Common Sense Media Review
By Chris Morris
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Polished match-three game; must buy, share, or wait.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Best Fiends
Privacy Rating Warning
Privacy Rating
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Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
What's It About?
In BEST FIENDS players attempt to match three or more similar items onscreen to meet varying goals for each level. Combinations result in damage points to slugs, which you must defeat to advance. Boards are littered with obstacles, which must be removed by matching an adjacent tile. Along the way, players can unlock characters who have different power-ups in the forms of explosives that take out adjacent squares as well as matching items.
Is It Any Good?
It's worth knowing before you go in that the team behind Best Fiends helped to create Angry Birds, Where's My Water, and Max Payne, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that this is an incredibly well-polished game, even if it is built around the very familiar match-three mechanic. Beyond the puzzle elements, though, there's a role-playing side -- one that's not especially detailed but that adds enough of a new spin to keep you addicted.
Leveling up your hero dung beetles, flies, and other insects proves to be fun, and the matching puzzles don't ramp up the difficulty at too extreme a pace. The downside is that, eventually, the game's frustrating timer element will force you either to pay up or walk away when you may not want to. That timer is the frustration factor for Best Fiends, as it takes what could have been a great game and makes it merely good.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about planning moves ahead instead of impulsively rushing into a decision. How does it help to pay attention and use some strategy in this game?
Discuss the importance of teamwork. How do the characters in the game work together?
App Details
- Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android
- Skills : Thinking & Reasoning : decision-making , deduction , logic , prediction , solving puzzles , strategy , Emotional Development : persevering
- Pricing structure : Free
- Release date : February 17, 2015
- Genre : Puzzle Games
- Publisher : Seriously
- Version : 1.2.0
- Minimum software requirements : iOS 7.0 or later
- Last updated : November 11, 2020
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