Nintendo has rolled out a bevy of Pokemon-related information this week, including a North American 3DS bundle and a European 2DS bundle. New information was also released on how Nintendo will be celebrating Pokemon’s 20th anniversary this year. But that load of information was not enough! They also released a lot of new information on the upcoming Pokemon fighting game made in collaboration with Bandai Namco, Pokken Tournament. This new Tekken-style 3D fighter takes Pokemon battles into a real-time realm that the RPGs simply cannot capture.
Several new fighters were announced earlier this week, including Braixen, non-shadow Mewtwo, and Garchomp. Another Pokemon was added to the ever-growing roster of characters, and it is certainly not a Pokemon anyone would have expected. That Pokemon is Chandelure, the Ghost-type Pokemon that looks like…a chandelier. It probably would not be anyone’s first choice for a Pokemon in a fighting game, but it will be interesting to see how it holds up in action against other Pokemon like Machamp. A trailer showing off Chandelure’s sure-to-be-unique moveset and fighting style in Pokken Tournament is set to release on January 31.
New details also emerged about the modes in Pokken Tournament. The Single Battle mode is a standard single player mode and will feature three difficulty settings, while Local Battle pits two players against each other, one using the Wii U Gamepad and another using another controller. Local Battle drops the frame rate from 60 FPS to 30 FPS, likely because it will be rendering two versions of a three-dimensional environment at the same time. The online modes were also explained. In the Online Friendly Match, players can battle against anyone, either those on their Friends List or by entering in a “Battle Code” for a specific Friendly Match, in an unranked battle. Online Ranked Matches are battles in which players will earn ranking points in online fights. Additionally, of special note, LAN functionality is available for Pokken Tournament, allowing players to link together two Wii U systems to battle against each other. The LAN battles will not have any frame rate drops, so two players can face off locally and both benefit from 60 FPS. This sounds rather by-the-numbers, but these are only initial details, so more may come in the future.
Support Pokemon are pairs of Pokemon that will assist the fighter Pokemon in battle, and two new pairs have been unveiled. Croagunk and Sylveon are one of those pairs, and Pachirisu and Magikarp are the other. Hopefully Magikarp provides a little more assistance than just using Splash!
Lastly, the release date for Pokken Tournament has been announced. The fighting game is set for a worldwide release on Wii U on March 18 this year. Thankfully, the wait for Pokken Tournament is not much longer now, and there is sure to be plenty more information released in the two month wait. We will be sure to keep you posted on any more news and updates! Let us know what you think about this new information below!
