Pokken Tournament is an arcade fighter that’s in basic terms Tekken merged with Pokemon (hence the portmanteau “Pokken”). It’s self-explanatory — instead of fighting as humans, you duke it out as Pokemon. Which sounds great, as fans have wanted to control Pokemon directly in battle for quite some time.
Pokken Tournament came out originally for Japanese arcades, but the big machines did cross the shores thanks to Dave and Busters, who tested a few in their restaurants. For those who never saw one there, Nintendo will be releasing a home console version this March. Today they revealed it’ll be amiibo-compatible….so which amiibo will work? According to Nintendo, ANY of them. Got Chibi Robo? He works with Pokken Tournament.
What they do, though, may not correspond to what they are. The amiibo grant the player “in-game items,” says Nintendo, but they didn’t specify what those were. This could function like the free Wii U app that gives you a random Virtual Console demo for each individual amiibo you tap to the pad — it’s completely random. Items could also be random in Pokken Tournament.
The game will also take cards. The first printing of Pokken Tournament will come shipped with a Shadow Mewtwo card packed into the case. When it’s placed on the Gamepad’s scanner, you’ll instantly unlock Shadow Mewtwo to fight with.
Pokken Tournament comes out March 18 for Wii U, in all countries.