The Pokémon Company has a steady history of iOS and Android releases, but it's not common for titles to be published by Nintendo on the 3DS eShop and to then rock up on smart devices. Pokémon Shuffle has always had the potential to change that, arriving on the 3DS eShop as a free-to-play title with plenty of optional microtransactions. It's a smartphone-style experience on the 3DS, of course, so its transition seemed inevitable.

Confirmed earlier in the year, a week ago the title arrived on iOS and Android in Japan; the free download has now popped up on iOS in North America and various parts of Europe, though the Android version hasn't yet landed at the time of writing. In practice the game remains largely the same, albeit with a portrait layout across one screen, though some have also commented on more aggressive balancing to tempt you into microtransactions.

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Though majority owned by Nintendo, The Pokémon Company has always exercised a degree of independence; Shuffle does represent a merging of approach between the two companies, however. It'll also be interesting to see whether any details emerge on respective download numbers and comparisons between the two versions. Most money would go on the smart device version being downloaded many more times, yet the 3DS iteration benefited from arriving on a less crowded marketplace. We're unlikely to ever learn which will have made the most money, in the end, but most bets would go on the iOS / Android iteration.

Are you a fan of this on 3DS and tempted to start it again on your phone / tablet?