With the same supercute style as My Pokemon Ranch, Pokemon Rumble continues the joyous obsession of collecting Pokemon in a bite-sized beat-'em-up package. Instead of training the Toy Pokemon you capture, you continually upgrade to stronger Toy Pokemon by brawling your way through increasingly tough areas, where the difficulty curve is just enough to be satisfying without being frustrating. The action is fast and frenzied, but thankfully it's not devoid of strategy: Type strengths and weaknesses are intact, and each Pokemon can have up to two moves at a time, varying from melee to ranged attacks as well as status-affecting moves. To sweeten the deal, you can play through all the stages and Battle Royale arenas with up to three friends cooperateively, while simultaneously competing for the highest KO count. While not as robust as a full-priced Pokemon game, it's definitely a welcome diversion until Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver Versions come out next year. If you're still on the fence, a free demo of Pokemon Rumble is available for download at the Wii Shop Channel.

Rating: Recommended
Taken from Nintendo Power's Holiday 2009 issue. Review by Carolyn G.

Not frustrating? *remembers stupid Extra Mode's Battle Royale* That was very frustrating.

Wow Nintendo Power actually gave a good review to a Nintendo game.

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A lot of people got mad (including myself) that this didn't get a good review.

I can answer that with three letters:
IGN

I think they're biased. They rate everything that isn't a first-person shooter low (not proven).

I trust reader reviews and ratings more.

GameFAQs ratings: 8.5 by 57 users. That's better.

IGN work with Xbox Live, right? I'm pretty sure they do - at least here.

Never go to IGN for reviews, only for cheats and guides (even better, go to GameFAQs)