My Pet Shop (DS) Review
Posted by Trace Aber on 03.27.2009
Is this pet shop worthy of running or should it be closed down forever? Read Trace Aber's review to find out!
Title: My Pet Shop Publisher:: Square Enix Developer:: Taito Release Date: March 10, 2009
My Pet Shop is the latest game to pick up on a recent trend that has developed almost exclusively on the DS which caters to children who wish to live out a "dream career" in a virtual world. Some of these range from being a doctor to a baby sitter to a fashion designer. All of these games are simple, lack depth, and mostly just a way for companies to make money by tricking little girls into bugging their parents to pay for a lackluster game. Taito, however, has done their best to avoid committing such acts of tomfoolery and instead create a more in-depth experience while still retaining the simplicity found in other games. Backed by Square Enix, can they produce a virtual pet shop worthy of running or will they succumb to the overall market scheme of making money off small children (it really sounds sinister when I put it like that, wouldn't you say)?
Gameplay
The story of the game is rather simple. You, along with your mother, have moved from Gold City to the suburban Green Town. What is strange about this town is that none of the residents own any pets - which is apparently a problem according to your mother. Based off this fact alone, your mother decides to open a pet shop and you're going to be the one helping her. Along the way you'll meet some of the residents who do their best to run the gauntlet of video game stereotypes, including the goth, the cowboy, the spoiled brat, and the rich guy who lives in a mansion and likes to think he's smarter than he actually is. Granted, the plot in this game is far from setting the world on fire, but when you consider the game's target audience, the plot should suffice.
Control-wise, the game has a pretty standard, but still effective, control scheme. Most of the game is used with the stylus in mind as the only buttons actually used are A (to confirm), B (to cancel), START (notes and memos), and the control pad to move while in menus. The touch screen handles all of the tasks you'll be doing in the game, which will be discussed in more detail below. Overall, the controls in this game are simple to use and work just as advertised.
When starting the game, you are a new face in a new, albeit smaller, town and, like most games of this genre, you spend your first few minutes getting to know all of the residents and get the chance to understand the inner-workings (however shallow they may be) of Green Town. As it turns out, the house you live in also doubles as your mother's pet shop, which to me seems like a terrible living situations. I enjoy animals as much as the next guy, but living with a shop filled with them seems a bit overboard. Then again, I don't make my living by selling animals so I'll reserve my judgment for now. After you get to know your way around town your mother takes you to the woods to teach you how to find animals for the shop.
The entire process for trying to find animals for the shop is ridiculous and very quickly becomes repetitive. When you enter the woods you can travel over four screens, all which look pretty similar. On this screen you use the stylus to shake bushes, logs, rocks, and anything else you can find in the environment in the hope of an animal hiding behind it. That's all good and well, but one of the odd quirks about Green Town is that people seem to enjoy hiding bombs within their trees. See, there's not always animals behind the trees, but instead bombs that you have to diffuse by rubbing the fuse out before it explode. And, just like in real life, after you diffuse the bomb you get a snack that will help you in finding animals, ranging from apples to oranges. It's a weird world, to say the least.
After you find an animal, however, another mini-game begins which requires you to get close enough to actually "capture" the animal. When you approach the animal, you have a variety of choices to make as to what you want to do. On the top screen of the DS you will find a grid divided into two alternating colors and the goal is to get both you and the animal on the same portion of the grid without scaring it away. This can be done by completing the right combination of moving forward, back, or staying still, along with giving food that you find to the animal, using an item that you have, and finally using your own pet (which we will discuss shortly) to coerce the wild animal into coming to you. Surprisingly, this mini-game can get somewhat tricky as you must constantly check the animal's status towards you and if you make the wrong move the animal may run away. Sometimes getting an animal can be extremely time consuming as there doesn't seem to be much of a pattern in terms of what to do based on the status of the animal, which ranges from calm, frightened, and puzzled. Finally, after what will seem like an eternity sometimes, you will finally catch the animal. Since their market is geared towards the younger players, I have to question whether or not this kind of time-consuming challenge was the best idea as I could see many kids getting frustrated with the slow process.
