Pokemon Fighting Game Pokken Tournament Announced. Wii U Release Hinted

A Pokemon Tournament Fighting Game co-developed by Namco for Arcades is officially in development! Although early, the so-called “Pokken Tournament” game (a cross between the names “Pokemon” & “Tekken Tournament” – “Pok-ken”, get it?) was revealed in Japan via NicoNico for a 2015 release date.

Right now Pokken Tournament is only scheduled for Japanese arcades. But obviously you can’t develop something like this without considering how huge of a title it would be for Nintendo, so a Wii U version is obviously in the cards because the announcement specifically states it’s “coming to Arcades first”, hinting it will be getting a Wii U release second! This would be important for a worldwide release, as no one outside of Japan cares about Arcades anymore. As such, you can probably expect an official Nintendo announcement of Pokken Tournament for Wii U sometime in 2015.

Check out the first early footage of Pokken Tournament (let’s hope that’s a code-name) in action, it’s Machamp versus Lucario!

Pokken Tournament is extremely early, but is being co-developed by Nintendo & Namco Bandai using the Tekken game engine, with Soul Calibur and Tekken development staff assisting in development, including Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada and Soul Calibur producer Masaaki Hoshino! HO-LY COW!

Here’s the Pokemon Tournament/Pokken image gallery.
Click on any of these image thumbnails to see the full-size photos:


Pokemon Tournament Machamp Multiple Fists Punch Gameplay Screenshot
Machamp devastates with an E-Honda technique!

FAN RANT:

THIS is something that I NEVER thought would happen.

I’ve been saying for a long time that Nintendo should make an all-Pokemon Super Smash Bros. game, where you choose your type of Pokemon and can choose their four special attacks, then you can duke it out. Namco has just done one better by apparently creating a FULL-ON Pokemon Fighting Game. Absolutely insane!

This could be really, REALLY huge for Nintendo.

Since Namco Bandai is behind the controls, fighting game enthusiasts have nothing to worry about.

Pokenn Tournament Lucario Energy Ball Move Gameplay Screenshot
Lucario pulls a Ryu Hadoken! 😀

Nintendo has never had a serious fighter before. Super Smash Bros. 4 has developed into one, but it’s more of a brawler than a fighter. If Nintendo gets this game in their camp and it becomes as huge as Tekken or Soul Calibur and draws in people who are into the fighting game scene for those two franchises, many of whom probably don’t own a Wii U, then Nintendo could do some serious damage. This is as big of a killer-app as I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Nintendo should have shown Pokemon Tournament at E3 2014. Even if it was only this short clip, it would’ve blown the roof off the joint. Let’s hope Nintendo plays their cards right, as this is some super exciting news.

It’s awesome to see how much Pokemon X&Y have totally revived the Pokemon brand. It didn’t need it in the first place, as Pokemon has always been extremely popular and has never really faded, but it was beginning to get stagnant. Now however, Nintendo has completely revitalized and electrified the Pokemon community, and this new game is sure to carry that to its zenith.

More new Pokemon games are coming before the end of the year as well. We already got Pokemon Battle Trozei for 3DS, and we’ll get Pokemon Art Academy soon. But the big one is the upcoming Pokemon Alpha Sapphire & Omega Ruby which hits on November 28, 2014!

How excited are you for a Pokemon Fighting Game?!