Pokémon Rumble U

While Pokémon Rumble U shares similar gameplay elements with its predecessor, in Rumble U, the player controls Pokémon and battles alongside them against other Pokémon in battle arenas. A boss Pokémon must be fought at the end of every battle arena. As the player advances, new battle arenas are unlocked. Further battle arenas can be selected from a menu.

Progressively, battle arena difficulties continue to rise. Once a battle arena is completed, the player is rewarded with coins and new Pokémon. The game also uses figurines, similar to Skylanders and Disney Infinity, to add content to the game.

After a mishap in the Toy Pokémon Shop, some Pokémon capsules are swept down a river and washed up on a strange riverbank. Pikachu, Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott emerge from the Pokémon capsules and set out to find their way back to the Toy Pokémon Shop. On the course of their journey, they discover Pokémon reluctant of returning to the Toy Shop. It's even found the four Pokémon were intentionally thrown into the river in the first place.

Prior to Pokémon Rumble U's release, Nintendo announced it would be the first game to use the near-field communication (NFC) component of the Wii U. Around the same time, Nintendo announced figurines would be distributed. Once the game went on sale in Europe, a special edition including two NFC figurines, a poster, and a code to download the game was distributed in game stores. Pokémon figurines are utilized by placing them on the NFC section of the Wii U GamePad, which allows the player to use that Pokémon in the game.

NFC figurines have been sold in Japan, Europe, and the United States with limited availability. In response to the figurines not being sold in Canada, a Nintendo spokesperson commented that claiming availability in the United States was limited.

Pokémon Rumble U has received mostly mixed reviews. On Metacritic, the game received an aggregated score of 49 out of 100, and a user score of 5.0. Its aggregate score at GameRankings was also 49%.

Mike Manson of Nintendo Life gave a more mixed review, giving Rumble U 6 out of 10; summarising that "Pokémon Rumble U is straightforward fun that's a far cry from the main Pokémon titles, but it does pair some key strategic elements of the series with the button bashing – though there are definitely moments where there's too much going on to keep real track of, which does lead to more reliance on the latter than the former".