The Pokemon Company has just announced a Nintendo-Bandai Namco collaboration project titled "Pokken Tournament," a brilliant new fighting game that combines the infamous fighting creatures of the hit game and anime series against each other in full 3D graphics with a similar hand-to-hand combat system to the "Tekken" series. It is due to release in Japanese arcades in 2015.
After the game's official announcement, Harada took to Twitter for some Q&A. Some translated questions and answers can be found here.
At the 2013 Pokemon Game Show, the Pokemon Company showed a video reel of Pikachu jumping out of an old-fashioned GameBoy system, walking around a room filled with other gaming systems with other Pokemon games playing, surfing on a Pokemon trading card through a galaxy of cards, etc. Right before the video ends, it teases a possible Pokemon fighting game with a shot of Lucario and Blaziken facing off, as if about to start fighting.
A video released Tuesday confirms the hopes of many a Pokemon fan, conveying the message that there IS a Pokemon fighting game under development under the supervision of Tekken Project director Katsuhiro Harada and SoulCaliber producer and main programmer Masaaki Hoshino, and it will hit arcades next year. The video features a heated martial arts-style battle between Lucario and Machamp, as well as a brief cameo of Mega Lucario, hinting that mega evolution will be a part of the gaming experience:
At present, there is no news of either a Western release or even a Japanese console release, and information is currently sparse, as reported by IGN.
However, if the past successes of game franchises "Tekken" and "Soul Caliber" are any evidence, it serves to reason that "Pokken" could realistically come not only to consoles in Japan (given there is enough arcade success), but also to Western consoles and arcades, as well. Some speculation may suggest this is the case, based on an announcement by Siliconera that the Pokemon Company in the U.S. filed not only for the "Pokken Tournament" trademark, but another by the name of "Pokken Fighters."
This is not the first attempt that has been made at a Pokemon fighting game. In October 2011, a 2D PC game titled "Pokemon: Type Wild" appeared. The game is fanmade, and plays similarly to "Street Fighter," and as reported by IGN, some former animators of the anime were involved in the game's development. Type Wild features several Pokemon favorites, such as Blaziken, Snorlax, Gengar and Lucario.
