For example, Empoleon is a rather brutish character who makes use of its immense strength and stays close to the ground Darkrai, on the other hand, is a menace who disappears and reappears, glides around the arena, and uses traps against you. These characters all come under categories of ‘Standard’, ‘Technical’, ‘Speed’ or ‘Power’, have unique movesets, and behave in different ways. The roster has grown since the Wii U instalment, to a total of 21 (albeit with two of those being reasonably differentiated variations on existing characters), with Darkrai, Empoleon, Scizor, and Croagunk being copied over from the arcade version, and a completely new fighter, Decidueye, from the Pokémon Sun & Moon games. The Pokémon themselves are extremely varied too, meaning that getting to know the ins and outs of how they all work will take a lot of time. There is an awful lot to learn if you’re willing and, whilst mastering the game is a tough feat, grasping the basics is a surprisingly accessible goal. The attacks and abilities of the Pokémon change between these two phases and, if you know what you’re doing, you can trigger a phase-switch almost at will. Here, the battle will change back and forth between an open, 3D space, and the more traditional 2D, side-on view. The battles also swap between ‘Duel’ and ‘Field’ phases as you’re duking it out. This turns out to be a great thing because wow, they’re good! You can immediately tell that this is a very detailed, incredibly well-thought-out fighting game characters have moves assigned to almost every button, alternative attacks when moving sideways or in the air, combos, blocks, counter attacks, grabs – you name it! There is a rock-paper-scissors system in place surrounding grabs, attacks, and blocks, meaning that gameplay focuses more on reactions to your opponent than button-mashing or mind-numbing combo sequences. What the game is really all about, however, is the battling itself! Without wanting to spoil the plot any further, I’ll stop there and add that the story isn’t an essential part of the game by any means, but it does help to make the solo campaign feel a bit more purposeful. As you progress through these battles, a mystery surrounding a strange, aggressive, seemingly-out-of-sorts Mewtwo unfolds, and at times you will encounter the legendary ‘mon yourself.
#POKKÉN TOURNAMENT SERIES#
The plot of the solo portion of the game sees you working your way through the Ferrum League – a competition hosting a series of battles to become the champion. It isn’t really an important fact but does clear things up for fans of the main series who demand answers as to why we can suddenly control Pokémon in this way. The game explains that by harvesting the power of Synergy Stones (sources of very strong energy) into Bluetooth-like headsets called ‘Battle ARs’, trainers are able to be in sync with their Pokémon. Unlike the core series, Pokkén does not work around an RPG system and has no turn-based action to speak of you fight in real-time. Pokkén is a fighting game where you take control of the Pokémon themselves, battling in circular arenas. Does it come close to my childhood dreams, though, and more importantly: is it worth buying?įor those who may have missed the Wii U version entirely, let me explain the game’s concept. Originally released in Japanese arcades and then for Wii U, the latest version, Pokkén Tournament DX, has arrived on Nintendo Switch with some exciting new content. Now, thanks to an unlikely collaboration between Nintendo and Tekken developer, Bandai Namco, we have Pokkén Tournament – possibly the closest we have come to those dreams so far.
I’m just as much a fan of the core Pokémon games as the next trainer, but I always wanted to see Pokémon moving around like real creatures rather than sprites that wiggled slightly. Whilst games such as the Nintendo 64’s Pokémon Stadium came pretty close, seven-year-old-me’s dream of battling Pokémon in a way that feels ‘real’ has never truly been realised.