@PogueSquadron

Capture Pokemon. After that comes S-classing Pokemon.

IMO, when a specific challenge comes up with a time-sensitive Pokemon, focus on them. If they're strong, play against another like-type'd Pokemon for grinding a team. Or use the Sirmastersephiroth method from earlier in the thread.

Don't spend real money (IMO) and just have fun.

Have you played Pokemon Battle Trozei?

No I haven't. Is it similar?

@PogueSquadron

It's similar in concept but the gameplay is more intense. You do the whole match-three thing with Pokemon weaknesses being a thing, but then you're also actively 'battling' Pokemon. So you need to sometimes develop strategies on the fly and be very quick. Pokemon Shuffle focuses on the turn-based mostly but Trozei is semi-time based.

Overall I may have had more fun with Trozei but I'm enjoying Shuffle too. I just caught my last Pokemon today so I have them all in Pokemon Shuffle right now and I 100%'d Pokemon Battle Trozei. I'd at least look into it deeper if I were you.

I've been taking a little break from this game lately given that I've already gotten the Safari pokemon. I should log on daily at least, though, to get those 500 coins.

I'm trying to S-rank all the main stages. Nearly done.

Mega Glaile, Mega Gengar and Mega Aerodactyl, as well as Onyx (grr) and Timburr.


I think I need to grab Mewtwo for Timburr, Slowbro just isn't cutting it. Onyx is an asshole, I might use some items there. Same with the Megas.

Gah, I just wasted almost all my coins for naught. Used a Mega Start against Yveltal since I was having trouble catching him even with my team completely maxed out level wise. Managed to beat him with 15 seconds left giving me a 26% chance. No dice so I spent a Great Ball to get it up to 52% and still failed. Figured I could try again but to my surprise I wasn't given a second opportunity. Used another Mega Start and this time beat him with 9 seconds left for a 16% chance. Didn't get him and I foolishly used another Great Ball thinking my luck would have to change. Nope. Now I'm out almost all my coins and I still don't have the sucker.

Now that I have Mewtwo, I don't have his Mega Evolution for some reason,... though I did already beat Mega Mewtwo a while back. Maybe I need to beat him again now that I do have Mewtwo? Anyone else have this issue?

@Jargon

Good luck! I don't recall the circumstances to where I caught Yveltal but I feel like I had an easier time than with Xerneas.

@DrFinkelstein

I haven't managed to catch Xerneas or Yveltal just yet, but I have A ranked Yveltal in the past. The best I've ever done with Xerneas is a C rank. So I definitely agree with you there.

I really dislike this game. Am I missing something? Everything about it rubs me the wrong way, most notably the free-to-play model, but also the core match-3 gameplay. This is my first exposure to a game like this, so I'm essentially speaking from the perspective of someone who's never seen this kind of thing before.

The F2P thing just feels extremely shady, like an arcade model that misses the point. You drain your resources too easily and there's no other way to get extra plays other than waiting a rather long time. There doesn't seem to be a way to "reward" players with more hearts for doing well, unless I'm missing something. This element combined with the 2 million Pokemon and all the elements of chance regarding catching them gives me the impression of a cynical cash-grab meant to take advantage of addictive types.

Not a fan of the core gameplay either. I dislike these kind of puzzle games where the screen is constantly filled with stuff. It makes it extremely unclear what the goal is and it never feels like you're actually progressing. In Tetris or Panel De Pon, you're working constantly to keep the area from being too cluttered with pieces, but in all these phone-esque puzzle games, it's the same giant block full of pieces to slide around. Not only that, there're countless times where you'll clear three, and it leads into this chain reaction that was completely unintentional because new pieces just happened to drop in where you needed them to. Puzzle League lets you set up and manipulate these chains while they're happening--this is just totally luck-based. What's the appeal??

Don't mean to dirty up the thread with my crankiness, but Pokemon Shuffle just made me angry. I've played a lot of Nintendo's games throughout the past three decades, and I don't think any of them left as bad an impression as quickly as this one. Anyhoo, carry on.

@TriforceBun

In Tetris the goal is to clear the screen. In Pokemon Shuffle the goal is to clear the opponent Pokemon's HP bar. Pokemon Shuffle is like a simplified, quick-to-pick-up-and-play Pokemon game where instead of carrying in six Pokemon to battle, each with four moves, you're carrying four Pokemon into battle, each with one move (or two in the case of Megas).

You're not trying to clear the screen. You're trying to choose which of the four moves you have available to you to use against your opponent. (And some moves allow you to combo into other moves, letting you get multiple attacks in in one turn.

Gah Yveltal! I suppose you guys having Mega Lucario must help. I've been using Ampharos as my Mega Pokemon and it's not very helpful.

Edit: Nice, finally caught him. Got luck with a 16% chance. The fact that I didn't need to use any coins to do it makes me feel better about all the coins I spent failing to catch him earlier.

On to Mewtwo. This one I think I will definitely need to use some coins. I haven't even come close to catching him yet.

And now I've got Mewtwo! Caught him the first time I beat him with a 10% chance. I'll take it!

New competition is up for Mega Banette. I don't have the coins for a Complexity -1 so I'm just gonna have to do good.

Nice on Mewtwo! I spent coins yesterday trying to beat MegaMewtwo again cause the stone didn't click for some reason only to find out it's a glitch and I just have to manually add him to the main slot to use him. Ugh. So I'm down in the hole coin-wise but hopefully I can kick some Mega Banette ass!

My first attempt...

04/30/2015 - High Score: 12182 - Ranking: 1,311th out of 12,591 participants

That was with Gengar, which seems to be the favorite amongst people too who are in the high scores. I guess I'll stick with him then.

@Jargon

Dude! You gotta start hoarding your coins! Honestly .

@DrFinkelstein

I've got about 11k so far. Currently ranked 1969 out of 13,932. I expect that rank to drop significantly.


Gengar, Yvetal, Zoroark and Absol seem to be the team of choice for this event. Thankfully I have them all. Yvetal could use some levelling though.

Banette is going to get bloody, man. Especially since Gengar is effective against him.

@TriforceBun
The weakness of these types of games (going back to Bejeweled or even Yoshi's Cookie!) is that high combos are more or less accidental. So luck plays a significant part. However, there are quite a few factors in Shuffle which mitigate that, such as Leveling, Effectiveness, Special Moves, Megas, etc. It's a fairly elegant design for one of these types of games. And the turn-based play makes it perfect for dirty casual play!

I dunno. I find it to be surprisingly addictive. And I've always hated Bejeweled. Maybe I'm just a fanboy!

Banette is up to about 55,000 players now, and I ranked somewhere in the 5300s with a score comparable to DrFinkelstein's. I'm going to see how long I can hold out before purchasing a Complexity -1 (if I purchase one at all), but I probably will have to get one eventually since I don't have Yveltal. I may do a Mega Start for Yveltal to see if I can more easily catch it...

Upped my score to just over 14,000. Ranking has dropped to 2156/46753 though.

The Complexity remains in reserve as a last resort as always.

Current score: 14,095
Rank: 4,465/91,605

Not bad so far. I feel relatively safe since we're almost to that 100K mark and I'm still in the top 25% of people who can earn the Mega Stone, but that could definitely change going forward.

@V_s

I'm at 12,750 with a rank somewhere in the 6,000s last I checked. That was my one and only attempt too, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Glad to see I should still be in the top ten thousand.

I'm going to attempt this again tomorrow maybe but I'm trying to not waste time playing it over and over, instead grinding my Ghost pokemon.