Coincidentally, Pokemon Shuffle was newly released in February 2015. However, I neglected my 3DS for a loooong time, and turned it on at about late March to find out that there was a new free-to-download game!
So this is how the top and bottom screen looks like when you start up the game. (after pressing 'start' (gosh I forgot to take a photo of the start screen, sorry)) Also, please pardon me for the really un-professional photos in this post. It isn't easy taking photos of a 3DS screen >.<
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| Top screen |
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| Bottom screen |
Currently, I am on 15 hours playtime, 150 cleared stages and 141 caught Pokemon :)
I had been stuck on the Mega Gengar stage for a pretty long time, so I turned to catching Pokemon I failed to catch on some of the previous stages. Below I have taken some photos of the pre-stage. The top screen shows the information of the stage. So for this particular Mega Gengar stage, it gives 20 moves and also, Gengar is a Ghost type. What's important about this is because Pokemon Shuffle don't do dual-type Pokemon (so no Poison type for Gengar. It also doesn't always follow the primary type (E.g. Marill family is Fairy type in Pokemon Shuffle))
The left photo actually shows my team optimized for a battle against Water type Pokemon. Clicking the "optimize" button on the bottom screen changes my team to be as effective against Gengar as possible (middle photo).
The right photo shows my pre-stage for Heatran. This stage is slightly different (not because Heatran is Fire-type) but because it is an Expert stage (compared to Mega Gengar being a Main stage). Expert stages work differently as they are time-based rather than move-based. (You can see my high score right there (Rank A only though)) Expert stages are unlocked by having completed a certain number of stages with the S rank, compared to Main stages which unlocks the next stage by simply completing the latest stage unlocked (yes so I am stuck on Mega Gengar and cannot proceed).
I'll talk about the gameplay a little now. I'm not sure if I am able to explain it well because I feel like the pictures don't illustrate that clearly, but there will be a tutorial when you first start the game, so you won't ever be lost :) (Also, it's a simple game!)
Here, I've picked Gulpin to be my demonstrator because I haven't caught Gulpin yet. (I was unlucky...) So I realised that I forgot to show just now how it looks like when your team isn't effective against the type in the stage. There'd be these 3 blue arrows pointing down and looking really sad, so PRESS THAT OPTIMIZE BUTTON for a better team :) There'd be no arrows when the Pokemon is of normal effectiveness, and (middle photo top screen) 3 happy orange arrows when it's super effective!
The middle photo here actually shows what the screen looks like after you have set your team and clicked 'continue', where you have the options to select the items (power-ups) you want to use in this battle. Using an item will require coins!
Finally, I'm starting the game (right photo).
Pokemon Shuffle is played by making matches. What makes it different (the making matches part) is that when you form a 4-liner/5-liner, NO special blocks appear (most other matching games I play do). Also, you make your match by swapping the position of two Pokemon. (E.g. look at the outlined Donphans. The single Donphan could be swapped with either Slowbro or Sigilyph to make a match of 3.) Something else I find special about the matching part is that when you make a cross with 5 Pokemon, it's counted as 2 matches of 3 rather than a match of 5.
Now, remember what I said about bringing one Mega-evolving Pokemon into battle? There doesn't appear to be any Mega-evolving in the above right picture however. That's because we have to first fill up the gauge (you can see it on the bottom screen of the 3DS). It fills up whenever you make a match with the Pokemon that is equipped with the Mega stone. So on the left photo below, I have filled up the gauge for Mega Slowbro, and you can see that the background and the logo for Slowbro have changed!
Also notice how the top screen shows your stage number, score, moves left, and most importantly, the amount of HP Gulpin has left (that little pink bar right below it) The stage is cleared once the HP bar is empty. The moves left after you clear the stage also give bonus points, contributing to a better rank. There's a more important purpose though. For this particular stage (Gulpin), I have a base catch rate of 55%, and with every move left, there'll be a certain percentage added on. In the middle photo, the orange part of the bar indicates the base catch rate and the yellow part indicates the extra chance I get from the moves left. Every Pokemon has a different catch rate though, and some are much harder than others to catch. Finally, TAP on the Pokeball to catch it!
