Pokemon Rumble Blast for the 3DS is a substantially improved game of the original fun spinoff Pokemon Rumble for the Wii.
The premise: You control a Pokemon, run around, and beat the crap out of other Pokemon. Looks simple on the surface, but there's so much customizability that I can't put the game down.
I plan on loading the OP with all sorts of tips and tricks for fellow Rumblers to enjoy.
Handy Resources:
Serebii's Rumble Blast Page
Serebii's Rumble Blast Pokedex
Serebii's Rumble Blast Attackdex
PS-Wiki (translated from Japanese)
#rumble on SynIRC for Pokemon Rumble chat
Have fun Rumbling!
The premise: You control a Pokemon, run around, and beat the crap out of other Pokemon. Looks simple on the surface, but there's so much customizability that I can't put the game down.
I plan on loading the OP with all sorts of tips and tricks for fellow Rumblers to enjoy.
- Endeavor is very handy for recruiting Pokemon. If the opponent has more HP than you, Endeavor deals damage equal to the difference, but otherwise, each hit deals only 1 damage. This lets you knock the opponent around until it wobbles. Then finish it off to recruit it!
- More general recruiting tips include increasing your combo meter (20 gets you the max bonus), attacking from behind, and apparently attacking Pokemon that are inflicted with status (like paralysis).
- Hang on to your mons that are too weak but have good moves. They'll come in handy late in the main story and beyond. They'll help you teach moves far more efficiently than the move vending machines.
- Speaking of Pokemon with moves, if you release a password Pokemon, you can go recapture it. This effectively reduces the move school cost of moves like Dragon Claw, Earthquake, Leaf Blade, Thunder, V-Create, and others.
- If you get a Rusty Pokemon, you can use the fountain to clean it off. It'll gain moves and a good ability. However if you don't like the ability, you can close the game (without saving!!!!!!) and restart it and try purifying it again. Handy if you know what ability you want on your Pokemon.
- Protect is your best friend! Temporary invincibility is the only way past the hardest enemies. If you use it too often, it'll start failing. Make sure you're well away from attacks when you try to set up Protect.
- Rumpus rooms - if the launcher is pointing left of usual, you'll get a rumpus room with four giants and infinite lackeys; if it's pointing right, you'll get the 30 Pokemon rumpus room.
- Crazy money trick - take a Lucky+ or Lucky++ Pokemon, especially with a move that increases money drops, to the 1-4 Meadow. Find a left-facing launcher and hope that you get the Audino/Lillipup rumpus room. Let the Audinos heal you and each other, and pulverize the Lillipups for mad cash. It'll do you good to refresh the combo counter on occasion since the Lillipup toys give you much less money than the coins. This let me get to World Rank 10 in a hurry.
- This is still a work in progress.
- Draining attacks are probably going to be first moves you stumble upon that you'll find very beneficial. In Rumble Blast, these moves restore 20%* of the damage done in health, so if you hit a cluster of enemies with a draining attack, you'll be seeing a boatload of health coming back. Drain Punch and Giga Drain are the main moves, but I've even found Leech Life useful in situations. (*In the Wii Rumble, the recovery amount was more like 5%)
- Charging moves like Sky Attack, Fusion Bolt, Drill Run, and Megahorn are boss. Cross Chop, another move known for landing multiple hits in one use, has been substantially nerfed from Wii to 3DS.
- Rock Wrecker bowls everything over. Just watch out for its slow charge-up time.
- Speaking of charge-up time, moves that increase your Hit Ratio (Hone Claws and Coil) are amazing. Nothing like having your attack launch faster and do more damage too!
- Much like I discussed above, Protect deserves an obvious mention.
- Certain special abilities make otherwise subpar moves much more useful.
- Steady (blocks all status changes, good or bad) makes moves that inflict bad status on you a lot better. Examples include Overheat, Close Combat, and Outrage. At high levels, Steady monsters tend to start with one of these if able. Good on Ambrella for making it easy to enjoy ability synergy more easily!
- Adept blocks self-damage and certain bad status applied by the enemy. Obvious uses include Head Smash, Flare Blitz, and Volt Tackle, etc., and the game will provide these in a similar way to Steady. Less obvious moves to abuse include Substitute, Belly Drum, Final Gambit, and Explosion! You get the benefits without having to lose HP to use them. Keep in mind that the moves that ordinarily KO you prevent you from using a move for a few seconds, which makes Final Gambit more terrible than it already is.
- Razor Wind is kinda fun. It sets up a barrier around you that lets you run around and damage anything you collide with. Especially lulzy on something with Dragon Dance too like Haxorus.
- Eruption and Water Spout are fast and have great damage output.
- Skull Bash has a built-in defense boost, handy for something that doesn't have room for a defense boosting move, an attack, AND something else or otherwise want some damage to go with their bulk.
- Shell Smash appears weaker than Dragon Dance with the defense drop, but Shell Smash has a much lower charge time. Also there are some Shell Smashers that learn cool moves that no Dragon Dancer can learn!
- Pretty much any legendary is going to kick serious butt. You'll need all the firepower you can get for the toughest battle royales.
- Dragonite's strong stats and gigantic movepool leave it with a lot of options. Roost, Dragon Claw, Hone Claws, Dragon Dance, Hurricane...
- Altaria is fun with Dragon Dance and Sky Attack.
- Serperior is the best Coil user.
- Conkeldurr is ridiculous with Bulk Up/Drain Punch. Ridiculous.
- Whimsicott is the easiest-to-find user of Endeavor and Giga Drain. In case you haven't noticed, I like sustainability.
- Crustle terrorizes bosses with Hone Claws and Rock Wrecker.
- Scrafty is okay with Dragon Dance and Drain Punch.
- Sawsbuck is surprisingly good with Horn Leech. This is probably because draining moves are so ridiculous.
- Volcarona's Fiery Dance is very strong, and it boosts your Attack to boot! Be careful, this Attack boost and other buffs like Protect or Morning Sun cancel each other out. Fiery Dance is so good to spam that I find Leech Life to be the best filler.
- Torkoal, despite its low strength levels, gets fun support moves for Eruption, like Shell Smash or Skull Bash.
- I probably have more comments if asked.
- Arceus is broken.
Handy Resources:
Serebii's Rumble Blast Page
Serebii's Rumble Blast Pokedex
Serebii's Rumble Blast Attackdex
PS-Wiki (translated from Japanese)
#rumble on SynIRC for Pokemon Rumble chat
Have fun Rumbling!
