Monday, September 24, 2012

Game Review: Pokemon Rumble Blast

I have Gamefly like any self-respecting gamer and I just recently finished Pokemon Rumble Blast and decided to write a review of it.  I think I may just start writing reviews of games on a regular basis.  Anyways...

Pokemon Rumble Blast has the distinction of being the first Pokemon game for the 3DS.  Even the upcoming Black and White sequels are not going to be 3DS titles.  However it is not a traditional Pokemon game per se.  It is a sequel to the WiiWare title Pokemon Rumble that was expanded with Pokemon from fifth generation.  Essentially you control Pokemon "toys" that have up to two attacks and a given power rating.  While your toys can learn new moves by spending cash they can never increase in power.  The only way is to find new versions of toys with higher powers by defeating swarms of enemy toys and hoping some of those enemy toys "tip-over" and become your allies.  Sometimes enemy toys may come equipped with special abilities and will be a purple color similar to unique drops in RPG games.  It is a lot of button mashing fun, but there's no reason to get attached to any of the toys because each new stage brings along the latest and greatest version.

But that's not to say that there isn't any strategy involved.  While most of the stages are composed of just rampaging through killing as much as possible without getting killed yourself, there are special stages where coliseum style fights are waged.  In these stages the enemies are a little more powerful and they fight each other as well as you.  Going headfirst into these fights will have you picking from your reserve list quickly, finding a strong toy with a good sitback move is a necessity for these fights.  That itself can be a challenge because when you get a toy with a good moveset it's outdated 2 or 3 stages later and the game makes it difficult to pass moves along to better toys.  Boss battles can be taxing as well because the straight up damage moves that are so useful against the swarm aren't much help when taking on an enemy that can hit you much harder than you can hit it.

The game is not without its weaknesses.  Despite it being a 3D game, I found very little benefit to having the 3D active.  While games like Mario Land, Ocarina and Star Fox found ways to make the 3D interesting I find little to no benefit having the 3D on and play with it off 99% of the time for increased battery life.  In fact there was one instance where I had accidentally turned the 3D on when the DS was in my pocket and I didn't even realize I had done it.  Additionally the fact that most Pokemon games strive to have the player "connect" with their little dudes; this game treats Pokemon as tools that are easily discarded.  In that way it actually contradicts what a Pokemon game should be and I feel that is a major weakness.

It is an interesting idea and having never played any of the other action spinoff games for Pokemon, I have to say I'm impressed that this game kept my intrest all the way through although I will admit that I take regular breaks to play real Pokemon.  I enjoyed it but not enough to add it to my collection permenantly.  It will be getting returned to Gamefly this week.

Verdict: A Pokemon title that isn't a Pokemon game.

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