If you are not sure whether to buy Nintendogs: Dachshund and friends, then read this!
If you are looking for a cute and life-like virtual pet game, then this is the game for you.
The game has many good points including highly realistic graphics, adorable puppies, loads of breeds to choose from, dogs have different personalities and there are hundreds of toys for your pet. As well as some bad points like hard to use voice recognition.
The game starts in a dog kennel, where you choose your first dog, either a Miniature Dachshund, a Beagle, Shih Tzu, Siberian Husky, Golden Retriever or a Pug, you can also choose its' gender and whether it is lazy, active, friendly, silly, clever or a bit selfish and mean. The breeds in the other 3 games can all be unlocked later by earning trainer points or by finding special items, like a fireman's helmet to unlock a Dalmatian. You can also have up to 3 dogs in your home and 5 dogs at a dog hotel. Remember to swap your pets at the hotel, with your pets in your home, so you can care for and look after the ones that have been in the hotel. If you have more than one dog, they can play together.
Once you have chosen your first puppy, you arrive at your home, where you have to name your pet, this can be a long process to try and get your pet to recognise your voice but when it eventually does it gives you a satisfactory feeling.
After your pet has been named you can take it for a walk to meet the neighbours' dogs and find some presents lying on the road but make sure your dog doesn't eat any rubbish! From here you can go to the park to play with other dogs or to practise for a disc competition, or you can go to the gymnasium to practise for an agility trial or you can see what the discount shop are selling.
You can also play with your pet using items you found on your walk, like a football, a tennis ball, a pull rope and toy animals, your pet may enjoy playing with some toys and hate others depending on its' personality. You can give it a bath and brush its' fur until it is nice and clean and shiny. Don't forget to feed your pet. If there are sirens outside your dog will howl along to them and if you have found any musical items whilst on a walk, you can play them and see how your pet will react. You can dress your pet in lots of different accessories including hats, ribbons, bows etc. There is a shop where you can buy accessories, care items and a few toys or if you want you can go to the discount shop to get the items cheaper, you can also give unwanted items you have found to this shop in exchange for money.
One of the best parts of this game is teaching your new pet tricks like sit, lie down, roll over, shake, jump, beg etc. This may require some perseverance, especially if your dog is a little bit silly.
My favourite part of the game though has to be the competitions. There is a disc catching competition where your dog can show the judges how good it is at catching Frisbees. An obedience trial, where you give commands to your dog and it has to do them. And finally there is an agility trial, where your dog has to complete an agility course of seesaws, hurdles and tunnels in the right order. If you are 1st, 2nd or 3rd, in one of these competitions, then you get a trophy and some money to spend on another puppy, some toys in one of the shops, some new accessories or care items for your dog or you can spend it on a new decoration style for your house.
There is also a special mode in the game called bark mode, if another nintendogs owner in bark mode is nearby, then one of your puppies can go and play with that persons pet and they can exchange presents, this person will be added to your friends list. Even if the other user has a different version of nintendogs, bark mode will still work and if that person has a breed of dog that isn't available yet in your game, it will immediately become unlocked and you can then buy that type of dog.
What is so great about this game is, the puppies behave just like real dogs, if you love your puppy and care for it, it will love you back, but if you neglect it, you will make your puppy sad and it may runaway. So don't neglect it! There are day and night effects too and if you go on the game when it is night you're puppy will probably be sleeping and you may wake it up.
If you already have this game, then there is no need to buy the others in the series, as I explained before, all the dog breeds in the other games, can be unlocked in the 1 game that you own.
On the most part, this is a great game and if you are an animal lover or a dog lover, then I recommend you buy it, as you won't see another virtual dog game like it.
10/10