My First Impressions on Pokemon Shuffle

I really didn't wanted to do this, but I really had to see what was the big problem with this, so I downloaded Pokemon Shuffle, but right before I start with this "review" (I prefer Fisrt Impression, but that doesn't mean a thing), I want to rant on a REALLY BIG DISCLAIMER:

I don't like Candy Crush, Bejeweled or any of the like (Basically any Line-up Puzzle game), is not in my zone of interest and I couldn't care any less about them, but when I started to hear the backslash from this game (that it sucked because of the Microtansaction instead of the game itself), I had to download this game to see if people was right about this one, especially because:

A) I never liked the idea of talking crap about a game that you never played, even if it is justified (reason why I'll end up playing eventually E.T., Sonic '06, Sonic '14 and the likes), for me, ou'll only have 100% right to talk about a game when you had played it, because then you can truly tell where did it sucked and where did it shone, or if it wasn't worth it to begin with.

B) I am a man that lives with the saying of "Give credit where credit is due" and since this game is Free-To-Play that means I can actually play it to see if this was in the end a FTP or a Pay-To-Win videogame (Great, people is gonna compare me with the idiots who defend Sonic '14), because beign this game for free, I have no excuse to not go and play it in this moment of Devil's Advocate feeling I have right now.

And now with that said, lets talk about the darn game (First I'll talk about the gameplay and the music, if you're not interested on that, scroll down to read the part of the microtransaction):

You only need 686 blocks to use it, just in case you want to use the space as an excuse to to crap on the game.

Gameplay:

Every stage basically consist on having to defeat a Pokemon in a 6X6 square space that is filled with pokemons that you have captured (at the beggining you have default pokemon) and every time you line-up 3 Pokemon of the same type you cause damage to the pokemon on the Top of the Screen and you have to deplete its life bar before the amount of turns to move given to you runs out (Example: You have to defeat an Espurr in 7 moves or less), a bigger line (like a 4-line of pokemon or more) or a combo line (after making a line you manage to make another line) deals more damage to the pokemon in the Top of the screen, if you make a line of pokemon that are Super efective against the Top Pokemon, you deal doble damage (i.e.: the Charmander in the Top of the screen is fire type and if you line up 3 squirtle (water type) you deal doble damage to it) and the less moves you take to defeat the Pokemon the more bonus points you get.

How to catch a Pokemon: When you defeat the "boss" you enter in the "catching" of the game, when you defeat the "boss" you go to the "catching" moment, here the pokemon shows the rate (%) of Catchability that shows how big is your chance of catching the pokemon, but to make things better for you, the less moves it took you to to beat the The Top Pokemon, the bigger will be the bonus ratio given to you to catch the pokemon (i.e.: if you defeated Eevee (That has a 20% catch rate) in less than 7 moves you will get another 36% to boost the catch rate).

How to "move": you get an amount of "hearts" to move (a move is when you go to fight pokemon), you use 1 heart every time you move and before you attack you can choose wich pokemon you can bring with you (up to four pokemon that will fill your 6X6 square... thing...) to beat the "boss", each pokemon has an ability that migh help you out in the "fight" and right before you fight you can choose some items to use in the fight, like extra moves or extra experience for your pokemon (yeah they level up, evolve and deal more damage when they do, but I'm pretty sure nobody will ever care)

The Music: The game use music that comes from a VERY FAMILIAR GAME but at least it does sounds good it always relaxed me and helped me to keep cool so I could think of a way to make the lines.

And now to the Part I'm pretty sure you decided to read first and hence you skipped all I just wrote because You don't care for any that:

THE MICROTRANSACTIONS:

And now I already said that you get hearts to move, but to refill those hearts you can:

A) wait for 30 min to restore one heart

B) Use Crystals to buy more Hearts.

And about those coins you can use to buy Items (With the minimal price is 300 but bigger items are over 1500) before the fight, to gain Coins you can:

A) Win a "boss"/Stage whatever and get 100.

B) Buy more Coins using Crystals

And Those Crystals that you need to buy Hearts or Coins? You pay money for them, so basically if you want to move more you have to pay them up with real money, or give them real money to use the items that could help ou out a lot (like extra exp.) and while I don't mind the hearts (because while their refilling you/I can go to play another game) it does grate me with the coins because then you have to be VERY picky of when and how to use the coins the game gives you (and since I'm a greedy bastard I'll never use them).

How much money do you have to pay to use those crystals? IDK, I don't have any Dollars since I live in Venezuela, so I never took bother to look into it, which basically means that I am forced to play this without paying any amount of money whatsoever.

So, is it a PTW in the end? well, to be a PTW you have to lose in some way because you aren't paying them anything (something that most FTP MMORPG tend to do) because when you don't pay, you cannot get the super powerful equipment (which means you're screwed when fighting against those that DO pay and can get that Super equiptment, darn whales), or you have to waith ridicilous amounts of time to actually keep playing (like FF All of the Bravest, Dungeon Keeper (the one from 2014 done by EA) or almost all of the Facebook games that were the reason of why I joind Facebook to begin with... and then I got burned), but with this game I haven't payed a single dollar on it but I haven't suffered so far and after I run out of Hearts, I just go to play another game that I can enjoy more.

Overall: the game plays well, is obvious that Nintendo decided to use Pokemon into their design (along with the other stuff that they copied from Candy Crush) to make their game fresh and different from other puzzle-line up games, so it plays well, and if the microtransaction are a problem for you, don't worry, I have zero Dollars so I cannot pay for Crystals, all I can do is go through waiting 30 min to get a new heart and play another Stage and ignoring the Items, and if I, the one that is forced to play without any money can enjoy this, then this game is a FTP done right, now let's just hope Nintendo donesn't decide to Copyrigth the word "Shuffle".


7/10

And now if you excuse me, I'm gonna play some HarmoKnight (My second pick to redeem from Club Nintendo and also done by Game Freak).