Pokemon Champions was first announced on Pokemon Day back in 2025. Since then, the Pokemon Company has shared relatively little about the competitive battle sim. At this year’s Pokemon Presents, a year after it was announced, Pokemon Champions got a vague April release window. Now, we finally have confirmation that the competitive battler will arrive on Nintendo Switch consoles on April 8th, with its mobile version to follow. Ahead of the game’s official debut, I got a chance to experience Pokemon Champions at a hands-on preview.
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As someone who builds her Pokemon teams largely based on vibes, competitive PvP battles have never been my favorite thing about the series. So, my hype level for Champions has been middle of the road compared with Pokemon Pokopia. Getting to see it firsthand, the game was pretty much what I expected, with a few surprises in the mix. Overall, Pokemon Champions feels very much like a mobile gaming era evolution of Pokemon Stadium, with all the good and bad that entails.
Pokemon Champions Strives for a Beginner-Friendly Introduction to Competitive Play
During the preview session, I was able to play Pokemon Champions on the Switch 2 for about 45 minutes. We also had a chance to speak to the Game Producer and Development Director, Hoshino Masaaki, about the game. My time with Champions gave me a pretty broad sample of what the game has to offer, starting with the tutorial and moving through Pokemon recruitment, training, and of course, a few battles. I came away from the session with the overall impression that Pokemon Champions is trying its best to be a beginner-friendly introduction to competitive turn-based Pokemon battles.
Before you pick your Pokemon and jump into the fray, Pokemon Champions offers several robust tutorials, which you can complete to learn the ropes and earn in-game rewards. These tutorials break down the basics of Pokemon battles, including Pokemon stats, type effectiveness, and beyond. For those who grew up on Pokemon like I did, the lessons may feel largely unnecessary. But if you’re new to traditional turn-based Pokemon battles, perhaps coming from games like Pokemon Go, the tutorials will no doubt be a helpful foundation for playing the game.
The beginner-friendly aspect doesn’t end with the tutorials, though. In speaking with Hoshino Masaaki, it was clear that Game Freak really had newer players in mind when making Pokemon Champions. Many decisions about the game centered on making battles feel more accessible to new players. This includes a more streamlined approach to stats and training, which does away with IVs, as well as the fact that all Pokemon in the game appear in their fully evolved forms.
Pokemon Champions even helps you build your team of Pokemon with an “Auto-Build” feature in the team menu. This selects a well-rounded group of Pokemon from your overall collection, even adding the most useful held items for each. I was pretty impressed with this feature, which did seem to do a nice job of selecting a solid lineup that would serve most new players well. I made a few changes to the pre-selected lineup, but that was mostly because I wanted to use the new Pokemon I had just trained, not because the game’s suggestions weren’t solid in their own right.
In all, this streamlined approach to competitive battles could be a great way for newer Pokemon fans to dive into the PvP battle landscape, in theory. However, I’ll be quite curious to see how this works out in reality, once new and seasoned players jump into the fray together in the game’s casual and ranked battle modes. From what I could tell, there isn’t much in the way of single-player gameplay outside of the tutorials. So, online battles with other players could well become a trial by fire. After all, Auto-Build does a nice job of pulling from your collection, but you’ll need to recruit and train good Pokemon to stand a chance of winning matches. And that could be a drawback for Pokemon Champions‘ efforts to appeal to a broad base of Pokemon fans.
Recruiting and Training New Pokemon in Champions Will Cost You
When it arrives on Nintendo Switch, Pokemon Champions will be a free-to-play addition to the Pokemon lineup. The game might be hitting consoles first, but its monetization model has a very mobile game feel. Players will need to use the in-game currency, Victory Points (VP), for many elements of the game. This includes finding new Pokemon through the Recruit feature and training those Pokemon to switch up their moves, abilities, and stats. I didn’t get a sense of how easy it will be to earn VP during my preview, but I was informed that there will be ways to get some VP for free during regular gameplay. What I did see was that most in-game actions will cost VP, though battles themselves appear to be free.
