Surprised this isn't a thread yet
Official Japanese site gave out some details on Pokémon Shuffle.
First is the release date: February 18th 2015, which matches what the US Newsletter gave. Hopefully we'll get clarification for the US and announcement for Europe on Monday.
Now, here's the nitty gritty.
This game is free to play, as announced in the Direct. It uses a stamina system where you get 5 hearts and use a heart every time you play a stage (win or lose), and the hearts take time to recover. We first thought it was 15 minutes, but now some imagery appears to show it being 30 minutes.
You can expedite this by buying hearts in the store using the in-game currency, gems. Gems can be obtained through StreetPass but can also be purchased with in-app purchases:
1 Gem = 100 Yen ($0.84 so will probably be $1 in the US)
With this, you can then purchase either hearts or coins. Coins can be used to buy items to make stages easier, or Great Balls to make capture of Pokémon more likely.
Due to the Nintendo Direct trailer, we have the shop pricing scheme:
Hearts
5 Hearts = 1 Gem
20 Hearts = 3 Gems
45 Hearts = 6 Gems
75 Hearts = 10 Gems
Coins
5000 Coins = 1 Gem
20000 Coins = 3 Gems
45000 Coins = 6 Gems
75000 Coins = 10 Gems
Now, this means to get 75 hearts would be 1000 Yen, or approx. $8
Based on new screenshots, there are around 160 Pokémon/stages (1 Pokémon per stage - Charizard and Mewtwo having two entries due to two Mega Evolutions. Could be other forms though) in the game.
If you were to plough through it, without using the stamina feature and without losing a single match, just paying for hearts, you'd need to spend 2300 Yen (assuming there aren't any extra stages with duplicates etc.). It's a little brutal. Though the idea is to play it over time and not 100% it as fast as possible, it could be worse but I'm not jumping for joy over this.
Official Japanese site gave out some details on Pokémon Shuffle.
First is the release date: February 18th 2015, which matches what the US Newsletter gave. Hopefully we'll get clarification for the US and announcement for Europe on Monday.
Now, here's the nitty gritty.
This game is free to play, as announced in the Direct. It uses a stamina system where you get 5 hearts and use a heart every time you play a stage (win or lose), and the hearts take time to recover. We first thought it was 15 minutes, but now some imagery appears to show it being 30 minutes.
You can expedite this by buying hearts in the store using the in-game currency, gems. Gems can be obtained through StreetPass but can also be purchased with in-app purchases:
1 Gem = 100 Yen ($0.84 so will probably be $1 in the US)
With this, you can then purchase either hearts or coins. Coins can be used to buy items to make stages easier, or Great Balls to make capture of Pokémon more likely.
Due to the Nintendo Direct trailer, we have the shop pricing scheme:
Hearts
5 Hearts = 1 Gem
20 Hearts = 3 Gems
45 Hearts = 6 Gems
75 Hearts = 10 Gems
Coins
5000 Coins = 1 Gem
20000 Coins = 3 Gems
45000 Coins = 6 Gems
75000 Coins = 10 Gems
Now, this means to get 75 hearts would be 1000 Yen, or approx. $8
Based on new screenshots, there are around 160 Pokémon/stages (1 Pokémon per stage - Charizard and Mewtwo having two entries due to two Mega Evolutions. Could be other forms though) in the game.
If you were to plough through it, without using the stamina feature and without losing a single match, just paying for hearts, you'd need to spend 2300 Yen (assuming there aren't any extra stages with duplicates etc.). It's a little brutal. Though the idea is to play it over time and not 100% it as fast as possible, it could be worse but I'm not jumping for joy over this.