Fantasy Friends Review

 "Fantasy Friends"

A cute little pet sim from:

XALOC Studios and Just For Games

Review by Courtney

$30 on Switch eshop and PS4, $20 on Steam

Released November 20th

Fantasy Friends was a game I was pretty excited to receive. I grew up in the 90's when tamagotchis and giga pets were incredibly popular, so the concept was familiar to me. I still remember the time my giga pet ran away, so I was pretty thrilled to have a new version of it for my switch.

The game is definitely for young kiddos, but I had fun looking after my pets. The goat pet in particular is insanely cute to me. The graphics are bright and colorful and certainly eye catching, and I think little ones will love it.

The controls handle well, and are relatively simple, making it easy for little hands that may not play many games yet. This would make for a pretty good game for a child that hasn't played games before.

One question I did have was who this game would be purchased by, I think the three platforms its available on are a bit narrow. Parents that aren't gamers themselves aren't super likely to have a steam account, and if they have a switch or a PS4, they probably have older children contending for the usage of it. Most families I know with only little ones have a tablet they allow them to use. And honestly I think this game would work wonderfully with touch controls.

The other big issue I have with this game is the overall price compared to how much game there actually is. My worry as a parent is I think if I had bought this for my child when they were the right age for it, is that after a few hours they'd be bored. $30 for the digital version (and $35 for the physical) is a bit steep. I think a lot more parents are keen to just buy an app that's a couple bucks, even if it isn't as well made as Fantasy Friends is.

And it is well made. I encountered no bugs, and had no issues while playing. Occasionally I felt the instructions were a bit unclear, and perhaps a smaller kiddo would have a hard time with that since there is reading involved, but overall I thought the game was cute and fun enough.

For these reasons, I think I could only fairly give the game a 5/10. But I think if they added a bit more content, more mini games for the different animals, maybe? Or perhaps more to do with your town. That score could easily change to a 7 or 8.

Game Trailer: