I Played Pokemon Champions, And It Feels Like a Mobile Twist On Pokemon Stadium (Preview)

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Originally revealed on Pokemon Day in 2025, Pokemon Champions has been a long-awaited title. After a year of limited updates, The Pokemon Company announced a release window for April during this year’s Pokemon Presents. Now, we have a firm release date: Pokemon Champions will launch on Nintendo Switch on April 8th, with a mobile version coming later. I recently had the opportunity to play an early version of the game and get a firsthand look.

I usually build my PokĆ©mon teams based on how I feel about the PokĆ©mon, so competitive battles havenā€™t always been my thing. Thatā€™s why I was only moderately excited about Champions compared to PokĆ©mon Pokopia. Having played it now, itā€™s pretty much what I anticipated ā€“ a few things surprised me, but overall, PokĆ©mon Champions feels like a modern PokĆ©mon Stadium for mobile devices, with both its strengths and weaknesses.

Pokemon Champions Strives for a Beginner-Friendly Introduction to Competitive Play

I recently got to play Pokemon Champions on the new Switch 2 for about 45 minutes during a preview event. I also spoke with the gameā€™s producer and development director, Hoshino Masaaki. The demo covered a lot ā€“ from the initial tutorial to catching, training, and battling Pokemon. Overall, Pokemon Champions seems designed to be an easy-to-learn introduction to competitive Pokemon battles.

Before starting your adventure in Pokemon Champions, the game provides helpful tutorials to teach you how to play and earn rewards. These lessons cover the fundamentals of Pokemon battles, like stats and type matchups. Longtime Pokemon fans might find them familiar, but if youā€™re new to the traditional turn-based battle system ā€“ especially if youā€™re used to games like Pokemon Go ā€“ these tutorials will give you a solid understanding of the gameā€™s mechanics.

The game is designed to be easy to pick up, and that extends beyond just the tutorials. When we spoke with Hoshino Masaaki, it became clear that Game Freak specifically focused on making Pokemon Champions appealing to new players. A lot of the game’s design choices were about making battles more approachable, like simplifying stats and training by removing Individual Values (IVs). Plus, every Pokemon in the game is already fully evolved, which makes things even easier.

Pokemon Champions simplifies team building with its “Auto-Build” feature. It automatically chooses a balanced team from your Pokemon collection and equips them with helpful items. I found this feature surprisingly effective ā€“ it created a strong team, especially useful for beginners. While I customized the team to include my recently trained Pokemon, the game’s initial suggestions were excellent.

This simpler battle system has the potential to be a good entry point for new PokĆ©mon players interested in battling online. It will be interesting to see how it plays out in practice when both new and experienced players start using the casual and ranked battle modes. The game doesnā€™t seem to offer much single-player content beyond the tutorials, so online battles could be quite challenging. While the Auto-Build feature helps select PokĆ©mon from your collection, youā€™ll still need to find and train strong PokĆ©mon to win. This reliance on online play and team building could be a hurdle for the gameā€™s goal of attracting a wide range of PokĆ©mon fans.

Recruiting and Training New Pokemon in Champions Will Cost You

When Pokemon Champions comes to Nintendo Switch, it will be a free-to-play game, adding a new way to enjoy the Pokemon world. While it’s launching on consoles, the way the game is structured feels similar to mobile games. Players will use an in-game currency called Victory Points (VP) to do many things, like find new Pokemon through a feature called Recruit and train them to improve their moves, abilities, and stats. During a preview, it wasnā€™t clear how easily players can earn VP, but the developers said there will be opportunities to earn some just by playing. I did notice that almost everything you do in the game will require VP, although the battles themselves wonā€™t cost anything.

In Champions, you add new PokĆ©mon through a feature called Recruit. This system randomly presents you with a selection of 10 PokĆ©mon to choose from. You get one free Recruit pull each day, and you can purchase additional pulls with VP (in-game currency). Whether you use a free pull or purchase one, adding a PokĆ©mon to your team permanently requires VP. You can also try out PokĆ©mon for 7 days before committing to adding them to your team permanently, which does require an in-game cost. The game also allows you to transfer PokĆ©mon from previous games using PokĆ©mon HOME, but I wasn’t able to test this feature during my preview.

VP, or Victory Points, are key to making your PokĆ©mon stronger. Unlike traditional PokĆ©mon games where PokĆ©mon gain experience through battles, this game has a separate training screen. Here, you directly improve your PokĆ©monā€™s stats like HP, Attack, and Defense by spending points. You can also customize their moves, Abilities, and Nature. This offers a lot of depth and strategy for experienced players, even though the game is designed to be easy to pick up and play.

The game lets you heavily customize your team to create your perfect battle strategy, but each adjustment costs Victory Points (VP). Building a powerful team can become costly, depending on how quickly you earn VP in Pokemon Champions. This customization system isn’t as clearly explained as team building itself, so it might take new players some time to learn. However, players who enjoy a deep strategic experience will appreciate fine-tuning their teamā€™s stats, especially with Abilities making a comeback after being absent in Legends: Z-A.

Battle Animations Are Back and Better Than Ever in Pokemon Champions

Players weren’t very impressed with the battles in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and Legends: Z-A changed how battles worked completely. With Champions aiming to be the next step for competitive battling, I was eager to see how the battles would look. The battle animations were definitely the best part of playing Pokemon Champions. Seeing Pokemon use their moves was reminiscent of the excitement of first experiencing 3D battles in Pokemon Stadium. Like those older games, each move has a distinct visual style, making battles much more engaging.

The Pokemon designs and moves look great. I was playing on the Switch 2, which automatically had improved graphics compared to the original Switch version. However, even with that upgrade, the Pokemon themselves werenā€™t as detailed as Iā€™d hoped. I think thatā€™s because the game also needs to run on the older Switch and mobile devices. Still, even though I don’t focus on competitive battling, Iā€™m really enjoying watching the 3D battle animations for my favorite Pokemon ā€“ I can definitely see myself spending a lot of time with this game.

Pokemon Champions features a battle arena similar to Pokemon Stadium. Players will experience the excitement of a live crowd while battling opponents who are represented by unique avatars and their Pokemon teams. The game offers various battle types, including casual and ranked matches, as well as single and double battles, all with fully animated action.

As youā€™d expect from a battle simulator, the main focus of Champions seems to be its player-versus-player (PvP) battles, both casual and ranked. This aspect of the game is very detailed, with complete animations, while other menus felt simpler. The developer, Masaaki, mentioned there will also be a story told through interactions with the game’s characters during the tutorial. I only got a brief glimpse of this ā€“ meeting a character named Kitt during a recruiting screen ā€“ and Iā€™m excited to learn more about the gameā€™s world when it releases.

Pokemon Champions appears to be a good battle simulator for players who enjoy the competitive side of Pokemon. It seems easy to learn for newcomers, and long-time fans of turn-based strategy should also enjoy it. However, as someone who prefers the story and collecting aspects of Pokemon, I’m wondering if the game will have enough content to keep me interested.

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2026-03-25 17:14