The announcement of Pokemon Legends: Arceus ignited a Pokemon fever and left fans hoping that this future game will deliver on the “Pokemon: Breath of the Wild” promise that Sword and Shield didn’t quite fulfill.
The mood among most fans is best described as cautiously optimistic, as the Pokemon series comprises countless spin off titles of highly variable quality, which is to be expected with any game franchise that’s endured for 25 years.
But even throughout the shining stars and stinkers, every Pokemon game has attempted to introduce innovations that liven up the series. For that reason, and in honor of the franchise’s anniversary, let’s a take a look back at some of the most memorable spin offs, good and bad, that deserve new entries.
5 Hey You, Pikachu!
This is probably the last game you expected on this list but Hey You, Pikachu! — while deservedly in the spin-off camp of Pokemon titles (because no one preferred this over Pokemon Yellow) — still has the potential to dominate the “virtual pet” market. Let’s not mince words, the original Hey You! was easily the worst Pokemon game released until that point. The gameplay loop was dreadfully simple: Prof. Oak tasks you with learning to communicate with Pokemon, you find a Pikachu and feed it, house it, take it fishing, and “talk” to it… rinse and repeat.
So why does this flop deserve another shot? Because today it wouldn’t have to be a game on a console requiring a microphone peripheral. All of the tech that Hey You! tried (and failed) to implement is standard on every smartphone. A Hey You! expansion could be rolled into the Pokemon Home app, for example. Digimon was able to compete with Pokemon in the first place is because it launched as a Tamagotchi successor that nearly everyone could afford — no console required, just keychains.
Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing show us that people still love chores as video games. The bygone FarmVille craze proved that even non-gamers will set aside real responsibilities to water crops. Combine v-pet and casual life-sim mechanics in a low-barrier-to-entry app that lets you talk to your Pokemon on the phone you already have and that app will be a best seller overnight.
Players didn’t hate the idea of Hey You!, they hated the microphone that barely worked, and they hated thinking that their money should have gone to Pokemon Stadium instead. Reboot Hey You! (the tech behind camp mode in Sword/Shield is already halfway there), make it “freemium” and make it work, then the community will flock to it.
4 Pokemon Colosseum
Pokemon Colosseum (and its sequel, Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness) freshened up the series in a way that no one had asked for, but we appreciated nonetheless. Colosseum saw the series tip-toe closer to a melodramatic plot that you’d expect from other JRPGs.
No more catching Pokemon to pit them against those of other trainers and achieve fame and glory: Colosseum had you “snag” shadow Pokemon and befriend them (by forcing them to battle, ironically) to purify the darkness in their hearts. You probably think that sounds more like a rejected Kingdom Hearts mini-game than the plot of a collect-a-thon meant to sell trading cards and plushies to children, but alas, that’s Colosseum in a nutshell.
Colosseum also highlighted new mechanics, such as double battles, which the game relied on heavily. Even the multiplayer mode, which was essentially a slimmed-down clone of Pokemon Stadium’s battle mode, had two players face off with two Pokemon at a time, or four players on teams of two each controlling one Pokemon at a time.
Three other Gameboys and Hoenn League games were required for Colosseum’s multiplayer to work, but removing that barricade and rebooting the series on Switch would make perfect sense given the console’s selling points: inclusivity and accessibility. The people want to flex their Poke-skills with three of their friends and four joy-cons. Make it happen, Nintendo.
3 Pokemon Rumble
The original Pokemon Rumble and Pokemon Rumble Blast games weren’t huge successes and the series has been the runaway of the Pokemon franchise, never remaining on the same console for more than one entry.
The games are real-time action adventures with mash-to-win mechanics that cater to more casual Pokemon fans. The limited size of each map and low-polygon character models give the game a retro “dungeon-esque” feel. Each Pokemon attacks in a different AoE pattern, and you switch through Pokemon to cut through mobs more efficiently, not unlike how you’d switch spells or runes in Diablo to suit a new situation.
The latest installment, Pokemon Rumble Rush, fittingly set up shop on mobile app stores where the series probably should have been from the beginning. These games are aimed at younger audiences, relying on ultra-simplified control schemes. But considering the amount of mobile-style games on the Nintendo Switch eshop, and given that the Fortnite Switch port already defaults to match-make with mobile phones, it seems a cross-platform mobile and Switch sequel of Rumble could be achieved with relative ease. Merging the player-base between console owners and phone users would help to increase the popularity of the series as well.
2 Pokken Tournament
Pokken Tournament is the crossover event that no one saw coming. If Bandai Namco is good at two things, it’s marketing toys and merchandise to kids and remaining an industry leader in fighting game development.
Pokemon and Tekken was, unexpectedly, a match made in heaven. Although Pokken Tournament did receive a generous update both graphically and in its character roster when it was ported to the Switch (as Pokken Tournament DX), it still deserves a fully-fledged sequel.
We’d love to see Bandai Namco push the memory limitations of Switch games to expand the roster of fighters even more. Taking a peek at the netcode of another Bandai Namco produced title, Guilty Gear Strive, wouldn’t hurt the online experience either.
1 Pokemon Stadium
The mainline Pokemon games defined the multiplayer turn-based JRPG format. Whereas Final Fantasy concretized the single-player experience for the genre, that series never grasped what players wanted out of multiplayer games. Even when Final Fantasy IV added support for a second controller in combat, it was a feature that players barely used.
Pokemon’s link-cable-facilitated duels were the gold standard for competitive turn-based combat, but the need for two handhelds, two games (preferably different games from the same generation), and the aforementioned cables meant that Pokemon battles were cost-prohibitive for many families. If you had a sibling or two, your collective excitement for a new Pokemon generation was directly proportionate to your parents’ dread… peace be unto their wallets.
Pokemon Stadium alleviated some of that financial burden. A single game, a single console, and two controllers were enough to keep the kids entertained all day. Assigning commands to specific buttons, instead of selecting them with a cursor, mitigated the annoyance of screen-peaking. Of course, the Stadium games were intended to be played along with the handheld titles of the same generation, but you could do a lot without importing Pokemon.
Once your tournament was over and a champion had been crowned it was time to move over to the mini-games. Colosseum may have scratched the itch for a full-color, 3D, story-based console Pokemon game, but it still lacked a lot of functionality that Stadium had.
In a world where couch co-op games are lacking in the triple-A space, it’s bizarre that Nintendo hasn’t revived this iconic entry from the world’s most profitable video game series. A Stadium and Colosseum reboot can coexist too, especially if the former focuses more on the mini-game/party game modes that almost outshone the traditional battle mode on N64.
