Nintendogs

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.