➤ The world of pokétoys 🎮

With its two and a half million downloads worldwide - which by now could have become three - Pokémon Shuffle has shown Nintendo that its very famous monsters can enter the homes, and wallets, of their fans also in other ways, especially in the case of spin-offs that are usually viewed with greater suspicion. After all, It costs literally nothing to download a game for free and try it out a bit, right? The trick is to make sure that the title in question takes the player, intrigues him and, perhaps, convinces him to spend some real money to play beyond the limit imposed by the free to play model in force. Pokémon Shuffle manages to balance this equation, more or less, but above all it is a well-made and fun game. Can we say the same about Pokémon Rumble World too?

Pokémon Rumble World is free, simple and fun, but be careful not to play it too much

Rrready to rumble!

The Rumble miniseries by developer Ambrella has never completely convinced us since its debut on WiiWare in 2009. The subsequent iterations, for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, have highlighted the basic problems of the spin-off, especially the repetitiveness and the superficiality of the gameplay: the fact that the last edition for the home console of the big N existed in conjunction with the launch of a line of amiibo-style figurines, when amiibo did not even exist yet, suggested that the developer was now struggling to define the identity of the brand. Yet, in some ways Pokémon Rumble has always been the ideal spin-off. It is not the first in which monsters are directly controlled (take Pokémon Mystery Dungeon) but it is one of the few fully action titles starring Pikachu and associates, moreover transformed into delicious stylized toys. The game system is very simple: in the role of one of these toy pokémon, you have to beat hordes of other monsters and collect them all. Power levels and type ratio still matter, but RPG mechanics are stripped down, if not nonexistent. Pokémon Rumble World clings to the simplicity of the original mechanics, but builds around it a slender RPG structure that manages to give it more prominence. Set in the kingdom of Mii, the new title Ambrella puts us in the shoes of our alter ego Mii and spends a few minutes explaining us how to play, and then dive straight into the action. At first we will only have one Pichu available, but what game with pokémon would it be if we couldn't catch them? Moreover, it's very easy: just press one or two buttons repeatedly to beat the other toy pokémon and cross your fingers so that they leave a figurine on the ground that we can add to our collection and check on the battlefield. The various pokémon collected show off different levels of power, so it is up to us to choose the best ones to keep in the collection and discard the others from time to time, while trying to expand the variety of types in order to always be at an advantage. To change toys, after all, just press a button, but you have to use a minimum of strategy because if the one we are using is defeated before the change, the game ends and we return to the castle.

The 3D effect

Absent in some moments of the game, when there is the stereoscopic effect it is well implemented, but it does not add anything concrete to the gameplay and it is not missed.

Diamond thieves

Being a fundamentally free to play title, Pokémon Rumble World presents a "gating" system that progressively slows down the use of the game, trying to push the player to spend real money to buy diamonds with which it is possible to unlock new maps, objects and even more. Technically it would work like Pokémon Shuffle, but in this case the limitations are noticeable much less.

The player, in fact, spends the diamonds to buy the balloons, that is the maps - divided into three or more areas - in which to fight and capture new pokémon, from the first to the last generation of the mother series. Once a hot air balloon has been used to reach an area, whether the mission is completed or not, it will still be necessary to wait a certain amount of time before it can be used again., or spend more diamonds to return immediately to the area just visited. The fact is that, however, once more balloons have been unlocked, the recharge time of each of them is absolutely individual, and this means that often one or more balloons will be ready to be reused even before all those have been completed. already available, thus allowing us to play as much as we want. The solution, as clever as it may seem, has two small disadvantages. First, it belongs to a kind of gray zone, in the sense that at the beginning, having few balloons and few diamonds to spend to buy new ones, you will have to wait between one game and another; the situation clearly improves once more balloons are unlocked, and then inevitably worsens when we have unlocked all of them but we will miss the pokémon only from a few areas. The second drawback has to do with simplistic gameplay: Pokémon Rumble World is actually as repetitive as previous episodes, and you get tired quickly of pressing a button or two to defeat hordes of pokémon without artificial intelligence in tiny and linear maps. The end-of-level bosses designed by Ambrella, then, are simply pokémon larger than normal but just as easy to defeat. Thankfully, the Miis we meet in the kingdom tend to spice up the experience a bit. There are those downloaded via StreetPass or SpotPass that we will meet from time to time in the various areas, and that maybe they will help us in combat, offering us small gifts once we return to the city, and then there is the king who will offer us missions every day with multiple objectives thanks to which to earn even more diamonds to buy new balloons, costumes for our Mii or decorations for our toy pokémon collector card.

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7.1

Your vote

In the huge amount of collectibles, starting with the hundreds of pokémon, probably lies the strength of Pokémon Rumble World: although simple and repetitive, taken in small doses it is a truly delicious pastime, suitable for children and fans of the series. looking for something different than usual. Being free, and with very little incentive for microtransactions, it is definitely a game to try and the best incarnation of the Ambrella spin-off.