3.5/5 ★ – MechaniChris's review of Pokkén Tournament DX.

I think when Nintendo put out a 5 day free trial of this game, they didn’t expect some people to play for 7 hours straight and basically run through the entire experience. I’ve been wanting to check this out since it came out, but always felt kind of put off by some of the footage I’d seen and the fact that there’s a relatively small pool of fighters with very little DLC. But thankfully I was able to get through the whole thing this weekend for free! And I’m glad that was the case because I don’t really see myself playing this much beyond that. Don’t get me wrong, I had a very fun time! The combat initially seemed a little confusing to me, changing perspectives, and having these different combat styles, support characters, and synergy. However, after a few fights, it all became very easy to wrap my head around and eventually was just second nature. Once I was in the groove of tournament fighting, I was having a blast tearing through combatants and advancing ranks. I also think this game does a great job of incorporating Mega Evolution, which I’ve never cared for in the mainline games, but feels perfectly designed for a game like this where you can use it as a finisher and the graphic style matches the overdesigned vibe of all the mega evolved Pokémon. The support Pokémon are a good idea too, but I do think they could have been implemented a little better. Most matches tended to end before I could even use one, and often when I did, they would either miss their one attack or just do very little damage. I eventually stopped putting experience points into support because it just wasn’t worth it. That brings me to another issue I have. I can see why there’s so few fighters because the game seems to actively incentivize you only training one fighter. Every Pokémon you fight with gains levels from battling, similar to a mainline game, but that also means that as you advance in ranks, trying out a new Pokémon fighter will be MUCH harder because they’re essentially at level 1. By the time I reached A Rank, I stopped swapping altogether and just stuck to my best guy for the remainder of the game. I would never take leveling away from the mainline games, but I think it’s fundamentally counterintuitive for a fighting game in which trying out all the combatants is kind of the point. I know I keep saying there’s not a lot of fighters but that’s not technically true. There are over 20, which is fairly robust for a Mortal Kombat, but when Pokémon has a pool of over 900 to pull from, you do feel a little cheated when there isn’t more. I know it’s a little unrealistic, but I’d largely prefer a WAY stripped down game that included like 100 fighters, even if most of them were largely the same. I’ve always thought the ideal future of the mainline games would be a regular adventure, but every time you enter a battle, it becomes a fighting game like this. Maybe some day. Oh yeah, I guess there’s a plot to this? It’s really dumb, but most Pokémon games have fairly dumb plots. It really feels tacked on, but it gives you Shadow Mewtwo, so that’s something I guess? I truly have been spoiled by the later MK games where the plot is the main attraction, but even by Pokémon standards this one feels like a big nothing. Get rid of that and add in like 5 more fighters. Anyway, I had a very fun weekend playing this nonstop, but like I said, I ran through pretty much everything there is to do and I don’t feel much need to continue playing. Maybe if I was into online competitive play this would be worth spending some money on, but for my needs, I got what I wanted.