A new Pokémon Rumble game will become the first to feature Skylanders style interactive toys, as Nintendo takes a typically cautious approach to NFC technology.

We wouldn’t bother catching ‘em all

You’d never guess it at the moment but the Wii U GamePad has NFC (near field communication) technology built into it, the same tech that the powers the Portal Of Power from Skylanders. But at the moment not a single game uses it or has even been announced for it – until now.

Unfortunately though you could barely get anything less exciting than downloadable game Pokémon Scramble U, the third entry in what is known in the West as the Pokémon Rumble spin-off series.



The game was announced last month in Japan and seems to be the same sort of low grade arena-based shooter as 2011’s Super Pokémon Rumble, which we awarded a scathing 2/10 in our review.


For some reason Nintendo keep making the games though (we assume that means they’re popular in Japan, although we’ve seen no evidence for that in the sales chart) and Japanese magazine CoroCoro has revealed that Pokémon Scramble U will have its own range of toys to accompany it.

The conceit in the Pokémon Rumble games is that you’re not actually controlling real pokémon but instead little wind-up toy versions of them, hence the odd angular designs. As you can see in the image above that means the physical toys don’t look much like regular pokémon either, so presumably wouldn’t be reused for other games.

Only six basic figures and a special character have been announced so far though, which suggests Nintendo are merely testing (or perhaps muddying) the waters. Each toy will cost the equivalent of £1.40, which is considerably cheaper than any Skylanders toy.

By placing the Pokémon toy near the GamePad it opens up the character to be used within the game. Given the low price though the figures are unlikely to store any game data, unlike their Skylanders equivalents.

Skylanders has been such a success, becoming the second biggest money-maker in gaming, after Activision’s own Call Of Duty, that Disney has overcome its usual distaste for console games and announced its own take on the idea called Disney Infinity.

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