It will come as no surprise to many that the Pokémon franchise is the highest-grossing media franchise ever. As such, it's got like, at least three or four video games under its belt. At least. Today, we're going to be looking at the worst of those games, as ranked by Metacritic. These games are considered to be the worst the series has to offer. As a note, we will only be featuring the lowest ranking title from each sub-series, such as the Rumble and Mystery Dungeon titles. Let's get right into it.
10 Pokémon Masters- 63
The mobile title Pokémon Masters is the best bad Pokémon title on Metacritic. This mobile game features a full story between all of the important characters in the main-series games. Honestly, it's pretty fun. Sure, there's all sorts of microtransactions to be bought, but the game is fun without them. It allows you to learn a little more about these characters while playing the game. However, the gameplay really isn't too satisfying, which is a problem. There's a lot of waiting when it comes to Masters. Not great, but not terrible either. Pokémon Masters earns itself the honor of an, "eh" on the official ranking scale.
9 Pokémon Quest- 62
Pokémon Quest is not a fun game. While it is nice that it really doesn't encourage you to spend a lot, it's another free-to-play game that just... isn't fun. Your gross Minecraft original 151 are collected, and you just tap the screen to make them battle very slowly. It was announced at the same time as the Let's Go! games, and was one of the first Pokémon titles to be released on the Switch, and was ported to mobile phones as well. If we're being honest, Shuffle is a much better time than Quest. Neither are really that great though.
8 Pokémon Shuffle- 56
Another spinoff that made it to consoles and phones, we have Pokémon Shuffle. Let's be blunt with this one, it's a microtransaction-filled Candy Crush Saga rip-off.
It's stupidly addicting (this is from firsthand experience), and gets to the point where you need to spend money to have a chance at beating certain levels late into the game. There's also your standard energy meters... it's a mobile game, no matter how you slice it. There are some cute little Pokémon trappings that are added to it, but overall, you're just playing Candy Crush. Doesn't mean it isn't fun though.
7 Pokémon Channel- 55
Pokémon Channel is a weird game. It's a follow-up to Hey You, Please Listen To Me For Once In Your Life Pikachu! that tasks you with watching TV shows made by Prof. Oak. This man is a professor and a TV producer? What a busy businessman. It's a weird gameplay mechanic, sure, but you can also explore some different areas and buy collectibles. There's a lot to do in the game (you can even watch full Pichu Bros. episodes), but whether or not that content is fun is really up for debate. The Pokémon Company just really doesn't know what to do with home consoles, do they?
6 Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky- 54
Oh, okay so this is criminal. Someone call the police. The governer. The SWAT team, anyone. TMZ! The fact that the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon title with the most beautiful graphics, best music and fantastic story has this low of a score? Off with their heads. This game is a masterpiece. The fact that it didn't even crack a yellow score is atrocious. Now that this entire list is invalidated... what do we do now? Go play this fantastic game, that's what we do.
5 Pokémon Dream Radar- 54
Released alongside Black and White 2, Dream Radar was a Pokémon GO-style application where you could catch Pokémon in the real world through the DS's camera.
This game was mainly just a fun little add-on to catch Pokémon and items that weren't available in the base games (along with Pokémon with competitive dream abilities), so the fact that it got such a low score isn't a surprise, it wasn't meant to be a full game.
4 Pokémon Battle Revolution- 53
Pokémon Battle Revolution was a Wii title that was essentially a battle simulator. It was a follow-up to the Stadium titles that took out the minigames. Sure, it wasn't a bad game, but the titles that it was following up just had more content in them, which is probably the reason for the low scores. Still, the ability to use your Pokémon from the DS titles is a nice treat. THIS game was truly the one with high-quality animations.
3 My Pokémon Ranch- 47
The PC Box that tried to pretend it was a video game, My Pokémon Ranch was completely unnecessary. It was literally just used as a method to transfer Pokémon around. The models were ugly, there was no gameplay. This game was meant to fool 8-year-olds who had Wii Points from Christmas to buy, thinking it was a real Pokémon game. It succeeded in its job. Just use the PC.
2 Pokémon Dash- 46
Basically a tech demo, Pokémon Dash consisted of you dragging Pikachu across the DS's touchscreen to run real fast. That's about it, which is why the scores for the title were so middling. There wasn't much content. Besides some fun extras that could be unlocked from putting a Gen Three title into the GBA slot, this game was just too light on content to be worth it.
1 Pokémon Rumble Rush- 42
The lowest-ranked Pokémon title on all of Metacritic, we have Rumble Rush. Let's make one thing clear, literally every single title in the Rush series would have been on this list if we hadn't omitted double entries, this just happened to be the worst. It's a watered-down version of a watered-down franchise, you tap the screen until things happen, as tends to be the case with mobile titles. The game was a quick cash grab produced by an outside company. Unfortunately, that's really all that this game is, which is a shame.