Pokkén Tournament is an intriguing new project from Bandai Namco. A game that aims to blend the Pokémon series with traditional fighter action; it has so far only been confirmed to release in Japanese arcades, with no word of a Western launch to be found. Given the console-like controller that will feature on the arcade units and the popularity of the Pokémon series, it seems like this could be a viable option for a Wii U game down the road.
In a recent video revealed at a NicoNico Choikagi 2015 stage show, Gengar was shown to be a playable fighter. The Shadow Pokémon can be seen using several of its typical moves, such as Shadow Ball, and is shown to also be able to Mega Evolve. The video is included below, with plenty of excited Japanese fans shouting things and cheering loudly:
Would you like to see this make it out of Japan? Do you think we'll be seeing this on the Wii U one day? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 48
Cool, Gengar is my 2nd favorite pokémon. I hope it will be on the Wii U!
If it comes for wiiU I hope it will get more fighters and also a story mode (if they do it like tekken it will be a small story mode for each fighter existing of a prologue, a rival scene and a end scene.)
Nintendo needs to stop playing around and announce this for WiiU and NX already.
That looks fantastic! Now just add in Nidorino (M.), have him fight Gengar, and then my nostalgia levels will go through the roof. Seriously though, you would think Nintendo would have the common sense to see this would be great for Wii U seeing how so much effort has been put into it.
I'm rather surprised that that no Wii U release has been announced. I'd quite like to play this if it ever gets released on the Wii U worldwide. Gengar's a good choice for a new fighter.
So at E3. in the presentation they'll show the gameboy intro between Gengar and Nidorino, and then transition it into Pokken just like the first episode of the anime!!
Awesome! Love me some gengar!
Wooooow this was certainly a surprise to wake up to! Gengar is an awesome choice, obviously. I like to think they'll consider Sableye as well, sometime down the line. But for now, this is too awesome. Why haven't they started on porting this onto the Wii U yet!? We need more Wii U games as awesome as this! Or is this gonna be one of the announcements for E3? Interesting...
@ekreig I expect we'd be able to play with the Game pad as well as the Pro controller for this, and the concept of that doesn't scare me at all. I'm comfortable with both controller options so for me this is essentially gonna be a walk in the park.
I would love for this to be on the Wii U, but I'm not sure if I'd get it. The reason is that I suck at fighting games (except for Smash Bros.). Still, you never know.
Is this not released in Japan yet? For some reason I thought it was.
It won't come home. F-Zero AX didn't come home. Mario Kart GP didn't come home. I refuse to get excited about a third Nintendo arcade game we will not see.
How one can punch and kick a ghost...nevermind.
@GrailUK Because they have console counterparts. F Zero had GX (Which actually if you hack the game, you get access to AX), MK has its main series which the arcade game borrows elements from (Underwater, air gliders, etc.) and besides, there's always hope Nintendo could bring back Arcade to it's Virtual Console and do it right this time....
Personally, I don't wanna see this coming here. The gameplay is very similar to the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm series, meaning a huge emphasis on cheap projectile spam (the live stream and trailers both showcase spam heavily), the controller is completely useless for a free-roam 3D arena fighter (no analog sticks = no proper control), and NamcoBandai is known for being terrible at balancing for fighting games across the board. I don't see it end even remotely well.
If only Arc System Works were to get involved with this, that might save some of the project...
Ok, this definitely needs to come to Wii U!
Why am I not surprised that Pikachu is in the game but not Raichu?
Either Game Freak will listen to the demand for a Wii U release, or they won't port it because the poster for the game looked good without the Wii U logo and try to encourage people to buy HarmoKnight instead.
@Angelic_Lapras_King Technically speaking, you didn't have to hack F-Zero GX to get access to all of AX's content. You just had to be amazingly good at the game and beat everything on the hardest difficulty.
awsome, but the music sounded really cool, im curious what song that is
Now we just need Rhydon
@Kaze_Memaryu I take it you must think the Melee scene isn't actually competitive considering that game is the worst balanced in the series. The most balanced is actually Smash 4.
Gengar looks creepy here...well, he was already creepy with that smile....but....I dunno. xD
I really hope this will see a WiiU release with Tekken 6 style campaign mode and, possibly, Tekken style customisation!
