Super Pokemon Scramble heading to the 3DS

If you're a regular reader of the site, you may remember that, just before the massive games trade show E3 kicked off in Los Angeles, rumours were flying around that a brand new Pokemon game was set to be unveiled for the 3DS. There was a tangible air of excitement around the announcement - would it be a new proper Pokemon game? Or a Mystery Dungeon style spin-off, which uses the Pokemon characters in a different way. The answer, is... well... neither.


The mystery game is actually Super Pokemon Scramble, the follow up to the Wii's Pokemon Scramble, which is set for release this July in Japan. It's a game that's pretty tricky to get your head around, as, instead of wondering around, catching the wild Pokemon you find, you'll instead play through the levels using a wind-up Pokemon toy, which trundles through the levels, smashing itself into other 'mons to battle them, and collect items. Beyond that, thanks to our shocking lack of being able to read Japanese, there's not much else we know about the game, bar that it'll support SpotPass, and feature all five generations of Pokemon, from Red and Blue all the way up to the most recent Black and White.

What we do know, however, is that if we lived in Japan, we'd be rushing to our nearest store to pre-order the game, as they're once again getting some amazing pre-order bonuses. Those in the land of the rising sun, should they pre-order, will receive a three piece gift set, which includes a Pokemon AR marker for the recent Pokedex 3D, a code to unlock four Pokemon in the game, and this little gem below, which we'd happily pay silly amounts of money for.


A Pikachu papercraft thing. LOOK AT HOW CUTE HIS LITTLE SELF IS.

Sadly, while we expect the game will be on our shelves by this Christmas, we doubt we'll be getting pre-order bonuses as cool as that, if we get any at all. If you'd like more information on the game, there's a trailer up on the game's official site, and thankfully, you won't need to be fluent in Kanji to read it. You can find the site here.