6 Pokemon Spinoffs That Deserve a Revival After New Pokemon Snap

Pokemon Puzzle League

If you love Panel de Pon or Tetris Attack, then you’ll love this Pokemon spinoff. Pokemon Puzzle League has the same gameplay as Tetris Attack with a Pokemon skin slapped on top. But don’t take that negatively. Just because it’s Pokemon-themed doesn’t mean the classic Tetris Attack gameplay is any worse.

Fortunately, we already have Panel de Pon on the SNES Online App. But the memorable characters just aren’t there. Sure, some of the more hardcore Nintendo fans are familiar with Lip, but she’s no Ash, Misty, Gary, or Brock.

Besides the most popular characters and Pokemon, there are also tons of brand new ones to include since the original game released during the first gen. The wait has been long enough for a brand new Pokemon Puzzle League game.

Pokemon Conquest

This was one of the more surprising games to make it to the west over the last decade. The crossover between Pokemon and the tactical RPG franchise Nobunaga’s Ambition was well-received by the western audience, but a revival of this spinoff series seems to be dead in the water.

If you’re familiar with and enjoy the concept of Fire Emblem’s gameplay, then you would love this game. Now you might say, “we just got a new Fire Emblem game last year.” However, Pokemon Conquest and Fire Emblem are quite different.

The biggest difference in Pokemon Conquest is the focus on maintaining and protecting the castles that you capture. It’s also extremely different from every other Pokemon spinoff. A remake or sequel would be an incredibly welcome surprise.

Pokemon Colosseum/XD Gale of Darkness

These games are the closest that Pokemon spinoffs get to being a part of the mainline franchise. You’re still collecting Pokemon, running around a region with multiple towns, and battling trainers in turn-based battles. The biggest difference here are the Shadow Pokemon.

Since there are no random encounters, you can only obtain Pokemon by capturing and purifying Shadow Pokemon. It was also the first way to obtain the Johto starters and Johto Legendary trio without needing a second GBA.

Pokemon GO has taken up the mantle of featuring Shadow Pokemon. Yet, a full-fledged console experience with this completely different end goal of purifying Shadow Pokemon could be just what the franchise needs to mix things up right now.

Pokemon Trading Card Game

No lie, younger me was pretty bummed when he realized he accidentally got the Pokemon Trading Card Game for Game Boy. But once that dumb little kid actually got to playing the game, he quickly realized that he had stumbled upon a gem.

The Pokemon Trading Card Game is just what it sounds like. It’s a video game version of the card game that we all bought into but never really learned how to play. And that’s one of the best aspects of this game. It teaches you how to play quickly and simply.

There are also tons of new cards that have been released since this game came out back in 2000. A major refresher featuring brand-new cards, characters, and even a little story doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

Pokemon Stadium

The last time we got anything close to Pokemon Stadium was Battle Revolution. It was one of the first games to use the shoddy online features on the Wii and it had extremely limited single-player options. Long story short, it reviewed poorly but people still bought it because Pokemon.

The online on the Switch is much better but still not perfect. Still, online battling in Pokemon is pretty solid at this point. The two major problems people still have with Sword and Shield are the missing National Pokedex and the overall performance.

A new Pokemon Stadium could become the default game for competitive battles on the Switch. If they could focus on just creating all the Pokemon models and optimizing the game to run smoothly (constant 30 or 60fps) during battles, then revisiting this spinoff would print money.

Pokemon Pinball

I don’t know if The Pokemon Company just ran out of ideas for Pokemon Pinball after the GBA game, but there’s probably plenty to work with now. The weirdest thing about the absence of this franchise is that both games reviewed well and sold well.

It’s very rare that you won’t see The Pokemon Company milk something popular for all it’s worth. But that’s where we’re at with Pokemon Pinball in 2020. Just waiting for the next game like all the Pokemon Snap fans were up until a couple of weeks ago.

Rumble has always been a big feature in these games, so you just know they would go all out with HD rumble on the Switch. And they could even toss in the option to turn the screen to portrait mode like the Switch Arcade Archives titles.