A biting disappointment from nintendo.
Truth be told, Nintendogs was likely intended to draw casual and even non-gamers to the Nintendo DS, a fact that is apparent in practically every facet of the overall package. Thankfully, this is generally a far lead from a negative thing, and tends to make the entire experience graciously streamlined and easy to navigate. The game’s interface is a far cry from intrusive, which has much to do with basic though wise use of each of the system’s two screens.
While in your home, the top screen displays all of the puppies currently residing with you (a maximum of three simultaneously, though others can wait in a doggy hotel for you), while all of the user-interactive selections are relegated to the bottom screen. From the bottom screen, the player can interact directly with any of the three dogs by pressing a very large central button to call them over, which then transfers the doggy action to the touch screen so that you can pet them, encourage them to do tricks, and use a variety of toys. It’s all very easy to handle and allows for free, simple gameplay, which is vital in a game like this.
Other than that, one can view a supplies list from the bottom screen, which includes sports items, toys, accessories, care products, clock options, and other miscellaneous items. This is where things begin to get somewhat dicey. Washing your dogs and feeding them is at times excruciating (especially when your dogs are particularly filthy), and while it is clearly a challenge to make washing a dirty puppy fun, the overall presentation is rather shoddy: puppies are always washed from the same angle in the same way, and all of them approach the food bowl in the exact same fashion.
Furthermore, many of the items, whether they are of the sports or the “etc.” categories, function in an extremely similar fashion. Most of these items are used by picking them up with the stylus and hurling them anywhere in the room, whether they are tennis balls, Frisbees, spaceship models, or even picture frames. The dogs then fetch them or run away from them in fear: repeat ad nauseam. While the items in the toys category do function differently enough to add some spice (for instance, there’s a model Mario Kart that you can drive around), there isn’t such an improvement to completely alleviate some of the tedium of interacting with your puppies using items.
Besides merely limiting one’s interactions to the various toys, however, there is the option to take your puppies for walks and enter them in competitions. While it wouldn’t be completely fair to say that the core gameplay rests in these categories (after all, the game is a puppy simulator, and playing with your puppy using a tennis ball is a large part of the expected experience), they do comprise the major “game” elements of Nintendogs. Walking the dogs is about as boring as it sounds, especially since you can only walk one at a time, and when events do pop up along the walks, they tend to be significantly annoying as opposed to entertaining (other dog owners stopping to talk to you, for instance).
That’s to be expected, however, and the competitions provide far more variety and fun than any other segment of the game, with the exception of the obedience trial. The flaw with the obedience trial is rather unfortunate, as it was perhaps the most anticipated feature of the entire game, but alas, here it is: the voice-recognition from the Nintendo DS microphone is severely lacking. The only way for your dog to understand you in any circumstance is to say the commands in an exact tone every time, while annunciating loudly and clearly. Understandable, but I don’t know any real dog that has such listening issues, and the frustration of your puppies misunderstanding you is oftentimes infuriating. Other than that, though, both the Frisbee and agility trials provide great interactive opportunities and prove able to occupy large slots of time, though even these wear thin after repeated playing.
Speaking of repetition, one of the more inexcusable flaws that haunt the entire game is repeated animations from all breeds of puppy, which immediately sucks out any personality of your puppies. Nintendogs seems to be full of furry Sony Aibos (those freakish robotic puppies from Japan) as opposed to real puppy simulations, as the puppies all move in the same manner and repeat their seemingly limited animation cycles numerous times. It’s inexcusable that Nintendogs is flaunted as some sort of realistic puppy simulation game, one in which the various puppies were to have different personalities, yet every puppy basically moves in the same way.
Despite the flaws of repetitive gameplay, somewhat broken voice-recognition, and robotic animation, Nintendogs is not without its charm. Hardcore gamers might want to look elsewhere if they’re expecting any sort of serious experience, but Nintendogs is great for short burst gaming. I exhausted all gameplay possibilities within a rather short timeframe (I had a puppy that mastered the agility competitions, so I could do those numerous times a day to acquire huge amounts of money which allowed me to buy anything I needed in a very small amount of time), but that’s only because I chose to play it so obsessively. If you’re looking for something simple to play for no more than 20 minutes everyday, Nintendogs is certainly for you.