Pokemon Friends
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Pokemon Friends
Pokémon Friends puts the familiar faces of the popular creatures into an educative puzzle experience.
In the end, even the fun puzzles began to grow stale after only a few hours of play as they're so quick to complete and pop up so often, which dampened my enthusiasm for unlocking Mudkip and Jirachi plushies to decorate my rooms with.I have no desire to boot up Pokémon Friends daily for a few quick puzzles like how I rip packs in TCG Pocket, leaving me with the sense that this puzzle package will fade into the background with other casual spin-off titles, forgotten about until the next Pokémon Direct that announces a handful more overpriced puzzle packs instead of Generation X.
Overall, I have absolutely enjoyed my time with Pokémon Friends. The puzzles are certainly enjoyable, particularly as the difficulty becomes more noticeable, and the entire experience is so pretty and cheerful that it is hard not to just smile.
Pokemon Friends is a game that had great potential as a fun and educational game for children thanks to its cute Pokemon plushies and puzzles. Its use of gacha game mechanics combined with DLC and microtransactions, however, raise concerns — especially in the mobile version. Granted, the gacha mechanics are mild compared to some of the more egregious offenders out there. I’m just not comfortable seeing gacha mechanics in Pokemon Friends, particularly for a game that’s aimed toward families. After playing the excellent Donkey Kong Bananza, Pokemon Friends feels a bit like a letdown.
Pokémon Friends offers a charming set of puzzles that ramp up nicely in difficulty. It's a hop-on game that's ideal for younger players and compelling enough to grip the older lot. There is a good variety of challenges in the base release, but it is a shame that extras are tied to fairly expensive DLC. There are no Nintendo Switch-specific modes, either, so some players may opt for the paid mobile release instead. Unlike the free mobile base game, though, the paid edition allows for unlimited puzzles to be played per day, so there is incentive to keep going to unravel them all.
Mini-games for younger players that easily connect parents and children through their shared love of adorable Pokémon, but the free game design interferes too much with enjoying the game, even with the paid version activated.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
I feel like the more I play Pokemon Friends and unlock higher difficulty levels of its puzzles, the more I enjoy it.
The concept is tepid at best, the graphics are generically cute and the delivery is just a mess of a golden goose situation. The day to day on the free version is hatefully slow, and, once you drop the ten bucks, you’re just turned loose with no sense of accomplishment to help you along. There’s no middle ground between “drip feed content” and “whatever, here’s a bucket.” This is the biggest brand in the world, and Pokémon Friends lashes out at each and every fan to say “you’ll pay us because we expect you to, so pony up.” Don’t be surprised for the Pokémon Center to start selling these yarn versions in the next two months, and for them to be thirty dollars a pop. I knew you were in it for the money, Pokémon Company, but this is disgusting, even for you.