Seeing this screen is sometimes way more satisfying than I feel it should be
With every animal you catch you are given the opportunity to customize it to your liking, including its name and even what its wearing. The first pet you catch will also act as your first personal pet, which will help you get a hang of the tasks you have to complete for the other residents of the town. At first you can only give treats to your pet, but after a while you will be able to groom, wash, clothe, play with, and even teach your pet tricks. After you collect your first animal the town folk will notice and begin to ask you to pick them up a pet in the wild (since apparently they aren't capable of walking back and forth in front of an animal) and you are given such tasks as "find a cute pet." Personally, I think the hippopotamus is cute in its own way, so perhaps Amy should be more careful about what she asks for.
After you capture the animal for the customer, they will come back to you with various tasks in relation to said animal, which can range from giving them a treat to teaching them a trick. Each task also has a mini-game of its own that, while simple, do provide a slight variety in gameplay. When you groom the pets a circle forms around the areas and you have to touch that area with the stylus to use the soap, water, and brush. When you're giving them a treat you are given a meter on the left side of the screen and must stop the green bar that moves up and down in the correct place. As mentioned, none of these tasks are overly complicated or even challenging, but I can appreciate the variety they attempted to put in the game. The only task that can sometimes be troublesome is when you are attempting to teach your pet new tricks, which almost plays like a poor-man's version of PaRappa the Rappa, except you use "short" and "long" touches instead of X, O, Square, and Triangle. This in itself is not all that hard, but its the fact you have to do it everyday for the pet to learn the trick that can be troublesome as you only have a certain amount of activities you can do in a day (which are determined by how many suns you have left in the menu).
Washing the dog, washing the dog!
The town map serves as your travel guide as you move from place to place in the town and areas are accessed by double clicking where you want to go as a single click will only give you information on the place. There are plenty of places to go in Green Town, including the typical shops (food, clothing, item, and accessory), along with a plethora of other environments to search for animals in and even apartment complexes to help you find more customers. You can also make your own items if you have enough rocks and money, and even design your own clothes. While the customization here is not ground-breaking by any means, it is a nice little extra that Taito added into the game. As you progress through the game and are given more suns, you will sometimes almost be overwhelmed by how many tasks you can take on in a single day and keeping track of all of the customers can sometimes be a bit confusing, even with the filters given.
Finally, there are contests that you can enter your pet into three types of contest that focus on different aspects of the pet's attributes. In the speed contest your pet is racing against other pet as you cheer them on, increasing their speed but decreasing their stamina, meaning you must find the right balance to win. The second contest, power, has your pet moving heavy objects while your brush away obstacles with the stylus. Finally, the third contest, photo, is nothing more than a fashion and trick show, meaning your have to dress your pet in a silly outfit and have them do an equally silly trick in order to win. None of these are terrible engrossing but do provide a mild distraction from the regular gameplay which can easily become frustratingly boring.
Graphics
The graphics are pretty standard for what you would expect in a game of this nature. The characters and environments are more cartoon-ish in nature and feature very vivid and bright colors that quickly grab your attention. It is easy to see that this game is geared towards kids just by looking at the game long enough, although I must give credit for the attention to detail on some of the animals. While they are not perfect, some animals in particular look really detailed in certain angles and poses, especially when you are able to look at them from all angles while you take care of them. Although the animals are the standout visuals of the game (as they should be, considering the content), they also mesh particularly well with the background environments in which they are placed in. Taito did a good job in knowing when it was necessary to add detail and when they could get away with more basic structures.
The user-interface of the game may seem a little crowded at first, especially as you progress throughout the game, but overall they have done a very good job in overall presentation. The text is always visible and easy to read and the colors are bright and varied enough to where you always know where everything is just based off its color. This is a very important aspect as many children are not going to enjoy reading all of the text this game presents at times, so playing the safe and colorful route definitely paid off. To be honest, there were parts where I didn't even want to read it, so the colors are a good thing.
This is the only instance in which I have ever been able to train a dog to jump rope. Perhaps dreams do come true!
