Pokemon Arcade Fighter Pokken Tournament May be Coming to America
A few months back Nintendo and Bandai Namco made the surprise announcement of a Pokemon fighter arcade game, called “Pokken Tournament” because it’s half Tekken, half Pokemon. Machamp, Lucario, Suicune and many other “tough” members of the Pokemon universe will meet in a grassy field and battle each other at your command and inputs. It sounded great, but with the arcade market in this country much worse off than it is in Japan, the odds of our ever getting to play it without taking a plane trip felt low.
Not so fast! The restaurant-slash-arcade chain Dave and Busters heard about the game, and they’re interested too. They offered Namco the option to beta-test Pokken Tournament in several of their restaurants, and Namco agreed. Kevin Bachus, senior vice president of Dave and Busters, revealed in an AMA chat on Reddit that the machines were on their way. “Yes. We will be testing Pokken. Candidly both NAMCO and I are more optimistic about that title and our typical guests than Tekken.”
If Pokken Tournament makes the trip, you may have to do some hunting and hope luck is on your side. The game will be made temporarily available, but only at a handful of joints. Currently Dave and Busters is testing out Tekken 7 for Namco, but you can only find the game at three of its locations.
Whenever Pokken Tournament shows up, I’m sure the Internet will do its thing and generate a list of areas where it can be found. If the game does well enough, Namco could be convinced to create a Stateside conversion, so plug in those quarters!