It will come as no surprise to many that thePokémonfranchise is the highest-grossing media franchise ever. As such, it’s got like, at least three or four video games under its belt. At least. Today, we’re going to be looking at the worst of those games, as ranked by Metacritic. These games are considered to be the worst the series has to offer. As a note, we will only be featuring the lowest ranking title from each sub-series, such as theRumbleandMystery Dungeontitles. Let’s get right into it.
10Pokémon Masters- 63
The mobile titlePokémon Mastersis the best badPokémontitle on Metacritic. This mobile game features a full story between all of the important characters in the main-series games. Honestly, it’s pretty fun. Sure, there’s all sorts of microtransactions to be bought, but the game is fun without them. It allows you to learn a little more about these characters while playing the game. However, the gameplay really isn’t too satisfying, which is a problem. There’s a lot of waiting when it comes toMasters. Not great, but not terrible either.Pokémon Mastersearns itself the honor of an, “eh” on the official ranking scale.
9Pokémon Quest- 62
Pokémon Questis not a fun game. While it is nice that it really doesn’t encourage you to spend a lot, it’s another free-to-play game that just… isn’t fun. Your grossMinecraftoriginal 151 are collected, and you just tap the screen to make them battle very slowly. It was announced at the same time as theLet’s Go!games, and was one of the firstPokémontitles to be released on the Switch, and was ported to mobile phones as well. If we’re being honest,Shuffleis a much better time thanQuest.Neither are really that great though.
8Pokémon Shuffle- 56
Another spinoff that made it to consoles andphones, we havePokémon Shuffle.Let’s be blunt with this one, it’s a microtransaction-filledCandy Crush Sagarip-off.
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It’s stupidly addicting (this is from firsthand experience), and gets to the point where you need to spend money to have a chance at beating certain levels late into the game. There’s also your standard energy meters… it’s a mobile game, no matter how you slice it. There are some cute littlePokémontrappings that are added to it, but overall, you’re just playingCandy Crush.Doesn’t mean it isn’t fun though.
7Pokémon Channel- 55
Pokémon Channelis a weird game. It’s a follow-up toHey You, Please Listen To Me For Once In Your Life Pikachu!that tasks you with watching TV shows made by Prof. Oak. This man is a professor and a TV producer? What a busy businessman. It’s a weird gameplay mechanic, sure, but you can also explore some different areas and buy collectibles. There’s a lot to do in the game (you can even watch full Pichu Bros. episodes), but whether or not that content is fun is really up for debate. The Pokémon Company just really doesn’t know what to do with home consoles, do they?
6Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky- 54
Oh, okay so this is criminal. Someone call the police. The governer. The SWAT team, anyone. TMZ! The fact that thePokémonMystery Dungeontitle with the most beautiful graphics, best music and fantastic story has this low of a score? Off with their heads. This game is a masterpiece. The fact that it didn’t even crack a yellow score is atrocious. Now that this entire list is invalidated… what do we do now? Go play this fantastic game, that’s what we do.
5Pokémon Dream Radar- 54
Released alongsideBlack and White 2,Dream Radarwas aPokémon GO-style application where you could catch Pokémon in the real world through the DS’s camera.
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This game was mainly just a fun little add-on to catch Pokémon and items that weren’t available in the base games (along with Pokémon with competitive dream abilities), so the fact that it got such a low score isn’t a surprise, it wasn’t meant to be a full game.
4Pokémon Battle Revolution- 53
Pokémon Battle Revolutionwas a Wii title that was essentially a battle simulator. It was a follow-up to theStadiumtitles that took out the minigames. Sure, it wasn’t a bad game, but the titles that it was following up just had more content in them, which is probably the reason for the low scores. Still, the ability to use yourPokémonfrom the DS titles is a nice treat. THIS game was truly the one with high-quality animations.
3My Pokémon Ranch- 47
The PC Box that tried to pretend it was a video game,MyPokémon Ranchwas completely unnecessary. It was literally just used as a method to transferPokémonaround. The models were ugly, there was no gameplay. This game was meant to fool 8-year-olds who had Wii Points from Christmas to buy, thinking it was a realPokémongame. It succeeded in its job. Just use the PC.
2Pokémon Dash- 46
Basically a tech demo,Pokémon Dashconsisted of you dragging Pikachu across the DS’s touchscreen to run real fast. That’s about it, which is why the scores for the title were so middling. There wasn’t much content. Besides some fun extras that could be unlocked from putting a Gen Three title into the GBA slot, this game was just too light on content to be worth it.
1Pokémon Rumble Rush- 42
The lowest-rankedPokémontitle on all of Metacritic, we haveRumble Rush. Let’s make one thing clear, literally every single title in theRushseries would have been on this list if we hadn’t omitted double entries, this just happened to be the worst. It’s a watered-down version of a watered-down franchise, you tap the screen until things happen, as tends to be the case with mobile titles. The game was a quick cash grab produced by an outside company. Unfortunately, that’s really all that this game is, which is a shame.
