Online has also been tightened up with better matchmaking and ranked play - though it's hardly a revolution, and none of which will likely win Pokkén any new fans. It's a neat way to get you out of your comfort zone, and to familiarise yourself with a bit more of the roster. A more profound addition, oddly enough, is the Daily Challenge that's been added, tasking you with taking to battle with different Pokémon. (Okay, it's mostly about that but still.)ĭX makes it all a bit more approachable, unlocking all the characters and supports from the off and introducing a new 3v3 mode that's cute if hardly essential. There's a zest to Pokkén Tournament that I find kind of infectious - and it's not just about working through the Ferrum League to unlock new items to dress up my avatar in. Want to see a poisonous frog face off against a chandelier? Of course you do, and Pokkén Tournament's real achievement is not only making sense of it all but making it an upbeat, energetic treat too. There's something gloriously absurd about Pokémon, a facet which Pokkén Tournament rises to with real flair. Honestly, though, I just like pounding the bejesus out of other Pokemon with an owl, because owls are kind of cool, right? A quick-winged owl with a quill of arrows to hand, Decidueye is a furious blast to play, mixing ranged attacks with close-quarters flurries and beautifully straddling the two different phases that define Pokken Tournament's battles. It's Decidueye I've been mostly drawn to (though trident-crown sporting mega penguin Empoleon is running it close), perhaps because he speaks to what I really enjoy about Pokkén. Four of them have been available for a while in the arcades, while another - generation seven's grass-type Decidueye - is entirely new.
The fundamentals haven't been touched - and, for what it's worth, I find myself in agreement with Chris Schilling's positive take on it for us when he reviewed it last year - but it's been built out to include five new characters. Who, exactly, is Pokken Tournament for then? Maybe it's for me - a casual in regards to both camps, and someone who had an awful lot of fun with Pokken Tournament when it first came to Wii U last March.Īnd I've been having an awful amount of fun with Pokkén Tournament DX, which folds a fair amount of improvements and extras into that 2016 game and comes with the added boon of being truly portable. This week marks the release of the Switch's first Pokémon game - albeit a spin-off, of course - and I doubt it'll register much, with fighting fans finding Pokkén's take on Tekken's crunchy combat not to their taste and Pokemon fans finding it lacks the breadth and sheer number of characters that they thirst for. Īll this at a time when Pokémon's star has never been higher.
I work in an office full of Pokémon fanatics, and not one of them has played or ever expressed an interesting in playing Pokkén. It's struggled to find traction closer to home, too. I've spent the past couple of days touring the various arcades of Tokyo - not a bad way to spend a September weekend - and every cabinet I've come across has sat unplayed.
I love that story, not because swearing is big, clever and funny (though it definitely is ) but because it brilliantly illustrates the weird contradiction that is Pokkén Tournament, a curious game that's struggled to find its niche since its release a couple of years back - failing to ignite the passions of the fighting game community and failing to speak to the broader Pokémon audience. Parents cupped their children's ears, quickly ushering them out of the auditorium in a scene of mild chaos. There, in the relatively family-friendly environment of a Pokémon Tournament, the air was turned briefly blue as the serious business of having Pokémon knock the crap out of each other in Bandai Namco's brawler was conducted on-stage. One of my favourite stories to arise from Pokkén Tournament's short life - a second-hand tale, I'm afraid, though I've no doubt it's true - comes from one of its early competitive showings.