When I moved to Canada, I left a lot of my things behind, simply because I couldn't bring them all in my car at once. One of those items, unfortunately, was my beloved 3DS. I was finally able to go back to the states and grab the rest of my stuff, including my 3DS. I've been dying to get my paws on this and mod it ever since the second I noticed I didn't bring it; pretty much the day after I got here. Now that I have it again, and it's modded, I asked some friends what games I should load on it. My partner suggested Pokémon Rumble Blast, saying it was cute, and perfectly grindy to my tastes.

Rumble Blast is a static dungeon based beat-em-up. The game is themed around not Pokémon themselves, but Pokémon toys within the Pokémon universe. You go from zone to zone and town to town with your toys, beating and befriending other toys to increase your arsenal and reach the end of the game. It's not turn-based like the mainline games, you're free to run around and spam whatever abilities you're given.

For a Pokémon spin-off game on the 3DS, I was enjoying my time. It's not a hardcore game by any means. It's easy, and can be repetitive at times, but at the time I picked up the game, that's what I was looking for. I knew it was going to be fun for me, specifically because of the completionist elements, but we'll get more into that later. While there isn't a lot of replay value and the story is a means to an end, it was charming playing through the game once.

So, is it worth completing?

When I started the post-game content, I was absolutely confident that it would appeal to all completionists. However, as the hours started climbing, it became clear that only hardcore completionists are going to enjoy this level of grind and repetition. It requires you to play through each zone up to 20 times, sometimes even more. Occasionally, Pokémon won't spawn, or they will spawn, but they won't drop for you to befriend. Additionally, you need to befriend all the legendaries, which have a 5% chance to spawn at the end of specific zones. If you love this game, or you love Pokémon, sure, give it a shot. But don't beat yourself up if you realize that completing it is far too much of a grind. Usuaully I'd write more here, but for this game specifically, I've created a specific log of my journey. Skip to the very bottom for my final thoughts.

Bonus Section!

I recommend using the GameFAQs guide while completing this. Archived version.

General

• World Rank refers to the level your world is, upgraded by spending Poke.
• Pokémon Befriended refers to befriending all the Pokémon in the game.

Chapter 1 - Toy Town

Chapter 1 had some tough spots that left me repeatedly playing zones multiple times. There were a few Pokémon that had low spawn rates, which seems intentional. In one of the zones, I was having a hard time catching a Pidgeot. Usually, only one spawns every three attempts. What I ended up doing was evolving Pidgey into Pidgeotto, then those Pidgeotto into a Pidgeot.

Another rough spot was the baby Pokémon. Obviously, you can't evolve into those, so you'll need to grind for them. They have a low spawn rate, and it's harder to make them tip over because they have lower health. It took me about an hour to catch both Abra and Iggilybuff respectively. I ended up getting a few of the legendaries before the trouble Pokémon listed above, so it wasn't a complete struggle.

Chapter 2 - Easterly Town

No new comments about Chapter 2, mostly the same comments I had about Chapter 1. Learning how the game plays and how the rest of the chapters will be. I strongly suggest checking to see if you can evolve into new Pokémon rather than farming them. Many difficult to find Pokémon in this chapter can be evolved into.

Chapter 3 - Westerly Town

This chapter ended up being a lot shorter than I expected. I think I was luckier with my RNG this time, making it feel shorter. No legendaries this time around, so I'll have to come back and grind them at a later point.

Chapter 3 did introduce something special, however. There's a secret hideout for Rotom that only opens every so often. Others online have said it's a random timeframe, but I wanted to see if I could figure out the actual time. After researching and testing a bit more, myself and others came to the anecdotal conclusion that loading new zones has a chance to open the hideout.

Chapter 4 - Northerly Town

Chapter 4 was short, but it took a while to complete. It brought back the mechanic from Chapter 3, where you had to befriend all the Pokémon in a hideout. This time, they chose Unown, which had 28 unique Pokémon to befriend instead of 6. Around 90% of my time in this chapter was attempting to get all the Unown, which is very frustrating, and one of the few oversights I've seen in the design.

