Teddy Together Review

Laugh at this game all you want, but it’s good at what it does. Seriously.

Teddy Together is solely aimed at the kids market, it’s not one of those games that’s really for everyone – it’s really just for kids. The game is a blend of Nintendogs, Cooking Mama and a there’s even a dash of Miitomo in there. Seriously though, this is a really well made kids game, it doesn’t pander and it’s not just a token effort either.

Teddy Together is actually a couple of years old, not that it really matters in the end, kids don’t care. Actually the game has some improvements since it was first released in Japan, there’s amiibo support too which adds some value. Teddy Together is the journey of you and your Teddy Bear and the friendship you have to build. Nearly everyone had a teddy bear growing up, but I’m sure you never had one that asks you questions, had one you can shower and one that watches TV. The bear, which you can name whatever you like asks you questions which you can reply to both verbally and using the microphone.

The weird part is, he talks back, and talks back a lot.

The bear’s voice is provided using the same sort of vocaloid noises that Tomodachi Life and Miitomo use, the entire game is voiced out. The bear asks you questions, talks to you about your friends and what it did during the day – the problem is the actual voice itself. The bear’s voice is creepy, it’s soft and sounds like he got hit on the head. It really threw me off the entire game because every time the bear opened his mouth I just wanted to stitch it back up. They’ve gone for a soft child like voice, but it just doesn’t work for me at all – hopefully kids won’t care.

So there’s more to the game than just talking to Teddy. There’s ability to cook him food which works very much like Cooking Mama, you can give him a Shower like the dogs are bathed in Nintendogs and you can dress him up however you like as well. Teddy actually learns and adapts to the things you say and like, and suggests activities based on that – it’s actually quite smart in some ways. Teddy can also go ‘Outside’ which is where you visit the shops for his clothes, get supplies for the garden and of course – lollies! You can buy both girls and boys clothing for Teddy – he doesn’t have a gender so you can dress him in whatever you want, he’s just a teddy bear after all.

The gardening part of the game is actually quite in-depth as well. There’s different types of seeds to buy, there’s a series of different plants to collect and you’ll even have to combine seeds to make new plants. Some of the rarer plants are only obtainable this way. The entire game isn’t just about keeps Teddy happy though, it’s a two way street. The idea is to build a bond with the bear, it’ll learn about you and you’ll learn about him in the process and build a relationship – it’s actually quite cute.

Technically the game is actually well made too – the game is quite detailed and the interface is bright, cheerful and well designed. The game’s music is enjoyable, but we won’t get started on the bear’s voice again. As mentioned earlier the game supports amiibo as well, there’s a ton of amiibo supported but they’ll just give you coins to purchase items in the game. You can earn coins by playing mini games as well so don’t worry if you don’t have any amiibo.

Teddy Together, it’s for kids and that’s perfectly fine. The game is safe, enjoyable and the cute Teddy Bear just wants to make you its friend. Aww. I don’t have a kid, one day I might and I hope there’s good software like this out for him or her, but seriously – that voice it totally cancels out just how cute the Teddy can be.