Which Zero-NP Pal Is Actually Free: What Each One Trades Away

Zero is the one price every new player can afford, so it is worth knowing exactly what it buys. We walked the whole catalogue this morning — all seventy-two species, read out of the game's own data — and pulled every companion whose NP price is zero. There are eighteen. Only nine of them are free in the sense you mean. Three are priced in a currency the shop will not sell you, and six cannot be adopted at all. This is what each of the eighteen actually asks for, and what taking it trades away.

Eighteen Zero-NP Species, Three Different Meanings of Zero

The catalogue prices adoption in three currencies, and a zero in the NP column says nothing about the other two. That is the whole reason the “free” list is shorter than the “zero NP” list. Take the three groups in turn.

The Nine That Are Actually Free

Every Common species in the game costs nothing, and there are nine of them: Aquami, Cumulo, Dunix, Flamekin, Frostail, Shruffle, Sparkle, Sugurb and Vinelash. You can adopt any of them the moment you finish the welcome flow, with an empty wallet. That part of the promise is real.

What they share is the trade. All nine are three-stage species: base form, first evolution at level 100, final evolution at level 500. All nine climb the same rarity ladder as they evolve, common to uncommon to rare, which means a free pal's final form tops out at rare. The rarity that pays for the free adoption is the rarity at the end of the road, not the beginning. Nothing on this shelf ever becomes epic, and the first-evolution wait is the same one every companion in the game pays, as last week's pick found.

Then there is what each one is for, because the abilities differ more than the price does. Eight of the nine carry a battle ability: Vinelash's attacks can bind, Dunix cuts enemy accuracy, Frostail slows enemy attacks, Cumulo adds evasion, Flamekin cannot be frozen, Shruffle heals a little on Nature hits, Sugurb speeds up and drains on Sweet hits, Sparkle is fast and can act again after a knockout. The ninth is the odd one out and the one worth pausing on: Aquami's ability is not a battle ability at all. Calm Waters knocks five percent off NPC shop prices while Aquami is your active companion. A free pal that makes everything else slightly cheaper is a different kind of trade from a free pal that hits harder, and which one you want depends entirely on whether you spend more time in the shops or in the Battlegrounds.

The Three That Are Zero NP and Not Free

Crystalynx, Gemfrost and Diamondra also show zero in the NP column. They are not Common: an Uncommon, a Rare and an Epic respectively, with rarer endings and, in two cases, longer roads. Crystalynx is a three-stage species like the free nine, but its final form is epic; Gemfrost and Diamondra are four-stage species that finish at level 1,000, and Diamondra's final form is legendary. The catalogue prices them at 50, 150 and 500 Gemz instead.

Gemz is the currency you cannot buy. It is earned in play — the chance games, quests, fishing, the Battle Pass, streak milestones on the daily bonus, the odd random event — and it is never sold in the shop. So a “zero NP” Diamondra is not a free Diamondra. It is a Diamondra you pay for in time spent in the parts of the game that pay out in Gemz, which is a perfectly fair price and a completely different one from zero.

The Six You Cannot Adopt at Any Price

The remaining six zero-NP species are the Unique ones, and zero here means not for sale rather than free. Pixel is the mascot: every player adopts Pixel through the welcome flow, so it costs nothing and everybody has one, and the shelf shows it as owned rather than offering it again. The other five — Bouldi, Chronopaw, Corelix, Mindflare and Dollbride — are unlocked by achievements. The shop lists them with a locked badge so you know they exist, and no amount of any currency opens them; doing the thing does.

Dollbride is the one that never evolves, a single stage whose ability scales with level instead. It was the most interesting entry in last week's article and it still is, but it is not a pick you can make, so it stays a footnote here.

So Which Free Pal Do You Take

The honest answer is that the nine are priced identically and roaded identically, so the choice is about what you already have and what you do with your time. Three questions do the work.

And one thing this article deliberately does not do: fold in boosts, paid adoption or the Gemz economy as a recommendation. This is the free shelf, and everything above holds whether or not you ever spend a single point of anything. The evolution roads themselves are explained in the companion care and evolution guide; if you are choosing a second pal by how far its road goes rather than by price, the evolution-depth pick sorts the whole roster that way.

The Short Version

Eighteen species cost zero NP. Nine are free: the Commons, all three stages, done at 500, final form rare, no strings. Three are zero NP but priced in Gemz, which the shop does not sell, and they buy longer roads and rarer endings. Six are not for sale at all. If you take a free one, take one that does not repeat Pixel's types — none of them do — and decide whether you want Aquami's discount or somebody else's fists. Every figure above was read out of the game's own catalogue the morning this published.