Pokemon Toys Were Never This Hardcore When I Was Coming Up

Pokemon Rumble came out this past Monday. Pokemon Rumble is a WiiWare beat-'em-up where you control your own Pokemon against hordes and hordes of Pokemon. I knew about this game, but with no money, I would have to pass it up for the time being until I get the 1500 Wii Points needed to buy it.

...Then I found out that Nintendo, for the first time ever, put up a free demo on the Wii Shop Channel.

I plugged in my Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector (cheap little thing), and went and downloaded the demo.

And I must say, it's pretty fun.

The game uses the same Pokemon models that were used in My Pokemon Ranch. Though this time, they try to lampshade it by saying that they're toys. ...Well, I'm more willing to accept that than those chibified monsters being my actual Pokemon on the Ranch.

Being the demo, there are some things that you have to watch out for. For one thing, you can't "befriend" (this game's capturing, or recruiting) a Pokemon with a Power level of over 100; otherwise, once you finish the stage, the demo ends. This is made even more annoying by the fact that you don't see their power levels until you befriend them; though if you DO find one, you can always quit the stage, which gets rid of all of the Pokemon and money you're acquired during that run. Also, once you play on each of the six stages at least once, the demo ends.

The level 100 thing is especially jarring. After you finish the level, the gate to the Battle Royale (which you need at least one Pokemon with a Power Level of at least 100 to get into) opens, but right after that, the demo ends. Couldn't have Nintendo placed the end of demo at the end of the Battle Royale instead, or would that make the demo a bit too long?

Of course, you also can't save, so no matter what great Pokemon you obtain (well, as great a Pokemon can get under Level 100 in this game), no matter how much money you pick up, all of it will be gone once you end the demo.

With all this said, I'm having fun with this game (the demo, at least). The game uses Pokemon from only the 1st and 4th generations, so many favorites may be left out (Flygon and Sneasel, in my case), but despite this, there's still an abundance of Pokemon to find and recruit. Each of them have their own moves, and they can hold two moves at once (each one assigned to the 1 or 2 Buttons on the Wiimote held sideways).

The Pokemon, being toys, don't grow, and therefore cannot evolve, though, with no 3rd gen, quite a few evolution lines have been broken, the most obvious of which is the Budew line. So, you have to keep finding stronger Pokemon than the ones you had before it if you want, say, a stronger Rattata (your "starter" here).

This is the second Pokemon game series that blends in a real-time mix (the first was Mystery Dungeon), and one must wonder how would this game be if it were a full Wii game, with the Pokemon models looking like the actual Pokemon and with the 2nd and 3rd generations mixed in, as well as Wi-Fi capabilities (as flawed as the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection is). Sure, it'll lose the toy appeal, but I'm sure that game would be nothing short of epic.

Until then, I'm going to keep playing with these toys. And await the day where I can put down the 1500 Wii Points for the full version.