• Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!

Pokémon Presents - Pokémon Day 2025 - Pokemon ZA Info & Pokemon Champions Announced

If Champions is compatible with Gen 10 Pokémon whenever we get those I don’t think Mega Evolutions are going to be as strong as people might think. The power creep of newer generations continues to be insane, and for every strong Pokémon added nowadays, it feels like there’s about ten more that can check it somewhat reliably. Restricted metagames are a little bit different because those Pokémon aren’t designed with the rest of the game in mind, but for the most part I expect to see off-meta picks develop early in 2026 and reap the benefits that come from being able to hold items and not being restricted to one per battle like Megas are.

I also don’t expect any Megas’ Abilities to be changed from what they were in older games. I’ve seen Gallade and Lopunny both mentioned a few times here now and while I could see Lopunny finally being Doubles viable for the first time… maybe ever? I actually think Gallade isn’t going to find that much success. It lacks some of the extra utility Lopunny has, but even in the best case scenario where Mega Gallade does get Sharpness, it’s still prone to getting double teamed on and isn’t going to like the reintroduction of Max Airstream to the metagame. It’s also in an awkward Speed tier, I think, where it wants to be a speedy sweeper but some of those points went into its special bulk.
 
Esserise said:
Why would they not want the focus of official competitions to be the exciting, dynamic new vision for how Pokémon battling is going to be from then on? The point of Champions isn’t to be a mausoleum for Pokémon gameplay from Gens 1-9, it’s to be a dedicated competitive hub.
Click to expand...

I think I can see what you're getting at. Champions is more intended for competitive gamers and official tournament type things (small percentage of Pokemon gamers), though Gen 10 games may still have turn based PvP for average gamers. Though often times people want to play what the "pros" play, so that will be interesting to see.

bdt2002 said:
The power creep of newer generations continues to be insane, and for every strong Pokémon added nowadays, it feels like there’s about ten more that can check it somewhat reliably.
Click to expand...

That is kind of what megas were originally intended for in some cases if I am not mistaken. Still things like Audino were just outclassed by things like mega Charizard it kind of made it moot in some cases. If you were going to run a mega, there were better options.
 
pkmfan said:
Still things like Audino were just outclassed by things like mega Charizard
Click to expand...
speaking of outclassed by mega charizard, it would be nice if they updated mega houndoom so that isn't just worse than charizard y. fire type mega intended to be used in sun teams doesnt really work when charizard y is just always better than you.

I think they should give mega houndoom stakeout instead of solar power. give that good ability to a good pokemon for once.

I think stakeout makes sense even on Houndour and regular Houndoom given that two other dark lines have it (nickit and theivul in gen 8, maschiff and mabosstiff in gen 9)

doubling damage to something that just switched in is pretty good and it would be the strongest user of it. would give it a more unique niche and make its scary grim reaper vibes better.

bdt2002 said:
but even in the best case scenario where Mega Gallade does get Sharpness, it’s still prone to getting double teamed on and isn’t going to like the reintroduction of Max Airstream to the metagame. It’s also in an awkward Speed tier, I think, where it wants to be a speedy sweeper but some of those points went into its special bulk.
Click to expand...
I don't think it should be assumed that Champions is going to have a format with every old gimmick ever at once, or that the first format is going to be dynamax is back anyway.
 
Last edited:
Since we're talking about Mega abilities:

gallade-mega.gif


Sharpness would definitely be the better singles ability. That Sacred Sword off 165 Attack is no joke. However, for doubles, losing Inner Focus removes the passive Intimidate immunity, which it can't get back via Clear Amulet due to the Mega stone. That being said, Lopunny's looking to be the better Fighting Mega for doubles anyway. Maybe it should just get Sharpness after all.

mewtwo-megax.gif


Speaking of Psychic/Fighting Megas and Inner Focus, Mega Mewtwo X really should get Inner Focus instead of Steadfast. It's an ability that's still related to flinching (Steadfast increases Speed after a flinch), and this monster wants to utilize the highest Attack stat in the game, and it can't when Intimidates are being thrown around left, right, and center. It probably still won't see a lot of usage in restricted formats, especially if Mega Rayquaza is allowed alongside it, but I like it when low-usage mons get meaningful yet reasonable buffs. It could be a neat anti-meta pick against MegaKang teams or something.

252 Atk Mewtwo-Mega-X Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Kangaskhan-Mega: 228-270 (107.5 - 127.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

houndoom-mega.gif


I also agree that Solar Power is wasted on Mega Houndoom, especially when Mega Charizard Y exists. It'd actually be kinda funny if MegaDoom got Intimidate like another certain Fire/Dark Pokemon...

