Nintendogs: Chihuahua and Friends for DS

I’m 25 years old and totally love cutesy tootsie games. When I spotted my 9-year-old nephew all up into his Nintendo DS talking to it, I wondered what the heck he was playing. “Nintendogs.”
This sounded interested, so I backed up and watched him go at it for a few minutes. I realized in that brief moment I too needed to have this virtual dog game.

A week later I spotted the game in Gamestop for a whopping $29.99. I was not happy about the price, but it looked like something I would like. The game itself reminded me of a sweet handheld Tamagotchi on steroids. There were a few breeds to choose from, I of course choose the Chihuahua & friends version.
You’re not limited to just Chihuahuas though, you can choose other breeds such as Dalmatians and friends, Labradors and friends, or Dachshunds and friends. Each game has a total of 18 puppies for you to use/unlock.
They all have the same game play, just different dogs, so honestly buying more than one copy of Nintendogs is wasteful. Plus you can obtain these other breeds through Bark Mode. (I will cover this later)

GAME PLAY

When I got my new puppies home I was excited to get going and start taking care of him. I was first taken to a pet store where I could view the available puppies, and then I could choose one. I choose a white colored long coat Chihuahua.

Next I was prompted to call him over by whistling, and then I was to pet him until he liked me. Last but not least I was asked to give him a name. This was the first game in which I was using the DS’s microphone. I named my little guy ChiChi. Next he comes home with me. Yay!

So now what?
I’ll be honest, I was very confused, but the game took me through a sort of demo mode on how to train my dog. Here I taught him how to sit down by tapping his head and dragging the stylus down in a quick motion, and then speaking ‘sit down’. It took Chichi a few times to learn the trick, and once he had it, I had to save the trick in my tricks list. You’re only allowed to teach him 14 tricks until the trick list is full. However you can delete old tricks to fill it in with new ones. I found this annoying. My puppy should have endless opportunities to learn and remember his taught tricks. I found it lame that you could make him forget some. I wanted a super dog. However no matter how much I wanted it, I wasn’t going to get it with the limit of only 14 tricks.

I pet my dog, and tried numerous times to teach him tricks. In the hour I had him he learned how to lie down, play dead, and give me his paw. After that he got tired of learning, and I was told I had to wait till tomorrow to teach him new tricks.

Okay. I’m fine with that, so lets go for a walk ChiChi.

GO OUT:

In this mode you are given a few options. You can take your dog for a walk, go to the pet store, kennel, dog motel, second hand store/thrift shop or enter your dog into contest.

THE DOG MOTEL:

This is where you can keep your dog before you save the game and leave. Here they make sure he is fed, and cared for while you are away from the DS. However this is unnecessary seeing how even f you leave the dog for days at a time, he won’t die.

PET STORE:

This is where you buy things that your puppy needs. Be careful because you have a limited amount of money, so as of now your main focus should just be items of care, such as food, water, and shampoo. You may also buy toys here as well, and accessories such as collars and bow ties for the fashionista puppy.

KENNEL:

Here you can purchase more dogs. However you can only play with one at a time, so this dog you purchase can be saved at the dog motel, where you can pick him up and use him instead. I wouldn’t purchase a new dog until you get the gist of the whole game, and have enough money. There will be 3 dogs here to choose from as well.

THRIFT STORE/SECOND HAND SHOP

Here you can sell things your puppy does not need. If you happen to find a gift on the street, which you already have, it’s a good idea to sell it to earn some money.

GO FOR A WALK:

This is an etch a sketch type of map, here you are taken to a screen, and you use your stylus to trace a route for your puppy. At first he won’t go very far seeing how his stamina will not allow it. However the more you walk him, the farther he can go next time. On the walk you may run into gifts, and other dogs for your dog to play with.

Your dog will also go pee and poop when you’re walking him. You have to clean up the poop by simply pointing your stylus on it. It will then be disposed of. You can also walk your dog to the park or gymnasium from here.

At the park you teach your dog how to play Frisbee fetch and bring back. Once he is good enough you can enter him into the disc throwing competition. At the gym you teach him how to run through an obstacle. Once he learns it you can enter him into the endurance competition.

COMPETITIONS:

DISC THROWING:

You can enter your dog into this competition; you must earn a certain amount of points to move on to a higher level up. You also earn money here. At first though your puppy most likely will not even score a point. The farther you throw it, the more points. However he has to catch it.

