I have been playing this game a lot recently, and I'm far enough to say how much of a terrible idea this game is.
I have played up until stage 107.
First of all, in order to play this Bejeweled clone, you need "hearts". You get one heart every 30 minutes, and you need it in order to play, no matter how your play turns out. This sounds fair enough, considering we haven't paid for the game, until you realize that you can't have more than five hearts at once. If you don't play for more than 2:30 hours, you are losing your chance to get more hearts. I can confirm that you get 10-15 minutes of gameplay at best with five hearts.
But don't worry, You can get more hearts with jewels! With every boss fight, you get a bonus jewel. A boss fight happens every 10 fights, then every 15. You can get five more hearts with one jewel, eighteen with three, and so on. So basically you get five chances of playing every 2:30 hours and no more than five, and you get a chance of buying more hearts with jewels you can find after the boss fights.
Everything seems pretty reasonable, considering we haven't paid the game at all, and it doesn't look like too much of a cheap game, until you realize how difficult the game can get, which means spending more hearts on a single stage at once. The stages get more difficult the more you beat, of course, and the pokémon get more HPs you have to destroy in the same amount of moves (sometimes 15, sometimes, 10, sometimes 5...).
Now, we come to a problem: the xp grinding you need in your usual Pokémon game is alive and strong in this title as well, but how can you believe to level up in a decent amount of time when you are limited to five hearts?
So it happened that sometimes the stages were a breeze, and sometimes they were so much of a pain that took me multiple gaming sessions to beat them. On the Mega Ampharos stage, it took me 25 hearts to beat that thing, and I also bought the +5 moves power-up!
Yes, you have power-ups, and they cost coins. You get 100 coins for every beaten stage, and 500 coins if you Check-in daily. Having 5 more moves in the stage costs you 800, while increasing the XP earnings to 1.5 costs 300. I'm only considering these, because the other ones (such as decreasing the difficulty for 9000 coins) are too expensive to even think about to play for free.
But have no fear! If you lose a stage, the game gives you the option to play for 5 more moves for one jewel. Basically it's a "yeah, play one small portion of the game for your hard-earned jewel. Or just pay 99c".
Yes, one jewel is, in fact, 0.99€. In order to play the game five more times, you can wait those 2:30 hours, or spend 1€ out of your pocket. These are the accepted payments from the game (courtesy from Nintendolife, as I couldn't open the page at all):
1 Jewel - $0.99 / €0.99 / £0.89
6 Jewels - $4.99 / €4.99 / £4.49
12 Jewels - $8.99 / €8.99 / £8.09
35 Jewels - $24.99 / €24.99 / £22.49
75 Jewels - $47.99 / €47.99 / £42.99
I translate this as:
1 jewel - 5 hearts, 10 minutes
6 jewels - 38 hearts, roughly 1:30 hours
12 jewels - 80 hearts, roughly 2:30 hours
35 jewels - 226 hearts, roughly 7:30 hours
75 jewels - 498 hearts, roughly 16 hours
According to Nintendo, there are 160 stages in the game, which means that, if you decide to get the most expensive option, you get to play each stages 3 times. And you better complete this masterpiece! Not only you aren't guaranteed to win, but the game is also about catching Pokémon, and the catch-rate is given by the catch probability of the Pokémon itself + the number of available moves you had left when you beat the stage (and you can increase those chances with a Mega Ball, which costs a whooping 2500 coins). And after you spent 50€ on this bejeweled clone, you still have to either wait or pay more if you have something left.
I was fine with his if Nintendo opted to set a 10 hearts limit (instead of 5), or taking one heart only when you beat a stage. If I were to complete 160 stages without failing once and playing every 2:30 hours, it would take me 80 hours to finish the game, for a total gameplay that doesn't get higher than 27 hours. I haven't taken in consideration the jewels they give me every boss fight because I'm 100% sure that I will end up spending it to get 5 more moves, just like I did with Mega Ampharos, after deciding that I spent way too much time on a single level. I can't imagine how many hearts it would take me to beat every stage and catch every single Pokémon.
Bottomline: as a shameless fan of the franchise, I say fuck this game. Go play Trozei, or buy Battle Link for 8€ on the eShop. There are no reasons for this game to exist. The limits are too tight and it's very clear how they expect you to pay for this game. After spending so many hearts on stage 105, I know I won't be able to finish the game normally. And I don't plan to give in to micro-transactions.
