Ambrella, the Japanese studio behind a number of spin-off Pokémon titles, has been fully acquired by Creatures Inc., it's been confirmed.
Pokémon fans will know Ambrella for its work on the Pokémon Rumble series, GameCube's Pokémon Channel, and N64's Hey You, Pikachu! among other titles in the franchise, but 2019's Pokémon Rumble Rush will be its last game. The acquisition actually took place towards the end of last year; an official announcement states that Creatures will gain all property rights of Ambrella's work and that the studio will be dissolved as a result.
Creatures is a development studio which has always been closely linked to The Pokémon Company, founded by Pokémon president Tsunekazu Ishihara and then-president of HAL Laboratory, Satoru Iwata. Creatures has developed a number of Pokémon titles over the years, as well as the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
It's currently unclear how the acquisition will affect the future of the Pokémon Rumble series, which saw five games launch over the course of a decade from 2009 - 2019. The last entry, the always-online Pokémon Rumble Rush, was actually shut down last summer.
[source otakuindustry.biz, via serebii.net, twitter.com]
Comments 27
I've lost all hope in Pokemon Rumble since Rumble U. If they can find a way to breathe new life into this series, than good on them. And no, a free-to-start game won't help.
Never liked Rumble, but this is interesting, and that's all I can say on the matter honestly.
I played Pokemon world a lot back in the day, shame there no longer gonna really exist
The only two somewhat good games they made were Pokémon Rumble Blast (aka Super Pokémon Rumble), and Pokémon Rumble World.
Everything else was pretty mixed.
We'll see if they bother doing anything further with the Pokémon Rumble series, but I doubt it. The mobile game was a huge misstep. I mean, what was wrong with the micro-transaction model of Rumble World? It worked well enough that they went ahead with a physical release.
Only the first two Pokémon Rumble Games really mattered to me. The first Game on WiiWare was a blast in Multiplayer, since everyone could understand the Gameplay immediately. There wasn't much substance, but it was fun in short bursts.
The secend Game on 3DS had a much stronger Focus on Single Player and added a lot off stuff, that made it well suited for Handheld Gaming.
Pokémon Rumble U was okay, but got dull really fast, because every Level was just a small Arena. Surprisingly Pokémon Rumble World wasn't that bad, if you're playing the Retail Version. Free to Play doesn't really work for this Series and pretty much killed it, in my opinion.
I would love to play a new Pokémon Rumble Game, that would expand on the Ideas of the first two Games.
Nothing will likely happen, and I'm sure we'll get another Rumble game eventually...just not in a terrible always-online way next time.
@Nagi
The interesting thing about Rumble World, is that the digital version would cost about the same as the physical version.
There's a cap on the diamonds you can purchase (roughly $30), after which they become a daily renewable and generous resource.
Pokémon Picross and Magikarp Jump use the same free to play modal and it works in their favour, you can enjoy much of the game without paying, and then eventually hit a wall where it becomes impractical to not get something small.
Although in Magikarp Jump's case, it makes the mistake of paying to speed up an idle game, somewhat defeating it.
@Nagi The F2P version had a spending limit. After spending 40$, you got the same extras which were used in the retail version later.
The only difference is that you had this one on a cart and had the option to pay less. (Not considering that you can get this for 10$ used by now).
@BowtieShyGuy @RupeeClock I'm aware of the spending limit. Team Kirby Clash Deluxe did pretty much the same thing.
The difference for me was, i got the physical Version of Pokémon Rumble World for 15€, around 2-3 Months later. Free to Play or not, i think World was decent for the most part, but it pales compared to Pokémon Rumble Blast, which you could also get rather cheap at that time.
Pokémon Rumble Rush on Mobile was a far bigger disappointment. The Gameplay war really gimped down to work on Smartphones and they added far to many microtransactions.
They made 3 mediocre games, that number being generous as a fan of Rumble, across 2 decades and the rest is pretty garbage. I'm optimistic Creatures Inc. could put out the best Rumble yet if they choose to continue it, which I don't see why they wouldn't. I just hope they don't make us wait too long.
Bummer. I had some fun with Rumble World, and was hoping this series could be interesting on Switch.
Good. These rumble games were the worst in the pokemon series.
Bring back some pokemon ranger
Unpopular opinion: I'm kind of glad to see these handheld-only spin-offs not making the jump to switch: Pokemon Rumble, Pokemon Trozei/Shuffle/Picross, Mario+Luigi, Mario vs Donkey Kong, etc. Too much oversaturation for me.
