Best Pokémon Switch Games

For over 25 years, one of Nintendo’s most globally popular franchises has been Pokémon, which has seen a number of titles released on the Nintendo Switch. Additionally, there is a wide variety of Pokémon game styles on the best-selling console and here are the best Pokémon games on the Switch.

Best Pokémon Switch Games

Pokkén Tournament DX

While the Pokémon franchise revolves around its fan-favorite Pocket Monsters fighting, primarily in a turn-based RPG format, there hadn’t been a true fighting game in the franchise for decades. This changed with Pokkén Tournament, originally released in Japanese arcades in 2015 before receiving a home console port on the Wii U in 2016 and a remaster on the Nintendo Switch in 2017 under the title Pokkén Tournament DX. Pokkén Tournament is a 3D arena fighter, with Pokémon battling it out with their signature special attacks and techniques.

Given all the different permutations of the franchise, one wonders why it took Nintendo and The Pokémon Company nearly 20 years to publish a Pokémon fighting game. Favoring action over the level of technical mastery seen in its contemporaries like Tekken, Pokkén Tournament moves fast and chaotically as one-on-one battles unfold. Pokkén Tournament DX ups the playable roster further as the definitive version of the popular fighting game.

Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu/Eevee!

The first Pokémon franchise main installments on the Switch was 2018’s Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu/Eevee!, a celebration of the earliest entries in the series. Taking place back in the fan-favorite Kanto region and featuring the original 151 Pokémon, players choose between Pikachu or Eevee as their starting Pokémon as they set out to become the very best Pokémon Trainer. The basic plot of Pokémon Yellow is retained, with the player facing eight Gym Leaders and Team Rocket, culminating in a showdown with the Elite Four.

While the broad strokes are similar to the classic Pokémon games, Let’s Go, Pikachu/Eevee adds plenty of modern and unique gameplay elements to update the experience. Wild Pokémon are no longer caught through harrowing battles but by luring and trapping them in a mechanic similar to Pokémon Go while the game allows for a cooperative multiplayer mode. Though some of these changes were received divisively, Let’s Go, Pikachu/Eevee is a strong entry in the continuing series.

Pokémon Sword & Shield

The eighth generation of Pokémon took inspiration from the British Isles for the franchise’s 2019 release, Pokémon Sword & Shield. Bringing back the Wild Pokémon battles that were absent in Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu/Eevee, Sword & Shield also adds new temporary transformations that let Pokémon grow and embrace their inner kaiju. Another major addition is the camping feature, with Trainers establishing camps where they can interact with other players and raise their Pokémon in new and interesting ways.

The Galar region and its native Pokémon are something that feels fully realized and invigorating to the franchise in a way the immediately preceding regions hadn’t for some time. Sword & Shield would receive DLC throughout DLC expanding the story and world further, making the game an even more sweeping experience. The best traditional Pokémon game on the Switch to date, Sword & Shield recaptures what the franchise does when it’s firing on all cylinders.

New Pokémon Snap

The original 1999 Pokémon Snap on the Nintendo 64 was a cult classic, an on-rails first-person photography game that rewarded players for capturing well-stage pictures of various Pokémon in their natural habitats. 22 years later, Nintendo followed up with a sequel on the Switch, 2021’s New Pokémon Snap, with the player character taking photographs to help Professor Mirror with his research. Reflecting the expansive growth of the franchise since the original Pokémon Snap, the number of Pokémon present has increased significantly, spanning multiple generations for the long-running series.

More than just providing an updated technical presentation, more Pokémon to document and levels to explore, New Pokémon Snap really adds a wealth of new features and ways to play the game. The photographer has a whole arsenal of new tricks to attract Pokémon and get them to pose for the camera, while players can retouch photos after taking them, removing blurred images and adding filters. It’s wild to think Nintendo hadn’t fully revisited the Pokémon Snap concept for over 20 years since the original but New Pokémon Snap makes it worth the wait.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus

The Pokémon franchise embraced the possibilities of taking its premise into action RPG territory with its 2022 game Pokémon Legends: Arceus. With a heavier emphasis on exploration, the player character travels back in time to an earlier era of the Sinnoh region, then known as Hisui. Players can now be attacked by wild and enemy Pokémon themselves, rather than letting their own Pokémon do all the hard work in a nice change of pace for the series.

Arceus feels like a natural evolution to the franchise, retaining much of the core of what made Pokémon so great and endure for decades, while catapulting it into the future. With this new approach, Arceus overhauls something as established as catching Pokémon, while creating the most immersive environment the franchise has seen. Given the game’s success, hopefully Nintendo and The Pokémon Company will return to the Pokémon Legends series, because Arceus easily stands as the best Pokémon game on the Switch.