Today I finally had the chance to sit down and try out Pokken Tournament on my Wii-U, I thought I was going to be in for a lighthearted fighting game but what I found instead was tutorial, after tutorial, after tutorial just to learn the basics.  After about the fifth tutorial I swear my eyes were starting to glaze over, it was 8 A.M university lectures all over again – I could probably only give you the gist of how Pokken Tournament plays due to the number of sheer systems the opening three tutorials throw at you.

From what I gather: Each Pokemon in the game has different statistics – health, speed, damage etc and during a match you can call in special Pokemon to either give yourself buffs or cast de-buffs on to your opponents thanks to a special gauge that fills up over time. Then of course, there are the fighting game staples of high attacks, mid attacks, low attacks, standard blocks, cancels, advancing guards, counter-attacks, special attacks, special moves… have I lost you yet? What I’m trying to say is that the initial tutorial in Pokken Tournament does a great job in telling you how deep the fighting system is without actually letting you learn. Don’t expect to go hands-on with some of the most pivotal maneuvers required in skill play, want to learn to swiftly pull off a cancel? Too bad the tutorial gives you 30 seconds then it just rushes you along to the next maneuver.

Best of all? The opening tutorial takes half an hour…. half an hour. Don’t believe me? Watch the whole thing below, because it’s going to take me a while before I can bring you in-depth impressions. Back to practising my quick attack…

[youtube id=”n0oQvOuUs9s”]