The Pokémon Company have collaborated with Facebook Gaming to bring their global franchise to the popular social media platform. And they’ve done so with not just one, but two brand new games. Although their recent holiday release, Pokemon Sword and Shield on Nintendo Switch, saw the biggest launch numbers the franchise has ever seen, the number of people with a Facebook account is in the millions. These two new games may be able to reach a vast audience like no other. So let’s look into the games themselves.
Pokémon Medallion Battle
Based on the increasingly popular card-based strategy genre, this Facebook game turns Pokemon into discs (called medallions) that can be collected, trained and fought. Players will navigate the game having amassed a deck (their party of Pokemon medallions) to take on the gyms within the game. The stats and battle system are a simplified version of the main games and more available Pokemon are set to be rolled out over time – seemingly taking more cues from Pokemon Go. This isn’t the franchise’s first attempt at a simplified battler, such as the ill-fated Pokemon Duel, or the platform-hopping Pokemon Rumble. Will this game slide into your DMs? (Defence Medallions)
Pokemon Medallion Battle
Pokémon Tower Battle
In this game, players face off against each other trying to assemble the tallest stack of Pokemon before their opponent’s pile topples into the abyss, like competitive Poké-Jenga. Pictures of Pokemon fall from the sky and land on a platform, so mastering the varying shapes and physics of these descending creatures is the key to victory. Fans who played Pokemon Black & White may remember the expanded online component known as Pokemon Dream World, which allowed players to send their Pokemon to the cloud where they could design a house, plant berries and play some minigames. Pokemon Tower Battle appears to have similar art and easiness to pick up and play. The game can be played against friends in real-time, or in solo to mark your place on the global leaderboard. If you weren’t scared of dropping a Voltorb in the wrong place before, you might be now.
Pokemon Tower Battle
Pokémon Medallion Battle was developed by GCTurbo and is currently only available in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Oceania and Vietnam. Meanwhile, Pokémon Tower Battle was developed by Bombay Play and is available worldwide. Both games are available exclusively on Facebook Gaming.
