Some of the party animals, from left to right: Horse, Ladybug, Peacock, Great Dane, Collie, and Cat.
Littlest Pet Shop: Friends is the second video game based on the Littlest Pet Shop toys created by Electronic Arts, released on October 20th, 2009. It follows the original Littlest Pet Shop video game that was released a year earlier.
The game was released in four different versions on two consoles, three for the Nintendo DS and one for the Nintendo Wii. The three DS versions are Beach, Country, and City, with some versions released with exclusive pets.
The game revolves around a bear, who recently moved into town with its caterpillar friend after finding out through its letter that “big changes” were coming. That being that they were moving and the caterpillar had turned into a chrysalis. A best friend duo of a Great Dane and peacock meet the bear and are told about its best friend and the “big changes”, which gives them the idea to throw a surprise party for it. Throughout the game, different pets are invited to the party and quests are done to proceed through the storyline and welcome the bear’s best friend.
This game contains examples of the following tropes:
- All in the Manual: All the pets have numbers according to the manual, though the bear and butterfly were never released physically.
- Ambiguous Gender: Just like in all the games, all the pets do not refer to each other with any pronouns and can wear any clothes, no matter if they look more girly or boyish. Though the party outfits given to them by the bear may say otherwise, given that each pet pair at the end of the game are dressed in a masculine outfit with a top hat and monocle and a feminine outfit with a tiara and glasses.
- Averted with the ladybug, who is referred to as a “hostess”.
- Broken Bridge:
- Cones are placed around certain parts of the map to make certain locations inaccessible, which are only removed once a certain quest is completed or the next one requires the pets to go to the place they once blocked off.
- Notes are found on some buildings when they aren’t unlocked yet.
- Cap: There is a limit of 999 for each ingredient.
- Character Customization: The pets can wear different accessories such as hats, bows, glasses, collars, and shirts, and they can even have a different color when using the Colorization Station.
- Civilized Animal: Unlike the predecessor, where the pets behave more like Real Life ones, the pets in this game live in a town and do more human-like things, though they still have behavioral traits of real life pets.
- Cutscene:
- The intro scene of the bear on the train with the chrysalis of its best friend while looking at a scrapbook of memories it had with the caterpillar, then arriving at the town.
- Several scenes of each pair of best friends doing things with each other. Including the horse and ladybug baking a pie together, the huskies playing hide-and-seek, and the rabbit and messy cat playing with each other while the latter gets into messes.
- The ending cutscene where the pets find party gifts at their doorsteps, where they find that they’re outfits to wear to the party. Eventually the party starts, with the focus shifted to the bear. Then the big reveal— its best friend comes out of its chrysalis, revealing itself to be a butterfly. All the pets were surprised, though it is said that the bear was the most surprised of them all.
- Fictional Currency: Kibble Coins, of course. They can be earned by playing mini-games and used for buying accessories at the boutiques.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The pets are given names by the player, though they are often referred to by their species.
- Life of the Party: Every single character takes on this trope in different ways.
- Mini-Game: Has 12 of them in total. All of them are required to be played and earned from them a certain amount of points in order to progress through the story.
- Fishing Minigame: "Duck!" involves tossing ducks into the bucket and avoiding the striped ones.
- Persuasion Minigame:
- Craft-Astrophy! must be played first in order for the penguin to help make Party Confetti, as the huskies made a mess while making Party Streamers earlier.
- Pet Paths must be played before the flamingo can help with making Party Lights.
- Palette Swap: The bear, butterfly, horse (or zebra), and ladybug have different color schemes depending on what version of the game is played.
- Secret Character: The bear’s best friend, a butterfly, is listed as a "Mystery Pet" in the manual and is unlocked as a playable character at the end of the game.
- Speaking Simlish: Each pet has a unique set of animal noise clips they utter as their dialogue scrolls through.
- Suddenly Speaking: Unlike in the previous games, the pets in this game have dialogue, though they make their respective animal noises audibly.
- Unlockable Content:
- Different pets get unlocked as playable characters whenever they are given the Guest List.
- Certain locations get unlocked when the quest involves going to them or, if it’s a house, the respective pet gets unlocked as a playable character (except for the Bear).
- New clothing are unlocked whenever a Blue Ribbon is earned from playing a mini-game, and when the next quest involves going to one of the boutiques.
- In order to unlock more paints and use them to customize clothing at boutiques, they must be made at Petal Drops Paint Shop from certain amounts of flowers.
- There is a cheat code to unlock a shirt, which is HASBRO.
- Virtual Paper Doll: The pets can be dressed up into different outfits, complete with different colors to choose from.
