Pony Friends: Nintendo DS

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money by performing three chores for the ponies owned. Supplementary income and possessions come from finding items on trail rides. Unlocking such an item, however, may freeze the "chores checklist" so that you get no further credit (or money) for chores you perform. This effectively shuts down your primary income to support your horses. The only solution I've found is to erase all progress and start again from scratch. The first time this happened, I called the developer and left a message but heard nothing either via phone or email. In subsequent play I've found that often a player gets no credit for the feeding chore when owning multiple horses.

That said, people who like "Nintendogs" will find the same relaxed pace in this game. There are a number of trail rides, and the graphics for these are pleasantly scenic and to me the best feature of the game. So long as your horse is rested and healthy, you can take any number of trail rides, and I used this feature of the game the most as a quick relaxer.

A player gets the full view of a horse only when it's being cared for or in the field. Don't expect the quality of the horse figures to equal that of the "Nintendogs," and multiple horses grouped in the field do not interact in the way multiple "Nintendogs" do at home.

If you're interested in practicing delayed gratification, this game will help! Money accrues in modest amounts ($27 to $43 for daily chores), and though I never hit a zero balance, I can see how you could, as a previous reviewer did, have a sick horse and no money, thus stalling out the game. Once a day a trail ride will offer a small reward for a completed task; the unlocked items, as mentioned above, sometimes locked the chores checklist; the photo assignments about half the time were hard to complete and in one case never registered. There's no way to resell items to get extra money. A lucky and canny player might accrue enough to get a second horse in ten days or so (Horses cost from $200 to $230. The fact that money comes slowly to a player and must be so carefully managed can be either a drawback or a plus, depending on your point of view. Another patience-tester is that most of the trail rides must be unlocked by either opening a gate on an already-open trail or riding a certan number of trails, and finding the gates requires swiveling your viewpoint and thus at least two rides. This gets pretty time-consuming, and a child might find the wait too frustrating.

The game is good at teaching basic horse care, requiring the player to periodically groom and wash a pony and clean its hooves. However, the cost of washing and feeding your horse may eat up half your daily allowance. Similarly, the game warns you via a meter if your horse is getting too tired or ill to ride, and an ill horse might need treatment every two to three days (more money).

I can't comment on the advanced game features: what happens when a pony achieves all goals, because the flaw I found made it necessary to restart twice long before I reached that point.

Pony Friends: Nintendo DS

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game play time each day unless you continually set your system clock ahead), and you can only really ride a path once a day and expect to get any pictures or money.

The good parts of this game: You get to choose and customize a pony, take care of it, ride it (although, it is from a 1st person point of view and you can't really guide the pony, just look right or left), take pictures of animals, and race it (although you can't control the pony-- the only thing you can do is shout encouragement into the mic and hope that this encourages the pony to go faster).

Accessorizing the pony is one of the biggest draws for this game (just like in Nintendogs where you can put ribbons, hats and sunglasses on your dog); but if you have no money to buy accessories, it's no fun... and neither is trying to play with a sick pony.

I've seen reviews where it says Pony Friends is much better than Nintendogs. I completely disagree. Nintendogs is a very well done game, whereas Pony Friends is a very sloppily implemented, limited clone of Nintendogs. (PS: In real, life I am a video game producer if this lends any credence to what I am saying).

Pony Friends: Nintendo DS

...

game play time each day unless you continually set your system clock ahead), and you can only really ride a path once a day and expect to get any pictures or money.



The good parts of this game: You get to choose and customize a pony, take care of it, ride it (although, it is from a 1st person point of view and you can't really guide the pony, just look right or left), take pictures of animals, and race it (although you can't control the pony-- the only thing you can do is shout encouragement into the mic and hope that this encourages the pony to go faster).



Accessorizing the pony is one of the biggest draws for this game (just like in Nintendogs where you can put ribbons, hats and sunglasses on your dog); but if you have no money to buy accessories, it's no fun... and neither is trying to play with a sick pony.



I've seen reviews where it says Pony Friends is much better than Nintendogs. I completely disagree. Nintendogs is a very well done game, whereas Pony Friends is a very sloppily implemented, limited clone of Nintendogs. (PS: In real, life I am a video game producer if this lends any credence to what I am saying).