Adding new Pokemon directly in Champions happens through a Recruit feature. This randomized mechanic lets you recruit Pokemon from a randomly pulled lineup of 10 options. Players will get to pull from the Recruit menu to add a new Pokemon for foree once per day and can add additional pulls using VP. That said, adding your selected Pokemon to your team permanently costs VP whether you’re using a free pull or not. You can borrow Pokemon for a trial period of 7 days for free, but adding them to your roster for good will come with an in-game cost. You can also add Pokemon from previous games using Pokemon HOME, but I didn’t get to experience that feature during the preview.
VP are also essential for training your Pokemon. Unlike a main series game, you don’t train Pokemon by leveling them up in battle. Instead, you go to a dedicated training screen. Here, you can allocate points to raise or lower your Pokemon’s key stats such as HP, Defense, Attack, etc. You can also change your Pokemon’s moveset and adjust its Abilities and Nature. That means there are a lot of strategic pieces in play for seasoned players, even with the beginner-friendly focus of the game.
Training offers a lot of customization to ensure your team goes into battle with your ideal build. But each change you make has an associated VP cost. That means building your team could get quite expensive, depending on just how easy it winds up being to earn VP in Pokemon Champions. This area of the game also seemed to offer a bit less guidance than team building, so while it is streamlined, it could still be a bit of a learning curve for newer Pokemon battlers. I do think those who love to dig into the strategy side of Pokemon will enjoy balancing out their team’s stats, especially with the return of Abilities after their absence in Legends: Z-A.
Battle Animations Are Back and Better Than Ever in Pokemon Champions
Many players were underwhelmed with the battle animations in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. And of course, Legends: Z-A mixed up the battle formula entirely. With Champions supposed to offer the future of competitive turn-based battles, I was curious to see what those battles would look like, animation-wise. Of everything I saw while playing Pokemon Champions, the battle animations were definitely the highlight. Seeing Pokemon moves in action brought me back to the magic of seeing 3D battle animations for the first time in Pokemon Stadium. Much like in that era of Pokemon games, different moves have their own unique look on screen, which really brings the battle to life.
The Pokemon and moves both look pretty good, though I will note I was playing on the Switch 2, which has a free graphics enhancement compared to the Switch version of the game. Even then, the Pokemon didn’t have quite as much detail as I would’ve expected. I’m guessing that’s due to the fact that the game will run on the original Switch and mobile, in addition to the Switch 2. But even though I’m not a huge competitive battler, I can see myself sinking some time into this game just to see all the different 3D battle animations for my favorite Pokemon in action.
Pokemon Champions offers a battle arena area much like in Pokemon Stadium. Players will hear the roar of the crowd as they take on their opponents, who will have their own avatars represented alongside their Pokemon teams. There are a few different options on offer, with casual and ranked battles to partake in. You can also engage in single or double battles, all of which come with the fully animated battle goodness.
It’s clear that these casual and ranked PvP battles are indeed the core gameplay mechanic of Champions, as you might expect for a battle sim. This part of the game is the most fleshed out, with full animations, whereas most of the other menus I saw were a bit moreo straightforward. That said, Masaaki did tell me that the game will also offer something like a storyline via tutorial interactions with the game’s unique characters. I didn’t see much of that in action, aside from meeting Kitt in the Pokemon Recruiting screen, so I’m eager to see more of the world of Champions when the game comes out.
Overall, Pokemon Champions looks like a decent battle simulator for those who enjoy the competitive side of Pokemon. The onboarding for new players looks solid, and there should still be enough familiar turn-based strategy to appeal to longtime battle enthusiasts, as well. But for Pokemon fans like me who like the story and Pokemon collecting elements more than PvP battles, I’m still curious to see whether Pokemon Champions will have enough to offer to keep us engaged.
Are you planning to check out Pokemon Champions when it arrives on April 8th? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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