This is my official, nearly first Pokémon experience. Yes, I fully am aware that Pokken Tournament is playing off of Bandai Namco Entertainment’s Tekken structure. I completely am aware that typical Pokémon is a turn-based role playing game. I know all this stuff, so don’t throw it back at me. Just let me revel in my brief Pokémon glory, as I’m enormously thrilled that I tried something Pokémon-related that wasn’t called Pokémon Snap (still has a place in my heart).
In short, cut me some slack for the rest of the review.
Let’s get into it, people.
The gameplay of Pokken Tournament, as I mentioned above, is mirroring the Tekken fighting series. You’re up against another Pokémon in one-on-one fashion and you have a special set of skills/combinations that you can perform to pull off specials that equal out to beautiful fighting moves. Each Pokémon has a particular battle style in the game. Some focus on power. Some focus on speed and technique, while others are just all-around good fighters that are jacks of all trade from each category, with no particular focus (they are labeled as ‘standard’). The latter are probably the best of the bunch, while the ones focusing on power are probably the worst. In Street Fighter terms, think of power as ‘Zangief’, while standard could be ‘Ken’. Zangief is slow and steady, though up close he is a nightmare. Ken is not particularly fast, but he is pretty much an even character that can put any skilled SF character away. Comparable to the Zangief in Pokken Tournament, Charizard, in all his glory, is a slow character that has a hard time keeping up with standard-to-fast characters in a fight. Sure, you’ll be in trouble if Charizard catches you in a corner (or whatever a circular ring contains), as he’ll obliterate you, but honestly speaking he is easy to get away from in a moment of Charizard crisis. Given the right player with the right skill maybe Charizard is dangerous, but it would take some considerable strategy. This is my first problem with the gameplay, it just seems a bit unbalanced. I know there is some sort of unbalanced gameplay in all fighting games, but this one is noticeably big. If you’re going to make a fighting game, then you have to make sure that the majority of the characters, when matched together, have a fighting chance. If Charizard goes up against Lucario, he has no chance. Lucario is a Ken-esque character that is standard, but evenly matched for everyone.
Speaking of fighting, the actual fighting portion of the game, while simplistic in nature (because the demographic is a bit younger), it is incredibly addictive. In the span of 4-6 hours, I went from level 1 to 50. I was hardcore-ing it with Lucario and found particular patterns that worked from fight to fight. For example, each fight I had Lucario come out with an arced run to the opponent, kicked the heck out of the opponent, built up my synergy gauge (typical gauge in fighting games these days), held it, launched a special attack with some support Pokémon (you have a pair of support characters to choose from before each match begins) and finished the first round with my filled gauge ready to go in the second. When the second round begins the game allots you a charged support character out of the gates, which I used immediately, launched into my Mega Evolution via a charged synergy gauge and took at the enemy without much issue. This was 95% of my strategy from level 1 to 50. I never really ran into a road bump, but I never really felt like things were getting boring, so it’s a win.
Granted, not all fighting techniques worked with all characters. As I progressed through the levels C-A (kind of work in a Gran Turismo license level-esque fashion), and went through individual tournaments inside each unlocked level, I found that the difficulty of pulling the same pattern of fighting moves off was increasingly, though slowly, difficult. There were some fights in the A tournament level that required me to break from my strategic patterns, but half the time the above pattern kept working.
Let’s talk about progression in the single-player story mode. For every level you make it to (again, level C-A), you’re put into a ranked position, which is generally at the bottom of the barrel for each level. For example, you might be ranked 92nd right out of the gate. You have to fight a series of five fights at a time to rank up in the game. The goal in ranking is to be in the top 8, which will unlock a three-tier tournament and a chance to move onto the next level. Every fight you win progresses you forward. Every fight you lose sends you backwards in the ranking. It’s a neat concept, though when you get to B and A, you’re fighting 20-35 fights just to get into the tournament. Sometimes it feels repetitive, especially in the later level fights.
If that wasn’t enough for you, the game also features fights after the tournament that act as gateways into the next level. They’re single fights that you have to win to progress. In addition to that, you also get a story that includes Mewtwo, which unlocks certain aspects of the map. I don’t want to get into that too much, but it does add some variety and value to the experience.
Pokken Tournament, for the most part, is catered to a younger audience. The moves pulled off aren’t particularly difficult to achieve. Clearly Bandai Namco Entertainment wanted to make sure players weren’t feeling any frustration during the gameplay, and I say mission accomplished. My only complaint here is that the gameplay can get a bit stale because of it. In addition, the Pokémon for the game are extremely limited in numbers. You get a good 16+ main Pokémon to fight with and a slew of support Pokémon to bring in for brief periods. In a Pokémon world, which features 500+ characters, it’s very limiting. Why am I telling you these things? Well, Pokken Tournament would be far more entertaining, if there were given at least 50+ Pokémon to fight with in the game. Because it is limited, the variety of fighting techniques and ways to play the game are limited. I know this came from arcade origins, but I feel like the console version should have offered up a bit more in terms of character variety.
Speaking of variety, the gameplay does offer up some different ways of playing. You can do single player mode, open training matches, multiplayer mode, tournaments and occasional special fights, which involve big-time characters (not giving that away). Bandai Namco Entertainment included online and local modes of play, which never hurt the longevity of a game. Nintendo’s current plight to go online is given a bit of a push with a game like Pokken Tournament, so hopefully they can turn that plight into a solid game plan for future games of this type. Variety of gameplay modes is always a good thing.
Staying with variety, the customization for this game is out of control (in a good way). As you progress through tournaments, you earn prize coin that can be spent on customizing your Pokémon trainer, as well as your Pokémon trainer helper. You can change clothes, hair style, backgrounds, glasses, hats and pretty much anything you want. Does it add much to the gameplay? Eh, but it’s fun and this generation of Pokémon fans will adore this option. It does offer additional value to the overall package, which is never a bad thing.
Overall, Pokken Tournament gameplay is pretty solid. The moves can be mechanical at times, the fights are certainly intense once you progress into the higher levels and the feel of the game is superb. This feels very much like an arcade game, as it should. On the flip side to the arcade coin, the amount of characters is extremely limited, as the Pokémon list is huge enough to include far more than 16+ characters right out of the gate. More girth on the list would have helped things out tremendously. A bit more balance would have helped a few more additional features to sweeten the pot would have been great too. As it stands, the gameplay, when one doesn’t have Pokémon-tinted glasses on, is close to a good fighting game.
Shifting to a positive aspect, the presentation for this game was phenomenal. The game is visually quick, the characters are beautifully expressionistic and intricately modeled. The lighting, texture, smooth animation and the huge environments add a bunch to the quality of the title. You wanted to see some Pokémon in visual fine fashion, this is the game to do it in. It truly is a very pretty game.
With that said, let’s get to the summary.
