Free to play Pokémon Shuffle now live on the Australian eShop
Well this is a surprise, Nintendo has put up Pokemon Shuffle live on the Australian and New Zealand eShop this afternoon. The game before today just had a ‘February’ release date and went live in Japan this morning.
Mixing two of the biggest addictions in the world, Pokemon and free-to-play gameplay Nintendo have created a ‘modern’ take on Pokemon Battle Trozei. It’s a match-three type game but with free to play twist we know from every single mobile phone game ever.
You will start the game with a limited number of hearts, lose them and you’ll have to wait some time for more of them to regenerate. Of course if you don’t like waiting you can just pay. Knowing Nintendo this won’t be too bad and nothing like you’d expect.
Thanks to HarmoKnight for the Tip!
Ruh-roh Raggy.
I can’t wait until I hear people’s opinions on THIS.
Minor site complaint while I’m at it – the top banner stays around and blocks the article I’m reading as I scroll.
Like, I move my mouse from tab, downwards to (usually) header picture, then read/scroll. The top banner doesn’t go away and I need to wiggle mouse around off of it.
Cheers big ears 🙂
Cool! *opens up eShop*
Have anyone been able to capture Mew yet? I have beaten it twice and failed to capture it, hopefully I can do it before the promotion runs out.
I’m really enjoying the game. I thought that Pokémon Link Battle was an improvement over Pokémon Trozei (minus the lack of download play multiplayer), but Pokémon Shuffle is even more enjoyable thanks to it being a better fit for shorter gameplay sessions. I would not spend a cent on glorified cheat codes, but the limitations aren’t too restrictive. You’d be able to play the game at least a few times a day, though with several hours separating sessions. I’d rather have paid a one-time free and have the entire game at my disposal and be able to play as much or as little as I please, but I suppose that can’t be helped. I can’t help but feel that this game is both a free gift for Pokémon fans while doubling as an opportunity to exploit the compulsions of morons.
“I’d rather have paid a one-time free and have the entire game at my disposal and be able to play as much or as little as I please, but I suppose that can’t be helped.”
This.
Although, it probably *could* be helped, why not offer such an option?
Then it’s essentially an extended demo, or a bastardised product, until you pay a premium for it – makes a lot more sense than this model… you can’t even play the game without throwing money at it.
I said that it couldn’t be helped because the cost of a full version of a game such as this (without the time limit) would cost significantly less than buying the maximum number of jewels that one can attain in a single transaction (i.e. 75 jewels at AU$62.40). If Nintendo were to offer the game at the same price as say, Pokémon Link Battle (AU$10.40), then there would be no point in paying for the jewels in the free-to-play version, because the timed allocation of hearts would need to be removed to justify charging money for a paid release. I suspect that Nintendo are only expecting a few compulsive types to spend money on Pokémon Shuffle while the vast majority will be patient enough to wait for those hearts to replenish (whilst being frugal with their use of jewels).
Pokémon Shuffle would not constitute a demo in any sense of the word as it is a complete game in its present form and ANYBODY can complete the game without spending a single cent on it. Those who pay, however, could complete the game faster than us. That’s the only difference. The average person can play this game anywhere between 3-6 times per day (as it takes 2 ½ hours for the 5 hearts to be replenished) which is more than enough. That’s up to 30 hearts per day, and each gameplay session shouldn’t take longer than 5-10 minutes. In theory, that’s at least 30 minutes of gameplay per day, and that’s plenty.