Review: "Pokemon Rumble" - Wii

Reviewed by Paul for FamilyFriendlyGaming

SCORE: 81/100

The Pokemon franchise illicits one of two mainline responses. Either the person loves Pokemon, or they hate it. I have never been one of those who fits neatly into boxes, or mainline categories. I find the good and the bad in games, relay that on and do my best to discern where all the chips fall. Pokemon Rumble is the latest Pokemon title I am tackling.

Pokemon Rumble is a WiiWare game, which means it is downloadable. It was also released before the Nintendo 3DS version. So there are some definite differences. I believe Nintendo improved quite a few things in the Nintendo 3DS version. Pokemon Rumble does not give me that adventure feel. It is more of a progress through levels/classes to get to the end.

If you are not sure on whether Pokemon Rumble would interest you or not, there is a downloadable demo. Nintendo was kind enough to provide that to Wii owners who have their machines hooked up to a router that is connected to the Internet. Pokemon Rumble costs 1500 Wii Points, In essence fifteen dollars.

Graphically Pokemon Rumble is much larger, and has longer levels than the Nintendo 3DS version. But I am not convinced the graphics look any better. Especially when I moved from 3D to 2D. Maybe if we had reviewed Pokemon Rumble on the Wii first, the outcome would have been different, but I doubt it. The level of detail for the Pokemon is lacking. The good news is there are a ton of them, and various levels to explore.

The music in Pokemon Rumble is sort of like a jolt of electricity from a Pikachu. It wakes players up. It tells us to get our head in the game. Pay attention to what is going on - especially if you want to keep your Pokemon alive. With so many different Pokemon to choose from it may not matter that much, but still its nice for a game to contain sounds that keep us awake.

Pokemon Rumble does not require the player to own a PhD in Pokemon. Learning about the various types is helpful, but the core of Pokemon Rumble is finding the more powerful Pokemon. Use them, and swap when the health bar gets low. Also avoid Pokemon with lame attacks like teleport, leer, and growl. Especially if that is all they happen to have.

Up to four family members can enjoy Pokemon Rumble. At times this game is organized chaos. Certain concepts from boxing work masterfully in Pokemon Rumble. What is that concept? Punch and move, strike and dodge. I found I did better with a defensive mindset. Do not let them behind me whenever possible. If I was surrounded I learned to make a hole, and get to a safe striking distance. Using Pokemon with a longer reach is another strategy I employed whenever possible.

I understand that Pokemon can be highly controversial. Pokemon Rumble is a friendlier hack and slash. Instead of weapons, the Pokemon use their various powers to dispatch their comrades. Quite often we can bring defeated Pokemon to our team, and use them in the battle.

Graphics: 79%

Sound: 86%

Replay/Extras: 90%

Gameplay: 77%

Family Friendly Factor: 74%

System: Wii

Publisher: Nintendo

Rating: 'E10+' - Everyone 10+ {Mild Cartoon Violence}