Everyone remembers their first pet. In fact, now that I’ve brought it up, I can guarantee that you are too. You’re thinking about his name (Mayonnaise), the games you played with it (Adventure Island), maybe how you got it (The Stork), but you’re absolutely thinking about the day that it died (Didn’t. Lives in a big happy farm in Montana). Well now through the wonders of technology, Nintendo has developed a patented technodog that is completely portable, and can never die or feel any sort of genuine emotion towards you or your actions! Nintendogs + Cats is a game with undeniable charm, but given the circumstances surrounding it, it’s a game that’s tough to get excited about.
Nintendogs + Cats puts you in the role of a first-time pet owner, walking you through the stages of owning and training your very first puppy. You’ll pick out a dog at the kennel, take it on walks, name it, teach it tricks and more. Should you feel confident in your dog’s skills you can enter it in contests, which earn you money to buy toys, treats, and eventually new dogs. New to the game are cats, which play and interact differently than the infinitely more sociable dogs.
Gameplay is meted out through freeform interaction with your pets and competitions. At any point you can play with your dogs using previously acquired toys, or give it that tummy scratching it so desperately needs. You can enter your dog into three types of competition: Disc Catching, Lure Coursing, and Obedience Trials. While Disc Catching and Lure Coursing competitions rely heavily on interface with the touch screen, while Obedience Trials require use of the 3DS’ augmented reality cards.
Believe it or not the first game that I thought of while playing Nintendogs + Cats was Animal Crossing. Both games present the idea of limitless gameplay opportunities, as well as full customization and incredible personality. In practice, however, both are games you settle into a strict routine with, and can’t play for any extended amount of time. Most of my time spent with Nintendogs + Cats was spent as such: Feed my dog Taco Night, bathe him, walk him, enter as many competitions as that day would allow, \and turn off Nintendogs + Cats. The game’s biggest problem is its absence of any major satisfaction from actually playing the game. I often felt that winning competitions had less to do with skill on my part, as it did mistakes on my opponent’s part. It’s worth saying that for Lure Coursing especially; I never got my head around how to properly lure a course. For those of you not in the know, which I assume is most everyone, Lure Coursing involves guiding your puppy through a racetrack, through reeling in a lure on a string. Lure Coursing became a competition where I would spin a wheel on the touch screen, and blindly hope that I had done it well enough to win at least a little taste of that sweet sweet cash. I simply couldn’t figure out any sort of strategy to it. And while cats are a cool addition to the game in concept, they end up being completely uninteresting in practice. My cat, Based God, spent most of his time being standoffish and ignoring my commands. He also couldn’t be entered in competitions, and felt like a pretty big waste of my virtual money.
That isn’t to say that Nintendogs + Cats is a bad game. It isn’t. It’s a very mediocre game with a lot of charm. It’s undeniable that seeing your pets interact with one another, and to the input from your touch screen is as adorable as it is fun, but it doesn’t redeem the game’s faults. Early interviews about the game with famed designer Shigeru Miyamoto gave insight to just how deep developers went to avoid uncanny valley. To lend puppies a sense of liveliness, developers gave them polygonal eyes. The polygonal eyes anecdote speaks volumes about the game’s design philosophy. Nintendo has made a pet simulator with realistic looking pets, but they’ve neglected creating anything satisfying or fun to do with them.
If you understand that you won’t be spending a ton of time with Nintendogs + Cats, it’s worth at least a try. Is it $40 worth of game? Absolutely not. Is it worth borrowing from a friend or renting? I think you already have an idea of how you’ll enjoy this game.