The idea of a battle-centric Pokémon game that lets trainers duke it out without all the breeding and badge collecting has been around since the early days with Pokémon Stadium, so it’s exciting that Pokémon Champions looks to continue that legacy 26 years later. This “free-to-start” (Nintendo’s words, not mine) turn-based battler puts its full focus on online PvP using the series’ classic combat system. That being said, while it may look and play like Pokémon, spending some time in the arena during its launch week has so far made Champions feels less like the Stadium successor I’ve been waiting for and more like a stripped-down Ditto imposter.
If you have played any of the mainline Pokémon games, Champions will feel like slipping back into a slimmer pair your favorite Running Shoes – the best comparison might actually be the Wii’s Pokémon Battle Revolution, as it forgoes any story or even Stadium’s fun minigames to be purely about the battling. You and your opponent build teams of six pokemon to pick from for either 3v3 single battles or 4v4 double battles, choose your moves simultaneously, and slug it out until one team is entirely knocked out. I really enjoy this combat system even without all the catching and leveling that usually accompanies it, so the fact that this is all there is wouldn’t be an issue if the options available for it, at least as of launch, weren’t so – dare I say – Gloom-y?
Champions launches with a paltry 186 monsters to battle with, a mere 35 more than the 26-year-old Stadium had. The ones that have been included remind me of the “popular cool kids club” from grade school days. You have the captain of the football team, Charizard, and head cheerleader, Sylveon, hanging out at the lunch table, but the nerdy Porygon or the weird Lickitung that eats glue are nowhere to be found. In fact, basically all early evolutions are absent, and baffling omissions like Rillaboom, Mewtwo, Mew, or most of the other Legendaries leave glaring holes. We can expect this roster to expand over time with live service updates, of course, but how fast and to what extent is still a mystery, and what’s available right now leaves me feeling like Psyduck – confused and with a headache.
In addition to missing plenty of fan favorites, the competitive community has taken a particularly hard critical hit due to a lack of both Pokémon and held item options. For example, out of the 22 monsters that made up the various teams at last year’s Pokémon World Championships Masters Division tournament, only three are currently usable in Champions. The unique goodies that you can have your team hold are nearly as uninspired, with the vast majority either being healing berries or items that improve certain move types (not including the Mega Evolution stones), with outliers such as the Scope Lens, Light Ball, Mental Herb, and Shell Bell being the saving graces. Heavy hitters like the Power Herb, Choice Specs, Air Ballon, and many others used by the most hardcore players are all absent, which could make Champions a tough berry to swallow at the moment. With this year’s Pokémon World Championships rolling around at the end of August, it’s hard to say if this will be in a good enough place by then to serve as the de facto battling platform it’s meant to be.
To get your favorite Pokémon onto your team (assuming they made the cut, that is), you have two main options: Bring them over from a previous game via Pokémon Home, or recruit them from Champions’ farm. The Home route I found to be a straightforward and relatively painless process, both when I was importing them into Champions as well as when I sent them back. The recruit method is also fairly simple, but as you can only get Pokémon that happen to be in a rotating pool of seemingly random options, finding one you are hoping for is a bit of a gacha situation. You get one free pull each day, as well as the ability to spend a resource called Victory Points (VP) to rent Pokémon for a period of time or permanently add them to your Roster. The countdown to pull again can also be shortened using special tickets you earn by completing objectives. If this all makes Pokémon Champions sound like a mobile game, that’s because it is – or will be later this year, as it’s only available on Switch 1 and 2 as of this review.
Even still, that scent of a mobile cash grab is already all over this. From how the menus and UI are laid out to the various currencies you can earn that speed up timers and expand your storage, the DNA of its mobile-focused business model comes through loud and clear. Thankfully, at least right now, I haven’t found myself hindered by sticking to the free version of Champions – typical of a gacha game, it hands out plentiful beginner gifts in the early hours, even without the $7 (USD) paid Starter Pack bundle that’s being offered. It will take some time to see just how long you can stay comfortable without spending, though, and there’s a Battle Pass you will need to sign up for if you want to earn all the rewards.
While there are many aspects of Champions that have doused my excitement a bit, the Training features are something that I’m really interested in dabbling with more. By spending your VP, you are able to not only boost a Pokémon’s individual stats, but (far more excitingly) swap out its moves, special ability, and even nature. All of these alterations stay locked to Champions and won’t carry over if you send them off to another game, but this sort of fine tuning does provide room for theory and strategy crafting that I appreciate. That said, requiring you pay VP points to make those changes does blemish it somewhat. I worry that if Nintendo ever decides to allow players to purchase the resource directly with real money, it will quickly spiral into a pay-to-win situation.
Having only spent a little time with Pokémon Champions so far, I’m struggling to find the hook that may pull me in deep. While it is a functional way to let you pit Pokémon against others around the globe, its lackluster offerings out of the gate don’t inspire much excitement at the moment. Most of my favorite Pokémon simply aren’t here, and neither are many of the ones you’d expect to see at the highest levels of PvP. While being “free” gives it some allure, you really need to send your own Pokémon over from Home to properly take advantage of it, which means you already have better, more complete games at your disposal. I plan to put plenty more time in before my final review, but right now Champions feels like it might need an evolution of its own if it wants to be the very best Pokémon battler out there.
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