A group of the most adorable critters you’ve ever seen live happily in a forest together.  One day a magical star-shaped seed appeared.  If you plant it, good things will happen when it grows into a tree.  But it only grows with happy feelings.  So all the animals decide to build things for each other, eat good food, and play games together to make the tree grow.  Cuddly Forest Friends on Switch is a hybrid virtual pet simulator mixed with Mario Party style mini-games.

A typical day with the Cuddly Forest Friends goes like this.  In the morning the animals will request some accessories to wear, food to eat, and/or furniture to decorate their home.  You’ll first send out animals to find materials to make those things.  Certain animals are better at finding things in certain areas.  You’ll play a mini-game where you rapidly press the A button to cheer the animals on.  Do well and you’ll find more materials.  It’s pretty easy.  Then you must make the items if you have enough materials.  Again, certain animals are better at making certain things.  You’ll play another mini-game to cheer the animals on where you time button presses as rings go past.  Again, pretty easy stuff.

After that it’s midday and the animals want to play!  You’ll play a Mario Party style mini-game with the CPU controlling the other players.  Do well and you’ll earn more happiness points.  You can also play the mini-games separately with up to four players.  For a while after that, you can play with each of the animals.  This mode is like a virtual pet game. as you can feed and pet your friends and give them things to wear.  When you level up your friendship with an animal, they’ll reveal clues as to which ones are better at doing which things.  The animals include a squirrel, beaver, mouse, porcupine, capybara, and more!  After you play with each animal, it’s nighttime and they go to sleep.  Then you repeat the process the next day.  When you get enough happiness points, the tree will grow and unlock new areas to gather materials in.

My only problem with this game is that it gets incredibly repetitive.  And it takes forever to get enough points to make the tree grow.  But this game was also clearly made for younger gamers, so maybe they won’t mind the repetition.

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or objectionable here.  Reading skill is needed for the text, though.  Cuddly Forest Friends is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews