Wii Critic Reviews

One of the better Pokemon spin-offs out there, this is also one of the longer-lasting WiiWare games around.

It's difficult to find much wrong with Pokémon Rumble: everything it does is done quite well, and one can really only take issue with the things the game doesn't do.

The core gameplay is basic, yet all of Pokémon Rumble's component parts come together to make for a really great mixture of fun. The presentation is polished, but it's all just smoke and mirrors to try and hide the fact that you're not getting much for the whopping 1500 Wii Points being asked for this game.

Fans of Gauntlet-like games may think that the price of 1500 Nintendo Points is worth the game, but others will probably feel like they have been deceived.

There's just not enough depth to the game to make it interesting to the older Pokemon fans, or really anyone that doesn't squeal excitedly when they see a Pikachu.

Gauntlet with Pokemon is at least something different, but it's too repetitive and shallow to really work.

Pokemon Rumble is definitely not a title with a strong appeal. Banal background that leads inexorably to a repetitive gameplay, combined with the simplification or the absence of some key aspects of this genre of games, such as the growth of the Pokemon, makes Pokemon Rumble a disappointing WiiWare.

Players expecting a Pokémon gauntlet will be disappointed. Players expecting a good Pokémon game will also be disappointed.

What it didn't factor into the design is that kleptomaniacs rarely bother collecting items without emotional gravitas, and this oversight becomes immediately obvious when you compare Rumble to its source material. [Jan 2010, p.98]