Wiiware is a funny old thing. Released with almost no fanfare, it’s seen very little“blockbuster” releases. The only noticeable games being Strongbad and World of Goo, both of which are also on PC. It hasn’t exactly been a runaway success, but Nintendo is playing it safe by releasing a game with a (huge) existing franchise behind it. Pokémon Rumble is what happens when you take the classic 150 Pokémon and their moves and turn it into a beat ‘em up. The result? Interesting.

See, I’m a tad apprehensive to call it a beat ‘em up. The game works like this; you play as a Pokémon toy, given life by a magic key (just… just ignore the plot it’s quite clear nobody gave a damn about making it so don’t try caring about fulfilling it) and you get given a Rattata (of course, because no Pokémon game would be complete without 800 Rattata’s) who can tackle by pressing ‘2’. However, what is at first a very lazy button masher suddenly becomes much more interesting pretty quickly. Certain Pokémon, after having their head smashed in will befriend you, allowing you to collect them (again, logic isn’t the games strong point…) and these Pokémon have different moves. At first, simple variations on tackle with electricity/grass/ whatever element it is, but soon it’s not long before you have speed boosts, defence lowers and indeed all of the moves out of the original Pokémon games. Pokémon also have increasing power levels; the goal being to befriend a Pokémon of a certain power level to progress into the “Battle Royal” and to move to the next level. This adds an interesting twist, swapping out Pokémon for a certain battle style is a great idea and with all 150 of the original Pokémon in the game to collect, you can look forward to finding an old favourite.

Sadly, what the game does for coming up with a revitalizing and interesting concept, it lets itself down in some many areas, mostly repetition. The game consists of ranking up through the battle royals, but to do that you need to go and befriend some higher level Pokémon in 6 separate areas, each area carrying a certain type of Pokémon (a beach with water types, a magma factory with fire/electric types ect) but every time you beat a battle royal you sent to the next floor where you are confronted with the 6 same levels! The only difference is the Pokémon! It’s a lazy cut and paste trick that fools nobody and leads to the game being not just repetitive, but frustratingly so. The levels have nothing interesting to offer to begin with, essentially just giving you a grid to work in; there are no environmental hazards, no special paths, nothing. It’s dull, and it turns what could have been a stand out title into a rather crushing bore.

Another fundamental flaw in the game is the way Pokémon “drop”. When you collect a Pokémon after befriending them you can sometimes end up with a Pokémon with a high power level but equipped with agility and poison powder; not useful. Considering they were gladly attacking you with different moves before hand and have now suddenly forgotten how and learned two non-attacking moves is bewildering and maddening. Fortunately, you can buy a new random move off a machine in the main lobby providing you pay a fee from the coins you collect by defeating Pokémon. This can, however, lead to some more useless moves (Rest is especially worthless, you stand still and heal 1HP a second. Not fun) which kind of defeats the point. You can also buy new Pokémon, which is always worth a go as they tend to be rather powerful.

The graphics of this game are… well laughable, but in a really likable way. Polygonic to the max, some Pokémon look just fine (Rattata, Pikachu, Staryu) and some look amazingly bad (Machamp, Diglett, Mewtwo). It’s an acquired taste, but there’s no denying there’s an element of joy of seeing the Pokémon rendered in such a minimalist way. Not only that, but they look funny, and so when your captured Pokémon are paraded in front of you at the end of a level and stare, gormlessly into your face it can be hard to not at least crack a smile.

However, if there’s one saving grace for this game it’s this: Multiplayer. You can have up to 4 people playing at any time, and although I’ve only played it with one other buddy I can happily claim that, yes, it’s fun. If it wasn’t for this feature, this game would rank far lower than I score I’ve given it. The mode doesn’t really “add” anything in terms of gameplay, but what it does do is make the game more tolerable, because at least you and a friend can sit there mocking it together. Weirdly, this is a game that benefits from friends willing to crack jokes at its expense. Also, the added factor of a “Ah wow, look at how bad Diglett looks, the ground jumps with him!” moment is always a fun one to share.

Pokémon Rumble is, by no stretch of anyone’s imagination, a “good” game. However, it’s not exactly a “bad” one either, and somehow, despite so many obvious flaws I can claim that the game is damn fun. So I’ll put it this way, if you have friends who want a good laugh, enjoy some classic Pokémon memories and are looking for some mindless but enjoyable fun, then yeah, consider this as your next Wiiware purchase. To anyone else, stay away, this isn’t for you and you probably will get angrier with it than enjoy it.

I give it a 6 on the Zippy Scale.