Pokken Tournament - Wii U Standard Edition

It's finally here. There's been a lot of talk about Pokken Tournament ever since it hit the arcades in Japan in summer of 2015. From trailers and available footage, the game looked like what is essentially a supercharged version of Tekken (l always thought the name of the game was a play on Tekken Tag Tournament). This time the player fights as Pokemons in an arcade style instead of the traditional turn based-approach that's been a mainstay of the video game series. Nintendo announced a console version would be released on the Wii U in 2016 and at last, it has arrived. Pokemaniacs who have been can now rejoice as they put their hands on a copy for the Wii U.Let me start by saying how incredibly gorgeous this game looks with it's stunning graphics. The visuals are magnificent for the Wii U. The environments are and attacks look splendid. The cartoony-style graphics work like a charm on the Wii U once more. The cut scenes and mega attacks look splendid.The controls are very fluid and easy to master. As is usual per fighting games, there are different combinations you can learn. Each Pokemon has it's own set of moves that makes it unique. That's why it's fun to play with different Pokemons because no two pocket-monsters have the same moveset. For instance Pikachu and Pikachu libre are much more different than you might think. Pokemons like Gengar, Machamp and Chandelure all have their quirks that make them a blast to control for different reasons.The gamepad works pretty good and has the added benefit of the screen but l feel Pokken Tournament is best experienced with a pro-controller or the game's arcade-style controller. I'm very partial to my pro-controller for a lot of games, but since Pokken Tournament is an arcade game, the exclusive controller is the simpler and brings the most fun. It's quite comfortable and comes with a super long cord. Please note that the controller won't work with other Wii U game (l tried).In Ferum league you try to earn the championship as you go around fighting in an open-world, trying level-up your squad as you do so. This story mode provides a few hours of solid entertainment as you beat trainers and reach higher ranks and unlock content.There are 16 total Pokemons to play with:Blaziken, Braixen, Chandelure, Charizard, Garchomp, Gardevoir, Gengar, Lucario, Machamp, Mewto, Pikachu, Pikachu Libre, Sceptile, Shadow Mewto, Suicune and Weavile.The Amiibo card included with the game unlocks Shadow Mewto.Then you have 30 "assist" Pokemon who can be used at any point during combat as aides to help you. Interestingly, the assist Pokemons come in groups of two. They are:Snivy and Lapras, Emolga and Fennekin, Frogadier and Evee, Jirachi and Whimsicott Mismagius and Ninetales, Farfetch'd and Electrode, Togekiss and Rotom, Dragonite and Victini, Croagunk and Silveon, Parichisu and Magikarp, Cubone and Diglett, Magneton and Quagsire, Espeon, Yveltial and Latios, Rashiram and Cressilia.I feel Nintendo missed an opportunity to make Pokken Tournament one of it's best titles in a long time. It's a great game, make no mistake, but a few additions would have elevated it and cemented it's status among gamers.Firstly, multiplayer only supports two players at a time which is disappointing for those of us hoping for a similar experience to Super Smash Bros. A four player all-out Poke-fest war would have been a dream. I understand that it would have been difficult, but l don't think it would have been impossible. Multiplayer mode also lowers the screen rate from 60 frames-per-second to 30 fps, a significant drop when it comes to visuals.Note that it also necessitates one player using the Wii U's gamepad. As it stands, multiplayer is tons of fun and will no doubt offer countless hours of one-on-one fighting. It's still hard for me to shake off the feeling that four-player multiplayer would have brought this game to a whole new level.The comparisons to Tekken ring true but Pokken Tournament takes further steps. It takes a great fighting game and concept and expands on it. It has quickly become one of my favourite Wii U and Pokemon game. If you own a Wii U and love Pokemon or fighting games, l highly recommend you give it a try. Other than multiplayer being only two player, the game hits the spot in every possible way. I was pleasantly blown away! 5/5 stars.

Executions are very easy in this game (don't have to worry about doing quarter circle shoryuken motions the right time) making for a more fun psychological timing battle like a game of rock-paper-scissors, hand slap game or thumb wars as you try to parry, block and attack your opponent at the right time.There are two fighting phases in the game. A 3D phase (field phase) where you focus on your position and shooting projectile attacks from afar while dodging enemy attacks trying to get up close dealing massive damage and a 2D phase (duel phase) where you go through your traditional fighting game troupe of grabs, attacks (low , mid, high), blocks and parries. Each phase has different attacks variants so it switch up strategy a lot.The field phase has you locked onto your opponent at all times so you don't have to worry about any camera issues. Once you get in close or do certain attacks you will switch to a duel phase. Duel phase can switch back to field phase once a lot of damage is dealt. Switching shift can be advantagous also as you switching from one from the other can recover all your chip damage or remove all opponents chip damage depending on who initiates it, making the game more frantic, keeping battles more intense as you're on your feet the entire timeThere are 16 pokemon to choose from each varying in special moves and stats (speed, defense, attack, etc) and no one pokemon is a clone of another. Button executions are similar so you don't have to learn new moves for each character rather know how each character initiate the moves provided to them. There are also support pokemon which you can call in during battle to do stat boosts, de-buff enemy or attack the enemy. Thoughout battle to fill up a bar, when filled you can activate a pokemon's mega evolution (or a power-up state if the pokemon does not have one) where you get power up stats and access to a finishing move.There's training mode which gives a very good tutorial of the game. I recommend going through this mode first as it will give you tips you otherwise don't know if you were just to jump right in and try to learn it yourself. I may be slow at first, but it's worth it go through in my opinion.Verus mode or I would like to call couch gameplay have you and a friend battle each other; one using the game pad while the other a pro controller. This may cause problems if one prefers a controller over the other. You cannot both play on the TV screen as the field phase mode required a fixed camera angle on your character as mentioned before. There is a LAN link option if you are serious into the game.There's avatar customization also which is a nice touch. You have to gain in-game money to purchase new accessories for that character which can be earned by continuous play of the game.Ferrum battle leauge is the game's story mode where you battle varies pokemon trainer tournament style like how a pokemon league works in the anime. As you try to work your way up the tournament ladder trying to be the best there ever was; there's also a side plot about Shadow Mewtwo to switch things up a bit.Online modes include Ranked and friendly (casual mode). Ranked keeps record of your win/lose ratio and friendly mode is your typical jump in and play against anyone or a friend if you have a code. Ranked battles aside from keeping track of your win/loss ratio you always rank up and will battle players of your own rank which is a nice challenge, but if you stop playing after a while and get rusty or if someone else plays your account your win to lose ratio may falter. Online battle is pretty smooth, there are some stutters here and there at times, but most of the time it's stable. If you are not able to connect to another player online within 10secs or so, the game let's you play against a CPU until a player is found which is a nice as you don't have to constantly wait at the search screen.This game is the closest you'll get to a real pokemon battle you see in the anime, and is easily accessible to everyone as you focus on more on timing and twitch gameplay rather than complex executions.