The path for Pokémon Shuffle has been a windy one. Back in February of this year, Pokémon Shuffle released for the Nintendo 3DS. It was noteworthy for being one of the first really “free to play" free to play games on Nintendo’s handheld, complete with energy systems and everything. Many saw that as the signal for the end of video games as we know them, but it turned out to not be so bad. The real problem was that Pokémon Shuffle’s bite-sized gameplay wasn’t particularly well-suited to the Nintendo 3DS, a platform that’s definitely designed to be portable but typically isn’t as conducive to killing quick bursts of free time as something like a smartphone.

Eli said it best in his first impressions of Pokémon Shuffle “It seems like a cool game, it’s just the wrong platform. If I could get Pokémon Shuffle on my iPhone, I’d probably spend the next year playing it." The longer he spent with the game too, the more sense it made that Pokémon Shuffle just had to be coming to mobile. In late June, those feelings were confirmed with an official trailer for Pokémon Shuffle on mobile. Then, just about a week ago, Pokémon Shuffle Mobile hit the Japanese App Store, meaning it couldn’t be too far off from a wider release. Which brings us to today: Pokémon Shuffle Mobile (Free) has officially launched outside of Japan.

Whew. It’s been quite the journey, Pokémon Shuffle, but I’m glad to see you’ve arrived on a platform that you seem much better suited for. Personally I have never really been a huge Pokémon fan, but as a free to play matching/battling game I’m actually pretty interested to try out Pokémon Shuffle Mobile for myself. I never bothered checking it out on my 3DS because, again, it wasn’t really the type of game I wanted to play when I fired up my 3DS. If you’re similarly interested in what Pokémon Shuffle Mobile is like, give it a download and be sure to check out our forums for more impressions and discussion.