Reaction: Pokémon Shuffle Isn't Quite Microtransaction Hell, But It's Getting There

No wonder I'm not downloading this.

It's basically Candy Crush from my experience of the 1st 5 levels.

Ive yet to see a F2P game which idea is based around microtransaction find a good balance (Dota 2 and TF2 are different).

Oh god Nintendo!

"Freemium" gaming is nothing but gambling (without the chance of payout) targeted at children and they should be banned or restricted to minors.

The game is pretty fun, though I should probably get Battle Trozei soon since i heard it's pretty good. Plus that game doesn't have micro-transactions.

$$$$$...

It actually is pretty fun. I'm not planning on spending any money on it though.

This game, despite being free, is highway robbery. I hate free-to-play, pay-to-win games with a passion. It's just taking advantage of young/stupid people.

I used to play Farmville waaaaay back when I actually used to use Facebook a lot. Then I started noticing I was being prompted to pony up the cash for any little thing that was actually somewhat cool/useful. I stopped playing.

Flashback EVEN MORE and I was a little kid, playing Neopets. It was great fun until they started wanting real cash from me for anything mildly nice. I left. My Neopets are probably dead by now, if that's a thing.

I'll stick to pokemon battle trozei thank you.

What's concerning is that Nintendo would never even have CONSIDERED doing this years ago. Suffice it to say that this is one of the parts of the modern gaming landscape I'd rather Nintendo not adapt to.

You're picking the wrong things to get hip with, Ninty! D:

Dear Nintendo,

When I said that you need to pick up modern ideas, this was NOT one of them.

Sincerely (not really),

Knux.

the gamneplay is okay. but it really annoys me that the game always outlines 1 possible 3-line. is there a way to turn this off?

Oh Nintendo, when I said I wanted you to start doing DLC, I meant for you to look at DLC like Dragonborn, not the Horse Armor.

I'm dl'ing this to all 4 systems in the house and not spending one red cent.

$47.00 for some crappy gameplay, please let this die sliently everybody by not buying it. It could benefit GameFreak.

Like DarthNocturnal said, it is not a game to advance rentlessly and steady, take it slowly and you do not need to spend a single penny. I am enjoying it so far despite having to battle Togepi 5 times before I could capture it

Ugh, can't believe Nintendo is doing microtransactions...

I give them the benefit of the doubt for this to simply be a game to test the waters.
From the wy it looks like, its the usual Smart Phone F2P game setup.
Cozy tutorial, unbeatable mid to late game without spending Oktoroks of cash on it.

Again, this is something im not overly offensed by for the simple reason that the "game" itself doesnt cost a penny.
Seeing stuff like this already show up in retail games is far far more frightening.

So, Nintendo, test the waters, see if it works out, i personally highly doubt it, but well see.
If the reactions here are universal, i doubt well be seeing something like that ever again, at least not from Nintendo themselfes.

...Why Nintendo?...Or is this GameFreak?...Both? lol

I kept my free gem...
I am going to play this game without getting any Power-Ups or Purchases!

I would be more than happy with free-to-play if Nintendo would let -any- NNID set a spending limit on DLC, even a game-specific limitation.

Nintendo, however, seem to be using Shuffle mostly as an experiment - not only with how to make free-to-play work without the assumption of a constant Internet connection; but also with pricing models. All of which is perfectly fine, the principle of voting with one's wallet always applies; and I trust Nintendo to not take this model, even if it is successful and profitable for them, and shoehorn it in to, say, the next Zelda title.

I don't really see the problem. Want to play the game but don't want to play anything? Then don't pay anything. Your play time might be limited but you can still play it.

I wonder if Nintendo would care more if people refuse to download this or download it then never pay a single micro-transaction?

@SkywardLink98 haha very well said. I'll be checking this out a bit later on but I can already say that they're not getting a penny from me.

It's a good time waster inbetween sessions of MH4U

No way I'm spending a cent on it though.

