Old skool flavour, Simple but fun
The story jumps straight into the action, Pretty easy to follow and it will not take long until you are fully immersed in local life and day to day exploits of the sim world, Although this time your world is focused around your pet. The character still follows the classic attribute formula of old sims and it's still important to pay attention to your characters stats as a lack of attention will have negative effects on the characters ability to perform various actions etc.
Once you are acquainted with a pet their are a variety of actions and abilities for your pet to learn and do. Although at first it seems obviously important to look after your pet in the same way as your sim, The pet is generally care free and can go for a long time without tender loving care but occasionally you will start to see signs when the pet needs attention which is indicated by either a bubble or the actions of the pet.
The character interaction is great and there is always enough to do during the day to keep you busy in the game, The world could be bigger but i feel this world returns to classic sims formula rather than trying to stray away with a long winding storyline to the game like the sims 2 which is a completely different game. The job system is really fun and at times challenging especially walking the dogs with 3 or 4 leashes! so the jobs are fun and provide mini games within the game itself.
I really can't fault this game too much, The graphics are good for the GBA and everything is clear, The environment does not feel cluttered or overdone, Also the sound is classic sims and entertaining.
The only thing i have a real issue with in this game is the build mode. The game is great for item and shopping selection for home and pet, However, Most of the time there is a problem installing the items in your house, For example there can be tons of space inside a room to fit a sofa or a tv etc but the game for some reason doesn't allow you to do this even though there is clearly enough block space available to do so, Why it does this i don't know but it means most of the time doing some crazy feng shui to your room to try and fit everything around one item rather than items happily going anywhere, This is kind of frustrating at times as it means you will need to limit the amount of things you can have in particular rooms until a later stage in the game where you have bigger houses etc.
Overall though i find this game really enjoyable and there is infinite replay value unlike the story driven sims games which makes it a great pick up and play title for the GBA and i would definitely recommend this game.