| Developer: | Ambrella |
| Series: | Pokémon |
| Director: | Norio Matsumara |
| Producer: | Mikiko Ōhashi Toshio Miyahara Hiroaki Tsuru |
| Designer: | Miki Obata Yoshihiro Hatta Norio Matsumara Watanabe Hirotake Muneaki Ozawa |
| Programmer: | Nayuta Taga |
| Composer: | Miki Obata |
| Genre: | Beat 'em up |
| Modes: | Single-player, Multiplayer |
| Platforms: | Wii |
Pokémon Rumble (titled in Japan)[1] is a beat 'em up video game in the Pokémon series for WiiWare developed by Ambrella and published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo.
The player controls Pokémon as they battle other Pokémon in a series of linear dungeons and enclosed arenas. The game features real-time melee-based gameplay, which has been likened to that of Smash TV.[2]
The game uses a Wii Remote held sideways by default, but also supports the Nunchuk, Classic Controller (Pro) and GameCube Controller.[3] [4] [5] Using one of the attachment controllers allows two players to share the same Wii Remote. Controllers can be changed at the Multiplayer booth in the Terminal area after finishing the first stage.
The player starts off with a low-level Pokémon with only one attack at their disposal. They can collect stronger Pokémon (with up to two moves) through defeating wild Pokémon within the game's levels. Additionally, by battling wild Pokémon the player collects coins which can be used to buy new attacks or recruit more Pokémon. When the player obtains a high enough level Pokémon, the doors to the Battle Royale room open, where they take on dozens of Pokémon at a time in an enclosed arena. The player must defeat all of the Pokémon in order to rank up, eventually facing much stronger and even Legendary Pokémon.[6]
The game supports up to four players simultaneously in co-operative and competitive modes. It also features a password system which unlocks certain Pokémon. Passwords have been found in Nintendo Power magazines, the official game website, or online.
The game was originally planned to also have Pokémon from Gold and Silver and Ruby and Sapphire, but they were not implemented presumably due to WiiWare's 40 megabytes size limit. This gets proven further when it was discovered that the games collection booth was hard coded to not show Pokémon 152 through 388, and Arceus. [7]
A free demo was available on the Wii Shop Channel. It included a number of functions including: The Normal Introduction, a few stages allowing the player to get the feeling of each stage. Pokémon can be recruited and the Terminal can be used. Once a Pokémon is recruited with Power Points of 100 or more (or they lose all their lives twice) a short video is displayed in which the Battle Royale doors open and then a screenshot appears stating that the demo is over.
IGN rated the game as 6 out of 10, saying that it is "mindless, but fun", but doesn't have enough depth to keep playing. They went on and criticized the developers for being lazy and reusing models from My Pokémon Ranch.[8] The game received an aggregated score of 59 on Metacritic, based on reviews from 9 critics.[9]
On June 10, 2011, the Japanese Pokémon website announced a sequel, Pokémon Rumble Blast. The game was released in Japan on August 11, 2011, for Nintendo 3DS. In 2013, a second sequel for Wii U called Pokémon Rumble U was released. Pokémon Rumble World was released on April 8, 2015, through the Nintendo eShop as a freemium title for Nintendo 3DS. On May 22, 2019, a mobile sequel named Pokémon Rumble Rush was released globally for Android, with its iOS release happening on July 23.[10]
