Based on this the gen three starters are out which are Treecko, Mudkip, and Torchic.

The Kalos starters where “Pokemon Legends Z-A” is based on could be starters because they don’t have mega evolution although that’s the gen when mega evolution was revealed. So based on everything so far it could be Chikorita, Totodile, Turtwig, Piplup, Chimchar, Snivy, Tepig, Litten, Popplio, Grooky, Sobble, and Scorbunny. The theory is that they selected the most popular Pokemon of that region for “Pokemon Legends Arceus.” Most likely is that a Pokemon from Sinnoh and Galar (two pokemon regions) will be selected because of the fact that they have all three starters still. In a 2022 pokemon poll, in Sinnoh the most popular is the Piplup line with Piplup at number four and its final evolution being Empoleon finishing at nine. Which in Galar the most popular was the Scorbunny line with Scorbunny at twelve and its evolution Cinderace at 6. But Inteleon, Sobble’s final evolution, ended at tenth and Sobble at fourteenth. In Johto (different region) Totodile is at ten and Chikorita is at fourteen. In Alohloa Incineroar Littens evolution is in six and Litten was thirteen. While Primarina Popplios evolution is eight and Popplio was twenty eight. 

Based off all this information, my prediction is that for the grass type will be Snivy, for the water type Piplup, and for the fire type it’s Scorbunny.