Pokkén Tournament

Pokkén Tournament
Wii U cover art used in all regions
Developer(s)	Bandai Namco Studios
Publisher(s)	The Pokémon Company
Director(s)	Haruki Suzaki
Producer(s)	Masaaki Hoshino Katsuhiro Harada
Designer(s)	Yasuhito Kobayashi
Programmer(s)	Sei Nakatani
Artist(s)	Hiroyasu Hosoya Hiromi Watanabe
Composer(s)	Hiroki Hashimoto Hiroyuki Kawada Rio Hamamoto Taku Inoue Eriko Sakurai Yoshinori Hirai Takafumi Sato Mitsuhiro Kitadani Yu Sugimoto Shota Kageyama
Series	Pokémon, Tekken
Platform(s)	Arcade, Wii U, Nintendo Switch
Release	Arcade JP: July 16, 2015[1] Wii U WW: March 18, 2016[2] Nintendo Switch WW: September 22, 2017
Genre(s)	Fighting
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Pokkén Tournament (Japanese: ポッ拳, Hepburn: Pokken) is a fighting video game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and published by The Pokémon Company.^[3] The game combines gameplay elements from Bandai Namco's Tekken series with characters from Nintendo's Pokémon franchise.^[4] It was released for Japanese arcades in July 2015, and worldwide for the Wii U in March 2016.^[5] An enhanced port for the Nintendo Switch, titled Pokkén Tournament DX (pronounced Pokkén Tournament Deluxe) will be released in September 2017.

Gameplay

People playing Pokkén Tournament in Sunshine City, Tokyo.

Pokkén Tournament is a fighting game in which two fighters battle against each other using various Pokémon, with gameplay shifting between "Field Phase" where the Pokémon move freely around the arena, and "Duel Phase" where they move relative to each other similar to the Tekken games. Unlike most arcade fighting games, which use a traditional joystick and buttons, the arcade version is played using console-style controllers, which are designed so that players who are not used to arcade sticks can get into the game more easily.^[6] The game focuses more on action, as opposed to the more technical gameplay of Tekken, allowing both hardcore and casual fans to enjoy it. As such, players can perform various techniques taken from the Pokémon series, such as special moves and Mega Evolutions (which can be built up from attacks using a "Synergy Gauge").^[7] Players can also use Support Pokémon to give them special benefits such as buffs in attack or defense. First-print Wii U copies of the game were packaged with a Shadow Mewtwo Amiibo card, which immediately unlocked the character for use.^[8] The title also features online play, where players can compete in two types of online battle modes called friendly battles and ranked battles, including matches between players with registered friend codes and players who enter the same VS Code as each other.^[9]

Development

Pokkén Tournament was first teased during a Pokémon Game Show event held in Japan in August 2013, with trademarks for the game filed the same month.^[10] It was officially announced at an event held by Famitsu on August 26, 2014.^[11] The Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara, Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada, and Soulcalibur producer Masaaki Hoshino attended the event, which was broadcast on Niconico, stating the collaboration came about from brainstorming ideas of new ways to play Pokémon.

At the 2015 Pokémon World Championships, it was announced that the game would be coming to the Wii U. A demo of the game was available for attendees to play at the tournament. In December 2015, Hori and Nintendo announced that a dedicated arcade controller would be released alongside the game in Japan.^[12] The game is known as Pokémon Tekken in Germany and Austria.^[13] In April 2016, Nintendo announced that another controller, inspired by Pikachu, would be released in Japan in June.^[14] In May 2016, GameStop announced that the Pikachu controller would be released in North America in August of that year in "limited quantities".^[15] In June 2017, an enhanced Nintendo Switch port was announced under the title Pokkén Tournament DX, which will be released worldwide on September 22, 2017.^[16] The port includes the last four fighters added in the arcade version, along with an additional exclusive fighter and new game modes.

Characters

Across all versions of the game, there are currently 21 different Pokémon that appear as playable characters. Sixteen of these characters are playable in all of the arcade, Wii U, and Nintendo Switch ports, with other versions having additional characters.

Pokémon	Arcade	Wii U	Switch
Blaziken
Braixen
Chandelure
Charizard
Croagunka
Empoleona
Darkraia
Decidueye
Garchompa
Gardevoir
Gengar
Lucario
Machamp
Mewtwoa
Pikachu
Pikachu Librea
Sceptilea
Scizora
Shadow Mewtwoab
Suicune
Weavile

^a Post-release addition (arcade)
^b Boss character

Assist characters

The game starts with 32 non-playable assist Pokémon that can be summoned in battle to aid the player; two of these Pokémon appear exclusively in the Nintendo Switch port of the game. These characters also come in a group of two Pokémon. The groups of assist Pokémon are:

Reception

Amusement Fantasista, a video arcade in Kurashiki, Japan, planned to remove Pokkén Tournament machines in November 2015 due to lack of profitability.^[22] Chris Carter of Destructoid noted that in the arcade version, one game credit could last a player 45 minutes, yielding low profits for each machine.^[23][24] The Wii U version entered the Media Create sales charts as the highest-selling game in the region during its debut week, with 69,675 copies sold, and was credited for a marked increase in Wii U hardware sales in the same period; 13,000 units sold compared to the previous week's 4,000.^[25]

Western reviews of the console version were mostly positive, earning a 76 out of 100 average score from aggregate review website Metacritic.^[17] In the United States, the NPD Group reported that Pokkén Tournament outsold Street Fighter V by the end of April 2016.^[26] In August 2016, Bandai Namco announced that the game had shipped over one million copies worldwide.^[27]

Pokkén Tournament was nominated for Best Fighting Game at The Game Awards 2016.^[28]

References

External links

• Official website