My only major problem with the graphics is that while they do look good, there is also not a terrible amount of variety. Taito does not attempt to take risks in their graphics or try anything new and interesting and instead stick with very predictable palettes and renders. This is kind of disappointing just because there was a little potential for good early on, but at the same time one can not be terribly surprised at this due to the fact that it is a child's game above all. Even with that being said, the graphics do a more than serviceable job and the user-interface is very friendly and easy to understand.
Sound
The music is, above all, the most disappointing aspect of the game to me. When playing a game, sometimes the music can make the difference whether or not you are playing the game or actually into the game. While I never found myself completely enthralled in the sights and sounds of My Pet Shop, the quirky music that constantly plays is almost over-bearing and downright annoying. I liken the music of the game to that of a budget RPG battle-song, except it just plays over and over again. Although you only hear that music while you are finding animals, it becomes bothersome as you spend most of your time (especially in the early portions of the game) searching for animals. The rest of the music is passable, but still generic RPG music, and after ten minutes or so you really wish they would have added more variety.
What the game does do a good job in, however, is that of sound effects. The animals all make appropriate noises and make good use of the DS' sound abilities. While attempting to catch a dog in the game, the cat that was sitting next to me as I played the game was spooked when it heard the dog bark from the game. Now, I'm not trying to make it seem as though this is as good as sound gets, but Taito did a great job in getting accurate animal sounds. As far as menu sounds, they are loud and clear and not too intrusive as they did a great job mixing all of the music, animal sounds, and sound effects to make sure nothing is overpowered and unheard.
Fun Factor
When writing this review I have tried my best to keep in mind the intended audience, mostly younger girls. With that said, I think My Pet Shop will serve that purpose to a T. Sure, the game does have its flaws and is sometimes outright boring, but most players of this game are not going to be able to discern from good and bad. They will see and hear the sounds of the animals and fall in love with the game quickly - especially once they start dressing the animals up and taking care of it. In fact, even my eighteen year-old girlfriend enjoyed playing those sections of the game for a little bit - girls love cute things, it's science. The only thing I would worry about, however, is that the game does require a decent amount of reading and with all of the tasks and mini-games My Pet Shop introduces, I can see where some younger players might get caught up and confused. Therefore, I don't really suggest this game to anyone under nine or so unless they really like to read. The manual itself is forty-five pages long, which should give you an idea of how many different things there are to do in this game.
These races can sometime be the most intense part of the game - nobody likes to lose.
Lasting Appeal
There is, surprisingly, a lot to do in this game. Each task that you do in this game has an accompanying mini-game, and even though they are not the most in-depth mini-games ever created, they will do more than enough in keeping the younger players entertained and happy. While the main goal of the game is to take care and groom animals while running a pet shop, side activities such as entering one of the three contests, dressing up your pet, and teaching them tricks should keep them busy for hours to come as there are quite a few items to choose from. The game also features DS wireless play, so if another person has this game and a DS you two could actually trade pets and items. I do like this feature and if you have two girls this would be a great idea, but I think for most players this feature will go unused, which is a shame as it could definitely add to the replay and fun factor of the game.
The 411
Taito has surprisingly put a lot into My Pet Shop and the evidence is clear. There are plenty of things to do in Green Town to keep young, eager players coming back for more and to keep them interested and entertained. Obviously this game won't make any game of the year lists but I'm sure there will be plenty of young children who would like to think otherwise. With all of the side-quests, mini-games, customization options, and more, My Pet Shop plays like a RPG version of Nintendogs. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't, but at the end of the day it is a fun children's game that's cute, relatively easy to learn, and quirky enough to stand out above other similar games.
Graphics
7.0
The environments are vibrant and the animals are well detailed and together they create a very nice looking game.
Gameplay
6.5
While there are plenty of options, the gameplay gets repetitive fast.
Sound
4.0
The lowest point of the game, the sound is more annoying than it is engrossing.
Lasting Appeal
7.0
Assuming we are talking about younger players, with all of the side-tasks and mini-games, there is plenty to do.
Fun Factor
7.0
There is plenty of things to do in My Pet Shop and for the most part it is entertaining enough.
