The bulk of the game takes place on the board. To start off, the starting player is chosen at random. The first player makes the decision to move their pieces. There are two portals from which Pokémon can be spawned on each player's side. If a piece is on top of a portal, the player cannot use it to put a Pokémon on the field. The idea of the game is to either have one of your pieces reach the goal spot on the opponent's side, or to remove all the opponent's pieces from the board and prevent them from putting on new pieces. You have a limit of 300 turns per match.

Each player starts with 6 Pokémon, but as they are defeated, they will go into the backup. You can only have two Pokémon in the backup area at any one time. If another is to go in, then one is sent back to your bench and can be used in gameplay again.

Each Pokémon piece can move a set amount of spaces from 1 to 3 depending on the piece. This can be reduced, however, by special effects from an opponent's attack such as String Shot. You can move one piece per turn.

When it's your turn, you can tap each piece and see how far they can travel and what they can do. You can only attack if your piece is adjacent to the opponent's piece.

If you are unsure how to move, you can let the computer take your move for you, making the most logical course of action.

Combat is quite simple in this game. Each Pokémon piece has got a wheel of moves that it can do. When combat is activated, both players spin their wheel and wherever it stops, that's the attack that is activated. Whichever attack happens depends on the colour

There are various Support cards that can be used to augment these attacks.

Like the main games, there are a numer of status afflictions that can afflict your pieces and your opponent's pieces. These can be afflicted through Purple moves, or by special effects of White moves. The conditions are as follows

There are various Support cards that can be used to heal these conditions.

As you play the game, you can actually level your figures up. This allows for you to have a little bit of customisation to your figures. With each level, you will get a point which will allow you to alter the size of one of your attacks, either making it larger or smaller. This will allow for you to remove some Miss chances and increase your most powerful attacks.

Even if you lose, you will get experience.

You can also level up by fusing various figures in the deck option. You will lose the side figures that are selected for this. When you have selected the figures that you want to fuse, you can then spend coins in order to fuse them. The experience gained for the main figure is equal to that of all the experience from each figure added together.

Each Pokémon has only 5 levels, giving an addition of +4 bringing the total move spaces up to 100.

As of Version 4, a new update called Carmonite became available. This allowed you to get your Pokémon up to Level 10. It can only be used once the figure is Level 5. With that, you can then increase other moves widths while decreasing others

As of Version 1.2.1, when you fuse with the same figure, it'll increase a new level bar known as the Chain Level. This allows for you to combine figures of the same species to boost the level and the amount you need to increase changes depending on the figures rarity
EX- 1
R- 3
UC- 9
C- 30
This can also be done by using the Cube items.

When your Chain Level increases, you gain the ability to increase the power of a move by 1 point meaning a move that was 40 can now be 41, allowing for your figure to have an advantage over others of the same figure. The amount of Carmonite for each level is different depending upon the rarity of the figure
UX - 50
EX - 40
R - 30
UC - 20
C - 10

As the game is free to play it has an Energy Gauge. This gauge increases over time by 1 point for every 2 minutes. Each stage you play in the game costs a certain amount of energy to play. This energy is depleted when you go into the match and they cannot be played if you do not have the required energy

To play the ranked matches, you need to have special Lounge Tickets to play. For each match, you have to use one Lounge Ticket. These are obtained through the story mode as well as in Check-in Bonuses each day. This was removed in Version 2

Evolution is a feature introduced in Version 2 of the game. When you get a figure that evolves from another, you have the ability to attach that figure to the previous evolution when selecting the Pokémon in the deck. When the Pokémon defeats a Pokémon in battle, it gains the ability to evolve. The evolved figure takes the new details of the figure, but adds 10 to the damage and ☆ to each of the moves, making it more powerful than a standard figure of its species. This can make your Pokémon even more powerful than before.

Some Pokémon can evolve more than once, giving you a variety of options for your Pokémon.

Mega Evolution is a feature introduced in Version 5 of the game. When you get a figure that is a Mega Evolution of another, you can equip it in the deck and you'll receive a special plate to Mega Evolve the Pokémon. When a Pokémon is Mega Evolved, it will remain Mega Evolved for 7 turns. They typically have more power and have an effect that affects your entire team of figures.

You can only Mega Evolve 1 Pokémon per game.

Z-Moves are a feature introduced in Version 7 of the game. As you make moves through the game, you power up your Z-Move gauge. When it's full, you have the ability to activate the Z-Move on any Pokémon you have in play. The Z-Move will be able to be selected based on the Pokémon's type, with each Z-Move having a different effect. If it's a White Attack, the power is double the highest power of the figure's strongest move.

Certain other figures also have their own unique Z-Moves.