Chapter 5 - World Axel

Zone 2 was particularly difficult. The S+ had a very tight timer and strong Pokémon that couldn't be killed in one hit. All but one zone also had a legendary that would spawn randomly. The original legendary birds in particular felt like they had a low spawn and low drop chance, but I eventually pulled through.

End Game - Upper Levels & Legendary Collection

I mentioned in my completionist appeal section that, at the start, this game would appeal to all completionists. This is the point in the game where I changed my tune on that. The upper levels, legendary grind, and money farm will test your resilience on if you even want to continue playing this.

First off, any legendaries you didn't get while clearing all the zones, you now have to go back and get. This consists of you running through levels that have legendaries until they spawn. Hopefully, you saved a Speedy++ Pokémon to run through the levels, then quickly port back to town. Mind-numbing at times, but not the worst part of the final grind.

Second, the StreetPass legendaries are next to impossible unless you have 150 days to spare, live with someone else who has the game, or have friends who you meet with regularly who also the game. If you don't have another 3DS to StreetPass, it's 10 play coins to simulate a StreetPass, which you can only get 10 of per day. Out of everything, this took me the longest. I only had one person to StreetPass with who had the game, so it was mostly play coins. Good luck.

Third, the amount of money you have to farm to get max World Rank isn't proportionally balanced. I honestly believe that the developers didn't expect anyone to get this far, and thus, didn't test how awful this would be. More on this in the last section, though. The total amount of money needed is 75,200,000, but you won't notice until the last two World Ranks. World Rank 9 is 10,000,000 and World Rank 10 is 50,000,000. When you hand in 10 million for practically nothing and then see you need to grind 50,000,000, you're going to lose it. Out of everything in the game, including the last point I haven't gotten to yet, this grind was the worst. There are situations where you can farm 500k every 25 minutes, but unless you got lucky with specific traits on your Pokémon, it'll be around 150k every 25 minutes. It's an insane amount of time, and it wasn't fun, even a second, farming World Rank 10.

Finally, the upper level challenges are brutally hard compared to anything else you've done in the game. They aren't just difficult to get S+ rank on, they're difficult to win at all. There's next to no Pokémon that are viable enough to come close to beating Battle Royale. The only way I could figure out how to come anywhere near beating them was to farm Giratina over and over again until I get one with insane stats. Giratina can go underground while attacking, thus dodging enemy attacks and stuns. If you get stunned at all, you're instantly dead. If you get hit at all, that's a quarter or more of your health gone, usually getting one-hit-killed by the boss. There are other strategies for Team Battles, but Battle Royale forces you to play this way.

You know, I didn't mind having to go run through each level multiple times to farm the legendaries. I think that's a core experience to Pokémon itself. I also didn't dislike (but certainly love) having to get 150 StreetPasses for those legendaries. It was annoying, but I got the last one around the same time I finished the game. Even grinding the money for World Rank. I'll be honest, this almost broke me, but I was able to push on. I've had to grind worse things before, and I could do this over time throughout each day.

However... The upper level battles... I became so frustrated trying to even beat these battles that I started to theorize that the developers of the game didn't test them at all. In fact, it feels like they didn't think anyone would get to this point in the game at all. Each Team Battle or Battle Royale throughout the entire game, not just the upper levels, gives you a rank. As you saw before, I was able to get every S+ rank for almost all the battles, except four. I attempted these every way I could possibly think of, with every possible combination of Pokémon that had the best moves, the best type advantage, and the best special trait. While doing that, I confirmed by theory that the developers didn't test this part of the game. I ran some numbers across all the Pokémon in the game and the stats they could have, and it's mathematically impossible to truly 100% this game without cheating. The last Battle Royale and the last Team Battle and mathematically impossible to beat within 90 seconds, which is the S+ rank requirement. Honestly, I wasn't surprised this was the case, but it left me at a crossroads on how to proceed. Since it's impossible to fully complete, should I say I 100% the game? Yeah. Yeah, I think I will. I think I put in the effort to say that I completed the game, based on all the things you need to do to get to this point.

_{Published 22 March 2026 @ 11:39:29 PM UTC}

End of Game Information

Total Time Played: 140 hours