Barbie Project Friendship - Get Ready For The Ultimate Barbie Gaming Experience!

Racula
Jul 30
3 min read

Who remembers their childhood and playing with Barbie dolls when they were younger and would play with them nearly everyday?Dressing them up, creating voices for them, owing the Malibu dream house and redecorating that and so on.

Now imagine if you could relive those memories, but this time those memories have been brought to life within a game.

Well developer Xaloc Studios and Casual Brothers Ltd, along with publisher Outright Games have done just this and brought Barbie and her friends to life in this incredible game - Barbie Project Friendship.

The game launched on 25th October 2024 and immerses players into the vibrant world of Barbie. Aimed at a younger audience, this game combines simple fetch quests, quick-time events and a variety of mini games, to create an engaging and wholesome experience, that even my 3 year old daughter loved and enjoyed playing.

So what is Project Friendship about?

In Barbie Project Friendship, players get to play as Barbie and her friend Barbie (Brooklyn), as they team up with their BFFs and family, to help save the once thriving destination - The Malibu Wave Community Centre, which is now nearly abandoned and on the verge of being closed for good.

They do this by renovating, restoring and of course, putting your own stamp on the landmark, to bring the community centre back to life.

The story is pretty much straightforward and easy enough to follow, with some lengthy dialogue sections that does involve some texts on phones and some discussions between the other characters and townsfolk.

Mini Games Galore

The overall gameplay is to pretty much run around the community centre and complete tasks, that help restore that area back to new and improved. This can be achieved by playing some mini games, which were simple enough, like picking up rubbish, finding parts to repair bicycles and skateboards and also doing some actions that are timed with music tracks, which made them pretty fun and engaging to complete. There's also rewards for Barbie to be found around the community areas as well, such as clothing sets.

In addition to playing Solo, Barbie Project Friendship does allow co-op, allowing a second player to join in if they want to and help assist with tasks. This can help make some of the minigames easier and more fun to play. My daughter loved playing the mini games, the best part she liked was redecorating the main office and had everything in it, including the walls coloured pink, even Barbie had to be wearing something pink as well.

Is Life in plastic Really Fantastic?

In all honesty, the graphics for Barbie Project Friendship really is fantastic. The game world itself is replicated with bright and colourful visuals, that perfectly capture the essence of Barbie. Each character model and expressions are well-designed and recognisable and the environments are well detailed enough, if anything, I would go as far to say that the graphics are very Sims 4 like. Not an ounce of plastic looking graphics anywhere in this game.

There is also a nice and cheerful background music that coupled with the voice acting, adds an overall light hearted charm to the game.

Our Final Thoughts

So what can I say about Barbie Project Friendship?

I liked the game and my daughter? She absolutely loves it. Any chance she gets, she's asking if we can play the Barbie game again and she's really getting into it. It's really nice to know that she has found some games that she really likes and wants to play a lot, they've also helped also get her more into the franchises as well, like when she played Monster High, she now wants not only the DVD's but she also wants the dolls and anything else related to Monster High and Barbie, it's going to be an expensive birthday and Christmas for this little girl hahaha. Overall, I can't fault the game, it's fun, imaginative and did bring back some good childhood memories of when I use to play with Barbie dolls.

If you are looking for a feel-good adventure, that promotes teamwork and friendship, then I recommend playing Barbie Project Friendship, it's a great choice to play with your children and helps them to get more creative.

Thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to take a moment to read this review, your support is always appreciated and means a lot to us all.

Barbie Project Friendship is available to buy on:

XPN Rating 5 out 5