Also, if not already announced, Sneasel or at least Weavile please! That's my favourite evolution line and it could easily play like the usual token ninja characters!
@Samuel-Flutter Story Mode Chapter 7 on Very Hard difficulty
@Samuel-Flutter Easier said then done. ;P
Have you guys seen the controler for this? It's literaly the size of the game pad for no reason at all. This is definitely coming to the U
It's been advertised to the west, so it wouldn't make sense to advertise it here unless there was some plan to release it, and seeing as how arcades aren't really that popular here, obviously Nintendo has Wii U in its scopes.
@Chubblings It is a fighting game and fighting games generally come to arcades first besides it was already announced before that the arcade version would be used as a test for the game, also the fact that an arcade version would be faster then a wii u version to make but with the arcade version made it should cut down time for making a wii u version if the game is successful enough.
It was also the tekken game guy who suggested the arcade before anywhere else first if i recall.
So far i am guessing scizor, hitmonlee, shiftry, breloom, nidoking, greninja, electivire, magmorter, kangaskhan, hawucha, medicham,
Boubtful but hopeful pinsir, galvantula, trevenant, froslass, toxicroak, mienshao, blaziken, infernape, kabutops, cofagrigus
These are just my guesses not counting the ones known.
@edgedino I understand the thought process behind it all, it's just that this would be a great addition to the Wii U library, and I suppose the hype for it overcame my rational outlook on the situation. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what new characters are unveiled as we come closer to its release in Japan.
@IceClimbers In an alternate universe, maybe. But currently, Smash 4 is kinda Brawl levels in terms of balancing, at best. However, I don't know what that has to do with this, and I don't want to start that kind of discussion in here.
@DarthNocturnal If NamcoBandai deems a controller with only a D-Pad for free-roam navigation a good choice, it's easy to get an idea about how competent they are with fighters in general. Also: not over-the-top enough? Have you seen the (admittedly super-awesome-looking) Ultra Strikes (tentative name)? Pokémon may not be quite as crazy as Naruto (as if that was even possible), but the gameplay takes uncomfortably large portions of the Ultimate Ninja Storm mechanics and setups.
Tbh, I cannot say I'm excited or anything considering this isn't available to us or is known to be available in the near future. Gengar is an interesting choice for a originally to be suspected physical fighting game, but the mentality on my end is, ok so what we don't have the game. If it gets backwards compatibility for the wii u then this would be a different story, but seems unlikely when they could've just made it for the wii u to begin with..arcades aren't exactly the most popular type of gaming.
I called my Blaziken Cluck Norris. I'm sure I saw a screen shot aaages ago with one.
@Chubblings The best part with it being in the arcade first is that they can fix any balancing issues before they port it and even gives more time to make wii u exclusive version characters. not to mention some additional mode's, but i do hope they add a team vs mode.
@Kaze_Memaryu So you're saying Tekken and SoulCalibur, two of the best and most popular 3D fighting game franchises, are bad? In this video, it actually doesn't look like there's that much free-roaming. It looks more like Tekken and SoulCaliburs style of movement, a full 8 directions in a 3D arena but only moving in directions other than forward and backwards while dodging which a D-pad is best for.
Oh and FYI: NamcoBandai helped develop Smash for WiiU and 3DS as well as developing a whole host of anime-based fighting games so by saying they're incompetent with fighting games, you're also saying all of these games are bad on top of Tekken and SoulCalibur.
@Kaze_Memaryu I'd say Smash 4 is better balanced than Brawl simply because there isn't a character that's Meta Knight levels of broken. Anyways, you're right that this isn't really the place for this discussion.
Be cool if they announced this at e3!!
It makes no sense for Gengar to be in the game considering that Ghost-type Pokemon are completely immune to fighting-type attacks. =/ Even if we were to discard that fact, Gengar doesn't appear to have the physique to be a particularly effective fighter.
Some reason, when Gengar used his tongue, he reminded me of those unconventional characters from fighting games that stand out for being weird compared to other characters like Blanka from Street Fighter, Panda from Tekken, M.O.D.O.K from Marvel vs Capcom or Voldo from Soulcalibur. Those are just some of the few that I could think of but there's bound to be some other weird fighters out there.