I have played up until stage 107.
First of all, in order to play this Bejeweled clone, you need "hearts". You get one heart every 30 minutes, and you need it in order to play, no matter how your play turns out. This sounds fair enough, considering we haven't paid for the game, until you realize that you can't have more than five hearts at once. If you don't play for more than 2:30 hours, you are losing your chance to get more hearts. I can confirm that you get 10-15 minutes of gameplay at best with five hearts.
But don't worry, You can get more hearts with jewels! With every boss fight, you get a bonus jewel. A boss fight happens every 10 fights, then every 15. You can get five more hearts with one jewel, eighteen with three, and so on. So basically you get five chances of playing every 2:30 hours and no more than five, and you get a chance of buying more hearts with jewels you can find after the boss fights.
Everything seems pretty reasonable, considering we haven't paid the game at all, and it doesn't look like too much of a cheap game, until you realize how difficult the game can get, which means spending more hearts on a single stage at once. The stages get more difficult the more you beat, of course, and the pokémon get more HPs you have to destroy in the same amount of moves (sometimes 15, sometimes, 10, sometimes 5...).
Now, we come to a problem: the xp grinding you need in your usual Pokémon game is alive and strong in this title as well, but how can you believe to level up in a decent amount of time when you are limited to five hearts?
So it happened that sometimes the stages were a breeze, and sometimes they were so much of a pain that took me multiple gaming sessions to beat them. On the Mega Ampharos stage, it took me 25 hearts to beat that thing, and I also bought the +5 moves power-up!
Yes, you have power-ups, and they cost coins. You get 100 coins for every beaten stage, and 500 coins if you Check-in daily. Having 5 more moves in the stage costs you 800, while increasing the XP earnings to 1.5 costs 300. I'm only considering these, because the other ones (such as decreasing the difficulty for 9000 coins) are too expensive to even think about to play for free.
But have no fear! If you lose a stage, the game gives you the option to play for 5 more moves for one jewel. Basically it's a "yeah, play one small portion of the game for your hard-earned jewel. Or just pay 99c".
Yes, one jewel is, in fact, 0.99€. In order to play the game five more times, you can wait those 2:30 hours, or spend 1€ out of your pocket. These are the accepted payments from the game (courtesy from Nintendolife, as I couldn't open the page at all):
1 Jewel - $0.99 / €0.99 / £0.89
6 Jewels - $4.99 / €4.99 / £4.49
12 Jewels - $8.99 / €8.99 / £8.09
35 Jewels - $24.99 / €24.99 / £22.49
75 Jewels - $47.99 / €47.99 / £42.99
I translate this as:
1 jewel - 5 hearts, 10 minutes
6 jewels - 38 hearts, roughly 1:30 hours
12 jewels - 80 hearts, roughly 2:30 hours
35 jewels - 226 hearts, roughly 7:30 hours
75 jewels - 498 hearts, roughly 16 hours
According to Nintendo, there are 160 stages in the game, which means that, if you decide to get the most expensive option, you get to play each stages 3 times. And you better complete this masterpiece! Not only you aren't guaranteed to win, but the game is also about catching Pokémon, and the catch-rate is given by the catch probability of the Pokémon itself + the number of available moves you had left when you beat the stage (and you can increase those chances with a Mega Ball, which costs a whooping 2500 coins). And after you spent 50€ on this bejeweled clone, you still have to either wait or pay more if you have something left.
I was fine with his if Nintendo opted to set a 10 hearts limit (instead of 5), or taking one heart only when you beat a stage. If I were to complete 160 stages without failing once and playing every 2:30 hours, it would take me 80 hours to finish the game, for a total gameplay that doesn't get higher than 27 hours. I haven't taken in consideration the jewels they give me every boss fight because I'm 100% sure that I will end up spending it to get 5 more moves, just like I did with Mega Ampharos, after deciding that I spent way too much time on a single level. I can't imagine how many hearts it would take me to beat every stage and catch every single Pokémon.
Bottomline: as a shameless fan of the franchise, I say fuck this game. Go play Trozei, or buy Battle Link for 8€ on the eShop. There are no reasons for this game to exist. The limits are too tight and it's very clear how they expect you to pay for this game. After spending so many hearts on stage 105, I know I won't be able to finish the game normally. And I don't plan to give in to micro-transactions.
VS