Pokemon Rumble World will be available at NA retail stores on April 29th

Back in 2009, Pokemon Rumble came to the Wii as one of the early Wii Ware items on the Nintendo eShop, and to much surprise it has grown into a cult favorite spin-off series. Seven years later, Pokemon Rumble World was released on the Nintendo eShop as a free-to-start game. Now, The Pokemon Company has taken the bold step of re-releasing the game as a physical retail release on April 29th, 2016. 

While it may seem odd for a free-to-start game to be sold at a retailer, Pokemon Rumble World‘s package release will have several benefits that are not available in the free version.

Yay! Free Poke Diamonds!

Those who have played the free version will know about Poke Diamonds, the in-game currency required to unlock various features in the game. The retail version, however, will grant players 3,000 Poke Diamonds at the very start. It will also grant players the Poke Diamond Digger, which will give them 40 Poke Diamonds every day. This greatly speeds up the time it takes to get into the core of the game, as players will no longer have to pay for Poke Diamonds with real money, and can be sure they always have a steady amount for future in-game purchases.

If that’s not enough for you, Pokemon VIP Cards found in the in-game shop will allow players to unlock various features for substantially less. The first is the Balloon VIP Card, which will allow players to inflate any hot-air balloon for only 1 Poke Diamond. Meanwhile, the Timing Stop VIP Card will allow players to manually select which stage they want to play, once again for a single Poke Diamond. All of these bonuses combined make the retail release the definitive version for fans of Pokemon Rumble.

It should be noted that the retail version of Pokemon Rumble World will not have the ability to port saves from the eShop version. That said, the games can still connect to one another via StreetPass and SpotPass, regardless of the version used, so there’s no need to worry about being unable to connect with friends.

Pokemon Rumble World was originally released internationally on April 8th, 2015. It has since been released for retail in Japan on November 19th, 2015; Europe on January 22nd, 2016; and now North America on April 29th, 2016.