Pokémon is here Pokémon is everywhere from main consoles to handhelds, to our TV channels and to a Trading Card Game. Similar to games like Puzzles & Dragons and Candy Crush series Pokémon Shuffle is a Free-to-Play puzzle game which you can download for free on your Nintendo 3DS from the Nintendo eShop. Past Pokémon games have always been addicting for gameplay and trying to collect more than 150 Pokémon on each of the games over the years which has expanded even more with later titles down the line. This is in fact a spin-off title in the series doesn't do too bad for a puzzle game on a handheld console you would have think this would have been released on either iPhones or Android devices or even Facebook but it's not.
You fight against various Pokémon by matching three or more of the same Pokémon on their bottom of their screen. You can accomplish this by swapping around Pokémon on the bottom of their screen, having up to four support Pokémon in your team but certain battles you'll need to swap Pokémon around because some will have weak elements from other Pokémon like a water Pokémon can defeat a fire Pokémon or an earth Pokémon can defeat a Grass Pokémon. As you progress through each stage by defeating the opposing Pokémon within a set number of moves, after each battle you'll receive in-game coins and gain experience for your Pokémon. Depending on what score you get and the number of moves you have left spare you'll have a chance to catch the Pokémon it’s more like 50% chance you'll either capture it or it easily escapes.
Defeating certain trainers earns Mega Stones, which allow certain Pokémon to undergo Mega Evolution once you've matched enough of them during a stage and granting bonus effects when matched doing more damage. But when you start up Pokémon Shuffle you'll only have five hearts and you requiring at least one heart to attempt each stage, if you fail to defeat a certain Pokémon using up all of your moves it'll be game over you can use jewels to gain more moves but the only time you'll earn jewels is by defeating Pokémon trainers or getting one from StreetPassing a number of people, you can get a heart if you StreetPass a certain amount of people. The only way to gain more hearts or coins is by trading jewels but you would need to buy them through the Nintendo eShop using microtransactions just like you would see in other Candy Crush related games. You do also have the option to wait within half an hour you'll get your five hearts restocked. You can check-in by signing in to your Nintendo account online through the Nintendo 3DS to gain some extra coins, updates and special events almost every day if you keep checking-in its encouraging you to come back every day repeating the same process.
Don't get me wrong the visuals look really charming from its stages to seeing faces of each Pokémon you encounter plus its soundtrack can be really catchy to listen. But however as I've already mentioned with this being a free-to-play its pretty much Nintendo's answer to Candy Crush but with Pokémon, the first few levels can be fun to begin with but later levels can feel a little repetitive having 150 levels for its main stages and 20 Expert levels including Special stages where certain stages give you the option on getting the highest score within a time limit and your score will be posted on an online rank scoreboard.
With more updates yet to come in the future including more stages added it feels like their rushing through this and feeling like their just using recycle elements used making it feel quite repetitive at the same time. If this game didn't have microtransactions support this could have been a fun game to play for both fans of the series and to newcomers as well. But there's always a downside to Free-to-Play games in general they require some money of you to making you continue playing more games like these and having to wait within a few hours or the next day to continue where you left off. It might not be everyone's cup of tea when it comes to Pokémon Shuffle but this is one of those games that you would consider to passing some time especially when travelling by bus or train to work every morning.