Mario Kart GP Collection for Wii U Confirmed.
@kamifox1 Well, they are. Tekken and SoulCalibur have enormous balancing issues in every single iteration (especially with infinite loops), and their animé "fighters" are barely more than fanservice appeal with no balancing whatsoever. They never got the balancing right with any of their competitive games, and they probably never will. That's not to say they're bad games, but they're undoubtedly terrible fighting games.
Also, if you've seen the footage from the reveal stream back in February, they even show how you can reposition yourself freely to avoid AoE attacks, but that's simply painful to do with a D-Pad alone.
Okay, it only JUST occured to me: where the hell is Blaziken?! He was practically the first character confirmed for this game (together with Lucario) back when it was just a vague tease, but we haven't seen a snippet of him ever since. Is it really that hard for them to come up with a moveset for him?
I'm convinced this game was inspired by the fanmade 2D Pokémon fighting game,Type Wild
I just want Hitmonlee, Kangaskhan & Ursaring (it's Pokemon Tekken for crying out loud!), but Gengar is awesome too
@Kaze_Memaryu Tekken and SoulCalibur don't even have balancing issues though (ok, SoulCalibur V does). The whole point is each character has their own strengths and weaknesses. You, as the player, have to exploit these. It's that simple, it's also how all 3D fighters that require an ounce of skill work. If all 3D fighters were perfectly balanced, there would be no skill required and they would all be boring spam-fests.
Therefore, NamcoBandai are not incompetent when it comes to 3D fighters. They understand exactly how to make the games just challenging enough to require skill but not so challenging they become impossible (aside from some of Tekkens boss fights and some of SoulCaliburs campaign missions).
@kamifox1 I don't know where you get that, but every single fighter NamcoBandai did so far had balancing issues, some of which were never fixed despite communities constantly pointing them out. Characters each having their own strengths and weaknesses is the very foundation of every fighter, and NamcoBandai fails every time they try it.
Literally EVERY Tekken game has characters which can pull off infinite juggles, effectively meaning first hit is victory. It took me about five minutes to find such a juggle in Tag Tournament 2, and wrecked Arcade Mode mercilessly with it. There's no escape from that, since no emergency escape system exists in the game. Hell, Tekken 5 was built around infinite juggles!
SoulCalibur had Flawed hitboxes, heavy attacks with too fast recovery, easy ringout juggles, and chaingrabbing. There might be even more, but those are rather prominent complaints about the entire series.
By all means, I'm not saying NamcoBandai's fighters are no fun, but don't try to tell me they have even the slightest idea about balancing. I know how all their fighters turned out so far, and none of them give me the feeling they're competent with the genre in any definition of the word "competent".
@Kaze_Memaryu I got it from playing both franchises since they started. All of those complaints clearly came from people who don't know how to play the games properly and you pretty much just said yourself that you've only played Tekken Tag Tournament 2 which is actually built to be easier to pick up and play than all previous iterations of the series.
I haven't met a single person who knows how to play the games properly and has made the complaints you're making. Let me put it this way: If these games are as bad as you say they are, why don't they get much, if any, flak? Why are they always rated among the top fighting games (especially Tekken)? Why are Namco always credited as being among the best at creating 3D fighters? Oh and don't go saying "But none of that is true!" because as well as playing the franchises since they started, I've also followed them and Namco themselves since these franchises started.
@kamifox1 I don't recall ever saying I didn't play any other Tekken games, but saying that it's more beginner-friendly is pretty sad excuse for an unbalanced roster anyway. However, that's besides the point.
If you go to communities like SRK or Dustloop, you'll find the issues with NamcoBandai's fighter quickly. But your argument hinges on the assumption that people report any balancing issues to NamcoBandai - which they rarely ever do. They discuss it in forums and complain about it, but never forward it to the ones who could fix it (but that applies to every fighter except Skullgirls). Also, the fact that Super Smash Bros. Melee was cited as the best entry to the series all the time, but suddenly became the worst after the release of Smash 4 (ironically, not after Brawl), should show you how unreliable the "general concensus" is when it comes to judging this. The best way to determine balance issues is by comparing frame data and attack properties between characters.
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