Pokkén Tournament, Bandai Namco’s mashing of fighting mechanics and Pokemon, has finally been announced for WiiU after months of everyone figuring this was going to happen – it’s 2015, and funneling development resources on something like Pokkén without a home release always seemed unlikely. This is especially true for a platform like the WiiU which needs all the loving it can get before it retires early from the console arms race.
I haven’t been following Pokkén Tournament playtesting too closely, but the trailer suggests it should be fun and the thought of some Tekken-lite mechanics with Pokémon characters sounds appealing. Hopefully the roster will include some of the earlier characters as I fell off the Pokémon train with Red/Blue since I was always unsure if I was up for the timesink the games tends to demand.
Pokkén Tournament is scheduled for a Q2 2016 global release on the WiiU. With Pokémon and Tekken fans in this household (especially my other half who is a bigger fan of both properties than I!) I imagine we’ll pick it up pretty close to release date and I’ll follow up with a First Impressions piece on Anime Inferno