Yay, now I've caught Gulpin and completed the stage with a rank A (I should've tried harder for my rank S haha)! You can also see how your team has done after the stage concludes! Slowbro has done the most damage (crown on top) while Sigilyph has gained enough exp to level up!
Maybe you've noticed a "Check-in" button in one of my earlier photos (second and sixth, to be exact). Click on it to reveal this page! I've already checked in for the day, but if you haven't yet, there would be a blue dot blinking to prompt you to check-in. Checking-in everyday is great as you get 500 coins daily, and also catch up with the latest events going on.
Ahh... so my ranking shown there is 15k+ but this photo was taken yesterday, and when I last checked, it was 18k+ position :( I'd have to try to improve my high score before the event ends to maintain a position within the top 20k. Here you can also see how well the top 5 people have done and the team they've used. It looks like I've used the same team as them, but I didn't do as well. Probably due to higher leveled Pokemon, and perhaps item usage (which I might have to resort to to maintain my rank!)
Okay, this post is rather long already but I haven't yet finished talking about it!
This screen here shows your stats of the game! The Pokemon list is a little like a Pokedex, which I'll show you shortly. You can actually StreetPass other players in this game, so under StreetPass list would be a list of the players you've passed with their stats (something like your own stats (the one on the top screen)) Under Passcodes would be a code you enter to redeem items! Currently (before 30 April!), if you enter the code '20150007', you'll receive 2 Mega Starts!
So here is a photo of a random page of my Pokemon List. In this page, you can see what Pokemon you've caught/not caught, and which Pokemon are available to Mega Evolve! However, I haven't gotten Sceptile's Mega Stone, so its icon is still white.
Anddddd this! Is how the top screen looks like when you click on a Pokemon :) It shows you the type, your Pokemon's level, its attack power, skill, and its mega skill if it can mega evolve (you have to have gotten its stone). The Pokemon icon also flips when you have its Mega Stone, to show you how it looks like :D Aren't the icons so adorable?
I wanted to talk about past events as well - but I have no photos of this, so I'll try to make it look less wordy.
When I started the game, Mew's extended stay and Kyogre's event was ongoing. I was really excited then because I thought I downloaded the game early and would be able to obtain most/all the Pokemon in the game. I was able to catch Mew and Kyogre and I was happy because in my early stages of the game, they had good attack power and helped me through. I've also caught Keldeo in a similar event.
Then, a little while later, a new event of Daily Pokemon started! That meant I could catch even more (different) Pokemon daily! Well, I found out that it actually is 1 Pokemon for 1 weekday, so 5 new Pokemon to be caught in the entire duration. I was a little disappointed... but I was satisfied with my 5 new Pokemon still. :P
What has made me the most upset was Mega Lucario's event, as I did not realise it was a competitive event at that time and I let it slip away :( I'll never know if I will get another chance to obtain Mega Lucario xD... I would be really upset if I fail to obtain Mega Blastoise too!
Last thing on this, when I was searching on the Mega Pokemon in Pokemon Shuffle, I came across the an info page and I was really sad to see that I had actually missed an entire Daily Pokemon event of Rotom! This will be my regret too :(
Okay so I haven't actually entirely covered this game because I left out a few things like the great ball, disruptions, skills, items, the shop (this one is minor) and the rich Meowth, but I will not be writing about it in this post. My main motivation to play this game is actually because I want to collect all the Pokemon! I hope that you guys will be interested to try out the game after my (long) introduction. Even if the gameplay might be kinda boring after a while or don't appeal to you at all, do try it out since it's free to download from the nintendo e-shop :D
My next update on this game will cover my Mega Blastoise results, the rich Meowth, my Gengar stage (in which I will talk about disruptions!) and maybe skills, items and shops since I haven't yet talked about those.
P.S. Really sorry about the quality of the photos again, and also, sorry about all the "Poke-"s (e.g Pokemon/Pokeball) not having the accent it should have on the e! (too lazy)
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