You travel across a region based on the British countryside catching creatures, training them, and battling gym leaders in packed sports stadiums. Battles are turn-based, so you pick a move from a menu and wait, and for one fight per match your creature grows to skyscraper size. There is a big open field called the Wild Area where you can see Pokemon wandering around and team up with three other players to take down giant ones.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes
The short version
It streamlines the formula nicely for newcomers, though longtime fans rightly grumbled about cut content and a National Dex that no longer includes everyone.
In the hands
Wild Area exploration and dynamax battles add spectacle, but the pacing still leans heavily on decades-old turn-based structure that some will find too familiar.
Look and sound
The stadium crowds and lighting effects give raids real presence, even if the overworld textures and pop-in betray the engine's limits.
The long haul
It's a solid on-ramp for kids or series newcomers, and raid battles give it decent social legs, but veterans may want to wait for a bigger leap.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
If you have never played a Pokemon game, the idea is simple. You walk around a countryside, run into wild creatures, weaken them in a fight, and throw a ball to catch them so they join your team of six. Battles are turn-based, you pick a move off a menu and watch it play out, and the strategy is knowing that water beats fire, fire beats grass, and so on. This one is set in a region based on Britain, all rolling hills, stone bridges, and industrial towns.
The story is a sports tournament. You travel from town to town challenging gym leaders, each of whom specializes in one type, and each match happens in a packed stadium with a roaring crowd and a theme song. Once per battle you can make one of your creatures grow to the size of a building for three turns, which turns a normal fight into a spectacle. Between towns there is a big open field where you can see Pokemon wandering around in the grass rather than jumping out at random, and the weather changes daily, which changes what shows up.
It is on the easy side and fairly linear, which makes it a good first Pokemon game but a quick one for veterans, roughly twenty-five to thirty hours for the main story. The best extra is raid battles, where you and three other players team up online to bring down a single giant Pokemon. Two paid expansions add larger open areas with better exploration. The visuals are plain for a home console and things pop into view in the distance, which is the most common complaint, but the core loop of catching and training is as satisfying as ever.