5 Best Pokémon Games in 2026

Five Pokémon games just landed on this shelf, spanning a decade — a 3DS classic, three Switch generations, and one very ambitious city. So naturally: a ranking. Not by sales (they all sold squillions), not by nostalgia alone, and definitely not just by review scores — although the scores tell a story here, because the players and the critics have been arguing about Pokémon for six straight years.

Every score below is real and published: Metacritic user scores (the players) next to Metascores (the critics), checked 20 October 2026. Read the gaps. The gaps are the story of modern Pokémon.

5. Pokémon Scarlet & Violet (2022) — players 3.6, critics 72

The most ambitious Pokémon ever made, wearing the worst technical bruises. Paldea is a genuine open world: ride your legendary across it, take the gyms, Titans and Team Star bases in any order, and the three-path story lands a finale that players still rank among the series' best.

And then there's the frame rate. At launch, Scarlet & Violet stuttered, popped and glitched so visibly that it became the lowest-rated mainline launch in the series' history — that 3.6 is not a typo, and critics' 72 is nearly double the players' verdict. A free Switch 2 update cleans up the resolution and smoothness, and that's the version to play. The game underneath was never the problem. The schedule was.

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet on the shelf

4. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl (2021) — players 5.1, critics 73

The remake that played it safest. ILCA rebuilt Sinnoh almost exactly as the DS originals left it in 2006 — chibi characters, tile-for-tile routes — and saved all its ambition for the Grand Underground, a second map of fossil digging, Secret Bases and Hideaways that quietly fixes Sinnoh's old Pokédex gaps.

Why only fourth? Because fans asked for Pokémon Platinum — the upgraded third version — and got Diamond & Pearl instead, missing content and all. It's a lovely, faithful time capsule. It just refuses to be anything more. Cynthia's Garchomp, for the record, remains terrifying.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl on the shelf

3. Pokémon Sword & Shield (2019) — players 4.8, critics 80

Pokémon's home-console debut, and the generation that started the great fan war. Galar is a delight — gym battles as stadium spectacles, the rolling Wild Area with its free camera and co-op Max Raids, Pokémon the size of buildings. Critics were happy: 80.

Players were not, and the reason has a name: Dexit. Sword & Shield were the first mainline games where you couldn't bring every older Pokémon with you, and the announcement detonated. The user score opened in the 3s under a review-bombing wave and has only climbed back to 4.8 since. Strip the controversy away and this is a polished, charming, very British Pokémon — with the two best expansions the series has made bolted onto it.

Pokémon Sword & Shield on the shelf

2. Pokémon Legends: Z-A (2025) — players 4.8, critics 78

The reinvention. Z-A throws out thirty years of turn-based combat: battles happen in real time, you dodge attacks personally, moves have aim and cooldowns, and Mega Evolution storms back as boss fights against rogue Megas rampaging across Lumiose City. By day, wild zones and rooftops; by night, the Z-A Royale ladder from Rank Z to A.

Critics gave the Switch 2 edition a 78. Players are split down the middle (4.8): the combat revolution is real, but the entire game is one city, and the buildings are, charitably, flat. If the series' future is this battle system — and it should be — Z-A is where it started.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A on the shelf

1. Pokémon Sun & Moon (2016) — players 7.5, critics 87

And it's not close. The oldest game on this list wins both scores outright — the only one of the five where players and critics agree it's great.

Sun & Moon broke the formula with a smile: no gyms, replaced by island trials and Totem battles; no HM slaves, replaced by ride Pokémon; and the single best idea modern Pokémon ever had — Alolan regional variants, old favourites redesigned by their environment. Alola itself is warm, funny and sad in the right places, with a story carried by actual characters. It was also the last time a Pokémon game felt perfectly matched to its hardware instead of fighting it.

Yes, it's a 3DS game, the eShop is closed, and the opening hours hold your hand like a nervous parent. Hunt down a cartridge anyway. A decade of Pokémon since has been chasing the feeling Alola had for free.

Pokémon Sun & Moon on the shelf

The pattern nobody can unsee

Lay the five out in order and the trend is uncomfortable: 87, then 80, then 73, 72, and the players' scores fall off a cliff after 2016. The games got bigger — open zones, open worlds, real-time battles — while the polish that made Sun & Moon sing got thinner. The good news hiding in this list: the ambition is pointing the right way, and Z-A's combat proves Game Freak can still land a bold idea. The next mainline game just needs to ship finished.

Already on the shelf and playing a different sport entirely: Pokémon GO — the AR one that got the whole planet outside. Different list, different argument. This one belongs to the mainline five.