We all remember that magical Summer when it seemed like virtually everyone was outdoors on their own personal Pokémon adventure. In 2016, The Pokémon Company joined forces with augmented reality game developer Niantic to create Pokémon Go, the mobile game that took the world by storm. Much loved among Pokémon fans and puzzle enthusiasts alike, it deserves to be remembered as an excellent Pokémon game in its own right.

Combined with the familiar look of the anime, it makes for an immensely entertaining competitive puzzle game that can drain away entire afternoons. It takes an otherwise unassuming puzzle game and positively drenches it in Pokémon, recreating the gym battles from the original games while also featuring duels with Team Rocket.Īt its core, Pokémon Puzzle League is effectively a reskin of Panel de Pon - an outstanding Super NES puzzle game in which blocks are cleared by arranging colors in horizontal or vertical lines. Borrowing heavily from the look of the anime circa the ‘90s, it includes clips, voice-acting, and other flourishes more commonly found on the disc-based systems of the era.

Pokémon Puzzle League is quietly one of the best-looking games on the Nintendo 64.