Like many live-service games before it, Pokémon Champions has started off messy. The free-to-start battle sim is plagued with bugs that affect basic battle mechanics, but some have already been fixed.

The game’s bigger issue lies in trying to cater to all kinds of players while risking satisfying none of them. Competitive Pokémon fans like myself are mostly enjoying it so far, despite the technical issues – battling remains a consistently fun and challenging experience. However, Champions takes steps to make battling more approachable for newcomers.

The competitive circuit has sorely needed this accessibility, as official VGC tournaments have historically had a high skill ceiling and entry barrier. Champions streamlines team-building but still requires players with pre-existing Pokémon stored in Pokémon Home or rely on the game’s gacha-style ‘recruit’ feature to get new ones.

While making competitive Pokémon more approachable is great for the health of the game and its growing community, it must not alienate its core base of dedicated competitive players. The battle sim currently walks a tightrope between these two groups without excelling on both ends. However, as a live-service game, there are plans for more items, Pokémon, and features in the future.