In all seriousness, I don't really know what I'd give this thing instead. Going off its USUM dex entries, its entire body is super-heated, to the point where it's melting under that pressure, and its Fire attacks are extremely strong. Perhaps a signature ability that's a combination of Flame Body and Tinted Lens, but just Fire-type moves hitting resists harder? "Wicked Sear" or something like that, idk lol.
 
I personally believe Mega Houndoom should had been the one with Drought. The original Solar Beam Fire type and all that.

And hell, no special treatment for Charizard, single Mega, Fire/Flying, Tough Claws, 78 HP/104 Atk/108 Def/139 SpAtk/105 SpDef/100 Spd. Gotta go in line with the other Kanto starters, you upstart winged lizard lol
 
Perriechu said:
Streets are saying the game is out there btw
Click to expand...

Well then, take this as a warning everyone.

If you wanna see leaks and datamines of this game, now is the time and they will be coming soon. If you don't want to see any leaks or datamines of this game, now is as good a time as any to step away from the Pokemon Internet if you want to go in knowing as little as possible.

Do with this as you will, folks!
 
This might sound like a strange question, but do we know when Legends ZA entered development? It is my understanding that Game Freak is still using the whole “alternating between two different development teams” thing and while it would make sense for this game to have entered development following the completion of Legends Arceus, I also remember hearing that this game runs in Scarlet & Violet’s engine so did they start working on it after that instead?

I ask this because we’ve been waiting for this game for what feels like an eternity compared to the other Switch titles and I have to wonder if the Switch 2’s delays into 2025 directly had an impact on what Game Freak had in mind for this game and for Champions. The latter is almost certainly going to be a major part of their 30th anniversary marketing, but with The Pokémon Works behind that game, am I to believe instead that Legends ZA (Game Freak) and Champions (TPW) entered development simultaneously following the ILCA merger? And wouldn’t that also mean Champions is a successor to BDSP?
 
bdt2002 said:
This might sound like a strange question, but do we know when Legends ZA entered development? It is my understanding that Game Freak is still using the whole “alternating between two different development teams” thing and while it would make sense for this game to have entered development following the completion of Legends Arceus, I also remember hearing that this game runs in Scarlet & Violet’s engine so did they start working on it after that instead?

I ask this because we’ve been waiting for this game for what feels like an eternity compared to the other Switch titles and I have to wonder if the Switch 2’s delays into 2025 directly had an impact on what Game Freak had in mind for this game and for Champions. The latter is almost certainly going to be a major part of their 30th anniversary marketing, but with The Pokémon Works behind that game, am I to believe instead that Legends ZA (Game Freak) and Champions (TPW) entered development simultaneously following the ILCA merger? And wouldn’t that also mean Champions is a successor to BDSP?
Click to expand...
I don't think we know the exact date Z-A went into develoment, but I would imagine it probably earnestly started somewhere during SV's development. If I had to guess probably around midway, but could be earlier. Then gen 10 would pickup when SV ends.

Champions is as much a "successor" BDSP as BDSP was to Home. It's the same company (more or less), but that's about it.
I don't think we have any idea when Champions entered production or what its timeline would really be like. I would assume it was around the time Works happened but that'd be 2024 so I, uh, doubt Z-A started then. It's likely a smaller scale game anyway.
 
bdt2002 said:
This might sound like a strange question, but do we know when Legends ZA entered development? It is my understanding that Game Freak is still using the whole “alternating between two different development teams” thing and while it would make sense for this game to have entered development following the completion of Legends Arceus, I also remember hearing that this game runs in Scarlet & Violet’s engine so did they start working on it after that instead?

I ask this because we’ve been waiting for this game for what feels like an eternity compared to the other Switch titles and I have to wonder if the Switch 2’s delays into 2025 directly had an impact on what Game Freak had in mind for this game and for Champions. The latter is almost certainly going to be a major part of their 30th anniversary marketing, but with The Pokémon Works behind that game, am I to believe instead that Legends ZA (Game Freak) and Champions (TPW) entered development simultaneously following the ILCA merger? And wouldn’t that also mean Champions is a successor to BDSP?
Click to expand...
I don't think it's ever been stated exactly when it started, but just because ZA uses a fork of SV's engine, doesn't mean pre-production and prototyping on the LA engine wasn't likely. The Switch 2 delays definitely had an impact on ZA's plans, though, since the DLC content was announced weeks back and has likely been finished for a while now. Had ZA released earlier, we might have gotten said DLC by now.

