"A great game for kids and Disney lovers. So this is what it's like to have friends!"

Disney Friends

Pros:
+ Very colorful graphics and animated characters
+ Voice recognition is great and there are many commands
+ Lots of things to do and see for at least 5-8 hours
+ Great kids game

Cons:
- Guardian points can be exploited, sharply reducing the game's length
- Touch screen controls can sometimes be iffy and are impossible to use for navigation
- Pins have absolutely no use within the game, but there are TONS of them
- I am not 7, and thus cannot appreciate this game fully


Disney has been pretty conservative on the videogame front for the past 10 years or so. With the exception of the usual Hannah Montana games, or some other licensed crap, you could say they've pretty much given up using the classic Disney characters as inspiration for any game that doesn't involve princesses. Well, until today that is. While not much more than a Nintendogs inspired pet sim, Disney Friends does almost everything the game can with the charm and grace you would expect of a standard Pixar film.

The game begins with Tinker Bell pounding on your bedroom window. Once she's got your attention, she throws some fairy dust on you and flies you outside. After a few quick questions, it's off to the Magical Kingdom to take care of some very bored and hungry Disney characters. With your newly appointed position as Guardian, it becomes your job to make sure these characters are taken care of. In return they'll never make fun of you for scratching your butt in public, nor will they ask you to lend them money without any plans to return it later. As far as friends go, you can't ask for anything better than that.

Disney Friends has a total of five characters for you to interact with, but only four really require attention (the alien is really just a tutorial friend). They're the toy alien from Toy Story, Dory from Finding Nemo, Simba from the Lion King, Winnie the Pooh, and Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. All four characters have different personalities and react differently to your input. You start off with only Stitch and the alien, but the better you take care of Stitch the more friends you unlock. You can access all their play yards from a small castle room that acts as the over world. From this over world you can access a store for your friends, look at pins you've been awarded, play with some of your rewards, etc. But most importantly you'll find doors with your friends portraits on them. Through these doors you reach your friends, and it's taking care of these friends is where the game gets interesting.

Typically you take care of your Disney pals like any other pet sim. You need to feed them, play with them, and let them sleep. This is all done from a first person perspective, but you're allowed to walk all over and view the area as you want. The characters themselves are all situated within tiny environments. You can buy toys, beds, hats, and other things at the shop to make these places or your friends more livelier. There's an easy to use tab menu on the touch screen that lets you handle all this. The tab menu also contains all your other useful care taking tools. From it you can access one of three mini-games to play with your friend. Everyone has their own drawing pad (your saved drawings even show up beside your friends door in the overworld), their own personal song pad, and a unique mini-game specific to the friend. It really makes taking care of these guys a breeze, which is exactly what you'd want in a children's game anyways.

One of the coolest features in the game is the voice recognition. You can actually use the mic to say a handful of key phrases to your friends. Tell Stitch to play dead, and he will. Praise the claw, and your alien buddy will as well. Tell Pooh he was a bad bear, and he will frown at the ground, saying "oh bother". Say obscene things to them, and they just look at you questioningly. But you can't blame them. Disney shelters them like an overbearing parent. May Simba never go to high school... The voice recognition works pretty well with a variety of voices, having tested on my brother and sister. Best of all if you're in a public place, or simply don't want to actually "talk" to your friends, you can pull out a tab of all the phrases they recognize and tap them. Bam, the exact same effect. FINALLY a developer who understands mic use shouldn't be enforced!

The more you take care of these cutesy pals, the more Guardian Points you rack up. These points are used as a level of experience, and the more you collect the higher your Guardian rank becomes. With higher ranks you unlock more friends and better goods at Tinker Bell's shop. Your friends all have individual meters as well which measure your friendship. If you're a bad friend, your pal will become very sad and pouty looking... which believe me actually is quite heart breaking when you see it. If you have a heart that is. If a sad and abused pooh bear staring at you asking you why you're poking him so hurtfully isn't enough to melt your glacial heart, I'm not sure what will. Perhaps a bag of Cheeto's? The only problem here is how easy it is to cheat the game into giving you Guardian points. All one needs to do is continuously pet their friend and use the mic tab repeatedly. Voila, an hour later and you'll be best friends. I doubt the younger crowd will exploit this, but the possibility and the means are there. In any case, the better you take care of your friend, the closer you get and the more Adventures with them you unlock. And adventures are exactly the meat and bones of the Disney Friends experience.

