Save our forests...eat a beaver
Right from the start, a big issue that I had (and which most of you have probably already read about) is that I spent an inordinate amount of time simply watering my flora - one tree at a time. There should have been a way to encourage a rain shower, but no. Also, no matter how well watered my trees were, they tended to spontaneously combust for no apparent reason, so it was never possible to build a large lush forest. These basic issues make me wonder how much time the good people at EA spent in development of the DS version. Had they spent any amount of time in gameplay at all they would have noticed these game killers right off the bat.
Another issue I had was I was never really quite sure all the different ways to interact with the various animals short of dropping nuts on their heads or blowing into the DS to make fruit drop. But then I was so busy watering my trees I didn't have much time to play with the animals anyway.
On the plus side, its cool to watch the trees grow and mature and the ability to carry items from one level to the next adds to the gameplay. And if your someone who enjoys simply clearing a level and moving on, you'll probably enjoy this game more than I did. But if you were hoping to find a true forest sim, I would give this game a pass.