Well, you can StreePass people to get jewels. I'm not defending the game or anything, but you're not forced to spend money on it at all.

I've got question, Is this literally Pokemon Trozei but free? I haven't played Trozei before and I'm playing this and they look pretty similar. Are they more or less the same game?

I'd much rather buy a full price game and DLC content for said game then a F2P. At least the DLC has a limit, you can't spend beyond the number of packs made available. A F2P has no limit, you could potentially spend hundreds, if not more. Sick to see people raise hell over DLC but F2P gets a pass.

Just buy Battle Trozei if you don't like microtransactions.

Trozei is way better. This would have been nice as a sequel tho. Just get rid of the microtransactions.

The fact that they'd have to set such a high max spending limit for under 18 shows how absurd this sort of a game is, unfortunately. No way is this kind of a game worth that, especially IN A MONTH.

Heck no! No thank you!!!

Pay or don't, your choice, just remember what else you could be doing with your money. Like buying Amiibos! ;p

But, I am enjoying this, it's like Pokemon Battle Trozei, with more focus on strategy, and less focus on rapid, hardcore Pokemon matching.

@ColdingLight It's kind of the same, but smaller. Some notable differences are, instead of the Pokémon fighting back, you have a limited number of turns to defeat them. Then if you're successful, based on your performance and other factors, like which Pokéball you use, you're given a catch rate percentage that determines whether a capture is successful, like the actual game. Also, there are some stages where winning rewards you with a Mega Stone. Also, there's party building and leveling up in a manner similar to Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.

@TeeJay If you want free-to-play done right, play Path of Exile on Steam. The only things you can buy in the game are vanity items that give you no advantage, instead they change the appearance of weapons and armor. You can also buy extra character slots (though you start with 24), extra stash tabs (though you start with 8), and guild stash tabs (you don't start with any). It's probably the best example of a free-to-play game.

@ColdingLight No, Trozei had no move limits and a different system for moving the pokemon.

Trozei is the better game, trust me.

They should release this on Facebook, iOS and Android. It fits the model. I'm not going to play any F2P game again after spending 100-300€ each on the F2P games I've played on PC.

I'll wait for that 2-in-1 puzzle game that'll be release on the 3DS soon.

Meh people are over reacting, you fight 5 Pokemon then you take a break and your 5 lives recharge in 2.5 hours. Unless you binge play the game your not really going to have to pay anything.

If you do feel the urge to spend money I suggest you buy the Trozi/Link Battle instead as its a better game.

I still think it's an okay side entertainment. The leveling up/element type mechanics add in some more variety which Candy Crush and its other clones generally lack. No harm in one little puzzle now and again.

Needless to say, though, they're not getting a cent from me.

I already have Battle Trozei, so not sure what would benefit me from even trying it, but I will anyways! I didn't buy into Steel Diver nor Rusty's baseball, although I did try them, and their free to play is a little more honest than Pokemon Shuffle, but I don't denounce Nintendo for doing any of this, they are simply testing unmarked territory to see if there is any value in these kinds of games. I'm not worried that Nintendo will ever really go down this path, and its clear by the fact they they are using sort of basic brands to test it out. Keep on testing Nintendo, but stop when we show you what you want to know.

@TeeJay Why not play Harvest Moon or pick up the new Story of Seasons (due out soon), HM is way better than farmville... Heck maybe you'd even like Animal Crossing.

What would be neat is a model like this where the timer had a set maximum and minimum. You could pay money to permanently decrease the waiting period by a certain amount. Once you had payed the full price of the game, no more waiting times.

I'm just confused as to why they even bothered putting this on the 3DS when we already had Trozei. This would have been better suited as a venture in the Android/iOS world to milk the audience without a 3DS.

They made a smartphone game and put it on the 3DS. So the result will be a game that not only angers and alienates its intended audience, but will also fail to make money. It's a perfect failure on both fronts.

I actually like this game more than Trozei.

The gameplay is way more different than what people seem to believe.

@SpykeXD

do not forget Team Fortress 2, that is also a good one.