Also, yeah, I don't see how Champions is a "BDSP successor" just because it was made by (mostly) the same company.
 
bdt2002 said:
This might sound like a strange question, but do we know when Legends ZA entered development? It is my understanding that Game Freak is still using the whole “alternating between two different development teams” thing and while it would make sense for this game to have entered development following the completion of Legends Arceus, I also remember hearing that this game runs in Scarlet & Violet’s engine so did they start working on it after that instead?
Click to expand...
we know that legends arceus started development in fall of 2018 from a CEDEC talk Game Freak's Keiichi Maezawa gave

this equates to around 3 years of development time, which is their normal dev team schedule afaik

1759340750158.jpeg


we know from the Teraleak that Legends ZA, aka Project Ikakku, was slated to release in 2024, with DLC plans for 2025, but it was delayed a year. so around 2021 is the most likely guess until an official answer is given if/when they give a future talk about it
 
Vengeance417 said:
Also, yeah, I don't see how Champions is a "BDSP successor" just because it was made by (mostly) the same company.
Click to expand...
It’s obviously not a direct successor or anything like that, but I can see a future where The Pokémon Works are the ones behind the more traditional battling games and traditional remakes, while Game Freak handles Pokémon Legends and new generations. As much as I was expecting an ILCA Kalos game based off X & Y (hence the use of the word “successor”), this explanation suffices too, and Champions seems like a more ambitious project than whatever else we would have gotten anyway.


Incidentally, if we assume Legends games have a fiscal lifespan of one year (2022 for Arceus, 2026 for ZA and its DLC), and we assume that Gen 9 was always going to be a four-year generation from the start, that actually gives me a lot more information about what the franchise might look like after this. Keep in mind this is just what history says will happen rather than any sort of unconfirmed speculation- trust me, I have plenty of this that I never post because that would be massive levels of wishlisting.

For now, it’s looking like Legends ZA and Champions are going to be Pokémon’s main focuses of 2026 alongside any other 30th anniversary stuff, and by the time 2027 rolls around we’ll probably have Gen 10 by then if the Teraleak is to be believed. I would personally like to see Pokémon take another year-long break after this stretch, at least away from the mainline games with 2029 currently looking like the most likely time for a third, true Switch 2 exclusive Legends game should they decide to do that, seeing as ZA takes the cross-gen Legends slot as well as roughly seven years after BDSP and Hisui’s focus on Sinnoh in 2022. I specify that because the gap between ORAS (fiscal year 2015) and BDSP (fiscal year 2022) was also seven years long.

Edit: I have sources to back up every piece of information in this post if anyone’s interested. They’re not on my immediate person but I would like to think I’ve done a lot of research on this kind of stuff.
 
Last edited:
bdt2002 said:
It’s obviously not a direct successor or anything like that, but I can see a future where The Pokémon Works are the ones behind the more traditional battling games and traditional remakes, while Game Freak handles Pokémon Legends and new generations. As much as I was expecting an ILCA Kalos game based off X & Y (hence the use of the word “successor”), this explanation suffices too, and Champions seems like a more ambitious project than whatever else we would have gotten anyway.


Incidentally, if we assume Legends games have a fiscal lifespan of one year (2022 for Arceus, 2026 for ZA and its DLC), and we assume that Gen 9 was always going to be a four-year generation from the start, that actually gives me a lot more information about what the franchise might look like after this. Keep in mind this is just what history says will happen rather than any sort of unconfirmed speculation- trust me, I have plenty of this that I never post because that would be massive levels of wishlisting.

For now, it’s looking like Legends ZA and Champions are going to be Pokémon’s main focuses of 2026 alongside any other 30th anniversary stuff, and by the time 2027 rolls around we’ll probably have Gen 10 by then if the Teraleak is to be believed. I would personally like to see Pokémon take another year-long break after this stretch, at least away from the mainline games with 2029 currently looking like the most likely time for a third, true Switch 2 exclusive Legends game should they decide to do that, seeing as ZA takes the cross-gen Legends slot as well as roughly seven years after BDSP and Hisui’s focus on Sinnoh in 2022. I specify that because the gap between ORAS (fiscal year 2015) and BDSP (fiscal year 2022) was also seven years long.

Edit: I have sources to back up every piece of information in this post if anyone’s interested. They’re not on my immediate person but I would like to think I’ve done a lot of research on this kind of stuff.
Click to expand...

Gen X is absolutely their 2026 game. If ZA was going to be their 2026 focus then the DLC wouldn’t have been announced so early, which is more than likely coming in November to push further holiday sales.

Champions is apparently January according to a leak that got some info right.

I would kinda like 2026 to not be Gen X and instead just give us something like a remaster collection or something but it will be, I can’t see what else they’d do and we all know they love to make noise with their anniversaries. And Pokémon is as big as it’s ever been.

We’ll see in a few months, but Gen X is closer than we think IMO.
 
Perriechu said:
I would kinda like 2026 to not be Gen X and instead just give us something like a remaster collection or something but it will be, I can’t see what else they’d do and we all know they love to make noise with their anniversaries. And Pokémon is as big as it’s ever been.
Click to expand...
considering the 20th anniversary, they could easily just do both. we had red/green/blue/yellow added to the virtual console with sun/moon released that same year in november.
 
