Details revealed for microtransaction-laden Pok?mon Shuffle, and they’re pretty disgusting

Energy is generally a bad way to F2P

Pokémon Shuffle is a thing, and it’s set to arrive on the 3DS this week in Japan as a spiritual successor to the puzzler Pokémon Trozei. It’s also free-to-play.

Details have arisen from the official Japanese site as to how much the microtransactions will cost, and it’s not looking good. At first, you’ll get five “hearts,” which function as energy — in other words, win or lose, each stage costs a heart to play. Once you run out you’ll have to wait 30 minutes for each heart to regenerate, StreetPass, or pay money.

For the latter option it’s roughly $1 per “Gem,” which nets you a measly five hearts. You can also buy coins with Gems to decrease the difficulty of stages to get power-ups. There will be 160 stages in all, and as long as you’re willing to wait for the energy to refill, you can beat the game without it.

Right now the jury is out as to whether or not stages are artificially crafted to make you want to pay for power-ups, but the energy mechanic is completely off-putting. Nintendo should have been a cut above the rest and put in a $15 “unlimited energy” purchase, so that people could buy the “full game” if they wanted to.

160 stages with 30 minutes of waiting between each, accounting for a 100% win rate? That’s roughly 80 hours of waiting for energy to refill.

F2P 3DS title Pokémon Shuffle Gets Japanese Release Date (18/02) & Pricing Scheme [NeoGAF]

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