I considered buying the endgame and postgame DLC for Shin Megami Tensei 4. Then, I remembered that buying them would be supporting the concept of charging microtransactions for what should be on-disc or on-cart content. Buy the game to support the developers and publishers, yes. Buy the microtransactions to support just the publishers, no thanks.

I think the only time microtransactions are okay is when they don't affect gameplay balance and are not integral to moving the game's main progress or side stories forward, e.g. several MOBA's including DOTA 2, and certain strategy titles including Hearthstone. The most they should be able to do is save a bit of time and effort. Let's not give Pokemon the benefit of the doubt for being Pokemon- this is definitely the first step into the 4th circle, 7th canto of Dante's Inferno: Avarice.

Also, I like the Columns reference! I didn't find it or know what it was back in the Mega Drive's heyday, but I played Columns 1 on the Mega Drive Collection for PSP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CbWr0zO7Ac#t=101
Below is the same video but I can't link the time stamp in that one.

Not even going to test the waters. They even have the audacity to put a $47.99 option? I could get a much larger, better retail game that gives more per dollar and still have some left over. Or I could blow it on this and still have to spend more once those jewels run out.

As someone already said, it's Candy'Mon. Moral issues aside (but if I were Nintendo I'd consider them, for various reasons), it would make more sense to release it only for smartphones.
The only FTP I expect from Nintendo on 3DS is the SteelDiverSubWars-type. That, I can get on board.

@DarkKirby

LOL that was great. I especially loved "No, it has to be just barely fun, if it were TOO fun there'd be no reason to micropay to make it more fun". It seems exaggerated for comedy but it's pretty on point.

I actually use these games as a break time thing. Every two and a half hours I get to play until my hearts are gone. Of course a nice run can still waste a day.😃

Nintendo need money, and the free to play model rakes in the profit for a minimum initial outlay. I'm glad they've put it in a game like this that we can easily ignore, because I have a strong feeling a microtransaction-driven Animal Crossing is on the way.

@DerpSandwich
I think that's exactly how Nintendo likes to roll these days. It's depressing.

Nintendo & GameFreak, ladies and gentlemen!

Sad that nintendo is moving in this direction, I certainly won't be getting this or other microtransaction games from them.

@electrolite77 Yes it does, it seriously does.

Nintendo as a business needs to search for potential cash-streams and f2p and microT seems to be gold. I downloaded this game and I think it's funny. Just get a spine and don't spent money on it if you don't want to. From an artistic viewpoint I can see some concerns, but from a business standpoint this is most definitely an area Nintendo needs to explore.

It's not really all that bad.
Remember: a fool and his money and all that.
I played a couple levels at a time, on and off today and you most definitely do not have to pay any money to casually play this casual game.

The big issue that kills the game for me is the catching mechanic, you could absolutely blitz a level and still not get the pokemon because the catch rate is so low (like Pichu who starts at a catch-rate of 8%) so it constantly feels like you are being ripped off even if you don't spend money, let alone if you do (I am someone who NEVER spends money in free-to-play out of principle). One thing a freemium game should NEVER do is make the player feel ripped off or cheated. This makes sense from the developers standpoint as well, as if people think the game is cheating them, they will stop playing/paying.

The decision to release this game is very un-Nintendo. But I'm not too worried as I see this purely as Nintendo checking a box for their investors and those desperate to see Ninty cloning successful mobile games.

I expect Nintendo to continue to develop strategies as seen with the release of Steel Diver: Sub Wars and IronFall: Invasion as they try to work out the best way to deliver free content while encouraging people to upgrade to paid - this seems a lot fairer and more 'Nintendo' to me...

My mate calls it pay to win

I can only hope that this becomes a massive failure and Nintendo barely makes any money on it. Hopefully then they'll learn their lesson.

@Faruko And LoL. Unless you are one of those people who says "OMG LOL IS FOR 5 YEAR OLDS WITH NO BRAIN CAPACITY "

This is nintendos effort to do mobile gaming, imagine this on a mobile or iPad.

