Nintendogs: Chihuahua and Friends

"An extremely overrated and boring game, for an incredibly good gaming system."

Nintendogs, which was released in Japan before the US got it, made a huge hit in Japan, and thus it was released in the US, as I guess Nintendo thought it would help the DS get better games going. Nintendogs, however, fails to meet this expectation. There are three versions of Nintendogs: Chihuahua & Friends, Dachshund & Friends, and Labrador & Friends. There isn't much difference in each version, except that there are some version exclusive items you can obtain. Anyway, on with the review of this very disappointing game.

Gameplay - 3/10

Umm, what gameplay? This game really has no gameplay. The gameplay is Nintendogs goes like this: You knock on the door of Kennel, a dog company, whom gives you your first dog for free. At first, you can only pick the breeds that come with your version, but eventually, all those breeds are available in the other games as well. After knocking on the door of Kennel, you have to give your dog a name, then it's off to teaching it tricks, giving it food, giving it water, taking it for walks, bathing it, and going to competitions. The competitions give you a lot of money if you win them, and all the money can be used for is more food and drink for your dog, as well as toys, and buying new dogs. You can have up to three dogs in Nintendogs, but if you get more than three, your other dogs get deposited in the Dog Hotel. I played Nintendogs for a whole week, then got insanely bored of it, and haven't picked it up since then. Basically, the object in Nintendogs, as you probably already know hence the title, is to raise dogs to the best of your ability. Also, one more thing I forgot to mention is that you can communicate wirelessly with another Nintendogs player via Bark Mode if you are in range of that player. In Bark Mode, you get to play with the other players dog, and vise versa. Aside from what I mentioned, there's really nothing at all to note, except that on walks you can find items, and sometimes rare items.

Graphics - 9/10

The graphics in the game aren't that bad, to tell you the truth. This is the only saving grace in Nintendogs, however, as everything else pretty much goes downhill. The dogs look just like the breeds they are intended to look like. Sure, the dogs may be pixels, but that doesn't mean they are cute, and they actually look extremely real, as I said above. The rest of the graphics aren't bad, either. Also, the animations of the graphics are very very good, and overall, there isn't really anything to disappoint you here.

Sound/Audio - 5/10

Ugh, you call this sound? The sound in this game is very repetitive, and nothing at all exciting. Aside from the bark of your dog and other dogs you meet while on a walk, there is nothing significant as far as the sound comes, as the rest of the sound is very repetitive and boring. Finally, the music in this game is not really good, either, with what little music they have. They have music in the competitions, and while you are giving your dog a shower, but that's basically it. This section overall gets a 5 out of 10.

Difficulty - 6/10

Aside from training your dog to get it obey you, and aside from the competitions, there isn't really any difficulty in this game. The Disc Competition can be quite hard, however, as can raising your dog, but aside from that, there's really nothing hard about the game, except maybe the Championship in each competition.

Story - 2/10

There's no story in this game whatsoever, other than you go to Kennel and knock on their door to get a starting dog for free. After that, you raise your dog by bathing it, giving it water, walking it, teaching it tricks, buying it toys, etc.

Replay Value - 3/10

Hmm, I didn't see where this game had any replay value, personally. I never did have the patience to keep playing through it to find all of the items and get new dogs. I guess maybe if you have the patience to play this game, it offers high replay value, but it just didn't cut it for me. I'm sure even people who have a lot of patience would find it hard to remain loyal to this game, because finding the rare items can be insanely difficult and tedious, as can raising each of your dogs. Overall, the Replay Value section gets a 3 out of 10 from me, as I didn't find the game to have much replay value at all, if any, honestly.

Overall - 4/10

Nintendogs: Chihuahua & Friends could have been SO much better, had Nintendo actually taken some time to do everything. While the dogs may look very cute and look like real dogs, and act similar to real dogs, those things are about the only saving grace in this game that stopped me from giving this game a rating of about 1 or 2. The sound in this game wasn't anything awe-inspiring, and in no way what I consider good. Also, there really wasn't any good music in this game, and there wasn't any story, but you'd expect that from a dog game. There was, however, a little challenge in this game, I'll give it that. The gameplay in Nintendogs was really repetitive and boring. I admit, however, that it was fun in the beginning, but then after I played it for a week or two, I put it down and have never picked up since then. Overall, this game, as I said above, could have been SO much better, but it seems Nintendo rushed it to try and bring a good game out for the DS. Nintendogs, however, fails to meet that expectation. The game may not be bad at first, but believe me, it'll get boring sooner or later, and you'll never want to play it again, unless you are a very, very patient person.

Buy or Rent

I'm not entirely sure if you can rent this or not, so just borrow it from a friend or something, as I don't suggest buying this, especially for the price of $30-$40 that the places that this game is sold in charge. In my opinion, this game is worth nothing more than about $10 or $15, honestly. Buy it if you wish, but don't say I didn't warn you.

And that's the end of the review. I hope you enjoyed the review, and I hope it gave anyone who was wanting to try it an opinion on it on whether or not they should get it.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/27/06