Fans of virtual pets may want to take a look at the Pokémon Friends Poké Ball, also known as the Poké Nade (‘nade’ coming from the verb ‘naderu’, to pet or rub), a new electronic device from Takara Tomy recently released in Japan. Although it might call to mind something like a Tamagotchi, the gameplay is a little different than those classic virtual pets.
We were fortunate to get the device sent to us by Meccha Japan — even if you live overseas, you can order the device from their website here.
Want to buy the Poké Nade or other Japanese Pokémon goods? Luckily, you don’t have to be in Japan — our website sponsor Meccha Japan carries many of the exclusive goods and you can search for them on their website.
The Poké Nade features a full color LCD screen, three buttons to navigate, a single speaker on the side, vibration and a touch-sensitive top that can detect forward-and-backward rubbing and side-to-side rubbing. Takara Tomy recommends using the reset button when initially starting it up before you begin.
Poké Nade gameplay
The device centers around two main activities: collecting Pokémon and raising their affection. Collecting Pokémon is done somewhat passively, with random events occurring on the device and wild Pokémon appearing and being able to be captured after you successfully complete a mini-game.
Affection depends on caring for the Pokémon through bathing them, feeding them and playing with them. In total, there are 157 Pokémon you can encounter and catch and each has their own affection level.
In addition, completing activities and capturing Pokémon will raise your overall Trainer level on the device.
Collecting Pokémon: Partner Pokémon versus Friend Pokémon
There is a distinction between the types of Pokémon you can catch: seven ‘Partner Pokémon’ and 150 ‘Friend Pokémon’.
The Partner Pokémon have voiced cries, sprites that will change as the Pokémon’s affection level is raised and additional animation. They are Sprigatito, Fuecoco, Quaxly, Eevee, Sylveon, Lucario and Pikachu.
The image above demonstrates how the appearance of the Partner Pokémon will change as their affection grows. As you may have noticed, each Partner also has their own color-matching room. Players can easily swap between active Partner Pokémon with the right and left arrow buttons while on the room screen.
Friend Pokémon, such as Shuckle above, can also be active and players can pet them and care for them just like Partner Pokémon. They just lack the changing sprites as their affection grows, voice effects and additional animations.
When you have a Friend Pokémon active, they are shown outside along with a Partner Pokémon of your choice — there’s no option to have a Friend out by itself.
Caring for and playing with your Pokémon
There are three care activities: baking, washing and berry feeding. Baking and berry feeding are small mini-games and washing is more of a quick activity.
Under the Play menu there are two mini-games you can play with your active Pokémon, hide-and-seek and a rhythm game. The hide-and-seek game starts out very slow but will eventually increase to a speed that makes guessing which box your Pokémon is under basically a random chance. Unfortunately, the rhythm game is quite slow and doesn’t increase in speed or difficulty.
There’s also the opportunity to battle with your Pokémon! It’s a very simple game in which you rapidly press the center button to try to defeat your opponent. Traditional Pokémon stats and type effectiveness does not come into play.
Additional Poké Nade features
Beyond the core gameplay, the device offer a small Diary feature and settings to tweak your experience: There is also a small Diary that will keep track of recent events but does not exhaustively record everything. Settings will also let you change the language at any time, in addition to the usual brightness and volume settings. There’s also the option to turn off random Pokémon calls for care.
Impressions of the virtual pet
It’s not a Tamagotchi — there’s no evolving creature that is always a few missed care calls away from death. Instead, you have an ever expanding collection of much more docile Pokémon that will express the desire to do certain activities but not really punish you for neglecting them. It can be fun for a fan who’s looking for a low-maintenance desk buddy but may not meet the expectations of those who enjoy a challenge when caring for a virtual pet.
I’ll also just mention again that petting your Pokémon is very cute.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments! Don’t forget to also join our Pokémon forums and Discord server too!
