Very Nice Game.
The game begins when you knock on the door to enter your home, then proceed to the kennel to buy your first puppy. Initially, the kennel has six breeds to choose from, depending on which version of the game you own; the Lab & Friends version contains the Labrador Retriever, Miniature Schnauzer, Toy Poodle, Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Miniature Pinscher, and Shiba Inu. For each breed, there are three different dogs to choose from, each with a different set of traits or genitalia (or both). Once you select your dog, it comes back home with you in need of immediate attention. Because of its new surroundings, you must get your dog used to its new home and owner by petting it for a few minutes. Once that is done, you will be asked to teach the dog his/her name by speaking into the microphone a few times. You enter the name in text after your puppy has learned the spoken name. After this has happened, you get to view a short tutorial explaining the various options in the game; to prevent the tutorial from being obnoxiously long, you are told that there are books you can read for more detailed information. After the tutorial, you and your puppy are free to do whatever you like together.
In order to keep your puppy happy and healthy, there are a number of things that must be done each day. To see if your puppy is hungry, thirsty, or dirty, view the status of each dog by tapping its name on the home screen. You are then responsible for feeding your dog, giving it something to drink, or bathing it by choosing the appropriate item from the supplies list. You should also walk your dog at least once a day. During your walks, you must clean up after your puppy or risk being scolded by the neighbors. You can also stop along the way to play fetch at the park, practice for an agility competition at the gymnasium, or purchase items for less at the discount shop. If you drag the stylus past a question-mark box when planning your route, you will find either another local puppy to play with or a gift to pick up. Unfortunately, these daily tasks can become a little boring. Luckily for us, Nintendogs has a lot more to offer.
Many virtual pet simulators and open-ended games (like Animal Crossing) can become boring after a while due to a lack of things to do. With Nintendogs, however, that is not the case. Similarly to Animal Crossing, Nintendogs runs off the internal clock of the DS system, so your puppy will be sleeping if you turn on the game at 2am (you can wake them up though) and your puppy will be extremely hungry and filthy if you don’t check in for a few days. Nintendogs has longer lasting appeal than Animal Crossing mainly because you will become far more attached to your puppy than you ever are with any of the characters in AC. However, the three competitions included in Nintendogs add even more depth to the game. Each puppy can perform in disc, agility, or obedience competitions up to three times per day. For each competition, you will need to rank in the top 3 to win a prize and move up to the next difficulty level. Your puppy’s skills will improve based on how often you compete and practice. Unfortunately, there is no form of multiplayer competition, but the three single-player options are fun nonetheless.
As another way to make sure you don’t neglect your dog(s), Miyamoto and his team made many aspects of the game proportional to your time playing and added plenty of unlockable content. The first time you take your new puppy for a walk, it can hardly make it to the park and back. However, the endurance of your dog increases with each walk, so eventually you can make your way around the entire town, collecting every item on the map in the process. Trainer Points, which you gain for various accomplishments during the game, unlock new items, interior decorations, and dog breeds as well. The quickest way to unlock new breeds is to connect wirelessly with another DS system that has a different version of Nintendogs from your own. For example, if you have the Lab & Friends version and you connect with someone who owns Dachshund & Friends, you might learn upon returning home that your kennel has just received a litter of Golden Retrievers.
In addition to unlocking new breeds through “Bark Mode”, you can have your puppies bring each other a gift. It is fairly common to end up with 3 copies of the same item that a friend has never seen before, so trading items with one another is a great way to build up your collection of puppy accessories. The odd thing about Bark Mode is that once you find a wireless partner and your information is exchanged, the wireless connection is turned off. As a result, both dogs exist on both screens, but they are doing completely different things. While having your dog cloned doesn’t seem logical at first, it actually makes sense because it allows for both DS owners to individually control which toys the puppies play with and when the visit ends. By going to your music collection under the supplies menu, you can record up to five seconds of audio on the “white record” by speaking into the DS microphone. That sound clip is then sent to your friend’s game card when you visit one another using Bark Mode. While viewing your Friends List, you can play the white record for each person you’ve connected to wirelessly.
It is quite apparent that the development team wasn’t focusing as much on environmental detail as they were on making sure the dogs look, move, and behave realistically. Your home and the neighborhood around it are both very simple and bland. As a result, your puppy stands out more in its environment, which is good and logical. The puppies themselves are very well modeled and animated, and they react very realistically to your actions. The game’s audio is excellent; there are many different audio tracks for various situations, which can be unlocked as records in your music collection so you can listen to them whenever you like. In addition, the puppy noises are very accurate for each breed in the game, and the game’s other sound effects, such as sirens and crowd noise, also sound great through the Nintendo DS’s speakers.
To put it simply, Nintendogs is just the latest masterpiece from the video game industry’s most famous man, Shigeru Miyamoto. However, the game is the first true example of Nintendo’s effort to reach new audiences in North America. People who don’t typically play games will buy Nintendogs because puppies are just too damn cute to resist. But traditional gamers should also embrace Nintendogs, because the experience is deep, the control is excellent, the audio and visual quality is superb, and the game is a lot of fun to play. If you don’t already own a copy of Nintendogs, you ought to go out and buy one. As a matter of fact, if you don’t already own a DS, you ought to go out and buy one, because Nintendogs is a unique game that you can’t find anywhere else.