Pokémon Rumble

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Pokémon Rumble is a Pokémon action RPG for Wii Ware, featuring real-time battling, similar to that of Smash TV.

The main game mechanics involve the player controlling a Toy Pokémon through various stages, beating up many enemy Toy Pokémon using its moves on the way. As they are "Toy" Pokémon, they cannot be powered up until Pokémon Rumble Rush with its equippable Gears (not counting Mega Evolving which only applies to certain species), so the only way to become stronger in the past games is to recruit Toy Pokémon with higher power. This is done by trying to make an enemy Toy Pokémon wobbly then knock it out, which turns it into a collectible that can be added into the player's team. However, player inventory is limited, so the "release" system is in play. The player can release idle/unused Toy Pokémon from their party in exchange of some Ⓟ (in-game currency) or an evolved version of the Pokémon released (requires Special Ticket in the first game, outright given in the sequel). Typically, the end of a stage has the player face against a boss Toy Pokémon, which is always accompanied by its infinitely-respawning minions until the boss is defeated.

The game has a sequel, Pokémon Rumble Blast (Super Pokémon Rumble in Europe) on 3DS featuring all currently available Pokémon and new game modes. It later gained a Wii U sequel in the form of Pokémon Rumble U and a free-to-start Nintendo 3DS sequel in the form of Pokémon Rumble World. Its first smartphone entry, Pokémon Rumble Rush (formerly known as PokéLand), has been released in Australia on May 15, 2019 and then worldwide a week later.

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Tropes used in Pokémon Rumble include:

