I ADORE the concept of Pokken Tournamnet: takes some of the most popular or unique critters from the biggest IP in the world and turn them into actual fighting game characters, with eccentric animations and a stunning graphical presentation.

For most things this title does exactly that. The gsmeplay is energetic and unique compared to other arena games. THe matches are fun and you are always able to turn the tides, creating an engaging combat.
The level of customization is interesting, even if the different modes don't offer a lot of variety and the story mode presented feels a bit too clichè, uneventful and boring.

But the bigges issue of this title, to me, is for sure.... the roster. A total of 21 characters (16 in the original release of the game), including 2 Pikachu and 2 Mewtwos, feels incredibly lackluster, especially considering that Namco's fighter mostly got some large launching rosters full of different characters and even stories to explore.

I had fun with some of my favorites, like Machamp, Weavile and Gengar, and weirder picks like Chandelure, Croagunk and Braixen had an immense amount of personality in their movesets and animations, but I felt like the team didnìt do a lot with the potential of the pokemon world, especially conisdering that a hige chunk of the roster got later added as DLC (even when the game got re-relased on the Switch, they still had the ballzis to add 2 extra characters under another paywall)

One can say that they made the roster this small in order to give a lot of attention to the animations and feel of the chosen characters.... but then you find out that most of the animations are just taken straight from Tekken, and that Pikachu throwing Heihachi fists feels a bit jarring. It's funny at first, but it also feels like Namco kinda just "plagarides themselves" when making thes emovesets.... if that makes sense....

In terms of presentations, Pokken tournament has an amazing concept that I wish was evolved more with time, maybe with a larger selection of character or more options and ways to enjoy this amazing premise.

In order to unlock all the stuff in Pokken Tournament to play with my best friend who loves Pokemon, I had to beat the story mode all the way through. It's an awful long story mode at like 5 or 6 hours. You've gotta win like 110 matches! If you don't, you'll be short 2 playable characters and like 10 support sets (not to mention like 16 stages). Luckily, it's not super difficult. If I can beat it, it can't be that hard of a fighting game :P

The game looks beautiful. All of the Pokemon rendered in beautiful HD never cease to look awesome. The game controls really well, too. For a game that just uses 6 buttons and the D-pad, it's pretty damn complex. What with all of the switching between field and dual mode when certain attacks land, special counter-attacks as opposed to normal attacks. I don't play 3D fighters ever, really, so I can't really comment on its complexity compared to other things in the genre, but I think you could spend a lot of time getting really good at Pokken if you wanted.

One last miscellaneous note: The special Pokken Tournament controller is a bunch of wank. The D-pad is so inaccurate it's awful. Maybe it's my fault for getting familiar with the Pro Controller first, but for something that's $30 new, that thing is nowhere near as good as it needs to be for such a specialized controller :?

Verdict: Recommended. I can certainly see why it outsold Street Fighter 5 for a good while of last year. It's a really great fighting game with a great theme. It makes some mistakes with gating content, but that's not the end of the world, really. My only hesitation in recommending it would be that the Switch version which has like 5 or 6 more characters comes out in like a month or two, so you'll probably wanna wait for that with how much this game'll run ya for a new copy.

Ever wanted to play pokémon battles as they do in the Anime? This is it. it's really fun and rewarding to master.

Tekken + Pokémon = Greatness
Had a blast being able to jump online with my favorite pokémon (Garchomp) and beat some ass!

Also, Magikarp Festival

I know I'm not seeing Pikachu under the Spanish announcer's table jabbing his forehead with the corner of a razor. You can't do that, you've got hepatitis!

Being in proximity to a lot of people who love Pokemon often leaves me thinking about my own relationship with the series. I tend to like a lot of the side games and spin-offs, whereas I couldn't give a shit anymore about mainline Pokemon. You could tell me they've set one of them in England and that you fight Sir Patrick Moore's gigantic, disembodied head in a Dynamax battle and you'd catch my ass sleeping. Pokemon mashed up with Tekken, however... Well, it's surprising to me I skipped over this to begin with, but I was less financially stable at the time and unwilling to play Nintendo's terrible pricing game.

I'm still not, which is why I picked up a $15 copy of the original Wii U release instead of paying 45-60 dollars for the DX edition. Sure, I'm missing out on five new fighters, additional support Pokemon, and DLC, but I still have Pikachu Libre and that's enough for me. Buying a game at a low price also helps soothe the pain of playing something bad and given how many mixed opinions I've heard for Pokken Tournament, it just seemed like the sensible move. I'm a real Michael Pachter over here, I'm very money smart average intelligence and dumb as all hell in every other arena.

Thankfully, Pokken Tournament is a pretty solid game, though it is perhaps better enjoyed with others than it is solo. The division of battles between "Field" and "Duel" phases is interesting, but I do wish the Field Phase was more substantial, as I often found it to be the case that I was in it for maybe two or three seconds before smacking my opponent back into Duel Phase. Attacks have satisfying impact, at least, and knocking your opponent between phases and against barriers feels good. I love crunching all of Weavil's bones and watching that little bastard get launched like, twenty feet in the opposite direction. There's a good selection of fighters in the base game, and the amount of support Pokemon you're given is plentiful and diverse. You can stick to supports that behave strictly offensively, or use ones that heal, open up counter opportunities, and more. There's a good amount of strategy to be had there.

The story mode, however, is pretty rough. The difficulty balancing is tilted too far in favor of the player for the first 2/3's of the game, I didn't even retain which button let me block until I faced off against Mewtwo for the last time and suddenly found myself scrambling to relearn it (right trigger, it turns out.) Pokken does settle on being more difficult after this, but it's a shame it only becomes so engaging so late... And well past the point of me being burnt out. There's a lot of game here, arguably too much. The leagues are all quite lengthy and there's three of them that must be completed before you're able to take on the truncated Mewtwo chapter, which feels like the end of the game. However, you have one more league to go before seeing credits, and after those wrap you unlock yet another league that eventually leads you to Ferrum's grandmaster. Thinking I finally beat the game a second time only for the Iron League to unlock made me audibly groan.

But, hey, this is a great game to play while leaving a podcast on, and god knows it gave me plenty of time to catch up on Behind the Bastards. I don't think Pokken Tournament should take seven separate sittings to complete, but at least I learned all about Ben Shapiro's horrid fiction novel while playing it. Listening to Ben's prose is rapidly turning me into an animal and robbing me of that which makes me human!!

I also don't want to dog too much on people's voice acting as I know it's not an easy or particularly well-paying profession, but the dialog in Pokken Tournament is stilted in ways you don't normally see anymore. It kind of gives me "we grabbed people around the office" vibes, but also just a bit too professional for that.

Pokken Tournament has some great ideas and makes good use of the Pokemon license, and I had a pretty good time with it overall. I just wish it were several hours shorter and I'm ready to move on to my next game, which is, uhh... Bomberman Act: Zero? Oh no. Well, my tulpa is complete, but he's just been standing at the corner of my room mumbling something in a language I cannot identify and leaking black fluid all over my carpet that will not come out. Hopefully he'll figure out how to work an Xbox 360 controller soon and I can use my extra free time to knock out the Iron League.