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Pokemon Champions is finally here, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be a winner as far as players are concerned, with complaints about its visuals and limitations on the competitive battles it's made for.
Champions is a free-to-play, battle-focused game somewhat akin to the likes of Pokemon Stadium, serving as a PvP battle hub that allows you to use Pokemon you've trained in previous games, or brand new ones recruited via a gacha-like system in-game. It's also soon set to be the title used for official Video Game Championships (VGC) tournaments, including the massive World Championships, so it's a big deal, with a lot of pressure from fans hoping for either as good of a VGC experience as they can get in, say, Scarlet and Violet, or better.
Well, a few hours after Champions' launch, and it doesn't appear to have succeeded there yet. As Joe Merrick, owner of the unofficial Pokemon news site Serebii, puts it: "Going from the perfection of Pokopia to this...whiplash."
He's particularly disappointed about the lack of available items for Pokemon to use – per his own records on Serebii, there are currently only 30 items that aren't Mega Stones and Berries, and that list is missing popular staples like the Life Orb, Choice Band, Choice Specs, and Assault Vest. Needless to say, this is going to have a huge impact on players whose favorite teams relied on items that they no longer have access to.
"I've got to say, the lack of item options is going to hurt this game in the short term and I think very much damage VGC in general when VGC shifts over next month," Merrick writes. "What on earth were they thinking?"
And that's on top of a limited available pool of Pokemon available. Currently, there's reportedly a total of 185 to use – not even close to the series' full list of over 1,000 creatures. With that said, producer Masaaki Hoshino previously told me that "we want to include as many Pokemon as possible" in Champions, but that the current plan was to have "a limited selection available, but shifting over time" in order to keep the game from getting too complicated, especially going into the future when more and more Pokemon are created. So, we knew some sort of limit would be in place here, but the actual number seems to have come as a surprise to some.
Another major blow for many is the lack of 6v6 single battles. "No 6v6 single battles in Pokemon Champions makes me so sad," writes Pokemon content creator RaidAway+, while pokeaimMD writes: "How can you advertise this game as play the way you want to and not let me do 6v6 private lobbies."
What's more, there are also complaints about the way Champions looks and runs, even on Switch 2. "Why the fuck does it look like this. Why is it running at 30 fps," one writes, while another post reads: "WHY IS CHAMPIONS IN 30 FPS ARE WE SERIOUS BRO I HAVE A SWITCH 2 ITS 2026 HELLO?"
So, it's hardly a great start so far. Something that's well worth keeping in mind as a potential positive, though, is the fact that being a live service game means Champions is going to be continually updated, and therefore the devs will be able to (in theory) action feedback like this. Producer Hoshino also told me that the plan is to "keep Pokemon Champions going far into the future – basically forever, as long as the Pokemon series is continuing," so it's in the devs' interest to make players happy – we'll just have to see if they're able to turn things around from this shaky launch.
