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Door staff@engadget.com (Sam Rutherford) - 28 Aug 2026
As someone who grew up playing Pokémon, I feel like it's easy to dismiss recent mainline titles for being too easy. But that's not really a fair criticism, after all, these games are made just as much for children as they are for adults looking for a breezy single player adventure. In response, some players have turned to self-imposed challenges like Nuzlocke runs to up the difficulty. But after reaching the Masterball tier across several seasons, the thrill of competitive battles against human players delivers a totally different kind of thrill, and I feel like I'm only just starting to scratch the true depth of the game.
In a traditional single-player Pokemon game, it's often enough to simply level up your Pokémon, pick the proper STAB moves for their type and then just steamroll all the Bug Catchers and Cool Beauties you encounter in the world. There's rarely ever a need to factor in things like status conditions or use moves like Protect, which is a cornerstone of PVP battles. In fact, I never realized that Tinkaton has such an abysmal attack stat until I played Champions because Gigaton Hammer regularly one-shotted my foes in Scarlet and Violet.
However, in Champions, if you're not actively doing things like anticipating turn orders, remembering the passive abilities of various Pokémon and thinking about different weather conditions and terrains, your team will get knocked out in a jiffy. And even though only a quarter of all 1,025 total Pokémon are currently supported in Champions, it feels like there's an endless customization and variety to be had.
Sam Rutherford for Engadget
Sure, some Pokémon — like Mega Charizard Y, Basculegion and Kingambit — are a bit over represented right now, but I've seen so many interesting team comps in my competitive journey thus far. I've been demolished by a surprise Eeveelution team based around abusing Round. But I also found success with a water-based team (hat tip to Pokeaim) featuring Vaporeon, Heliolisk, Toxicroak and Politoed to spam Surf, dealing damage to both enemy 'mons while healing my team in one fell swoop.
That said, I do feel like Champions could do more to embrace different battle formats. Currently, the only two game modes are 3v3 singles and 4v4 doubles (aka the official VGC format used in tournaments). There's no 6v6 singles mode or native support for best of three matches like you see in proper competitions. All you get is the best of one, which sometimes feels like it's designed to encourage cheesy teams that wouldn't fly in other circumstances — especially open team sheet matches where you can see exactly which moves and abilities opposing teams are using. And it's a similar situation for the monthly online challenges, which aside from the first one, have all been singles battles.
Sam Rutherford for Engadget
The one thing to watch out for is it's easy to become overconfident in your abilities — even for people familiar with the series. At launch, the competitive Pokémon community had a blast looking at one-star reviews left by players complaining about randomness or overlooking battle mechanics to their detriment. Admittedly, when compared to your average story playthrough, a high-level PVP match is much more complicated. Before you blame a loss on bugs (which I have yet to encounter), it's important to factor in mechanics you missed. That said, I do think Champions would benefit a lot from a combat log like you see in a lot of online MMOs, as that would be a helpful tool when it comes to teaching players the tricker ins and outs of competitive Pokémon.
As for graphics, I think Champions looks good for something that's available on both the Switch 2 and mobile devices. The Switch 2 edition runs at 60 fps while the mobile versions are capped at 30 fps. This is understandable given the performance variance between platforms, though it would be nice to have a high graphics settings for people with beefier phones and tablets. Even so, I find myself preferring the mobile version. This is partially because I usually play on a foldable phone with a larger display, but also because the game still loads quickly, which makes it easy to squeeze in a match when I have time. As much as I like the Switch 2, it's simply a bit too bulky to bring with me on every commute.
Sam Rutherford for Engadget
No one is going to mistake it for the next AAA open world blockbuster, but the game does a solid job of adding visual excitement to matches without becoming distracting. Moves like Grav Apple are downright funny while Armor Cannon looks like a pumped up Charge Shot straight out of Mega Man.
My small gripe is that I wish the terrain and weather effects were easier to see. Depending on which arena you're battling in, you're often just better off just going into the settings menu and hitting the toggle switch for Display Battle Info. This adds an in-game label that explicitly says how many turns of a certain effect like sun, tailwind or Trick Room are left instead of needing to squint at the visual effects.
In a traditional single-player Pokemon game, it's often enough to simply level up your Pokémon, pick the proper STAB moves for their type and then just steamroll all the Bug Catchers and Cool Beauties you encounter in the world. There's rarely ever a need to factor in things like status conditions or use moves like Protect, which is a cornerstone of PVP battles. In fact, I never realized that Tinkaton has such an abysmal attack stat until I played Champions because Gigaton Hammer regularly one-shotted my foes in Scarlet and Violet.
However, in Champions, if you're not actively doing things like anticipating turn orders, remembering the passive abilities of various Pokémon and thinking about different weather conditions and terrains, your team will get knocked out in a jiffy. And even though only a quarter of all 1,025 total Pokémon are currently supported in Champions, it feels like there's an endless customization and variety to be had.
Sam Rutherford for Engadget
Sure, some Pokémon — like Mega Charizard Y, Basculegion and Kingambit — are a bit over represented right now, but I've seen so many interesting team comps in my competitive journey thus far. I've been demolished by a surprise Eeveelution team based around abusing Round. But I also found success with a water-based team (hat tip to Pokeaim) featuring Vaporeon, Heliolisk, Toxicroak and Politoed to spam Surf, dealing damage to both enemy 'mons while healing my team in one fell swoop.
That said, I do feel like Champions could do more to embrace different battle formats. Currently, the only two game modes are 3v3 singles and 4v4 doubles (aka the official VGC format used in tournaments). There's no 6v6 singles mode or native support for best of three matches like you see in proper competitions. All you get is the best of one, which sometimes feels like it's designed to encourage cheesy teams that wouldn't fly in other circumstances — especially open team sheet matches where you can see exactly which moves and abilities opposing teams are using. And it's a similar situation for the monthly online challenges, which aside from the first one, have all been singles battles.
Sam Rutherford for Engadget
The one thing to watch out for is it's easy to become overconfident in your abilities — even for people familiar with the series. At launch, the competitive Pokémon community had a blast looking at one-star reviews left by players complaining about randomness or overlooking battle mechanics to their detriment. Admittedly, when compared to your average story playthrough, a high-level PVP match is much more complicated. Before you blame a loss on bugs (which I have yet to encounter), it's important to factor in mechanics you missed. That said, I do think Champions would benefit a lot from a combat log like you see in a lot of online MMOs, as that would be a helpful tool when it comes to teaching players the tricker ins and outs of competitive Pokémon.
As for graphics, I think Champions looks good for something that's available on both the Switch 2 and mobile devices. The Switch 2 edition runs at 60 fps while the mobile versions are capped at 30 fps. This is understandable given the performance variance between platforms, though it would be nice to have a high graphics settings for people with beefier phones and tablets. Even so, I find myself preferring the mobile version. This is partially because I usually play on a foldable phone with a larger display, but also because the game still loads quickly, which makes it easy to squeeze in a match when I have time. As much as I like the Switch 2, it's simply a bit too bulky to bring with me on every commute.
Sam Rutherford for Engadget
No one is going to mistake it for the next AAA open world blockbuster, but the game does a solid job of adding visual excitement to matches without becoming distracting. Moves like Grav Apple are downright funny while Armor Cannon looks like a pumped up Charge Shot straight out of Mega Man.
My small gripe is that I wish the terrain and weather effects were easier to see. Depending on which arena you're battling in, you're often just better off just going into the settings menu and hitting the toggle switch for Display Battle Info. This adds an in-game label that explicitly says how many turns of a certain effect like sun, tailwind or Trick Room are left instead of needing to squint at the visual effects.