Pokkén Tournament DX
While I haven't actually played a true Tekken game yet, my understanding is that Pokkén plays the same way, so those familiar with Tekken should feel comfortable jumping in here. For those unfamiliar, combat in Pokkén is one-on-one, with each round of a fight broken into two phases, beginning with the "field phase." The field phase gives the Pokémon access to the full 3D arena and encourages mid-to-long-range attacks. The "duel phase" locks combatants into a more traditional 2D environment and encourages the use of close-range attacks. Any sufficiently powerful attack from either fighter will trigger a "phase shift" that toggles between the types of phases, with no limit to the number of times phases can be shifted in a match. This means you'll need a minimum of two different strategies for each Pokémon you play with, ensuring that combat never gets too stale.
However, quality fighting mechanics aren't enough to keep me engaged for the long haul. Fortunately, Pokkén has a campaign/story mode that adds some sense of purpose behind the endless combat. Starting out rather innocently, Pokkén enters you into a professional Pokémon battling league and challenges you to work your way through the ranks to become the best. The eventual introduction of the mysterious Dark Mewtwo shakes up the story a bit and gives you more to do than just fight in tournament after tournament, but even then, the focus hardly veers away from the same kind of combat. Even so, this light story was enough to give me the motivation to learn the game's mechanics in a way I never had with a competitive fighter before, so I was more than satisfied.
Fighting games, alongside strategy games and beat 'em ups, are one of the few genres I just can't seem to get into. I'm not much for the competitive scene, and even if I was, I can never really grasp all of the mechanics well enough to be any good. Pokkén Tournament was a different story though. The Pokémon theming was enough to get me in the door, despite my skepticism, and smart game design was enough to keep me around a lot longer than I expected. The story bits were drip-fed just enough between tournaments to encourage me to keep going, and the difficulty grew gradually enough that I was actually able to learn and improve just by playing like normal. After this experience, I'm definitely more open to giving fighting games a chance, and whether or not you already enjoy other games in the genre, I think that you'll find plenty to appreciate here. I personally couldn't ask for a better reintroduction to fighting games than this.