TRASH!

I caught Mew on my first try. It had less than 50% catchability.

I can bet you anything the share holders pushed Nintendo in this direction...

As someone who fell into the F2P model (though refused to pay out the pocket), the good feels of playing for free can be quickly replaced with stress and compulsion; constantly loading up a game to see how much time was left before I could play again. It wasnt until one game (a city building-type game) told me I had to wait almost an entire day before I could make more progress was when I woke up and swore off majority F2P games that had a timer and fuel-based system that have little-to-no external rewards.

There are few games that can justify dictating when people can play, and even their time-based limits dont cut you off from accessing other parts of the game (Pokemon and Animal Crossing).

£8 for 12 jewels, or £7 for Pokémon Link: Battle.

I know which one gives a greater value for money, and it's not freemium. While Shuffle adds a few new features, they're essentially the same game.

I found myself dangerously close to paying for jewels, just so I could play on (as the core game is quite fun). With Battle, I can, lol.

Been playing this whenever I got the chance to and usually 2.5 hours has passed when I return to it so it works out well for me.
I like that this game can function offline aswell which is great for me at work.
The jewels are horribly expensive and there is no justification for buying them especially seeing as having buffs does not guarantee anything in this game, not that I'd ever do a microtransaction anyway.

I haven't played Link Battle/Trozei but I will consider picking it up if it's better than this game like everyone else has been saying.

Next F2P 3DS Game will be The Denpa Men FREE,
if it gets localized.

@DarkKirby you gotta loves south parks ability to be dead on point and still bring the humor. As long as the world does stupid poopitypoop south park will strive and I love but kinda hate that.

I love Nintendo but they suck. They need to focus on better things then this. Shame on Nintendo.

I'll dabble with it for free but I am not giving a penny for in game content.

@TsukiDeity I love Animal Crossing. I played New Leaf almost every day for over a year.

I don't particularly miss Farmville, so I don't feel the need to pick up Harvest Moon at the moment. Not to say I won't get one eventually; it's just not a priority.

@noctowl You are part of the problem. Because of people like you every game gets more and more micro transactions put into them. You sure can't wait for the Mario game that will let you buy lives and powerups to continue right? Oh and at a certain point these will be the only wa to progress in a decent timeframe.

These games need to fail so hard no publisher will ever pick them up again.

Not getting it, period. This is an incredible disappointing thing to see from a Nintendo first-party IP. Just no.

The event-stage isn't overly hard. Okay, I didn't win at my first try like the others, but after some time I beat it without paying. Catching is another story, but you can level up Pokémon to do more damage and get Pokémon that are super-effective against them to increase hits and catch rate. With this I could even beat 3-turn and 5-turn stages without spending even in-game currency, and I don't think I spend a lot of time thinking about my turns. I just put together some 'mon and where like "oh, a 3-chain...5...8... nice, didn't see that coming."

So I think in the end it won't be impossible to catch all the 'mon, you just have to get used to some different playstyles if you don't wnat to spend real money. Like rushing through the game and getting back to some monsters later when you either leveled enough, got enough super-effective monsters or just need that particular monster to boost your team for the enxt battle.

Plus: You get 500 coins every day you connect to the internet to check for events which boosts getting coins a little. So you can get a super ball every 5 days even without playing.

Those investors are evil. Nintendo should buy themselves out of them.
If I was a Pokémon fan I'd bury my Pikachu today.

Very frightening to see this becoming a thing in future Animal Crossing, Smash, Zelda or Mario Kart games.

@SKTTR That overreaction

@themac2001 Yes, and LoL, except that you dont get every hero for free

But other than that, its a good system, too bad the game is so bad compared to Dota 2 its not even funny, no deny system LOL

Yeah... this abomination will never go onto my 3DS. I'll make a point of warning people about it, too.

This thing needs to fail. Hard.

And Nintendo fans complain about the cost of PSN, which delivers 2~6 games for $5 a month.

