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Pokémon/Tekken Hybrid, Pokkén Tournament, Announced

"A collaboration for Japanese arcades... for now"
Today, the Pokémon Niconico account streamed today’s “shocking” announcement and it was a game we all knew: Pokkén Tournament.

Teased last year, this title is a collaboration between the Pokémon Company and Bandai Namco, much like what we’ve seen with games like Hyrule Warriors or Pokémon Conquest. In this project, we see a Pokémon-themed competitive fighter with the ideology of Tekken. Two developers who know a thing about fighters helm this unique title: Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada and Soul Calibur producer Masaaki Hoshino.
According to a livestream translated by Siliconera, Harada explains that he’d like Pokkén Tournament to be enjoyed casual Pokémon fans, hardcore Pokémon fans, and fighting game fanatics alike. Harada also said to not expect the game to be as technical as Tekken, as the game will use a whole new engine. Fighting fans shouldn’t worry about it being simple, since other competitive fighters sprang from that sort of idea, like Super Smash Bros. or Persona 4 Arena.
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In terms of the roster, the trailer only showed Machamp and Lucario (and its Mega form), but the teaser last year showed Blaziken too. It is still too early to announce the roster yet, but expect fighting-types who fight like Lucario, Machamp and Blaziken. Hitmonlee, Hitmanchan, Sawk and Throh are pretty easy guesses, and perhaps we’ll see something a bit looser with the idea like Smash newbie Greninja or perhaps and I hope Raichu.
However, don’t expect Pokkén Tournament on your Wii U anytime soon, because it is releasing next year as an arcade game for Japan only. Though that’s a story we heard from fighter developers before. Where games like Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 were in development “exclusively” for Japanese arcades, we’d eventually saw them on consoles. Plus neither Nintendo, the Pokémon Company nor Bandai Namco would limit the audience on a title with this sort of potential, plus why would they bother with an English trailer? And let’s face it, this isn’t a PS4-quality game - the Wii U could render this game in 60FPS easily.

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