Pokken Tournament is a break from tradition in terms of the Pokemon series. While we have seen the odd Pokemon game hit a Nintendo console, they have never taken the form of allowing you to actually control a Pokemon in a traditional battle. Nintendo has teamed up with Bandai Namco (Tekken) to give us a fighting game that lets us do the battling as our favorite Pokemon in fast and frantic battles. The partnership and game idea could not have turned out any better as Pokken Tournament is not only a great fighting game on the Wii U, it’s one of the best fighting games around on any platform.
I may be starting at the end here, but there are a few things I need to point out about a few things about what really makes Pokken Tournament great. These don’t have anything to do with the gameplay, instead they focus on the layout of the game itself. Right of the bat every character will be available to you, with only one needed to be unlocked by beating the game. This is great as you can play/practice with any of the 16 Pokemon against your friends in multiplayer modes or in basic CPU games. It’s also great that there are a ton of things to unlock for your player avatar, without Nintendo trying to nickel-and-dime you. In fact, Pokken Tournament has no DLC of anything at this point, not for characters, skins, of clothes. Also, and here’s the kicker, the online multiplayer works amazingly well right off the bat. Early reviews of multiplayer heavy games are dangerous because the net-code can suffer when hundreds/thousands of players finally jump in to play. The first weekend of Pokken Tournament was as smooth as one could hope. Games were connected usually in less than five-seconds and I suffered no lag, even on my shaky home network.
Pokken Tournament allows ones imagination run wild with the sort of in character dream matches that we envisioned as kids. Nothing is more satisfying (for me at least) than controlling a pint-sized Pikachu and kicking a Charizard right in the Poke-Balls. Still, while I don’t know most Pokemon of the games franchise past generation 1, other than some popular ones, the ones included here are pretty diverse and fun to explore. Sixteen characters may not seem a like a ton, but it’s a solid number for a brand-new fighting series. Each has a unique visual style that push the Wii U to produce something special. You can’t please everyone, especially when there are hundreds and hundreds of Pokemon, each with their own fanbase, but the game does a good job of keeping ehat cast it has varied.
Bandai Namco have crafted a game that does something that is rare in the fighting game world. The studio has made something that is incredibly easy to pick up and enjoy by fighting game newbies, but also a game with the depth that many other fighting games can’t quite match. I had so much fun kicking butt early on in the games Tournament Mode learning my character, and then getting decimated in Online Mode by players really taking advantage of the games nuances. It really shows the sort of enjoyment both casual and hardcore fans can get from a Pokemon game.