Well, this is the nickel-and-dime nonsense we've come to expect from games made by the Canadian Devil and Nintendo loves the greenbacks (or whatever color your money is) as much as anyone, so this is no surprise. Sounds like this is quite a bit worse than the Fat Princess jem-matching game on the Vita and PS3, which I have played quite a bit without spending a dime.

As usual, South Park nails this stuff:

Still boycotting it on principal. I left half baked iOS gaming for real portable gaming on the 3DS.

@Faruko Warframe isn't too bad.

Yeah, I'm not liking this at all. I think it's okay for Nintendo to try some of this out, but this is a game that is very kid-targeted and the balance seems far away from where it could be. Nintendo may even get some heat from this.

The part I really don't like is the paying for something that is just a minor game benefit that many times doesn't pay off at all. It is gambling in the most addictive form.

It's important to balance this with some perspective. Buying any game is a gamble. Free-to-play stuff has no entry fee, but retail games that you can't advance in because glitchy, too hard, confusing puzzles, or huge need for boring time commitments. I think someone on here called it pay-to-not-play.

I already mentioned how I found this game to be crossing the line, but I'm not against alternative pay models. As some have mentioned on here there are great successes that meet the needs of the publishers/developers and satisfy players: Hearthstone, League of Legends and DOTA 2, etc.

@Quorthon
No one here is complaining about PSN charges.
No one here is championing this pay model that I've seen.
Plenty are complaining about it, some boycotting it, some vowing never to pay a cent.
And these are Nintendo fans! Shocking! (that last one was sarcasm)
Why frame your comment the way you did?

For one thing I like this game better than Trozei. It's more strategic instead of fast-twitch reflexes. Second, you can do everything in the game without paying. I don't like the fact that you're very strongly encouraged to buy things without an option to turn off the timer and all that, but keep in mind how gaming started in arcades. You had to spend a quarter for just one round of a game that could last maybe a minute or two if you were new to it. This isn't a new model.

My support for Nintendo will drop considerably from now on, wil lonly buy some cheap eshop titles and that's it no more retail games, RIP Nintendo.

Games like these should give you the option up-front to pay a normal retail game cost (say, $30-40) to unlock everything in an unlimited fashion. This model is particularly frustrating because no game is worth the hundreds of dollars a dedicated player could spend. It's ridiculous and shamefully unfair.

@Gunblade_Hero You realize this qualifies as a "cheap eshop title", right? Your statement is ridiculous. One game with micro transactions and you dump a whole company? They've kept micro transactions out of their major retail titles and those are the ones you're giving up on?

i tried this out yesterday and i have to say so that so far i'm not too offended by this game. you could clearly get sucked into it and be somewhat exploited by it, but if you treat it as a nintendogs type game where you're really only playing in 15 minutes bursts frequently then it seems you can still make regular progress. i'll have to see how that first impression holds up the more i play it, though.

I tried playing smartphone games and I hate them because of the controls and the microtransactions. If this is where video games go, then I will gladly find another hobby. However, there are still more than enough "pay and play" games that I am not worried about this for now.

Wow you guys freaking out is really melodramatic. This game is fun, and made for small doses. And to boot, you get gems and hearts from streetpasses. Since downloading I have gotten two gems and one heart from streetpssing my girlfriend three times in the last 24-hrs. I find this game way more fun than pokemon trozei that game is just weird. It's not the end of the world guys, really.

This game was developed with the wrong thinking!
Nintendo-please don't make shovel ware cash grabs. Make good games and sell them honestly. Disappointed that this was published, frankly.

Not to be that guy, but where can you buy the Mega Pokeballs? o.O

@aaronsullivan

It was a reference as Nintendo fans here have shown a great deal of love when it comes to bashing services like PSN or freemium games or anything being done by someone else that, let's say, "Nintendon't do."

