We didn’t see Pokémon Champions in motion during the Pokémon Presents showcase today, but the new battle simulator might be the most important announcement made during the presentation. The game is being positioned as the future of Pokémon’s competitive play, as evidenced by the teaser trailer showing players using items like Game Boy link cables to battle, all culminating in a modern-day battle between a Switch user and a mobile player in Champions. While the average trainer is probably most excited to return to Kalos in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Champions could fundamentally change how competitive Pokémon operates, and by extension open up a design space for RPGs like Z-A.
Let’s start with what we know. Pokémon Champions is a battle simulation game that won’t be tied to a specific RPG. Right now, competitive players battle in whatever the current mainline Pokémon is, so the best trainers in the scene are battling in Scarlet and Violet in official tournaments. This naturally limits the Pokémon players can use, as well as the gimmick mechanics they can utilize. Champions, meanwhile, will not be tied to a specific game and can import different Pokémon from the Pokémon Home storage app (though The Pokémon Company makes clear in its press release that there will be some restrictions). The trailer also shows that Champions supports different gameplay mechanics like Mega Evolution and Terastallization, indicating that it might be possible to use different strategies that aren’t beholden to a game-specific rule set.
Just how freely we’ll be able to customize rules and party compositions remains to be seen, but The Pokémon Company creating an officially licensed battle simulator similar to the third-party ones used by competitive pros that aren’t limited to the current generation is a huge deal. This means professional players and the average fan will no longer be tied to one another. Official Pokémon tournaments won’t be limited to specific RPGs’ rosters, and mainline games could get more experimental without being chained to a competitive scene.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus is one of the most innovative games the series has released in the past decade. It has new battle mechanics like the agile and strong style moves that let you choose to prioritize speed or power, which would be considered “broken” in competitive play. But Legends: Arceus doesn’t have multiplayer battles and doesn’t have to design its turn-based gameplay around whether or not something is fair to a rival trainer. As a result, some of the game’s big story battles are among the most challenging and interesting the series has ever put out. As a non-competitive player, some of the most strategic plays I’ve ever had to make in a Pokémon game’s main story involved making decisions about whether or not to use agile attacks to try and get in a few extra hits, or put everything I had into a strong one in hopes of knocking an enemy out in one shot.
This was a simple tweak to long-established Pokémon mechanics, but if Game Freak can develop RPGs without having to account for a completely different way they might be played in tournaments, it could mean cool innovations like this in future games. Legends: Z-A even introduces its own spin on Pokémon battles by incorporating positioning and area-of-effect to make use of the walkable 3D combat zones. Cool changes like this are only possible if we stop worrying about competitive viability and make space for innovative RPG design.
Severing competitive tournaments from the RPGs is a good thing for everyone, and some of the biggest names in professional Pokémon battling have expressed that having their own space to play and experiment could be a game changer for the scene.
There are still a lot of questions for both competitive and casual players, but the potential possibilities Pokémon Champions could bring to all sides of the community make it the most exciting part of the Presents showcase. I’m stoked for Legends: Z-A, but in the long run, I’m even more interested in how the Pokémon series could keep changing for the better.
