Best Pokemon Games on Switch

Switch Pokemon Games

I've been playing Pokemon since it first released on the Gameboy Pocket back in the late 90s. Since then, Nintendo's handhelds have evolved to the point where you can battle and catch Pokemon in brilliant 3d on your TV.

Since the Switch's release, several Pokemon titles have been released, from core series games like Sword and Shield to spin-offs like Pokken. Some were great , others absolutely sucked...looking at you, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

But enough with the negativity, here are the best Pokemon games on Switch.

5 / 5 Pokemon Sword and Shield

# of Pokemon	Legendaries	DLC?
664	11	Yes

Sword and Shield is at the bottom of this list simply due to it being the first core series game not to offer access to the full National Dex. When this was first discovered, it led to a large uproar among the fan base.

But aside from killing off a significant amount of the Pokemon population, the games introduced the Dynamax mechanic. And, while not nearly as cool as Mega Evolutions, it did provide a unique battle experience and some new forms for fan-favorite monsters like Charizard.

The game also ran very smooth even on aging Switch consoles like mine, with no game breaking glitches or performance issues. Another bonus for me were the starters.

The grass type starter, Rillaboom was a drum playing, powerful Gorilla who used a drum made of wood that summons vines to attack opposing Pokemon. The water type start was a James Bond-like, bipedal lizard.

And finally, the fire starter Cinderace was a cool pyro themed bunny soccer player. The most interesting about this bunny was that his fire attacks came from a rock he'd kick around.

4 / 5 Pokemon Let's Go Eevee

# of Pokemon	Legendaries	DLC?
151	5	No

Pokemon Let's Go Eevee and Pikachu were great remakes of the first generation games we all love so much. The games were true to the originals while adding many fun new features like mounts, master trainers, shinies, mega evolution, and more.

It was exactly what Pokemon BDSP should've aspired to be. Though, the game was not without its faults. The roster was limited to just the first 151 creatures.

In addition to this, hold items are not present in the game, which made competitive play much less interesting. The games did feature moves from later generations like Stealth Rock.

But there were no moves to remove entry hazards, like Rapid Spin, nor any held items to negate their impact to Pokemon switching in. This meant that rocks would be omnipresent in every battle with no way to remove them.

So, Pokemon like Charizard would always lose 50% of their maximum HP everytime they switch in. This effectively removed many flying and ice type monsters from serious competitive play and left the meta game in a very weird state.

3 / 5 Pokemon Legends: Arceus

# of Pokemon	Legendaries	DLC?
242	18	No...which is a crime

This game was Pokemon's first stab at an open world-ish title and it didn't disappoint. The game adopted cool catching mechanics that didn't require you to enter long, sometimes annoying battle sequences.

There were also some fun new evolutions and a very original storyline involving the player character getting stuck in the past due to a time travel mishap. My biggest complaint with the game is that we didn't get any DLC!

Our character never returns back to her or his timeline and will forever be stuck in an era without electricity and a cell phone.

2 / 5 Pokken

# of Pokemon	Legendaries	DLC?
21	3	Yes

Pokken gave us the ability to battle outside of the traditional turn-based manner we've been doing for decades now. Real-time combat along with Mega Evolutions and signature moves, made this game truly unique among Pokemon titles.

The only downside to the game was the lackluster storyline. But, to be fair, the title was intended to be an arcade-style fighting game, not a story-rich RPG.

1 / 5 Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

# of Pokemon	Legendaries	DLC?
500+	6+	Yes

After Pokemon dipped its toes in the open-world water with Legends Arceus, they took a dive into the deep end with Scarlet and Violet. And, for the most part, it worked.

Granted, the games glitch like crazy, and it's nearly impossible to see smaller Pokemon like Pawmot in the overworld, but endless exploring provides hours of fun.

Also, the smaller Pokedex doesn't sting quite as bad since we are probably numb to it after playing the other nerfed titles. The game's storyline was great, allowing non-linear progression through gym challenges and throwing in a few time travel-related surprises along the way.

My favorite feature to date is the introduction of Paradox forms. Now, we've seen ancient Pokemon past titles via fossil reanimation but never future variants like Iron Thorns.

The DLC released added all the starters from previous generations back into the game. For me, this meant playing with my favorite water starter, Totodile. The storylines for the Teal Mask and Indigo Disk felt a bit rushed but were overall enjoyable.

If you can stomach the plethora of glitches, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet provides refreshing gameplay that we haven't seen in a Pokemon title since the old GBA days. And for this reason it has been crowned the best Pokemon game on the Nintendo Switch.

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