20 January 2026

After 27 Years of Playing Pokemon Games, I’m Convinced None Will Ever Cut This Feature I Have to Hate in Secret

By newsgame

I started playing Pokemon for the first time on my birthday, thanks to a copy of Pokemon Red, around 27 years ago. It hooked me for life, and it not only became my favorite series of games (and cards) ever, but one of my favorite things in the world. I felt understood by Pokemon games in a way that actual people couldn’t, and over time, I have devoted so many hours to Pokemon TCG and Pokemon video games that I can’t even count them. From an accidental Nuzlocke Pokemon Red run as my first experience, which came to be because I was afraid that my Pokemon would be hurt and disappointed in me if they fainted in battle, all the way to shiny hunting Latios in Pokemon Legends: Z-A today, which I was lucky to find after only 94 resets, I consider Pokemon one of the best things that ever happened to me.

This is not to say that I have no grievances and pet peeves when it comes to Pokemon games. For example:

I hate how Legends: Z-A cut PLA‘s Linking Cord
I wish Pokemon Scarlet and Violet had a more enjoyable post-game experience, like Dynamax Adventures
I resent Pokemon Sword and Shield for being so good when the Crown Tundra DLC launched because it ruined all future DLC for me, and I can’t understand why the game couldn’t be this good in the first place before the DLC even came out
In my opinion, Pokemon‘s Z-Moves and Ultra Beasts were some of the worst concepts in the series, which, incidentally, came out with one of my favorite settings and regional Pokedex ever

The list could go on, and I don’t see Pokemon Red and Blue through rose-tinted glasses either, as I now think that they were not amazing games, even if they started it all. All this to say that I have experienced all the ins and outs of Pokemon, and while it’s my favorite video game series, I think it could be better still. Especially if, starting with Pokemon Wind and Wave, competitive battles started cutting viable Legendary Pokemon, or at least made supported formats with no Legendaries.

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Pokemon Gen 10 is Basically Confirmed to ‘Steal’ These Legends: Z-A Features

Pokemon Legends: Z-A and its Mega Dimension DLC made many changes to the classic formula of the series, and Gen 10 is sure to use these features.

Why Legendary Pokemon Should Be Pinnacle Story Moments, Not VGC Fodder

I believe this to be a rather unpopular opinion, or at least something that doesn’t really get much traction in online discourses, but I never liked the concept of Legendary Pokemon. Like, sure, catching Mewtwo in Pokemon Legends: Z-A in Lysandre Labs is a great story tool, much like battling Rayquaza in Gen 3 after it quells Groudon and Kyogre. Legendary Pokemon are fine if they are used this way, but I immediately box them the second I catch them because I just don’t like the idea of having this godlike creature on my team of regular mons that feel more like partners than an all-powerful being ever could.

More importantly, I heavily dislike the fact that VGC always ends up having rulesets where Legendary Pokemon are viable in competitive battles, as they most of the time warp the meta around them, they become “mandatory” to use, and you have plenty of scenarios where it’s just, I don’t know, Zacian vs. Zacian, which completely breaks the immersion. Legendary Pokemon have, most of the time, amazing stats and moves that make them incredibly strong, so it’s hard to justify using, say, a Sirfetch’d over a Terrakion. On top of that, many Legendaries have unique abilities or very strong ones picked from the regular selection, so they end up having the edge over most other critters. It’s not only Legendaries, either, as Mythical Pokemon are sometimes legal too.

How Competitive Pokemon Evolved From Gen 8 to Legends: Z-A

For example, Pokemon Legends: Z-A‘s ranked Season 5 has an entirely different meta compared to Season 4, which allowed all non-Legendary mons from the base game and DLC, as opposed to all those critters with the addition of a dozen Legendary or Mythical Pokemon. There are many similar scenarios in the series history:

Pokemon Legends: Z-A‘s Xerneas dominated the entirety of Season 2 as soon as it was made legal because of its stats and moves, making a lot of the Pokedex unusable in ranked. This reduced the number of viable options and created a meta where players could run in circles, all four using Xerneas, with those who got early KOs winning the match because Xerneas was too hard to take down from a distance or impossible to reach in close quarters.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet‘s Koraidon ruled tournaments and won the 2025 World Championship when paired with Lunala in a meta where each team had a combination of Koraidon, Miraidon, Lunala, Zamazenta, and Calyrex Shadow Rider, given the ruleset allowing two or more Legendaries per team. The meta was and still isn’t varied, with most teams using Landorus, Incineroar, Bloodmoon Ursaluna, Urshifu, Chien-Pao, Raging Bolt, Rillaboom, Chi-Yu, and Flutter Mane. Some teams even have four Legendaries at once, like Michael Kelsch’s Worlds 2025 team featuring Zamazenta, Calyrex Shadow Rider, Ogerpon, and Chien-Pao alongside Dragonite and Amoonguss.
Pokemon Sword and Shield‘s Regieleki was one of the most used Legendaries in the game in VGC alongside the usual suspects — Zacian, Landorus, Kyogre, Groudon, and Calyrex Shadow Rider. The moment restricted Legendaries were made viable, they started dominating the charts, and each team had to include at least two to have a shot at winning. GMax Venusaur, Charizard, and Rillaboom were used alongside these, with Zapdos and some Ultra Beasts also rearing their heads, but most battles were decided by the chosen Legendaries.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Best Strategies Were Early in the Meta

Murkrow spreading its wings in the anime

Again, the list goes on. These are just the three most recent competitive formats in the series, and Gen 10 is not going to be any different. Sure, Legendaries are banned at first, and it makes sense to eventually add more Pokemon to each ruleset, but restricted Legendaries and Legendaries in general are always meta-warping, no matter what. Why use Tailwind Prankster Murkrow in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet if you can use Koraidon or Miraidon? They’re different beasts entirely, quite literally, but there is a charm in early meta VGC where you can use weird strategies and still win.

How Legendary Pokemon Are Ruining The Series

You can tell me that off-meta or anti-meta Pokemon win all the time, and while that’s true to a degree, it’s the exception and not the rule, nor is it all that frequent, the later it gets in a given Pokemon game’s competitive shelf life. I would honestly play Pokemon VGC all the time if there weren’t so many Legendaries in the meta, as I think they make meta compositions duller and less interesting by default. Having one Legendary per team, maximum two, could be fun, but stacking four of them in battles into which you take four Pokemon of your team rather than all six means that a lot of the time it’s just going to be the same things over and over again. It’s uninteresting to play and uninteresting to watch, if you ask me. I’d argue it’s also uninteresting to build teams like these.

Competitive Pokemon should be a celebration of all critters and the strategies you can create with them, rather than a showdown of unique godlike creatures battling each other. Where are the unique builds, like Booster Energy Iron Jugulis to go first with Tailwind against Prankster users like Whimsicott, or even Wolfe Glick’s Perish Trap team? They do get representation in a game’s life, but at some point, they are just replaced by Legendary slop all over, and those unique, fun builds are mostly limited to EV spreads to specifically live a given move by a certain mon or boil down to what kind of held item one uses.

My Perfect Pokemon Game Has Yet to Be Made, And It Probably Never Will

To me, Legendaries in competitive are just the death knell of diversity and fun, and I wish there were an officially supported ruleset of equal importance in VGC in later stages of a Pokemon generation where you can use all the critters in the game with no Legendaries, or very limited numbers of them. What do I grind shiny Gimmighoul in Pokemon Legends: Z-A for if Gholdengo is barely usable for one season before Legendaries take over? Sure, I have a shiny Gholdengo now that I didn’t have in Gen 9, but I wish there were more variety so that I could train my hordes of shiny critters and battle with them, even test new strategies without feeling like I’m giving the win away. Give me the Thick Club Earthquake Marowak oneshotting Pokemon not weak to Ground moves over Mega Mewtwo Y or Xerneas annihilating everything any day of the week.

Pokemon Fan Art Imagines Two Mega Evolutions for Marowak

Unfortunately, after 27 years of playing most Pokemon games ever made, I can’t in good faith tell myself that there will be a time when Legendaries won’t be a key part of competitive, or that there will be an officially supported mode with the same recognition as double battles in VGC, where you can just use base game + DLC mons. There will be stages of future games where this is possible, and I will love them dearly, but these short eras will always culminate in Legendary domination, for better or for worse.