Pokemon Scramble U‘s official trailer was released today, check it out:
As many of you may know, the Skylanders franchise has been using the concept of transferring physical toys to virtual environments world for a while now. The idea has been met with extensive popularity and success, so it’s only natural for other developers to catch on.
Traditionally, the Skylanders series came packaged with a plastic peripheral called the ‘Portal’, which was used to turn the various toys into the respective digital monsters on the television screen.
The Skylander’s Portal
The Wii U already upholds a similar technology deemed the Near Field Communication (feature) on the gamepad. This piece of technology hasn’t really received much attention since the Wii U’s launch as no game up to this point has so much as hinted at using the function. In fact, many Wii U owners probably didn’t even know the feature existed.
I bet you noticed it, but I’m sure you never really cared for what it did.
Regardless, it’s there, and judging by the Pokemon Scramble U trailer, it looks to be working quite well. Rather than having to find space for another space-consuming piece of plastic, the technology has already been included with the console’s control pad, which really lends to convenience if you ask me.
Tadaa! That’s how it works.
Although the new title is clearly heavily influenced by Skylanders, the gameplay is actually quite different. Skylanders can be classified as an adventure title, in you take your avatar and progress through the game by battling monsters and leveling up. Pokemon Scramble U takes a different approach, using the avatar in what appears to be various mini-games.
The new title will support a number of familiar companions from the established Pokemon series. There’s no doubt that players will be purchasing extra figures to unlock playable characters in the game. One unique aspect about the whole phenomenon is that the figures will be obtained via capsule machines, meaning that they will be distributed at random. Surely it will be a great little hobby for collectors.
Good luck finding the machines.
I actually think that the capsule machines are a great implementation to the nature of the game since it encourages players to interact and share their figures; trading Pokemon is a long-running tradition in the series.
Pokemon Scramble U will be released on April 24 in Japan. There is no current release date for North America as of yet. The capsule machines will will charge ¥200 (approx $2 US) per figure.
Awesome idea, but I highly doubt it’ll make its way to N America in the capsule form. The blind box model will result in thousands of duplicate pikachu’s hahaha. Good find.
Unfortunately, I agree with the fact that the capsules won’t be coming to North America, capsule machines aren’t nearly as popular over here as they are in Japan.
If the game were to come overseas, I’d assume that they would sell the figures individually or in sets like Skylanders is currently doing.
If this had come out in the UK when I was a kid, it would have taken alllll my pocket money away! Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing!
Haha! I had a problem with spending all of my money on Pokemon cards as a kid, this wouldn’t have made it any easier!