Nintendo fans like to pretend Nintendo is magically better than every other game company out there, and this is just further evidence that they are not only "just the same" in almost every regard, but sometimes worse. For all those "Nintendo would never do DLC" or "Nintendo wouldn't do freemium" or that kind of crap, we have ample evidence that Nintendo is perfectly happy to do it, oftentimes worse.

It's time to quit pretending Nintendo is some kind of "magically better" company. Particularly if they can't have magically better sales, magically better standing, magically better concepts, or magically better influence in the industry.

@Yorumi

Spot on.

im not gonna have any problems with shuffle, because i have other things i can do while witing for the hearts to recharge. im gonna catch em all, without a cent paid.

@Faruko Have you tried Punch Quest ? that was originally F2P but then nobody needed the microtransactions so it ended up switching to a paid game. (It is better than it should be possible to be - I would say certainly better than say runner 2).

Personally I really like the game and I think you guys are a load of whiners. There's nothing wrong with it and if it cost $8 and was completely unlocked from the start it would be a better game than Trozei, which I also have. I prefer the mechanics of Shuffle.

You don't like it, don't download it. You don't want to spend money on it, don't spend money on it, the end. It's not that hard. In my case I just take a break when my hearts are gone and then come back. I've gotten loads of coins and three gems in less than a day so I can't even say the game is very stingy on that front. If you want to play a simple game like this for longer periods of time there are other options out there for you; this one is for short bursts only which fills a niche in and of itself.

Nintendo is not going down the toilet and microtransactions are not the devil. Like anything else they are a part of life but they are a very SMALL part of life. And of gaming. And as others have said, in gaming they have always been around, or have you forgotten arcades? The idea is exactly the same, the delivery method is just a bit more sophisticated. I'm seeing a few people complain about DLC as well - DLC is just the modern term for "expansion packs." There. Done. Cleared that one up.

Basically my only complaint with Pokemon Shuffle is that it's on the 3DS and not on mobile devices. It would reach a much wider audience there and do Nintendo a lot more good.

@DiscoDriver43 TF2's good but players with bigger wallets can sometimes gain an advantage. Thankfully, thanks to the Steam Community Market, you can get a TON of weapons (and even hats) with a small amount of cash.

Been playing the game a bit more since my last comment and It is fun. I am grateful that these type of games never appealed to me. If the game hadn't of been pokemon themed I would have never looked at the game. I can however understand why some people would be upset, as a child could spend lots of money on this. Although it does make me think what kind of parent just lets their kid have access to their credit card... I won't spend money on this because i would never want to play it that much but If I did want to play it more often I would not spend money on it out of principal. I hate free to play games because they seem unofficial, I hate constantly being asked to purchase items. I hope that this is just a once off for Nintendo/gamefreak or at the very least that these kind of games don't take precedence over their regular amazing games. On another note I do think that Nintendo have done a great job with DLC as they are adding to an already full game for a reasonable price which in turn gives my old game a new lease of life.

@Amiibo Lol you summed me up exactly XD MH4U is amazing!

@Quorthon You really need to keep your yapper shut. You're barely a fanboy in disguise.

Anyway, I've tried out Pokemon Shuffle and it's not that bad, really. I've said in an earlier comment on the subject that paying to play more is something you choose to do. From the moment I loaded the game and played it, I decided it was a game I was only going to play once a day and I'm only going to spend jewels on coins. Easy as that.

I would buy this game at a reasonable retail price, like Battle Trozei. I refuse to put money on one-shot items that have no actual guarantee of success. I'm not going to pay $1 and still fail to catch a Pokemon with a stupidly low capture rate. Its not a bad game, but I'm already seeing stuff set stupidly hard just to make you want to spend money. Leveling up your Pokemon seems slow, and with the heart regeneration grinding isn't something you can do much of.

That sucks dude. No way in hades I'm downloading it...

Love this review: http://www.destructoid.com/review-pok-mon-shuffle-287855.phtml
The poor guy had to pay to review this crap!

This is worse than arcades back in the day
II will probably give the game a go, but there's no way in hell i'll pay even one cent on it.

