The Pokefighter “Pokken Tournament roster list” has added Pikachu, Gardevoir, Suicune & Blaziken to its lineup of the already confirmed Lucario & Machamp. See the awesome official artwork for each new fighter here-under.
Check out the all-new Pokken Tournament Gameplay Trailer.
Made by the same team that creates Tekken Tournament and Soul Calibur and the recent Super Smash Bros. for Wii U & 3DS, which Namco co-developed with Nintendo, they are developing Pokken Tournament directly alongside The Pokemon Company & Nintendo.
Four new characters have been added to the fighting game roster for Pokken Tournament, including: Pikachu, Gardevoir, Suicune and Blaziken; bringing the roster total to six, which also includes the previously revealed Machamp & Lucario.
Here’s the Pokken Tournament image gallery.
Click on any of these image thumbnails to see the full-size photos:
Watch each character in action and this hour-long Pokken Tournament livestream Japanese event held by developer namco Bandai to show the world new footage of the Arcade version of the Pokemon Fighting Game.
Skip to these listed times to see each specific match of this extensive Famitsu preview video:
17:20 – Lucario vs. Pikachu
28:45 – Pikachu vs. Gardevoir
33:55 – Machamp vs. Suicune
37:40 – Machamp vs. Gardevoir
44:35 – Pikachu vs. Suicune
53:30 – Lucario vs. Suicune
59:25 – Machamp vs. Suicune
1:04:50 – Lucario vs. Suicune
Pokken Tournament has not been confirmed or announced for Wii U, but Nintendo would be absolutely crazy to keep it as an arcade game.
Also revealed was an arcade controller that the game uses, as it will not use standard arcade fightstick controls; a very odd choice… Essentially confirming that it’s being designed with the home market in mind.
The developers have stated that it uses a controller instead of a stick, in order to make Pokemon Tournament more accessible to non-arcade players and that the game, in general, will be easy to grasp for newcomers, while also featuring hardcore elements to satisfy fighting-genre fans.
Pokken Tournament features large arenas to battle in, which you can fully move around as you fight; however as you get closer to your opponent, the game resembles your average Fighting Game with one-on-one, intense martial arts battles like you’d see in Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken or Soul Calibur; only with Pokemon characters!
This is truly like the Pokemaniacs wet-dream, as we finally get to see awesome battles play out the way we’ve always wished. Badass-style.
The Face Buttons on the six-button & two-shoulder button special controller (which resembles a long SNES pad) correspond like so:
B = Jump, A = Special Move, X = Weak Attack, Y = Strong Attack, L = Support, R = Guard.
As in a normal fighting game, you combine button presses with moves on the Directional Pad to pull off various special moves and attacks. You can fill a Resonance Gauge as you fight to deal additional damage, and you can perform Burst Attacks.
Mega Evolution, first introduced in Pokemon X & Y, will also play a role.
Another major mechanic of the game is the “Assist” or “Support” Button, which calls out specific Pokemon to attack your opponent. You can select which Assist character you want to use before the match, and they include: Emolga, Fennekin, Snivy, and Lapras. Surely many more will be added later, filling in gaps with beloved Pokemon that won’t be playable.
The new additions to the roster confirm that the game’s roster will not be limited to “Fighting-Type” Pokemon, as was seen when the game was first revealed in August 2013 & August 2014.
While Machamp is a pure “Fighting-Type” Pokemon, Lucario is a “Fighting/Steel-Type” Pokemon & Blaziken is a “Fire/Fighting-Type” Pokemon.
While all of the above are Fighting-types, Pikachu is a pure “Electric-Type” Pokemon, Gardevoir is a “Fairy/Pyschic-Type” Pokemon, and Suicune is a “Water-Type” Pokemon. Now things get really interesting!
I wonder if types and move-types will have any effect on your opponent as you battle…
This confirms that ANY Pokemon is fair game…. and there are A LOT to choose from. 720 to be exact… So Nintendo, Namco & The Pokemon Company definitely have their work cut out for them!
Tekken characters will NOT appear in the game, Namco Bandai confirmed (Although you can almost bet that may change… Maybe for DLC?)
Japanese gamers will be able to play the game for the first time this month, with the first location test of the arcade Pokken Tournament machine to be held at the Namco Lazona Kawasaki & Namco Umeda Arcades on January 30th (betwen 19:00 & 23:30), January 31st (between 10:00 & 23:30) and February 1st (between 10:00 & 23:30).
We will surely get more footage of the game in action then.
Pokken Tournament looks absolutely awesome! You can tell the game is pretty early and still requires a lot of work, but what has been shown absolutely has me frothing at the mouth!
It’s a wonder that it took Namco Bandai to bring such a genius and obvious idea to fruition… This is the kind of game that Pokemon fans have always wanted to see since all the way back when Pokemon Stadium first hit the Nintendo 64 in 2000…. And, for a second, fans thought they might actually see battles play out like this…
But NOPE. Thankfully, we Pokemaniacs finally have our wish here in 2015, nearly 17 years since Pokemon first came out (in 1998 in the U.S., 1996 in Japan).
Hopefully we will get a much more polished look at the game in a Nintendo Direct soon; as the live-stream footage is blurry and unpolished. That Nintendo Direct will also hopefully give us an official Wii U announcement. Everyone knows it’s coming, it’s just as matter of when. As this thing WILL make Wii U systems fly off store shelves at breakneck speed.
It’s already shaping up to be an absolutely outstanding year for Nintendo and the Wii U… Can’t wait for E3 2015 in June, a mere five months away… Surely Pokken Tournament will be one of the big draws at Nintendo’s show.
What characters are you hoping to see in Pokken Tournament?