Every friend has 3 adventures, and each is unique to the character. Adventures are typically more involved mini-games to waste time with. They can range from small tasks such as helping Lilo put away all her laundry, to larger tasks such as finding Timon, Pumba, and Simba in a massive grass maze. The cool part is all these adventures also take place in totally different game fields and allow you to visit your friend's friend's... something that thankfully isn't awkward in this situation. But that's not all. They also contain treasure to hunt for! You can dig up parts of the ground to hunt for gold to use in the shop, or you may even find Mickey Mouse emblems which unlock unique hat sets in Tink's shop. Depending on the date and time, even more adventures will open up that are not normally accessible. So to see everything there is in the game, you'll need to actually wait until specific days come by. It definitely helps increase the games lifespan, creating a reason to come back. Then again, you could always switch up the DS clock if you felt like it I guess, but I doubt the age crowd this game is aimed at will bother.

As far as presentation goes, this game is phenomenal. The graphics are top notch, and the art direction is brilliant. The characters are highly detailed and have VERY animated expressions and actions. Stitch playing monster attack is hilarious, and I love how the characters run up to your camera and try to do things to get your attention. Another cool time feature is how the environments change during the time of day, going though day and night cycles. The touch controls can be a bit iffy at times unfortunately, and you might be trying to perform an action that you won't be able to simply because you're tapping a giant invisible hit box. For the most part though the game controls extremely well, and the physics are pretty well done. I just wouldn't recommended trying to walk around the play areas with only the stylus. All the characters are fully voiced and sound almost exactly like their movie counterparts. The music is a bit lacking, but you're not likely to be paying attention to it anyways.

Disney Friends is a superb kids game. The production values here are extremely high, and there are enough interesting things to do to keep anyone entertained for at least 5 straight hours. If nothing else, you'll probably get some giggles and "awww!"'s out of your kids while the Disney characters scamper around their play areas. None of the things that usually hamper children's games are present here, which really speaks highly of how credible it is. Unfortunately, for older Disney fans the game might not win anyone over for long. While I find it hard for anyone to at least find the game endearing, the lack of honest replay value will turn some off. You can unlock pins for completing certain tasks, but these pins do absolutely nothing within the game. When I finally became best friends with my Disney pals and became a Master Guardian, I earned nothing but a few lousy pins and some displays for my over world. I didn't even get a cool shop item. The mini-games and quests are interesting, but I can't see them holding anyones attention after completing them once. There's just nothing more to do or see once you've hit the best friends mark. The only thing to come back for is the unique time events. Or to see Stitch run head first into your camera. That NEVER got old. Nor did poking Pooh Bear. Oh bother...

If you've got some younger kids who enjoy all those crazy sim or pet type games, this one will probably be an award winner. The mic commands and various friends and their mini-games should keep them giggling and having fun for some time. For anyone else though, only seriously hardcore Disney fans need apply. Once you figure out how to exploit Guardian points, the game becomes a simple 5 hour affair tops, and I really doubt older players will find any of the games quests and games present anything even trying to resemble a challenge. You'll probably only be in it for the cutesy bits, and even they will eventually wear thin. Disney Friends is among one of the greatest children's games I've ever played, and I don't doubt your kid will agree. As for me, I think it's time I found some real friends. Or I could go play Horsez 2... What the heck, who needs friends anyways?

Breakdown (trying for a kids perspective here...):

Presentation - 9/10
Gameplay - 8/10
Sound - 9/10
Longevity - 7/10

Overall - 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/08

Game Release: Disney Friends (US, 02/26/08)