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'Pokken Tournament' is the Pokémon brawler you've been dreaming of

It used to be that if you wanted to make two Pokémon really wail on each other, you'd have to fire up a fan-made game like Pokémon: Type Wild. At long last, those days are over: after a bit of teasing last year, The Pokémon Company and Namco confirmed today that Pokken Tournament is an honest-to-goodness, button-mashing brawler that'll see the light of day next year. Beyond the thrill of watching a Machamp just going to town on a Lucario, Pokken's arrival is yet another example of Nintendo's new openness towards using game mechanic mashups to liven up long-running franchises. Hyrule Warriors, anyone? What's next, a Punch-Out boxing manager sim? A Fire Emblem RTS? (Please make that one, Nintendo!) Anyway, Pokken is slated to hit Japanese arcades some time in 2015, but given the sad state of arcades in the US, we'll have just to pray for an international console release down the road.