• Acrofatic: Snorlax with Body Slam. The attack causes the user to jump high into the air and land a few paces ahead. Similarly, Pignite/Emboar with Heat Crash, which uses the same animation.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Rush has the "Recommended Pokémon" button which allows the player to automatically deploy not only the strongest Toy Pokémon in hand, but also the most effective in type advantage and move. Gears are also automatically equipped on said Pokémon.
• Anti-Poopsocking:
  • World has varying recharge times for adventures, depending on the area.
  • Rush has the Ore refining feature, which takes time per Ore (and can only be done one at a time). As the player has limited refining slots, these can build up rather quickly, especially if the player is rather lucky.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: The enemy's approach to killing you. This is also the best way to beat bosses, since their guards die when you defeat the boss.
• Awesome but Impractical: Getting Manaphy in the game is nothing more than a chore. It requires you to release three Phione at the same time. But in order to get a Phione, you need to release a Lapras and a Vaporeon at the same time, both of which are rare to begin with (the former is a boss in one area, but it's rarer to befriend bosses). To top it all off, Manaphy have average Attack and only a little higher Defense than Phione.
  • Mewtwo. Which would you rather have? Three Dragons that can learn signature attacks that destroy the game, or one Pokémon that's basically an Alakazam with better Defense and a bigger range of moves?
    • Completely averted in the sequel, due to the change in the releasing system.
  • Instant-kill moves, due to long charge times and their inability to affect bosses.
  • Healing moves in the sequel, due to the low amounts healed per move.
• Awesome Yet Practical: Most Legendary and pseudo-Legendary Pokemon.
• Badass Army: The sequel features a new mode called "Charge Battle", where you make your own army of Pokémon to fight others. It also has Team Battle, where you can take a three-man army to fight mini-bosses.
  • The trailer that showcases how it works shows Garchomp leading an army consisting of Dragonite, Metagross, Salamence, Haxorus, Druddigon, Kingdra, the final evolution of every Starter, and every Eeveelution. The enemy army is Hydreigon leading an army of Zweilous, Cryogonal, and Escavalier. The results are obvious.
• Big Bad: Dark Rust in the sequel.
• Black and Gray Morality: While Dark Rust is purely evil and the Big Bad, Cobalion steals the Glowdrops, and the Pawniard accused of doing so is portrayed as a villain (until he's proved innocent, of course).
• Broken Aesop: The typical Pokemon moral is that you should love and take care of your Pokemon, not just abandoning Mons once they're weak and trading up for stronger Mons. Rumble Blast pretty much requires you to abandon your weaker Mons and trade up for stronger Mons in order to pass, treating your Pokemon as tools.
  • Perhaps that is the reason that it's supposed to be toys, rather than actual Pokémon, doing the battling.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Kricketot, oh god, Kricketot. It uses Bide, which gives it a status effect where any damage you deal to it is automatically dealt back to you. Using a powerful attack usually does about 800-1200 damage to the little critter. The average HP of a Pokémon in this game is 600-800. Long story short, if you attack Kricketot while Bide is in effect, you WILL die.
  • Also, Meowth and Glameow. Both of them use Fake Out, which automatically makes you flinch when it connects. That leaves you Button Mashing to get the status to go away. It doesn't help when you're swarmed by 5-10 of these bastards and they all gang up on you and kill you.
• Character Select Forcing: In Rush, the player can only use Pokémon native to the island they are recruited in regardless of species, so once that island gets rotated out, the player has to make a new progress again. Averted for Tournaments, which allow any Pokémon.
• Charged Attack: In Rush, the player can hold down their tap on the screen to charge up their Toy Pokémon's move to increase its potency.
• Completely Different Title: In Japanese, the Pokémon Rumble series is known as Pokémon Scramble. As for the individual titles:
  • The first game, Melee! Pokémon Scramble, became Pokémon Rumble in localization.
  • Super Pokémon Scramble became Pokémon Rumble Blast in USA and Super Pokémon Rumble in Europe.
  • Pokémon Scramble U became Pokémon Rumble U.
  • Everyone's Pokémon Scramble became Pokémon Rumble World.
  • Pokémon Scramble SP became Pokémon Rumble Rush.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Whether a Pokémon can be killed quickly or not depends not on which 'mon it is, but rather on how many of them there are.
• Cool Key: The various designs of the Wonder Keys. One is even called "Cool Key"!
• Curb Stomp Battle: Right at the beginning of the game, your only playable 'mon is a Rattata, which decides to try and fight in the Battle Royale. It will die in two hits. Good luck!
  • In Blast, your starting pokemon are a pitifully weak Pikachu and slightly less weak versions of the Gen V starters and Victini. The first boss? Zekrom. Three guesses as to how well that turns out.
  • It's important to note that, even if you do a good job in fighting Zekrom, you automatically lose thanks to Dark Rust crashing the party.
• Cut and Paste Environments: Each rank is simply the same 7 stages with stronger Pokemon. The sequel has unique stages, but only about 10-15 themes.
• Defeat Means Friendship: You recruit 'mon mainly be defeating them in battle, then picking up the toy they leave behind. It's even referred to in-game as "Befriending" them.
• Degraded Boss: Rank C Bosses are normal enemies in Rank B, Rank B Bosses are normal enemies in Rank A, etc.
  • The sequel also has many early bosses show up in the later stages. Some get to be mooks in their final evolution's boss battle.
• Difficulty Spike: The Battle Royales, Team Battles, and Rumpus Rooms are much harder then standard dungeons, but it is still easy.
  • Any time the player fights a Legendary Pokémon.
  • In the sequel: Both EX-5 battles. Especially the Team Battle. Better hope the player can scrounge up enough money for World Rank 8 or 9, because that is what it will take to even hope to defeat Reshiram or Zekrom. It is such an intense difficulty spike after EX-4, the player would think it would be the last level since the credits will even roll after beating both, but no. Have fun in EX-6.
• Disc One Nuke: Any Pokémon the player obtains by using a password will often one-shot anything that is not a boss. Said Pokémon include Giratina, Shaymin, and Mew.
