If you’re a Pokémon fan, you have no doubt experienced the mainline games with all their catching, battling, and being the very best like no one ever was. But the series has a wide selection of spin-off games that span different genres and subject matter. Even if you’ve only ever played the RPGs, there’s probably something for you in the spin-offs simply because there’s such a wide range of experiences to be found. So what better to do with an eclectic collection of Pokémon games than to come up with a qualitative ranking to decide which is the best? We’re just days away from the series’ 30th anniversary stream where we’ll learn what The Pokémon Company is up to in 2026, so to get ourselves in the mood, we’ve rounded up 25 of the most notable Pokémon spin-off games, putting them in order from real stinkers to some of the most important games and sub-series in the franchise.
This ranking was originally published in 2023.