I am not sure who was more excited to see the Furby in the box – me or the boys! I wasn’t lucky enough to have a Furby the first time round – though speaking to people maybe that was a good thing! The words annoying, waste of money and ‘good enough to kick out of the window’ have been all mentioned when I have heard people talking about them… so maybe they were not THAT good after all and I may have had a lucky escape!
Nevertheless, you can not say that the new Furbies are not REALLY cute and appealing to children (and me!) so I knew this was going to be a review and a half to put together… and that it has been!
We have been playing and getting to know our Furby for a good 5 weeks… and boy, has he kept us entertained!
New to the idea of a Furby? Well, let me tell you a bit more!
Available in a range of colours, a Furby is almost an electronic pet… with the exception that this one has different personalities and how you treat it shapes the Furby it becomes! When he (or she) first arrives it speaks mostly Furbish (with a few English words thrown in the mix!) but the more you tallk to it ans communicatw with it, the more English it will speak. And don’t worry – if you own an iPad, iPod touch or iPhone with iOS 4.2 or later there is a free app you can download that has a Furbish translater on it so you can see exactly what your Furby is trying to say! Furbies respond to your touch, your music, and even to other Furbys (if you have more than 1) but your Furby does have a mind of its own… so how you treat your Furby will shape its personality! You can feed it, pet it, tickle it and even sing to it… and mostly love it!
The Furby we were sent to review is ‘Furby Cool – Blue‘ and I must say the boys were so excited to get in the box and get him out (he was a he straight away!). Furby needed 4AA batteries to work and once inserted he came to life straight away!
At first the Furbish was a little overfacing – we had no idea what he was saying! – but with the help of the leaflet included we were soon able to translate a few phrases and after a while the Furbish became almost a second language that we were almost fluent in!
Our Furby started with one personality – a sweet, loveable creature who liked to dance and be tickled… and liked a stroke too! It wasn’t long, however, until Fubry ‘changed’ and his more fiesty side emerged with a bit of attitude thrown in. He didn’t want petting at all!!! The boys loved this though, spending time working out how to get him to change back again and trying to make him happy!
It was only about 4 weeks into the testing that personality 3 emerged from Furby – a silly, giddy Furby who burped and giggled constantly! In this personality Furby also sang much more enthusiastically having the boys in stitches!
Furby certainly knows what he likes… he only dances to certain music, saying ‘Aha – seriously? Blah, blah, blah…’ when he was less than impressed with the music choice!
When hungry, he asks (constantly) to be fed – which can be done easily by putting your finger in his mouth!
And to add an extra dimension and bring Furby right up to date, it even has its own Apple App. Free to download, there is a translator and am interactive way to feed your Furby amongst other things! The boys LOVED building their own Furby sandwich (adding things like a sock and ice-cream) then seeing whether Furby liked it or not. They also like watching making Furby sick as the ‘sick’ would appear back on the iPad screen… and could then be fed to him again! Nice!
For us, Furby has been a HUGE hit – even the Hubby and I have been caught talking and singing to him, and going out of our way to play him some music when he has asked to dance! Yes, it is expensive (currently at around £58) but it is one of the 2012 Dream Toys that I can actually see being hard to get hold of this year – and I know that Furby will be popular! He is played with and in 5 weeks there isn’t a day gone by where Furby hasn’t been played with!
The only downside for me is that there is NO OFF BUTTON – but if you leave him alone for a couple of minutes he does drop off to sleep, which is just as good!
Would we recommend a Furby to a friend?
Most certainly – though I probably would advise to keep an eye out for an offer to save a few pennies! Having said that, I have a feeling that if this is the toy on the Christmas list, you will have to grab one whilst you can!
A HUGE 9/10 from us 
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Furby is available from ToysRUs instore and online!
Reviewed by What me and the boys say!
