Leveling up in Pokémon Legends: Z-A is the easiest it has even been in a Pokemon title. The economic system of the open world is very exploitable if you can figure out how to leverage it to your benefit.
This Pokémon Legends: Z-A is all about leveling up as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Exp. Candy
You can purchase Exp. Candy in the Shop Inventory of the Mega Shard Exchange of Quasartico Inc. These cost as little as eight Mega Shards each, which are easily farmable in the hundreds from clusters of Mega Crystals scattered all around the open world of Lumiose City, within a span of five minutes per run.
All you need is a Pokemon with a lightning fast and quick to reset attack such as Extreme Speed, and you are good to go.
A hundred Exp. Candy at a cost of 800 Mega Shards can easily level a Pokemon through dozens of levels with a mere ten minutes of Mega Shard farming.
Red Canari Plush
The Red Canari Plush is one of five distinct Canari Plushes. These items can be found in the Shop Inventory of the Colorful Screw Exchange at Racine Construction.
It increases the Exp. Points your Pokemon will gain by a little, and you will actually get one for free from Tarragon at the start of the fifth main mission.
Not only can all five Canari Plushes be equipped simultaneously, they can also be upgraded for improved effects. A fully upgraded Red Canari Plush will require a total of just thirteen Colorful Screws, since you get the first one for free, and will give you a 1.7x bonus to Exp. Points post battle.
Alpha Pokemon
The pinnacle of wild Pokemon opponents, these super-sized Pokemon have both high HP and a unique moveset at their disposal.
Taking them on ordinarily will earn you a large chunk of XP, and even more so if they are at a higher level than you, but this is a task in and of itself.
You can cheese such encounters by using the Poison move, Toxic, that badly poisons targets. The poison has a ticking, cumulative effect that worsens over time. Simply deploy the Pokemon to use it, then withdraw while evading the Alpha’s attacks. Eventually it will succumb to Toxic, allowing you to reap the rewards.
Perish Song is a late game alternative to Toxic, and causes any Pokemon that hears this song to faint after 30 seconds, unless they switch out of battle. Since only six Pokemon can learn this and only upon leveling up, you may have to use other Exp. Point grinding methods to begin with.
Defeated Alpha Pokemon also reward you with Exp. Candies as a nice little bonus.
Capturing Versus Killing Pokemon
There is a significant bonus to Exp. Points gained from catching wild Pokemon rather than simply despawning them, as much as 66% more. As long as you have Poke Balls at your disposal, catching defeated Pokemon should be your default strategy.
Lucky Egg
This item can be given to Pokemon to gain a bonus to earned Exp. Points. This is less than recommended, as it only becomes available late in the game at the Vert Pokémon Center through side mission 109 ‘Wondrous Self-Healing Pokémon’, which itself only unlocks after main mission 37.
Those are all the best ways to grind for Exp. Points with minimal effort in Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
