Continuing the Pokémon themed news from the Serperior/Emboar/Samurott disribution comes new details of the upcoming Pokémon beat 'em up, Pokkén Tournament, courtesy of producer and Tekken team lead Katsuhiro Harada. Mixing the solid competitive beat 'em up action that Tekken's known for with the lovable Poké creatures, little has been known about Pokkén Tournament for some time - but we have brand new gameplay footage from the Japanese Niconico stream that you can watch right here.
Along with the juicy new footage (our favourite part was karate Pikachu) we got the confirmation that it's not just the fairly humanoid fighting types that'll be playable in the game, with Pikachu, Gardevoir and Suicune joining Lucario and Machamp as part of the ever growing roster.
Perhaps surprisingly, the gameplay actually seems very different to a standard Tekken game, playing more like other Namco made arena based fighters such as their Naruto and Dragon Ball Z series, allowing fighters to duel in either long range or close quarters combat, with much more freedom of movement. Either way, it looks like a lot of fun - and is the perhaps the first beat 'em up since Dead or Alive to get most of the team excited.
There's even a SNES like controller option for those unfamiliar with fighting sticks.
Fighters will have a weak attack, strong attack, "Pokémon" attack, assist and jump at their disposal. Blocking will also be handled a little differently, instead replaced by a shield that degrades with use, not unlike Smash Bros. The aforementioned "Pokémon" attack will either be just a Pokémon's super special move - like Pikachu's Volt Tackle - or perhaps even a Mega Evolution (which feature in the footage), but is more likely to be a general special move.
Assist moves will also allow fighters to call upon other Pokémon to attack an opponent. So far the only confirmed "Support Pokémon" are the electric squirrel Emolga, fire fox Fenekin, everyone's favourite stuck up grass snake Snivy (or Smugleaf, if you prefer) and the mini loch ness monster that is Lapras. It's an idea we've seen in plenty of fighting games (most notably the Capcom vs Marvel series), but we're pretty sure it's against the rules of a Pokémon battle to use more than one 'mon.
"Support Pokémon" will be able to assist you in battle.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is amiibo functionality, and while Pokkén Tournament has only been confirmed for Japanese Arcades (with no details on a Wii U release), there's nothing stopping Nintendo from implementing support for the NFC based figurines. Past arcade titles used Gamecube memory cards to transfer data back and forth between the systems and unlock bonus content, so it's not too much of a stretch to think that amiibo could be utilized in the same way.
As soon as we get more info on Pokkén Fighters we'll let you know. Until then which Pokemon do you think should be added to the game - either as a playable fighter or assist character? Be sure to let us know in the comments below.
