Pokemon Friends is supposed to be a kid-friendly game but gacha mechanics might catch some families off guard.
Like a certain yellow electric mouse, randomness has always been part of the Pokemon franchise.
Heaven knows how many times I’ve guided my personal Pokemon protagonist through fields of tall grass so I could catch a specific monster that had a chance of spawning in that particular spot.
And let’s not even talk about the chances of catching a rare “shiny” Pokemon or ones blessed with ideal natures and stats for fulfilling a certain role in battle. You know that adage about monkeys with infinite time using a typewriter? That was me in my younger days farming and training the perfect Pokemon. Spoiler alert: I did not recreate Shakespeare.
So what does randomness have to do with Pokemon Friends?
A lot, actually. In fact, randomness is at the heart of the gameplay for Pokemon Friends, which has you crafting cute, knitted versions of Nintendo’s popular pocket monsters from a list of potential squishy outcomes.
Now, randomness is not a bad thing in itself. For many games, randomness — more commonly called “RNG” by gamers as a nod to the term “random number generator” — is a key feature for holding players’ interest. Whether it be hunting for rare gear or, in the case of Pokemon, various creatures, randomness can heighten the excitement and that rewarding feeling when you finally get what you’re looking for.
But randomness can also be used like a carrot that’s tied to the stick known as “gacha” gaming mechanics. For those unfamiliar with them, gacha games are basically video games that use randomness to entice players to either keep playing games for a long time or even pay money to satisfy their cravings and get the reward they want.
To be fair, Pokemon Friends is nowhere near the worst compared to the more predatory gacha games out there. Given its target audience, however, Pokemon Friends’ use of gacha mechanics does raise some questions as far as normalizing potentially problematic behavior.
Pokemon Friends starts out with the elements of a good kids’ game
On the surface, Pokemon Friends looks like a great game for kids.
A good part of the time you spend playing it involves “untangling” or solving an assortment of puzzle threads as a form of mental exercise. Examples of these puzzles include guiding a Pokemon through a maze, rearranging train tracks so they align properly, and rolling a box to demonstrate simple physics. Think of it as the Pokemon version of Brain Age games, which help develop critical thinking and problem solving.
Granted, the puzzles in Pokemon Friends are quite simple, which is to be expected for a game with a younger audience.
While some reviewers give “kiddie” games a low score because they find them boring, I’ve actually rated some simple kids games highly in the past because I thought they were great games for children. As far as its target audience goes, I think the puzzles in Pokemon Friends are perfect and get the job done, even if they might be too simple and repetitive for older players.
After solving puzzles, you are rewarded with different types of thread. These threads can then be thrown into a machine called the Plush-O-Matic, which will produce a Pokemon based on the type of thread you used. Sparky Yarn, for example, can be used to knit Electric Pokemon like Pikachu while Fiery Yarn can be used to knit Fire Pokemon like Charmander.
Once you’ve knitted a Pokemon, you can put it on display in your room or you can give them as gifts to townspeople as part of quests to earn rewards like Pokemon-themed furniture and also increase the level of your town.
That, in a nutshell, is the gameplay loop for Pokemon Friends. So far so good.
Gacha mechanics sour what could have been a great game for children
Where the wheels start to come off the Pokemon Friends wagon is its inclusion of the aforementioned gacha game mechanics.
This includes the use of randomness and upselling to basically encourage players to spend more time or extra money on the game.
While you can pick the elemental type of the Pokemon you knit like fire and electric, for example, you can’t pick the exact Pokemon that comes out of the Plush-O-Matic. As such, it’s quite possible to craft several duplicates of Pokemon you already have and don’t need. This isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world as giving gamers everything right away makes for a boring and unsatisfying experience.
But it’s a different story when you limit the number of puzzles players can play unless they pay $9.99. That’s the case with the mobile version, which is free to download but requires you to pay extra to unlock features, basically a “freemium” game in gamer parlance. In the case of Pokemon Friends, you have to pay what’s called a microtransaction to unlock unlimited puzzle playing on Android and iOS.
The Switch version, on the other hand, requires you to pay $9.99 to download it, so there’s no limit to the number of times you can play the puzzles. In that sense, it sounds more like a normal paid game, where you pay and get everything.
Unfortunately, that’s not exactly how Pokemon Friends works on the Switch. That’s because the full content of the game is locked behind downloadable content — also known as DLC packs.
You will need to pay $14.99, for example, for the “Puzzle On! Pack #1,” which comes with 10 additional puzzles and 40 Pokemon plushies, as well as more furniture and wallpapers for your room. There’s also a second “Puzzle On! Pack #2” for the same price, which comes with another batch of puzzles, plushies, furniture and wallpaper. Otherwise, you can get both as a combo pack for $25.99.
It honestly feels like a huge 180-degree turn from Donkey Kong Bananza, which comes with a full — and might I say stellar — gaming experience after you pay for it once. Donkey Kong Bananza is fresh and exciting without any unwanted filler. It basically underpromised and overdelivered, making it the most surprising release of the year so far for me. It’s exactly everything you want a game to be.
Pokemon Friends pales in comparison, especially as far as expectations are concerned.
Personally, as averse as I am to certain uses of gacha, DLC and microtransactions, I could still give Pokemon Friends a pass. Like I mentioned previously, it’s still pretty mild compared to some games out there with ridiculously low odds for getting characters or items that you want. But those are games that are mostly geared toward adults. Pokemon Friends, on the other hand, is a game that’s especially attractive to kids. The description for the game in the Google Play Store, for example, says it has five save slots so everyone in the family can “have a turn” to play.
As someone who got a lot of younger family members into gaming — and gifted Pokemon games to several of them — I’m not a game hater by any means. To this day, I use gaming as a way to spend time and connect with family. I’m just worried that Pokemon Friends could normalize gacha-type gaming mechanics to children, which I don’t think is a good idea.
Heck, I personally play some gacha games myself. But I also know folks who have spent a lot of money on gacha games after developing addictive behavior while playing them.
The fact that it’s a Nintendo game is something I find even more surprising.
In the past, I’ve always admired Nintendo’s reluctance and seeming discomfort with mobile game monetization despite pressure from investors. When your primary audience includes a ton of kids, understandable. Hopefully, Pokemon Friends is more the exception to the rule and not a signal of things to come.
Final thoughts on Pokemon Friends
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.
- Rating: 4 out of 10
- Cost: Free to try in mobile, $9.99 for Switch
- More details: Pokemon Friends for Switch, Google Play, Apple App Store
