Pokémon Champions review in progress – free live service pokémon

The spirit of Pokémon Stadium returns, in this new free-to-play battle simulator that has launched in a surprisingly rough state for a first party Nintendo game.

Pokémon has seemed like it’s in the doldrums for at least the last decade. The trading card game renaissance started some time ago but in terms of the video games, the magic has been missing since at least Sun and Moon on the 3DS. The various Switch games have seen plenty of firsts for the series, but their technical failings and relentless cheapness began to sour us on the series, and we don’t think we were the only ones.

And yet in the last six months things have seen a remarkable turnaround. Pokémon Legends: Z-A was a step in the right direction, while Pokémon Pokopia is currently our favourite game of the year. And then there’s the reveal of next year’s Pokémon Winds and Waves which features… good graphics?

How that game turns out will set the tone for the next decade of Pokémon, which, as a reminder, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It is this new era of optimism into which Pokémon Champions appears: a free-to-play game which although initially available only on Switch is also coming to smartphones.

If you’re a long-term Pokémon fan, you’ll immediately recognise Champions as being of the same lineage as N64 title Pokémon Stadium, which was the first time pokémon had ever been represented in 3D. It was barely functional as a game in its own right but if you connected it to a Game Boy cartridge, using a bundled gadget, you could see your actual pokémon in fully animated form. And if you didn’t do that, you just played meaningless fights using anonymous loner pokémon.

That is essentially how Champions works too. The battles take place online, and you get your pokémon into the game via Pokémon Home, instead of a Transfer Pak, but otherwise the premise is the same… except for all the microtransactions and other hallmarks of the modern live service business.

Champions works on three tiers, with those who pay nothing and don’t import any custom pokémon being stuck with pre-established critters – which you essentially have to buy from a safari zone – and are left to grind out enough in-game currency to get more. Importing from Pokémon Home gives you a major advantage, although mostly only in terms of your selection, as the game does its best to level the playing field in terms of stats.

The third type of player is the one that’s willing to pay a lot of real money to buy new pokémon and items as much as they want, as well as buying the battle pass and ponying up £41.99 for an annual subscription. The matchmaking system means that in theory you shouldn’t have to worry about them but, as ever in a live service game, it’s galling to know that other people are having a very different experience to you because of all the money they’re spending.

Unlike the mainline games, pokémon don’t earn experience in the manner of a traditional role-playing game. In fact, the whole idea of training and customising your pokémon is streamlined to the point of abstraction, since all you do is use the in-game currency to change stats and moves manually, which is considerably less interesting and means the pokémon themselves don’t necessarily receive any benefit from winning in a fight.

The battles play out essentially identically to Pokémon Stadium (it and its sequel are part of Nintendo Switch Online, but you’ll also need the Expansion Pack to access N64 games) and the mainline games. You’ve only got 30 seconds to choose a pokémon and its move, so that the other person you’re battling doesn’t have to wait too long, but otherwise it’s the familiar turn-based combat with all the usual considerations over type conflicts, status changes, physical versus special attacks, and held items.

Mega evolutions are also a part of battles, if you’ve got a compatible stone, but there’s currently only 186 pokémon out of a potential total of 1,025 in the game. There’s a lot of items that aren’t included too and while they’ll no doubt be added over time it’s amusing that this also mirrors Pokémon Stadium, whose initial Japanese launch only featured 40 out of a possible 151 pokémon.

In terms of presentation, Champions is pretty disappointing. You can tell it’s been primarily designed for playing on a phone, with 30fps graphics and some very sluggish menus (there’s no Switch 2 edition). The 3D pokémon models are not very detailed or particularly well animated, which is par for the course for the modern games but a disappointment when that’s almost all you see. Needless to say, there’s no voice-acting either, which is especially upsetting to us as we really miss the cheesy commentator from Stadium.

The game’s also surprisingly buggy and gives every impression of being rushed out for launch, with a sizeable day one patch and some very worrying reports of pokémon being lost in their transfer from Pokémon Home to Champions. A lot of fans are also upset that when you take part in doubles matches (which has its own progression) you can only field four pokémon from your party of six. That is the rules for professional tournaments, but it does seem unnecessarily limiting in this context.

It’s not hard to take issue with Champions but for better or worse it’s clearly not finished yet and… it’s free. If you’re a veteran Pokémon fan then the only real benefit you’re getting here is easy access to a constant stream of online matches, since the matchmaking is actually pretty good. Otherwise, this seems to be aimed at a slightly awkward mix of hardcore esports fans and people brand new to the franchise, who want to know how the battles work (and to be fair, the tutorials are pretty good and the interface fairly straightforward).

Champions fulfils that remit reasonably well but it’s a hard game to get excited about and probably something you’re better off just making a mental note of, so you can come back later when it’s working properly and is more content complete.

Formats: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), iOS, and Android
Price: Free-to-play
Publisher: The Pokémon Company
Developer: The Pokémon Works
Release Date: 8th April 2026 (mobile TBC)
Age Rating: 7

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