• Flunky Boss: The bosses at the end of each stage have endlessly respawning guards.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Charge Battle is essentially this. Many moves, especially Normal or Fighting type moves, are this as well
• For Massive Damage: The super-effective attacks. It is practically a Game Breaker.
• Gameplay Automation: Rush has the Autoattack feature, automating the game further on top of the Toy Pokémon already moving by themselves in this game.
• Gotta Catch Them All: It's a Pokémon Game. One of the machines in the towns keeps track of all the Pokémon you have seen, lighting up the images when you actually obtain each one.
• Guide Dang It: Getting some of the Legendaries, which requires a specific combination of Pokémon. The sequel replaces this with the equally frustrating task of finding Legendaries in the stages, which is compounded by their 1 in 20 appearance rate and the intense difficulty of the fights.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When fighting Dark Rust in the sequel, Cobalion sacrifices its Wind Up Key to prevent Dark Rust from healing, making it beatable. This allows you to get Cobalion post-game, if you're lucky.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The opening battle in the Royale. It's not possible to win in the fight, as you have to kill the bosslike Pokémon that show up (in this case, it's the Kanto Eeveelutions), which isn't possible with Rattata.
  • In the sequel, the first battle with Cobalion and the beginning battle with Zekrom.
• Hub Level: The Terminal in the original, the towns in the sequel.
• Improbable Power Discrepancy: It's possible to fight a Golbat which takes six hits to kill on one floor and on the next, fight a Golbat which takes one.
• Jack of All Stats: Pretty much any Pokémon with an Attack and Defense rating of 3 each.
• Joke Character: Ditto. Can't damage anything for crap, dies if you so much as blink at it, and it's only move in the game is Struggle, which damages itself even if you don't hit anything.
  • Fixed in the sequel, since its only move is Transform instead of Struggle
• King Mook: The bosses of most of the stages are larger evolved versions of Pokémon that you can find in that same level.
• Make My Monster Grow: All bosses are giant-sized versions of either an evolved form of a Pokémon you fought throughout the dungeon, or a Legendary.
• Melee à Trois: The Battle Royales, where even the enemy Pokémon attack each other.
• Microtransactions:
  • First applied in World, but subverted as the game imposes a limit of 3,000 Poké Diamonds that can be purchased in the free version. The full-paid version released later has all said microtransactions paid for (Poké Diamond Digger becomes available from the start).
  • Played straight in Rush, being a free-to-start mobile game. The in-game Shop also features offers that either provide exclusive content (Spark Summon Gear (Pikachu)) or giving the buyer bonus advantages (easier catches, more refining slots, daily Poké Diamonds).
• Mook Medic: Audino. Odd in that its attack also heals the player, so Shoot the Medic First absolutely does not apply.
• More Dakka: Any ranged attack with a fast recharge time (for example, any of the multi-hit moves from the original game, like Bullet Seed or Spike Cannon) are prone to spamming.
• Multi-Mook Melee: The Battle Royales.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The game was developed by Ambrella, the same company that made Hey You, Pikachu!. Anyone who has played HYP will recognize the terminal music as a remix of the Viridian Forest Edge theme. The sequel features most of the first game's music and some sound effects from Hey You, Pikachu!.
  • Rush has the player start the tutorial with a Rattata, much like the beginning of the first Rumble.
• One-Man Army: Single-player is basically this.
• Play Every Day: Applies to World and Rush.
  • World limits the "Call Someone Online" feature for calling Mii characters without any cost to one per day, otherwise it costs Play Coins. The visiting Mii characters themselves will change to different (saved) ones each day. The in-game Shop offers Daily Specials that, of course, differ by day.
  • Rush has the Daily Challenges, a set of three simple objectives that can be completed to get some Poké Diamonds. The player will also be rewarded with some Refining Tickets as daily log-in bonus.
• Poor Communication Kills: A lot of bad stuff in Blast could have been avoided if Cobalion and Krookodile had explained that the Glowdrops were needed to stop the Big Bad...
• Random Drop: In Rush, bosses may drop Guide Feathers and/or Ores upon defeat. Non-Tournament Super Bosses will always drop at least one Guide Feather, though. Meanwhile, the refined Ores themselves may drop various Power Gears (and rarely Summon Gears) and their respective Upgrade Kits as well as some Ⓟ.
• Rare Random Drop: In Rush, rarer Ores may be dropped from bosses.
• Redemption Demotion: Zig-zagged. Certainly, if you successfully recruit a boss, it'll have fewer hit points than when you fought it. And regardless of what move it was using when you fought it, a befriended 'mon may have pitiful moves like Pound instead of whatever cool move they had been using against you. Alternately, recruited mooks will have more health on your team, and there is the possibility of suddenly learning a pair of extremely powerful moves upon recruitment.
• Summon Magic: The Summon Gear in Rush allows the player to call upon a Toy Pokémon associated with said Gear when its meter is full to unleash a powerful move. This is the only way to have a second move slot in this game, as unlike past Rumble games, the player's Toy Pokémon is limited to one move by default.
• Timed Mission:
  • World has certain Challenges whose one of the optional goals require clearing them within a specified time limit.
  • Rush has the Super Bosses and the Tournaments, both imposing a time limit on the player. The main campaign also imposes a time limit to complete the currently featured island before it gets rotated out.
• The Turret Master: Anything with Spike Cannon turns them into a turret. Especially true in Blast, where certain Skills can make so you clear out entire areas in seconds.
• Video Game Tutorial: The Tutorial island, shaped like a Pikachu. Contains five Super Bosses and guides the player through the basics.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Cobalion in Blast.
• Wind-Up Key: It functions as the life source for Toy Pokémon.
• Zerg Rush: The enemies' method of attack.
  • Can also be used by the player, if they have a Pokémon with a move like Shadow Claw, Dragon Claw, Poison Jab, etc. Rapidly tapping the attack button creates an endless stream of slashes that literally tear through groups of enemies. Now imagine four players doing this at the same time.
  • Some Special Traits in the sequel, such as Chop-Chop or Turbo, are made for this kind of attack.