Developed/Published by: Genius Sonority / The Pokemon Company, Nintendo
Released: February 18th, 2015
Completed: 11th April, 2015
Completion: Finished 100 levels and was like “No. No more.”
Trophies / Achievements: n/a
There are 150 levels of Pokémon Shuffle, and several more “expert levels.” I stopped at 100 because… well… I was like… “why am I playing this? This is obviously a waste of time.”
I’m not going to faff around with this one. Pokémon Shuffle is a free-to-play game, and I’ve written about a few of those before. I think most notable would be No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Either! because this is the Nintendo equivalent of it—match three where you’re beating up on an enemy by making the matches; consumables help you win levels when you’re struggling.
Looking back, I have no idea why I played No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Either! as long as I did, because I gave up on this fairly fast (fairly… for me.) It’s possibly that I would never have downloaded this if it hadn’t just shown up on my 3DS home menu. Incredibly sneaky of Nintendo to more or less force their free-to-play games on you (I think they did this with Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball also?) and like No Heroes Allowed, playing it a couple of times a day didn’t seem like such a terrible waste of downtime, even though it obviously was.
I mean… I can’t really explain it. This game is stupefying. Move things, things fall, combos happen… it’s simplistic to the point where it’s deeply uninteresting, and it never gets more strategic than being able to see potential lines of four or intersecting lines of three? So it’s just move some blocks with a stylus, wait a few hours, do it again.
Until level 90 where you literally cannot beat the level without using consumables, and I was reminded this wasn’t a way to waste time, but players’ money. I beat it using about 13000 coins worth of consumables (almost my entire savings!), finished ten more levels and was done with it.
This is a reminder: don’t start playing these games. They do nothing for you. There’s nothing there.
Will I ever play it again? I could go back and finish the last 50 levels but I’m sure there’s another “pay money please” roadblock at some point so no. Also, as established, this would be a stupid waste of my time on earth.
Final Thought: I really, really want to play through and write up Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball, I must admit. But I’ve stuck fairly well to my “no spending money on new games” rules and (I think) it costs you about $16 total. Maybe I’ll run a $16 Kickstarter.