We're either getting unova remakes as a tied over before gen X or gen X.

Unova has been getting a lot of love lately in TCG having its own dedicated set, both switch games letting you catch their mythicals, and the swords getting paradox forms minus the center piece that is keldeo. A lot of unova mons getting either megas/regional forms/evolutions too. It seems like unova remakes are just inevitable its more a matter of if they'll take the 'faithful' approach.

It'd be really cool to see an ancient paradox genesect and future paradox of keldeo. There's still unfinished lore with kyurem too but that's probably more of a legends thing.
 
RoyalDispenser said:
We're either getting unova remakes as a tied over before gen X or gen X.

Unova has been getting a lot of love lately in TCG having its own dedicated set, both switch games letting you catch their mythicals, and the swords getting paradox forms minus the center piece that is keldeo. A lot of unova mons getting either megas/regional forms/evolutions too. It seems like unova remakes are just inevitable its more a matter of if they'll take the 'faithful' approach.
Click to expand...
they can just port and emulate bw1 and bw2 onto the switch 2 as a collection and save unova fans from having to see them mangle a very distinct art style
 
Unova remakes won't be happening and if they were to do so, I believe they would release as a late Gen X game. There has been a lot of Unova pandering this gen, but even so I can't see GF wasting Pokémon's 30th anniversary on a remake. I mean, we also had two brand new generations in both the 10th and 20th anniversary - Diamond and Pearl in 2006 and Sun and Moon in 2016.
 
XYZ15 said:
Unova remakes won't be happening and if they were to do so, I believe they would release as a late Gen X game. There has been a lot of Unova pandering this gen, but even so I can't see GF wasting Pokémon's 30th anniversary on a remake. I mean, we also had two brand new generations in both the 10th and 20th anniversary - Diamond and Pearl in 2006 and Sun and Moon in 2016.
Click to expand...
also like all of the gen 5 pokemon are already on the switch now, what would even be the point of doing a remake? the whole point of remakes was to solve this problem and now people just expect them to spend money on rebuilding an entire region from scratch? they can just pander to whatever region they want without it meaning anything in particular

the switch 2 is more than powerful enough to be able to run literally every pokemon title now, the switch 2 could probably even emulate 3DS well, there is really no point.
 
Last edited:
Honestly, VC rereleases with Home compatibility, and Legends experimental revisits, is IMO a good approach.

Unova really needs a revisit that works with the original dragon and Genesect's origin, B2W2 felt to me like they didn't really fully finish the story. BDSP had neat postgame challenges, but comparing them with either ORAS or Arceus, and... nope.

So, yeah, Unova is IMO better suited for a Legends game. Kalos was the one region that really needed extra love tho... Shame it is only Paris, but, par the course for France visits lol.

Man I really wish we had gotten Z in 2015 or so.
 
Perriechu said:
Gen X is absolutely their 2026 game. If ZA was going to be their 2026 focus then the DLC wouldn’t have been announced so early, which is more than likely coming in November to push further holiday sales.

Champions is apparently January according to a leak that got some info right.
Click to expand...

Still seems a bit busy. Game in late 2025, another a few months later, and then yet another 6-8 months after that?
 
RoyalDispenser said:
We're either getting unova remakes as a tied over before gen X or gen X.

Unova has been getting a lot of love lately in TCG having its own dedicated set, both switch games letting you catch their mythicals, and the swords getting paradox forms minus the center piece that is keldeo. A lot of unova mons getting either megas/regional forms/evolutions too. It seems like unova remakes are just inevitable its more a matter of if they'll take the 'faithful' approach.
Click to expand...
Yeah, see, here’s the problem with that. A lot of this is also true for Johto, and seeing that we got Kanto (Let’s Go) before Sinnoh (BDSP & Legends), I thought the same thing would happen again in Gen 9 and we’d get Johto before Unova. But now that both have been skipped over in favor of a region that, to be fair, probably needed it more, I don’t know what to think. If Legends ZA is the Switch 2’s only Legends game, we could be seeing another region skipped later down the line. But what if it’s not? Then you have to account for the Switch 2 having a second Legends game which could just as easily be for any other region.

Originally I had a return to Unova slated for 2028 in my predictions for a number of different reasons, before expanding the window to 2028 or 2029 for a new style of game- this might be a hot take, but I don’t see Legends Unova happening unless it’s the first Legends game to be split into two versions. Unova is arguably the only region that even tried to incorporate the “two versions” trope into its storyline and lore, and even if we do get a single version Unova game for the first time ever, there’s an argument to be made that Pokémon may not have that much interest in returning to Unova anyways. Gen 5 has the lowest sales attachment rates in the series, and similar to the Super Mario Galaxy fans (I’m one of us), I think most diehard Unova fans would prefer Black 3 & White 3 at this point if they do end up pulling the trigger on this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top