Editor's
Note: I wrote this review a long time ago. I think it needs some
polish. I still agree with everything I said, however the review itself
isn't that well written. I still think I bring out some good points
though, so the review can still be helpful to those seeking advise.
Nintendogs is a dog simulation made by Nintendo (If you haven't noticed
the company's name in the title), where you can love, teach tricks to,
and just have fun with some virtual dogs. Does it work? Well yes, it
does. And it works well, with some innovative uses of the Nintendo DS'
touch screen and microphone. But what stops the game from meeting its
full potential?
Raising the virtual dogs is actually pretty fun. You can use the touch
screen to pet your dog, throw your frisbee, and unsurprisingly, use it
to cycle through the menus. The game also uses the microphone function.
Unfortunately that function doesn't work as well. You use the
microphone, to call your dog, and tell it to do a specific trick. The
only problem is the microphone's recognition isn't very good at all. I
noticed that sometimes my dog just quite plainly wouldn't come to my
command. What is strange, though, is that I had to say it in a higher
pitched voice than I originally said the first time I was naming dog.
Another problem is the dog mistaking one word for another. It’s not a
simple mistaking sit for shake thing. Sometimes it can be as horrible
mistaking beg for spin. So you have to teach the dog the trick, again,
so it gets it correctly. If you get another dog, it may also mistake
its name for the other dog’s name. If that happens there is nothing you
can do about it except for starting with a new dog. This can be very
frustrating, and is by far the game’s biggest fault, and overall just
leaves much to be desired.
The game seems to capture the realism of raising real dogs quite well,
but it also adds in some Nintendo charm, without taking the realism
away all that much. Some dogs are nice and easy to train, while others
are more selfish and are very hard to teach. As you go for your walks
you’ll meet into other dogs, and their owners. More than half of the
time the owner has nothing all that interesting to say, with maybe a
few changed comments when you take a different breed of dog out for a
walk. But the more interesting part is seeing how the dogs react to
each other. Like in real life, some dogs may hate each other and start
tackling each other to death, while some dogs get along nicely, and
play with each other. When you interact with your dog with some toys or
some other item, some may want to play with that item, while others are
scared and continuously bark at it.
During your walks you may run into some items. Some times it could be a
lousy tissue box. Other times it could be a Mario hat. There is a very
large list of items in the game. Some are pretty neat. Like the pull
rope. Basically you hold one side of the rope with the touch screen and
the dog holds the other, and it’s basically a tug-o-war. But if you
spin real fast you could be spinning your dog up in the air. They’re
also accessories that your dog will be able to wear, such collars and
ribbons. And some even more ridiculous ones such as a pirate hat or a
pair of glasses. With these items there seems to be a lot of Nintendo
references. Such as the Mario hat or the “bark ball” which makes Pikmin
noises when it bounces. This adds a lot of charm to the game that can’t
really be seen anywhere else.
Competitions are also very important to the game. There are three
categories for a competition: Disc, agility, and obedience. Your
objective is to get in the Top Three in order to make it to the next
round. In the disc trial you have to throw the disc, and get your dog
to catch it. The farther you throw it the more points you get, and
another point added if your dog catches it in midair. The next one is
the obedience trial. You have to perform certain tricks with your dog
in this competition. Sometimes it can be a little tricky, because
instead of just begging, you may have to keep your dog in that position
for over 10 seconds. Your score will then be evaluated by the three
judges. Unfortunately, these two trials are a bit easy. The disc trial
is easy, because the frisbee mechanics are easy to master, and
basically if throw hard, and throw straight you’re going to rack in
some points. As for the obedience trial, that’s another story. The
judges are a bit lenient. I think once I messed up on three tricks, and
I got a 9.1! This makes it a little too easy to score first place. The
next trial and probably the hardest of the all is the agility trial.
You basically just have to guide your dog around a course, where he or
she will have to jump over poles or run through tubes. The competitions
are really fun, and it adds a lot of incentive to train your dog.
This game is very addicting. This actually is rather a shame, since
this is more of a game where you play maybe 30 minutes to 1 hour a day
rather than playing it all night long like most games. This is, because
of the fact that you can only enter your dog in three competitions a
day and you can only take it out for a walk every 30 minutes. After
maybe a week or, so I have to admit, doing the same thing over and over
again started to get a little old. The faulty voice recognition is
definitely holding this game back from being the most repayable game it
can be. Another problem is that the game isn’t very portable. You can’t
really say “Roll Over!” without the disturbing the person next to you,
and the game requires you to use the microphone a lot.
This game just looks fantastic. The puppies themselves are the best
part. Each one has their own fur shading that looks beautiful. While
the backgrounds don’t seem to have received the same amount of care
they still look good, but nothing all that spectacular. I also noticed
some frame rate drops. This mainly happens when one dog was interacting
with another one, but nothing, too serious. Overall this is one of the
best looking DS games, and it may keep that title for a long time.
The games music could have been better. In your house there is no
music. This may seem a little strange, but it’s not a huge deal, since
you’re probably going to be too sunk into gameplay to notice. When you
go for a walk there is music. Just one song that is sort of catchy, but
after a while it just gets old. The sound effects are just wonderful!
The dogs each have their own different sounding bark. You may also hear
a random fire truck or maybe even a bicycle, but they each sound like
that specific object, and overall this may be one the better DS games
when it comes to sound effects.
Nintendogs is a fun game with the best graphics you will ever see on
the DS. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t have enough things you can do
to keep you playing it for anytime longer than 2 weeks, and it clearly
exposes the faulty DS microphone. Nintendogs won’t keep its appeal for
anytime too long, but it would make an excellent rental.
