Pokemon Champions is a fighting-focused Pokemon game in the same vein as Pokemon Stadium on the N64. Champions seems to be angled more towards competitive players than casuals, and it looks to separate the battling element from the RPG elements of the other games.
I am certainly no competitive Pokemon player and instead enjoy the collecting aspect of the mainline titles more than the trainer and gym battles you face on your journey. While Pokemon battles are a staple part of the main series, separating them into their own title is an odd choice when you can already battle online in games such as Scarlet and Violet.
So, who exactly is Pokemon Champions for, and will it replace the main series during tournaments? Read on for my thoughts.
Initially Pokemon Champions sets up a pretty good storyline for a game focused on battles. You are lined up to take over a Pokemon gym as the current leader is looking to retire. A great setup, I thought. Maybe I will have to prove myself by rising through the ranks, perhaps even being tasked to win the Pokemon League. Maybe once I get my gym, I can design it to suit my style and kit it out with cool stuff, recruit fellow players online to be leaders at my gym, and become the ultimate gym in the world… yeah, I hoped for way too much.
After the tutorial that walks new players through the basic rock, paper, scissors-style fights that any Pokemon player will know like the back of their hand, you are given the gym. Just like that. No build-up, no nothing - the gym is just the home hub where you connect to online fights. I was very disappointed, as I thought they had snuck in a cool storyline that would give someone like me a reason to keep playing. Sadly, this was not the case.
But, anyway, Pokemon Champions is basically a place where you can send your Pokemon from Pokemon Home to battle online with other players. It seems like an unnecessary step in online competition. Surely all these opponents have the same games that you caught the Pokemon in the first place, and could compete there without these unnecessary steps? Oh, and only the Pokemon listed in the Pokemon Champions index can be transferred. It’s a bit unclear who this game is actually for.
You can recruit new Pokemon at a farm area in the game that takes away the whole catching and raising element - it also lets players join in who don’t have any other Pokemon game too. There is, within this, a pay-to-win element with a battle pass that will give people who put money in an advantage over those playing here for free, and an unusual tactic from the usually generous Nintendo when it comes to predatory practices. It isn’t quite WWE 2K26 but it is a rather odd move from the house of Mario to make.
The graphics are nothing to write home about either; had this been a showpiece for the system, with epic-looking battles and highly animated moves, I could see the value of the game. But the way things are right now, with a limited selection of Pokemon, graphics the same standard as Violet or Scarlet (pre-switch 2 version), and pay-to-win mechanics, it is a hard sell to any novice or pro, for that matter.
With no single-player story to speak of either, this turns the whole situation into a real head scratcher, as, besides being a free-to-play experience, I see no real value in Pokemon Champions. Back on the N64, the selling point of Stadium was the ability to see your Game Boy sprite critters turned into full-color 3D animated models, and it was fantastic. It also lets you transfer all Pokemon from Red, Blue, and Yellow over instead of a limited selection picked for you.
Until some major improvements are made to the variety of match types, Pokemon selection, and the pay-to-win setup we have here, I can’t recommend playing Pokemon Champions. If you want to play online, then just challenge someone in one of the main games - it is the exact same experience you will get here, with the added bonus of the single player story and minus the restrictive selection usable in matches.
An odd one, for sure, that functions as it should, I guess, it’s just really difficult to pinpoint who the target audience for Pokemon Champions is. Until some improvements are made, the target definitely isn’t me.
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