Pokemon Champions Makes One of the Boldest Roster Decisions in Series History

Competitive Pokemon is moving to its new home with the April 8th release of Pokemon Champions. The battle-centric game will take over the VGC following the Scarlet & Violet era and will be the standard for Pokemon competitions for the foreseeable future. But seasoned competitive players aren’t the game’s only focus. Pokemon Champions also hopes that its streamlined approach to PvP battles can help onboard newer players to the competitive battle arena. And the developers have made some interesting choices in the name of ensuring that Pokemon Champions offers a streamlined experience.

One controversial change is that Pokemon Champions does away with IVs in favor of stat point distributions. Players will spend the game’s Victory Points currency to tweak their Pokemon team to their liking across key areas, including stats, moveset, and abilities. But that isn’t the only way the game changes how you approach training your Pokemon team. The game will launch with a limited roster, one that notably skips out on earlier stage Pokemon in favor of a fully evolved lineup. Though official screenshots feature Pikachu as a possible exception, as a general rule Pokemon Champions will bypass evolution entirely by including only final-stage evolutions in its roster.

Pokemon Champions Hopes to Welcome Newer Competitive Players with Streamlined Roster

When I played Pokemon Champions earlier this month, it was hard to miss that early stage Pokemon were entirely absent. Recruiting Pokemon directly in the game means running across fully evolved Pokemon at the Roster Ranch. That’s quite a changeup from catching Pokemon in the wild, which often means finding them at their first stage and training them up through the ranks. Even prior battle-focused games like Pokemon Stadium included the option to use unevolved creatures. That makes the Pokemon Champions roster arguably the most limited in the franchise’s history. But while that is a pretty bold choice, there is a reason for it.

According to Game Producer and Development Director Hoshino Masaaki, this was a point of serious debate while designing the game. But ultimately, the team opted to launch with only fully evolved Pokemon included to make the game more approachable for newcomers. Since players can only transfer Pokemon into Champions if they appear in the game’s roster, even bringing your own team via Pokemon HOME will be limited to only those fully evolved forms found in the game.

While it’s an unusual move in Pokemon history, the decision does make some sense. After all, with a few notable exceptions, competitive play does tend to lean into final evolutions anyway. And those new to battling might accidentally bring weaker prior-stage Pokemon into the area while learning the ropes, leading to a frustrating experience. However, a roster comprised entirely of final evos does leave out a few popular past choices for competitive Pokemon that aren’t fully evolved.

Fans Might Miss Popular Competitve Contenders with Pokemon Champions

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While competitive play does lean heavily into fully evolved Pokemon, there are certainly some exceptions. A few unevolved Pokemon have earned a place in the competitive ranks and are commonly considered stronger than their fully evolved forms when using the right strategy. By limiting its roster to only fully evolved Pokemon, Pokemon Champions is taking some popular battlers off the table. That includes Chansey, often considered superior to Blissey, Porygon2, and Murkrow, among others.

But it might not be that way forever. After all, Pikachu seems to have slipped in, perhaps due to its mascot status and Ash’s Pikachu’s refusal to evolve. And Hoshino Masaaki did tell us that unevolved Pokemon could be added to Pokemon Champions at some point in the future. Though from the sounds of it, this likely wouldn’t happen until many more fully evolved forms are added to the game. So if using not fully evolved Pokemon has been a part of your strategy up to now, prepare to mix it up when joining the ranks of Pokemon Champions.

What do you think about Pokemon Champions leaving unevolved Pokemon behind? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!