3 Pokémon Games That Have Aged Truly Horribly

Published Aug 23, 2026, 1:00 PM EDT Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work. Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work. Sign in to your ScreenRant account There are so many Pokémon games, the vast majority of which remain genre-defining classics that are still absolutely worth playing today. Indeed, some of the very best Pokémon games, no matter what era they came from, are held aloft by their timeless aesthetic, compelling gameplay loop, and accessible mechanics. It is rare to find a Pokémon game that has aged poorly as a result, which is phenomenal for a series that is as old as it is. However, among all of the best-selling Pokémon games and legendary releases, there are a few games that, despite being incredible during the era they were released in, have aged rather poorly since. That isn't to detract from how revolutionary they were at the time, but rather to accept that, today, they just aren't worth playing. When our backlogs are so stuffed we barely have the time to play the games we actually want to, Pokémon or otherwise, why bother with these few poorly aged titles? 3 Pokémon Red & Blue Pokémon Red and Blue were, naturally, amazing for their time. They were the first Pokémon games ever released (Blue launched as Green in Japan and was later rebranded for an international audience) and proved to the world that its monster-catching and taming formula worked perfectly. Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen proved that these games were largely timeless, as they spruced their respective experiences up with a new coat of paint and some handy quality-of-life improvements. However, today, Red and Blue, for all their amazing accomplishments and impact on the gaming industry, have not aged well. Their primitive pixel art visuals are painful to look at, the lack of running shoes makes exploration a chore, the lack of balancing between certain types makes some battles too trivial or punishingly difficult, numerous bugs, and inventory issues (to name a few) hold them back from being true classics of the genre. Today, playing Red and Blue is a chore, especially when FireRed and LeafGreen offer the exact same experience but at a significantly higher level of quality. 2 Pokémon Sword & Shield The vast majority of the Nintendo Switch Pokémon games could have very easily been put on this list, including the recently released and extremely controversial Pokémon Legends: Z-A. It isn't just for their abysmal visuals, which greatly age them in a way the earlier games are exempt from thanks to their timeless pixel art aesthetic, but also for their unfortunate simplification of the core mechanics to the point where they feel unbelievably easy to complete. Sword and Shield, however, feels like the worst-aged game of the modern entries. Its story is hollow, the lack of voice acting making its already banal script even worse; its visuals looked bad for 2019 and significantly worse today; its open-world Wild Area felt flat and lifeless; its linear design, easy gameplay, lack of refined animations, and missing National Pokédex all felt like unacceptable absences for the first mainline home console Pokémon release. In short, it was a fumbled misstep, one that never got better with time, and has aged even more thanks to Game Freak's inability to improve since. 1 Pokémon Dash Pokémon Dash was abysmal the day it was released and has only gotten worse since. It is no small secret that Pokémon Dash was an overpriced tech demo for the Nintendo DS's touchscreen, a rushed-out, lackluster experience that is understandably the most forgotten Pokémon spin-off in existence. However, at the time, there was at least some novelty to its control scheme, even if it never worked, and our tolerance for repetitive gameplay was a tad higher, if only out of ignorance and a lack of better games on the DS. However, since its release, Pokémon Dash has aged like milk. It is an unbearably boring game to go back to today, its controls proving annoying, its gameplay limited and dull, and its visuals largely uninspired. There are few redeeming features about Pokémon Dash, and I struggle to believe anyone has any lasting fond memories of it. Pokémon Dash may very well be the worst Pokémon game of all time, but at the very least, it is the one that has aged the worst. TV Show(s) Pokémon Video Game(s) Pokemon Red and Blue, Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Gold and Silver, Pokémon Crystal, Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, Pokemon Sapphire, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, Pokemon Platinum, Pokemon Black and White, Pokemon Black and White 2, Pokemon X and Y, Pokemon Sun and Moon, Pokemon Sword and Shield, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, Pokemon Winds and Waves, Pokemon Legends Arceus, Pokemon Legends Z-A Genres RPG Created by Satoshi Taijiri, Ken Sugimori, Junichi Masuda First Film Pokemon: The First Movie First TV Show Pokémon