Toro's Friend Network

You would think that everything that Sony does when it comes to handheld gaming will always come second to Nintendo's offerings but that has changed with the Toro's Friend Network application that was just released for the PlayStation Vita earlier this week. The idea behind this app is not original for it is inspired by Nintendo's Streetpass Mii Plaza but it is far better than that. With TFN, you can actually send and receive friend requests - something that is sorely missing from Mii Plaza - on top of the ability to play mini games - including clearing dungeons (sounds familiar?) - with your acquired friends. Sadly however, Nintendo's "Mii" people just can't be beaten when it comes to their cute and potentially accurate representation of their creators so in TFN, your avatar doesn't look all that good with the head being a square box with whatever picture you used in the profile on the PlayStation Network or a social network website.

The app is not hard to figure out but the tutorial is annoyingly long.

I really like this app because it provides a way a nice little venue for people to make friends a lot more easily. Outside of the application, sending people random friend invites may result in you being called a stalker or worse but not here. There seems to be an end goal of making 100 friends via the app to turn Toro into a human but since all the friendship you made in this game gets registered into your actual PSN account, I am not sure if Sony now allows you to go beyond the 100 friend limit if you already have pre-existing friends. It's definitely a misstep that your pre-existing friends are not already added into the actual game but I suppose this app wants to ensure that they also have a Vita so that the benefits you get from the app are mutually shared.

Pick 10 random strangers a day!

There is one thing that holds back the experience of this fun little app and that is... the ridiculous in-game cash shop! Yes, Sony wants to make a lot of money from this little app... Even more money than they would get from you when you buy a new Vita or PlayStation 3 game! Of course, you don't have to buy the things they are selling and I don't plan on ever doing that but you have to really grind to get anywhere without them. At least Nintendo doesn't do that to us and for an app that should make people love the Vita a bit more, I don't know what Sony was thinking. Well, I know what they were thinking - $$$ first, the players second. Why do you think they are itching to release the PlayStation 4 already when the PS3 would suffice for another 10 years?

Now let's see if we would actually interact outside of this app.