The Pokémon Company · Game · Switch 2 · ESRB E · Mar 5, 2026
77Worth it
Metacritic 89Keeper Score 77
Worth your time, but not a Keeper. It scores 77 and a Keeper needs 85. What holds it back is the critics: 89 on Metacritic is tied for 5th of the 45 games we scored and still earns only 27 of the 40 points. We'll score it again as the numbers settle.
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Where the 77 comes from
Critics27/40
Critic score 89. A 70 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 40 points.
Audience14/20
Audience score 86. A 60 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 20 points.
Track record12/15
A cozy life sim, a new kind of game for the series, so the track record counts for less.
Staying power24/25
Sold 2.2 million in four days and passed 5 million in just over four months, per Nintendo.
27 + 14 + 12 + 24 = 77
Scores used: Metacritic 89 (116 critics), user 8.6 (1,788 ratings). Numbers checked September 16, 2026. See the main source.
One short email when something new makes the list: an album to play, a game to buy, a film to watch, a book to read, tech worth buying, a thing that lasts. Nothing else.
How the score works
Albums, games, films, shows and books
Critics, 40. The published aggregate from Metacritic, OpenCritic, Album of the Year or Rotten Tomatoes. For books, Book Marks grades every major review rave, positive, mixed or pan; we read those as 100, 75, 50 and 25 and take the average. Almost everything reviewed lands between 70 and 98, so a 70 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 40.
Audience, 20. What people who paid for it say, from user scores, Steam reviews and, for books, the Goodreads average times 20. A 60 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 20.
Track record, 15. Whether the people who made it have made things that lasted before. Debuts start lower on purpose.
Staying power, 25. What happens after launch week: chart runs, players who stick around, renewals, sales that keep going, prize shortlists.
A Keeper is our bet on what lasts. Some releases show it right away: the reviews, the players and the people behind them all point the same way, the way they did for Elden Ring. For albums, games, films, shows and books, 85 or above is a Keeper and 75 to 84 is worth your time. Things and tech need 80. We score everything again as time goes by, and a Keeper that fades loses the label. Nobody pays to be here or pays for a score. Every score links to where its numbers came from. Each one has a link to find it on Amazon, and as an Amazon Associate, Keepers earns from qualifying purchases.