Born2BWild
Senior Member
In addition to my (mostly) daily chronicling of life in my ACNL town, one thing I've been wanting to do on this blog was review various games I've been playing recently. As such, I'm happy to say that my first such review will be about a game that's been creating a lot of recent buzz: Pokemon Shuffle.
A little background on this game: Pokemon Shuffle was released as a free downloadable game on the Nintendo EShop on February 18th, 2015. The gameplay works like Candy Crush: by moving icons of Pokemon on the playing field, you create matches of 3 or more, attempting to make ever-increasing combos to earn more points and clear the level. Each level features a Pokemon you can capture--generally, the rarer the Pokemon in the actual Pokemon games, the lower chance there is of "catching" it in this game. Just like in the real games, some Pokemon are capable of Mega Evolving in-battle, the Mega Evolution stones are possible to get by defeating trainers at the end of stages just like the Pokemon.
What do I think of the game? Let's look at some good and bad points about it.
THE GOOD
THE BAD
Overall score: After weighing the pros and cons, I give Pokemon Shuffle a 6 out of 10. If you like Pokemon or puzzle games like Bejeweled or Candy Crush, and you don't mind waiting a while for your hearts to respawn, then you'll probably enjoy this game. If you're someone who likes to play through your games lickety-split, then you're probably going to get ticked at the waiting time. If you want to catch all the Pokemon and beat all the stages, well...let's just say be prepared to spend some cash. Irregardless, this game is OK for what it is, and it more or less
A little background on this game: Pokemon Shuffle was released as a free downloadable game on the Nintendo EShop on February 18th, 2015. The gameplay works like Candy Crush: by moving icons of Pokemon on the playing field, you create matches of 3 or more, attempting to make ever-increasing combos to earn more points and clear the level. Each level features a Pokemon you can capture--generally, the rarer the Pokemon in the actual Pokemon games, the lower chance there is of "catching" it in this game. Just like in the real games, some Pokemon are capable of Mega Evolving in-battle, the Mega Evolution stones are possible to get by defeating trainers at the end of stages just like the Pokemon.
What do I think of the game? Let's look at some good and bad points about it.
THE GOOD
- Its fun factor. Obviously, Pokemon Shuffle is a pretty fun game, and can be addictive if you're into this sort of thing. Even speaking as a hardcore gamer, I can say I have spent quite a while playing this game, trying to beat the stages and catch the Pokemon. There are also a lot of different Pokemon in-game, and they're always adding more, so if your favorite hasn't made it to the game yet, chances are it will pretty soon.
- It's challenging, but not too challenging. As you progress through the game, many of the stages get progressively tougher, and the Pokemon also get tougher to catch. I've found myself trying levels over and over again trying to catch a certain Pokemon (I HATE YOU, REGIROCK!!!).
- There's always something to do. They recently added several new levels and Pokemon to this game, so even if you've cleared all the levels and caught all the Pokemon, you will still find things to do, and constantly be entertained. Either that, or you'll be screaming at your 3DS about why the heck you can't beat that stupid Milotic...
THE BAD
- Hearts take too long to regenerate. Whoever came up with the rule that it takes 30 minutes to regain one heart obviously didn't think things through. I played through my first 5 hearts within a few minutes of getting this game, and it was sheer torture waiting for more to accumulate!
- The limit of only 5 hearts at a time is ridiculous. I know you have the option of buying more at a time with jewels, but the fact that hearts stop accumulating on their own when you reach only 5 puts a major damper on the game. If you have to be away for a long period of time, it's frustrating that you can't play any more than 5 more times when you come back. Granted, I think there should be a cap on how many hearts can be racked up, but 5 is much too low. 10 or 15 seems like a more fair number.
- Limiting Mega Stones to only a select few is unfair. The contests they have held for getting Mega Stones just screamed of unfairness. I came in just shy of the Top 20,000 on both Lucario and Blastoise. Luckily, I was able to qualify for the Banettite without using any items (barely), but I still think it's cheap to exclude the people who don't score high enough. Hopefully, they remedy this by offering more ways to get the missed Mega Evolutions in the future.
- Certain stages are impossible to beat without help. Nintendo is certainly going to milk a lot of dollars out of this game, as certain stages are pretty much impossible to win (or at least get a high rank on) without spending coins or jewels to help the player out. *cough Steelix cough*
Overall score: After weighing the pros and cons, I give Pokemon Shuffle a 6 out of 10. If you like Pokemon or puzzle games like Bejeweled or Candy Crush, and you don't mind waiting a while for your hearts to respawn, then you'll probably enjoy this game. If you're someone who likes to play through your games lickety-split, then you're probably going to get ticked at the waiting time. If you want to catch all the Pokemon and beat all the stages, well...let's just say be prepared to spend some cash. Irregardless, this game is OK for what it is, and it more or less
