Pokemon Rumble World devs discuss the choice of free-to-play, design designs tweaked

Coming from a Famitsu interview with Ambrella director Norio Matsumura and president Muneaki Ozawa...

Matsumura: Mr. Ishihara (the president of the Pokemon Company) suggested: “Let’s try out F2P.” Personally I think that refreshing controls and the nature of continuously returning to the game are concepts which suit free games very well, so I thought there was a chance of success. However, many members of the staff are against F2P games…

It felt like a dream that more people could play the game when it’s distributed through the eShop for free. On the other hand, many staff members of our company like traditional packaged titles, so they voiced opinions like, “I’m afraid of a title in which you can pay infinitely and it is out of my league.” As that was the case, I thought people could play with peace of mind if there was an upper limit for in-game purchases.

Osawa: We did things like increase the tempo of parts which tie scenes together and remove the title screen.
Finally, Matsumura touched on why auto attack was implemented. In doing so, he also revealed that automatic movement was considered at one point.

Matsumura: Auto attack was implemented so that more people could enjoy the game. When we observed people who had no experience with the series, there were many who played the game without pressing the attack button. That’s why we considered attacking automatically and ended up implementing the feature. By the way, we also had an idea for automatic movement.
Pokemon Rumble World is available for 3DS via the eShop.