Pokemon Champions dropped on Nintendo Switch 2 on April 8, and the first impressions are already rolling in. The Game Informer crew wasted no time, with Charles Harte sharing early thoughts on the new competitive Pokemon format just two days after launch.
What Charles Harte noticed first about Pokemon Champions
The latest episode of The Game Informer Show, hosted by Alex Van Aken, Kyle Hilliard, Charles Harte, and Marcus Stewart, dedicates the first chunk of its runtime to Pokemon Champions. Harte's early impressions cover the game's competitive format, which is designed specifically around the Switch 2 and has a mobile release (iOS and Android) still to come later in the year.
Here's the thing about Pokemon Champions: this is a dedicated competitive experience, not a mainline RPG with a battle tower tacked on. The Switch 2 launch positions it as a proper competitive platform, and Harte's early take gives listeners a sense of whether that ambition is landing.
Pokemon Champions launched on Nintendo Switch 2 on April 8, with iOS and Android versions planned for later in the year.
Zelda turns 40, and the crew has opinions
After the Pokemon segment, the episode pivots to something a bit more nostalgic. The Legend of Zelda series hit its 40th anniversary this year, and the Game Informer team spends a significant stretch of the show discussing their personal favorites from across the franchise's history. The conversation ties into an upcoming magazine feature collecting reactions from around the industry, which Game Informer teased alongside the episode.
Forty years is a long time. The series has gone from the original NES dungeon crawler to Breath of the Wild's open-world reinvention, and every era has its defenders. Expect plenty of disagreement in that segment.
The rest of the episode: People of Note and Shadow Tactics
The show also squeezes in quick takes on a couple of other recent releases. People of Note, which launched April 7 across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC, gets a brief mention. Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun also comes up, specifically its Switch 2 port that released on March 18 (the original PC version dates back to December 2016, so this is a long-overdue portable version for tactical stealth fans).
The full episode breakdown runs from the Pokemon Champions discussion at 5:34, through People of Note at 24:30, Shadow Tactics at 28:54, and into the Zelda retrospective starting at 33:11.
For more Nintendo coverage and competitive gaming news, keep an eye on the latest gaming news as Pokemon Champions continues to build its player base ahead of the mobile launch.
