Pokémon is such a huge franchise that it can afford to make spinoff games of itself and test the waters for new styles without much concern. If the game flops or isn't received well long-term by the player base, they don't have to keep making them.

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That just means that there are a ton of spinoff games that may or may not take into account the same rules and lore of the main series. That also means that some are absolute gems, while others are not all that great. In the case of Pokémon, there are more spinoff games than mainline ones, and knowing which ones are actually worth playing can be daunting.

10 Best: Pokémon Go Gets People Exploring The Real World

Pokémon Go took the world by storm and continues to appeal to a massive crowd, even during difficult times. Every month they host Community Days where the spawn rate of a specific Pokémon is increased with the chance of shinies also going up, and a special move if the Pokémon is evolved within the timeframe.

The best part about it is that caught Pokémon within Go can be transferred onto Pokémon Home, which means that all those shinies can be brought up to the current version as long as they're compatible for the dex.

9 Worst: Pokémon Channel Is Just Hey You Pikachu! But Worse

Pokemon Channel

Pokémon Channel was released as essentially an interactive movie where the player sits back and watches as the Pokémon go about their business with very little being able to be altered by the player.

At least Hey You, Pikachu! gave the players the ability to interact with the Pikachu like on a little pet simulator. While some interactive movies are able to pull it off and make for an enjoyable experience, Pokémon Channel is just boring.

8 Best: New Pokémon Snap Revives An Old Love

Pokémon Snap was a cult classic, with many fans begging for a re-release. They were pleasantly surprised when New Pokémon Snap was released for Switch in all of its beautiful glory, bringing in old and new characters as well as new adventures pretty much nobody was expecting.

The game isn't long by any means, but there's enough in it to keep fans entertained for ages in a relaxing manner, something many games aren't capable of. It's a great game to fall back on for a little bit before moving onto something else, even if it's just to spend too long looking at the graphics as the NEO-One carries the player through the course.

7 Worst: Rumble Rush Could Have Been Awesome If It Wasn't Such A Cash Grab

Pokemon Rumble Rush Featured

Pokémon Rumble Rush was adorable, as well as an obvious cash grab that didn't get too far in its merchandising. It had a different way to go about the classic Pokémon battles, consisting of actual toys in what felt like a child's playtime story.

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The problem was that it felt so under-baked as an idea that none of the Rumble games really were able to stick around and gain much of a following. The story, while almost there, fell flat and really felt more like a giant advertisement than it should have been.

6 Best: Colosseum Introduced Shadow Pokémon

Pokémon Colosseum is high on fans' favorite lists and extremely high on the list of spinoff games that they are hoping the Pokémon Company reboots. Since they have shown up in some form in Pokémon Go, many players are hoping that means a reboot is in the future.

Colosseum introduced the world to Shadow Pokémon— angry, manipulated monsters that needed to be purified in order to save. Typically they were simply surrounded with a purple aura and had glowing red eyes, but some special monsters were given entirely new purple and silver color schemes that fans have really been itching to work with since.

5 Worst: Quest Is Trying Too Hard To Cash In On The Blocky Game Trend

Pokemon Quest camp

Pokémon Quest is a solid hit or miss for many fans. However, there's one thing that is painfully obvious about it: The game is one massive bandwagon jumper, banking on the blocky style popularized in recent years by games such as Minecraft and Crossy Road to give them an edge in both sales and marketing.

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It's definitely great at doing that, as the style is really easily transferrable to a wide range of merchandise, including Funko Pop! and LEGO. If only it had stayed as merchandise and not a poorly thrown together game collection, it might be less obnoxious.

4 Best: Mystery Dungeon Has A Ton Of Installments For A Reason

The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series does what fans always wanted: Lets them be a Pokémon. At the beginning of every game, the player gets to take a short quiz to determine what monster they are, though it can be adjusted at the end so the player can really pick from the available options.

Then it sends the player through the world as a Pokémon, solving puzzles and gathering up a whole collection of friends and allies as they make their way through the story at hand. The best part is the games have some unique recolors of different monsters that do not appear anywhere else, such as the purple Kecleon shopkeeper.

3 Worst: Trozei! Is Just A Basic Match-4 Game With A Pokédex

Not every one of the Pokémon spinoffs are full games in and of themselves. Some are just puzzles or re-skins of classic games. Trozei! is a generic match-four game where the player just needs to match their faces together and add them to a Pokédex.

That is it. There is no story to it worth considering, it's just like a little flash game that gets played only when there needs to be a bit of time wasted. At least the art is cute, but that's all Trozei! has going for it.

2 Best: Ranger Had A Unique Capture System

Pokémon Ranger gets a lot of mixed reviews from fans. Some love the unique capture style, various puzzles, and the more pacifist approach to collecting Pokémon to use throughout various quests. Others find it needlessly complicated to complete drawing circles around creatures as fast as possible and then not being guaranteed to keep it long term.

In the end, it is still a massively unique game and had plenty of traction as evident by the fact it spawned a sequel. The stories were cute and still felt like they were part of the world, something that not every spinoff can say for itself.

1 Worst: Masters EX Has Too Many Microtransactions

pokemon master ex gacha game

Pokémon Masters started out with some massively high hopes from fans. Eventually, the game rebranded itself as Pokémon Masters EX, which also spawned a lot of questionable marketing decisions. The strangest thing is that this game has three forms of currency: Basic treasure, paid gems, and unpaid gems. The basic currency can be used to purchase items as in any game, but then the split between paid and unpaid gems really angers many players.

Roughly half of the available Sync Pairs can only be obtained if the player has actually thrown in real money into the game, with very little that the unpaid gems earned throughout the game are good for. The worst part is that these paid gems do not even guarantee a Sync Pair, they will continue to be random drawings. So coupled along with the constant shoving in the player's face for purchasing microtransactions, they are also annoyingly being forced to play the Loot Box game.

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