ENDURANCE:

Your puppy has to make it through the obstacle course in a set amount of time completing tasks such as running through a tube, walking the see saw, and jumping over hurdles. If you haven’t trained him enough at the gym he will most likely fail.

OBEDIENCE:

In this competition you simply use the commands you have taught him at home. Such as sit, shake, and free command. In this mode you simply choose whatever trick you want the dog to perform.
You need a certain amount of points to move to the next level.

BARK MODE:

This is used to link up with another DS player. For instance my nephew had been using Dalmatians & friends, so I simply have to stand within 30 feet of him, and we can begin communicating by writing messages as our dogs play. Once our dogs become acquainted and play with one another that breed is added to my/our game. It’s like a collecting game. At my age it’s sort of hard to find someone willing to connect… seeing how this game is geared more towards younger children. I’ll probably never get a Dachshund. Heheh.

GRAPHICS:

The graphics in this game are pretty realistic, and all of the dogs look almost lifelike with a cartoon like edge to them. The neighborhood walk is also pretty nice looking. However the background inside of our home look pretty blurry. However you can purchase new apartments with trainer points, which make the environment in the background look much, much better.

REPLAY VALUE:

Well it’s sort of hard to say, as a kid how much replay value came out of a Tamagotchi? About a week or two, or until the batteries died, I swear I don’t know one kid who ever bought new batteries for that game. You just bought a new one when it died out. It was cheaper actually.

That’s probably all one will get from Nintendogs, a week or two, although the game play may sound exciting, it gets boring really fast. Once you have your dog trained, and you beat the competitions over and over again you really are left with nothing else to do. The game play is not exciting enough for me to even want to earn money for a new apartment.

MUSIC:

The music plays softly in the background, and it’s not annoying it sort of just drowns out and you don’t even realize there is music.

Nintendogs has its own music though separate from background music. There are 4 rare records in which you can find in the neighborhood by tapping the stylus down to the sidewalk, he may or may not randomly pick up an unseen gift. The gift may be a record for you to play on your record player at home.

You can also record a message on your record player by hitting record and saying something. With this other players can listen to your message while in ark mode. Pretty neat. Not only that, you can change the pitch of your voice so you sound like a devil or a mouse. Something fun I missed from the 80’s. However recording time is limited to about 20 seconds, so you don’t get to say much.

I’VE GOT A BONE TO PICK:

The very first day my dog learned a few tricks, however when I entered him into the obedience competition he nearly forgot everything I taught him, and sort of did whatever he pleased. This was disappointing, because when I brought him home, he was performing them like a pro. He seems to do this often when in competition, throwing out everything he learned, and making a fool of me! Haha.

The second day after having my dog when I went to voice command him to sit down, he actually jumped up at the screen in an attack type action. He looked aggressive and seriously went to bite at me (in virtual world). He’s a bad boy.

Not only that after being fed and quenched, I then began to use voice commands again. I figured maybe he was just mad at me leaving him all night.
Nope, he still was aggressive and didn’t want to listen to me at all. After a few pets to the head he lightened up though. However when I went to use his tricks like play dead, paw, etc. He preformed none of them properly. It was almost as if he needed a tune up overnight.
These are tricks he’s supposed to already know, and they are stored in his memory, he should be performing with no issues. Only he doesn’t.

Another thing I dislike is how difficult it can be to get him to understand a command or trick. In the competition shake means to give the paw. However I was using the shake command when he shook his butt around. When I used the command in competition he failed because it was the wrong action they were looking for. I say paw. They say shake. Ahhh! There should have been an included list on proper voice commands so you don’t screw up.
So next I was forced to look online for the proper voice commands for the proper actions. I find it really bothersome to have to do so.

OVERALL:

Nintendogs is a cute game, however it lacks in so many departments. For $30 I expected to at least have more than 2 weeks of game play. Once you teach your dog 14 tricks, you do not want to delete any to teach him new ones, so it was unfair for Nintendo to do that.

RECOMMENDATION:

Wait for it to go on sale. Even if it looks oh so cute, and oh so adorable, and your kids beg for it, it’s a game that will loose it’s cool really fast. If you can’t find it for $15 or less, pass it by. It’s more frustrating than fun.