There are more ways to get coins (watch out: SPOILERS!):

Stage 37 is Meowth. It's scream produces coins instead of traps. Wellt, they are still a trap, but if you put three of them together you get 100 coins. Haven't caught it yet, but I bet it also has an ability to raise your coins if you use it as a helper.

Oh, and don't trust any reviews that come online till now. The game is out three days. Every complaint I hear in the reviews a re complains that I had the first day. In that destructoid review it sound like any Pokémon after a certain stage just gives you 3%. Actually it's just the extra stages and some pretty useful 'mon that are that low. Up to Stage 40 most Pokémon still have a default ctahc rate of 30% or 50%, which I usually raised up to 60-70% on the first try, which is still pretty good.

Don't know if this changes up higher, but at that point you should have around 40 'mon available which can make catching Pokémon easier since you can play out their weaknesses.

the 3DS is not as pick up and play like smartphones.
And who in their right mind picks this game over Pokemon trozei/battlelink/whatever its called.

@mariovslink62 "Same here!!!"

So here I am a day and a half into this game. Haven't paid a cent. I have streetpassed five times, receiving a gem twice, a heart twice, and a bundle of two hearts for streetpssing five people. I am on stage 53, and haven't PAID AT All!

Guess what? This isn't the apocalypse you thought it was. I think this just shows how many xbone trolls there are on this forum. Free your minds people. Be happy.

BTW I kind of liked pokemon trozei, but I found it confusing and not fun. It's a faster style, but the incorporation of Pokemon was weak. In Shuffle you can actually have a team of pokes that you pick and level up, making it feel like a Pokemon game. Trozei had you pick a favorite Pokemon yet it doesn't effect gameplay. I say shuffle is the winner. I've accumulated 13 gems so far from streetpass and from beating checkpoints. I used 6 gems to buy coins and I have 7 gems left. I really like this game, and I usually hate candy crush type games. My girlfriend is a candy crush fanatic and I cannot even get her to play this on her 3DS, so I played it enough to setup streetpass.

@Bensei @RobMondavi @FaustoM

So, hopefully you guys can help me. Everyone else should read this too.

! I just finished level 12. In Trozei and every other match 3,

I might come across a pattern like

XYAXXAX If i move the Y to replace the final X, nothing happens. However, if i then switch the first A and the now-last X, I get XXXXAAY, making the 4 Xs disappear.
So far, in 12 stages of this game, i can't move the Y to replace the X- since it doesn't cause a line to clear. The only time i've been able to swap pieces is when either swap causes a clear. If that was confusing or unclear, every match 3 game on earth lets me switch XY to YX if i want to. So far, this game only lets me switch XY to YX if it will cause either letter to disappear- if it doesnt, then they just go back to their original positions.

Is this because i just finished the tutorial? Or am i literally unable to ever reposition things if they're not going to clear anything? In Trozei and Yoshi's whatever, i constantly made things like

YYXYY
AAXAY
YXZXA
YAXAY
XAXYX

Switch the very last X with the Z and BAM, 8 letters cleared.

So far in this game, i can only jam a single item into the pre-selected pattern. No skill, no strategy, no banking, no planning, just drag and drop.

Unless thats an advanced skill the game hasnt given me yet......
is the most basic vaguely advanced skill in a match 3 game removed to make it harder to get high scores, and force me to buy hearts?

@Kitsune_Rei you can buy this game in the shop for $5

@russellohh It is just like that, you can't move a piece if it will not cause a reaction but you can take a piece that after being swapped will trigger another reaction. If you have XXY up in one corner and down in the oposite corner you have YYX, instead of picking any X or Y from elsewhere, you can (and should) pick the Y that is with the Xs so when the swap takes place, you complete two lines of 3 instead of just one. That's the only strategic I found aside from taking the Pokemons with the correct type for the fight.

@FaustoM That makes me the saddest panda. I realized yesterday that i never do that- swap one so it clears on two different parts of the screen- i think mostly because there are far more points to be had making a 8 or 12 or 16 combo super drop.

