With Pokkén Tournament’s worldwide March release date looming, new information continues to pour in regarding the title’s features and origins. While the game initially began life as a mash-up of the Pokémon and Tekken franchises, it has evolved over time, just like the pocket monsters themselves. Katsuhiro Harada, the development director and producer of the Tekken franchise, gave some insight into just how the game changed throughout the development process.
“As we worked on it, we knew we wanted to show off the Pokémon, and that led to implementing the [free movement] Field Phase, and we just really realized quickly in that prototype phase that we needed to just kind of create this whole thing from scratch. We even built an entire new rendering engine, and kind of came up with and entire new battle system for it. But it really is just built from the ground up for this entirely new type of fighting game.”
The differences between Pokkén Tournament and Tekken have apparently been noticed on the competitive gaming circuit, as well. Despite the fact that the game hasn’t been released on Wii U just yet, fans in attendance at the Pokémon World Championships were able to demo the game. According to Harada, the team received strong feedback.
“The two things that every single one of [the pro fighting game players] told us was that the game was a lot deeper than they thought, and also that it’s totally different than Tekken. Everyone was very surprised, coming from the name of Pokkén. They thought it would be very similar.”
That isn’t the only place competitive players will have a chance to play the title. The title will be one of nine fighting games that players will compete in at EVO 2016 Championship Series. It will be joined by Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Pokémon fans can see just how different Pokkén Tournament is from the Tekken franchise when the game releases next month.
Source: IGN