Happy Spring! We are just beyond excited for this upcoming break off of school, and what better way to spend it than with than the Pokemon Company‘s newest game, Pokken Tournament! The game is out only for the Nintendo Wii U and is a must-have! Seriously… The Wii U barely has any good games, so trust me on this. Now, the game originally was released on July 16, 2015 for Japan, however, the United States got their hands on the copy sometime around March 18, 2016. Have you ever wished your Pokemon games were more exciting than your repetitive turn-based strategies, followed by little animations executing your commands? Well, dream no more, my little nerds– I mean, my amazing readers! There have been many games that were a bit similar to Pokken Tournament, like Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, which were able to give us the beautiful 3D pokemon battles, however, the poor creatures still stood at a distance, yet again with the turn-based strategies. Darry Huskey, an IGN game reviewer states that, “Each of these turn-based RPG fighters is translated into a real-time combatant with mechanics that feel appropriate.” If you haven’t already figured, IGN stands for “Imagine Games Network.”  Anyway, the closest we’ve ever got to mirroring the animated series of Pokemon was Nintendo‘s Super Smash Bros., which allows players to choose characters such as Pikachu, Lucario, Jigglypuff, and even Mewtwo to face off in 2D battles with limited movesets, but amazing gameplay. Some say that this game was a spin-off of Bandai Namco‘s Tekken series, however, I beg to differ. Pokemon skins weren’t just thrown into Tekken fighter models, it was actually made very detailed and to fit the unique Pokemon feel. Since the movies, these Pokemon have are exact replicas of their TV series moves, mixed with a couple of brawling punches and kicks here and there. What’s that? Still calling out Tekken? Buy the game and tell me, Mr and Mrs. I Watch YouTube Videos And Make My Decisions Based Of Other’s– you get the point. Basically, it’s not like that. I own the game myself and I can tell you that it is nothing like that and very much worth getting.

The gameplay is very amazing. You get to choose 1 of 14 Pokemon, such as Charizard, Pikachu, Pikachu (Lucha Version), Mewtwo, Shadow Mewtwo, Suicune, etc. But wait! It doesn’t end there, because you get to choose support characters, too. This reminds me of the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm series, because you are able to press a button and call out characters to jump in for a couple of seconds to aid you in battle. In Pokken Tournament, you are able to choose 2 support characters per round, such as Snivy and Lapras, Dragonite and Victini, Reshiram and Cresselia and even more. Moving right along, you get to train, battle singularly or go onto story mode and challenge a league of players to eventually become the league champion! You start off in the Ferrum Region. In this game, your character syncs with the pokemon using a Synergy Device, so I guess you could say you become one with your Pokemon. The movesets go past even Injustice: Gods Among Us‘s movesets! You get a massive variety of combos and specials, that you’ll be button smashing at first, but within practice and patience, you shall master yourself to be a unique fighter. In fact, the game strongly suggests to go through the tutorials in the beginning, which I did and I can very much confirm that they were right for having told me this; it is an essential! There’s also phases and special moves you can only do up and below ground, which is pretty unique. There’s Field Phase and Duel Phase; Duel is like a street fighter 2D perspective, and Field is for free roam and wandering to do whatever you want in the map. There are Burst Attacks and grabs (I bet you were just thinking of Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit, huh?), which will be very beneficial to you when you are trying to break guards and pick up the pace, because you’re probably so bad you need to rely on big strong moves to win. That was a joke. Do not worry, you will be a Pokken Master! Not to mention, you can also level up each and every one of your Pokemon, so I guess that Pokemon RPG feel still lingers here and there. I bet you think I have more to say… CORRECT. Your characters can also customize their appearances by purchasing clothing, hairstyles and more with game points. Kind of reminds me of Pokemon X and Y. Nintendo’s famous Amiibo‘s also come into play with this game, which are figurines of characters in which you can take into the game, raise and play with, depending what game you have. And you didn’t hear this from me… but there’s a Pokemon character we have heard of before that is IN this game, but isn’t mentioned… SHH! Find out yourself. Once you feel you are ready, it is time to take yourself into Online Battles and get yourself “#REKT”, according to popular internet slang.

That is it for this month’s edition of games, and now I believe you ought to go out and buy the game. It costs $60 and is not that bad. Remember not to stay up too late, you have a life, right? Yeah, who am I kidding… This game is only available to the Wii U, was developed and released by Nintendo, the Pokemon Company and Bandai Namco Entertainment! I mean, Metacritic gave it a 4/5, so come on, guys, what more do you want? Thank you for reading, and have an amazing Spring Break! See you online in Pokken Tournament…