Which happens in this game, but randomly, and by accident.
So...crappy micro transactions, little skill, no strategy.

Turns out Nintendo closed Club Nintendo reviews for new games just so they wouldn't have to sit through 5,000 pages of
this
is the worst
idea
you've ever had Nintedno

and i own a virtual boy.

I actually am enjoying this game.

It's good for short bursts anyways.

@rusellohh: This technique doesn't work in normal stages. This game removes the time-limit mechanic from Pokémon Trozei and replaces it with a turns-mechanic. Therefore, to prevent people from clumsily wasting their turns only turns that actually do damage are allowed. Just as in Bejeweled.

I wouldn't say it doesn't need any skill just because a technique is missing. It's just a very different challenge: The challenge to foresee the chain reactions you are creating and choosing the best outcome there is. Or how to build a pattern like this by making chains WITHOUT making it collapse.

Try to play until Stage 31 or so. I got to 46 and still didn't pay a single penny and got 3 gems left from in-game drops (you get one after every Mega-Evoltuion Boss). I didn't even use any coins, not even for Mew.

There are Extra-Stages however which swap turns for time. You can swap items as you wish.
Though the limits are very tight: from 30 seconds to like 2 minutes, even expanding gives just extra 10 seconds with coins and 15 with a gem.
You have to catch a lot of Pokémon to unlock more. 35 mon or so got me 6 stages till now.

Hahahahahahahaha, well everyone screams Nintendo needs to catch up with the times. Careful with what you wish for .

This is one of those "everyone is doing it, so we should too" moments that went wrong. It's okay though Nintendo, I will ignore it and go back to Majora's Mask and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.

Honestly, I'm pretty happy with the game. It's a nice little diversion during work breaks, engaging, has the mechanics that I can only -wish- Trozei would've come with, and seriously, 30-minute heart charges are the most lenient of any of this type of game that I've seen!

I haven't spent a cent on the game, I like it, this is the sort of game where you can use it as a time waster and enjoy the features it has etc and then when you go and need to put it down and wait for the hearts to refill it isn't so bad. I am not saying it is a great game but I am saying that it is fun as a time waster, I am not intending on spending money on it I have it there just in case I ever want to play a round or two and try to catch Articuno or Milotic or something, I don't know why people are getting so upset about it when it is meant to be just a fun little game to play if you are just looking for a time waster, Nintendo probably just wanted to release a little something extra for the fans and if they make money off it then so be it but if they don't it isn't going to break their bank as they still have billions to fall back on with their 3DS/Wii U/E Shop games.

I hate this freenium model created by King (candy crush devs)
It seemed to stuck, and now you see multiple apps using the same style.

It sucks.

I have started playing Pokemon Shuffle - and I love it! It's a very addictive game once you get into it, but the difficulty curve is haphazard at best and sometimes even winning is down to whether you were lucky enough or not. The micro transactions... I haven't spent any money on the game yet, but it's clear that the game is pushing you to do so by being slow and difficult. Even now I can feel the itch to buy myself more hearts so I can trounce the other stages waiting for me. I'm up to stage 83 now, but if there wasn't such a slow replenishment system going on, I could have probably finished the game by now. But yeah... them's the breaks.

@RobMondavi
About the same here. At level 38, and thanks for my wife and kid having a 3DS, I haven't spent one single red cent.

Sometimes the catching rates are very low as many as pointed out, but once you acquire and level some Pokemons and go back, then it is very easy. I've taken my sweet time (today is the day I've spent the most time and I have played in 3 occasions), managed to get to level 38, having paid a single buck and I'm missing a couple of Pokemons so far.

I've been playing this for months & haven't spent a single red cent on it.

Grind your Pokemon on lower leveled one's you've already caught to bring their levels up. I made my own game out of just trying to get every single Pokemon I caught up to level 6.

When their levels go up, so do their attack powers. It takes longer, but what the hell is the rush?

@Faruko True that. They are really different now, and both have their own huge perks.