For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the iOS version of Pokémon Friends from The Pokémon Company.
The Pokémon Company released Pokémon Friends this week across Switch and Mobile. On Nintendo Switch, the game is released as a cheap base version with optional DLC. but on Mobile, there is a free to start TRIAL/DEMO of the game as well as the Paid DLC base game and optional Paid DLC. The free to start nature of this version of Pokémon Friends is why i included it as part of the Demo Play Thursday series and not as part of Mobile Friday.
In this free to start version, we're severely limited in what we can do. we can only do one set of puzzle per day, when the base game lets us play many. there are further limitations in the amount of Pokémon Plushes available to make, puzzles in the game, and there are no quest puzzles from the town's folk.
From what we get to play, i enjoyed this game's approach to new players. it felt modern. a key example is that the tutorial messages only appeared when they were needed instead of overloading with messages at the start. another great approach is how for each puzzle there is a gif/video showing the type of puzzle it is. we saw something similar to this in the Hogtie demo, and just like that it doesn't reveal the actual answer to the puzzle. when it came to putting our plushes on display, i greatly appreciated that the game didn't rely on the shadow of the plush and instead put an icon on screen showing exactly where it would be placed.
As a free to start game, Pokémon Friends isn't great as it's just too limited. but as a trial/demo, this version of Pokémon Friends works great. if you're curious about Pokémon Friends, try this before you buy the base game on your platform of choice.