Good. They made pretty much all the bad/very mediocre Pokémon games. Including Pokémon Dash, which is not just the worst Pokémon game by far, I'm pretty certain it's one of the absolute worst games ever by a major publisher.
i wonder if this means creatures is going to start making their own pokemon rumble games. they haven't developed a game since detective pikachu and i wish they'd make more pokemon ranger games, its been over a decade since guardian signs...
@RupeeClock Why spend at all? Like "Pokémon Shuffle," you can eventually unlock all the content and beat it without spending a dime while it provides you with dozens of hours of free entertainment, and the quality of "Rumble World" itself is even better than the retail 3DS game. It and "Shuffle" are among the two best value titles available on the 3DS! I'm still not done with either game.
@BulbasaurusRex
With Pokémon Shuffle, it becomes a repetitive grind where you repeat the same Meowth stage every 2.5 hours to try and earn some extra coins towards items that are practically necessary to S-rank or even beat later stages, or added chances of catching the damn things.
I found the game utterly insufferable, the difficulty spikes to such an insane degree that you can't hope to beat stages itemless on merits of strategy alone.
There are far, far more engaging experiences you can play than Pokémon Shuffle when you consider either metric of time investment or money spent; there's no satisfaction to be found doing either.
My takeaway from Pokémon Shuffle alone was enough to avoid even beginning Pokémon Café Mix, I didn't want to embark on that journey of picking up a daily time-sink when I could spend it playing far better games or looking after myself.
@RupeeClock You don't need to grind Meowth very often. You can get most of your coins and items just by doing daily check-ins, playing the bi-weekly contests, the bi-weekly Escalation Battles, the weekly money and experience stages, and the bi-monthly item stages. I get by fine by playing only about 10-15 stages a day, and the gameplay itself is pretty fun, so a limited amount of grinding isn't bad, anyway.
Meanwhile, you're meant to gradually strengthen your Pokémon by leveling them up and giving them the Mega Speedup, Skill Swapper, and Skill EXP items so that you eventually can beat most of the tougher stages without items and more easily catch new Pokémon. It also has Mission Cards and a Survival Mode to mix things up.
@BulbasaurusRex
I'm aware of these features, they gradually introduced them during the lifespan of the game. I played far enough to unlock the EX repeat versions of stages.
The game now runs on a schedule of repeat events so it's possible for anything to do everything if they put in time, but I still feel that many of the stages are simply too difficult even with proper strategies that items become effectively essential.
@Shadowmoon522 I'm not sure if the Joycons can work as a replacement for the DS stylus. They have pretty good motion controls, but I'm not sure. Would love to see them try though.
@Shadowmoon522 I assumed they'd be the ones working on Detective Pikachu 2, that was announced for Switch a while back but hasn't been mentioned in quite some time, i'd like to see another Rumble game at some point too though, i enjoyed the 3DS ones but it still feels like the series hasn't quite reached its potential yet.
I'd say Rumble is my favorite Pokémon spin-off series. I grew up with the Rumble series, and it's entertaining and enjoyable. I remember playing the first game with my sister, and we had a good time. She always picked Giratina, and I always picked Charizard. We had such a fun time.
Even though I love the Rumble series so much, I have only ever played two games from the whole series. I've played both the original and Rush. I have never played U, World, or Blast. I'm hoping to pick up the 3DS titles sometime in the near future. Rumble U is a maybe.
@Nagi Rumble Rush was outright terrible, I agree. One of those games you pay so that it plays itself. Not surprised this one got cut off by now.
And little of value was lost. I played Rumble World and it was okay for a F2P game, but I won't lose sleep over not having another Rumble. Take the remnants of the team and put them to work on actually improving the main games or making more substantial spinoffs than the F2P garbage that's festered in this series for the last 5 years.
@Toadie making the series go down the f2p route was also a mistake that squandered its potential
@shoeses i mean, the switch dose have a touchscreen thats technically better than the 3ds's
@Shadowmoon522 I don't think that'd go over well. People aren't the biggest fan of Switch games that restrict you to a specific way of playing to begin with, let alone to the handheld mode specifically. Though I guess that'd be the only way to make it work on the Switch Lite.
@shoeses i never said to restrict it.
Tap here to load 27 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...