Pony Friends 2 (Wii)

To play the game you first must have your nunchuck connected to your remote, or you can not play the game. One you have done that and go to the first screen, you chose an empty slot, altogether you can have a maximum of 3 different players games saved. Then you need to chose a name that you would like the game to be saved as.

Starting the game

To be able to start playing you need to buy a pony, you are givem 200 coins to start with that is enough to buy a pony. You can buy a custom pony, or chose to browse ponies. I just chose to buy a custom one. When you select that you need to pick a breed of the pony, but you have to look at the price as you can not afford to buy some of them, then you can chose the colour, the mane, the tail, face and legs. You do not have to change any of them though you can just buy the horse as it looks on your screen.

Then to get the horse just click on buy and the horse is yours, then you need to chose a name for your horse and decide whether you want it to be a male or female horse. You also get to chose a birthday for your horse. When you have finished chosing what you want, it will tell you about your horse on the screen and you have to click ok to accept this is what you want for your horse.

It will then run through a tutorial for you but you can chose to skip that if you do not want to play it, but I would recommend it if it's the first time you have played the game.

The tutorial

The first thing this does is teach you how to ride your pony, and what the buttons are for, you are then on your horse and you have to ride it through the town. Once you reach a large horse shoe, the ride ends and it gives you your results and you earn riding skills.

Your horse is then taken to the stable where you have to look after it, including grooming, washing and cleaning it's hoofs. When you go on to clean your horse it will tell you how to do it, and also while you are doing it, it will tell you if you are doing it wrong, for example if you brush too fast, it pops up on the screen to tell you that your horse may get annoyed. It will also tell you when your pony is fully clean, so you do not keep going when you do not need to.

You are then led to the fields where you have to feed and pet your horse, this will help with you ponies happiness, once you have you pony to full happiness it then ends your tutorial and takes you to the main menu.

Main menu

The main menu has 3 options in it:

Home

This is where you can see what tasks you have to do for the day, these do vary each day. You then have your journal which tells you your progress in the game. You can also see what pictures you have taken of animals around the town. Then you have a list of accessories you have, each piny comes with a standard set but more can be unlocked further on in the game.

Town

Which includes the following things:

~~~~Pony club~~~~

This is where all the races, quests and learning new tricks can be found. Just click on the one you want to enter and any available ones will be shown and you just click on accept.

~~~~Vet~~~~

This is where you need to take your pony if it is ever ill, if your pony is fit and well the vet will tell you that you are doing a good job of looking after it.

~~~~Shop~~~~

This is where you can buy things for your pony from including food and accessories, but you need to earn coins first by running races to be able to afford to buy them.

~~~~Pony market~~~~

This is where you can buy yourself more ponies should you want to buy a more expensive one.

Stable

Which when you select your pony gives you more options:

~~~~Go to field~~~~

Which will take your pony out to the field where it can be petted and fed to increase its happiness.

~~~~Ride~~~~

Which will help you to gain more riding ponts so your pony is even better when it comes to racing.

~~~~Accessorise~~~~

Which is where you can place accessorise you may have onto your pony, to make it perform better.

~~~~Pony care~~~~

Which is where you keep your pony clean to make sure that it does not get ill, if you do not clean your pony you will end up having to take them to the vets.

My overall opinion

Well thats all there is to the game, it is pretty basic and can sometimes get a little boring, but it does make it more interesting been able to race and do quests. I like the fact that you have to build your pony up to be a better pony so that you can win quests and races.

I will say I can only play this for about an hour at a time as it can seem to get a little boring after that amount of time on it. Saying that my daughter can spend hours on this game, she really loves having to take care of the pony and doing the races.

I can not knock stars off for the fact that I get bored after an hour as I would say it is more for a child than for adults, and for this to keep my daughter quiet for hours on end, is well worth the money paid for it.