Pokémon is a franchise that has been dominating for years. It has everything to do so. Tremendously charismatic characters, a company with the financial and logistical muscle to carry it forward, and a fandom willing to forgive the missteps that are never so loud as to be a problem. At The Pokémon Company, they have what Disney, Sanrio, and practically no one else has: a franchise of eternal success and the intelligence to know how to exploit it.
That is not the only reason for the popularity of Pokémon. Another is that its video games are good in a very peculiar way. They are accessible and enjoyable for casual and child audiences, for whom they are designed, but they are also deep enough for a whole competitive scene to emerge around them. One that is sanctioned by The Pokémon Company itself. Something they have wanted to exploit more deeply with Pokémon Champions.
Pokémon Champions shows that competitive play is for everyone
Launched on April 8 on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, with a mobile version announced for a later time this year, Pokémon Champions aims to be the centerpiece of competitive Pokémon gaming. This is evident from the moment we start the game.
Here there is barely any story. We don’t capture Pokémon, but rather obtain them through a kind of gacha system or transfer them from other Pokémon titles. We can’t even deeply customize our main character. The central part of the game is combat. With ranked, friendly, and tournament modes, everything revolves around battles, and after a series of tutorials to teach us the absolute basics of the game, we are given a choice of a Pokémon, provided with five others that align with it, and thrown into the arena to fight.
Pokémon Champions feels like it wants to convince players that competitive play is for everyone. And it succeeds. Because while it makes some concessions along the way to achieve this, what it does, to this day, adds more than it takes away from the game and its future possibilities.
If Pokémon’s competitive scene had two problems, they were, first, that it was completely inaccessible for newcomers, and second, that being connected to the main franchise games, they had to adhere to the rules and systems designed primarily for a casual experience. With Champions, specifically focused on providing a competitive game centered on combat, they have managed to address both issues. How? By doing something tremendously unpopular that has cost them a lot of criticism, somewhat unfairly: drastically cutting content.
In Pokémon Champions, there are 187 Pokémon and only mega evolutions as combat mechanics, of which there are 59. Items, a little over 100. Considering that there are currently 1,025 Pokémon, mega evolutions, Z-moves, Dynamax, Teracristalization, and moves +, in addition to a little over 300 items, many players have felt disappointed by the tremendous scarcity compared to what has been available so far. Especially because the next competitive season will already be played in Pokémon Champions.
But this change is positive. With fewer Pokémon and fewer items, it is easier to deal with for players who are entering competitive play for the first time, allowing for a simpler learning process. It also allows Pokémon Company to create tighter metas, where they delicately control the power level they want to achieve at any given moment, being able to combine different battle mechanics or items if they want to add an extra level of complexity at any given time. Giving them greater flexibility in shaping the competitive scene, and opening the possibility for a richer and more varied meta, thanks to that constraint. Because sometimes, less is more.
The problem of being free-to-play
That said, not everything is good. It is true that the absence of many key items and the focus on most items being mega-evolution stones, with most items being berries of one kind or another, makes item-based strategies excessively poor. This is something they should correct by adding in future updates, if not the most popular items from the competitive scene, then at least a dozen items that would make this strategic layer of the game richer and more complex.
The issue of monetization is more problematic. Because while it is not a problem now, it is easy to see how it could become one.
Pokémon Champions is very generous. Almost too generous. But that’s the trick. All free-to-play games start off being very generous only to end up not being so, and it’s easy to see how this can turn into a money pit. To begin with, the monthly battle passes, which mainly correspond to cosmetics, already represent a more than generous expense for anyone who wants to complete them monthly.
But, who wants to play completely free-to-play? They can, in theory. There is only one in-game currency and two types of different tickets, which are obtained through paid subscriptions, which, as we mentioned, have been distributed generously so far. And even more generously if you pay the 8 euros for the starter pack that gives a small advantage in that sense, but which is in no way necessary.
The problem is that the game has a subscription. For 50 euros annually, or 5 euros monthly, it offers great advantages in in-game currency and tickets. Although it remains to be seen whether it will really be necessary to keep up with the game’s updates, that is not the only subscription we will need. If we want to import our Pokémon from other installments of the franchise, we will have to bring them from Pokémon Home, a free app where we can store our Pokémon. As long as there are no more than 30.
Here is the trap that will surely end up costing money to its players. The Pokémon from Pokémon Home are not transferred to Pokémon Champions, but rather lent: they can be used in Champions, but they remain in Home. They take up space in both Home and Champions. This means that if we bring our previously optimized Pokémon from other games to save money, we will be testing the limits of our Home account. And if we exceed it, we will have to pay a monthly or annual subscription that, while not very expensive, is another subscription to add to the one for Champions. Or if we wanted to play free-to-play, one that we have to pay for, at least.
That is the big problem with the game. You can already see where they want to take our money. The most expensive thing by far is catching Pokémon, as obtaining Pokémon permanently is really costly, but bringing them from Home requires a permanent space that may lead us to have to pay a subscription, whether we want to or not. And that could very well end up being exactly what kills the game: The Pokémon Company’s need to get our money.
