Reviewed by Megan Parker
Nintendogs is easily one of the most popular games to exist on the Nintendo DS. Pet sims in general have an odd lure to people. Maybe it’s the fact that digital pets don’t smell and the poo isn’t real.
Whatever the reason, part of the reason it attracts so many people is because it is so incredibly cute. Dalmatian’s main (and only) difference from the other Nintendog games is what breeds you start out with. All of the dogs from the other games are unlockable through trainer points and other methods. If you like Dalmatians, then this is the version to get.
Aside from that, everything else is pretty much the same. You start off with $1000 to spend on buying your first puppy. At the kennel you can spend time petting all of the puppies they have, then choose the one you want. The random generator gives you three puppies, sometimes all the same sex, sometimes mixed. Each have their own personalities, so you can pick the one that’s right for you.
Once you take the puppy home, the first order of business is to get her to get used to you, which is where the touch screen comes in. Using it, you can pet, scratch and rub the puppy until she loves you. Once you have that, you get to pick her name.
There are several things you can do with your new digital furball of cuteness: walk, train, enter contests or just play with her. The game itself provides some initial help in training the puppy by telling you certain commands. From there you can read the instructions on how to further train your puppy. One of the contests you can play is totally dependent on how well you train her. The voice recognition for the most part is good. Sometimes it seems to be pretty picky, since even if the room is quiet, the puppy just won’t understand you.
Taking the puppy out on the walk can get you to a park, where you can practice for the disc competition or the obstacle course for the agility. Obviously, the more you train her, the better she gets.
While taking the puppy for walks there are various things you may come across, such as the question mark boxes. They will give either a gift or a chance to meet NPC people and puppies for yours to play with. Gifts that your puppy finds ranges from boring (such as a stick), to useful (like a rubber bone), to just silly (for example a Mario hat or a question mark box). There are also less savory things on the streets, including garbage. The garbage itself is pretty annoying because it almost seems like if you’re able to get your puppy away the first time, and a few seconds later they’ll put another pile that she manages to get into. For whatever reason, the dogs never learn that garbage makes them sick.
You can sell most of the things you find out on the walks, which will give some income to pay for shampoo, food and drink for the puppy. The best way to get money is to enter them in the competitions and place at third. This will get you some cash and a trophy for the puppy.
The contests are pretty simple and straightforward. The two commentators can get repetitive and annoying and you can’t skip through their talks. When you’re doing several each day for multiple dogs, they get pretty tiresome.
The game takes into account pretty much the basics of owning a dog. She will get hungry and thirsty, dirty, and even lonely if you don’t come back to visit for a long time. This all directly effects how well she does, in contests or in general.
Once you make more money, you can adopt more dogs from the kennel. While there are only three spaces for puppies in your home, you can place one puppy at a hotel and get another, swapping them out at will.
The graphics and animation for the game are fantastic, especially for a DS. The developers got a lot of various personalities and quirks that dogs usually have, and translated them very well into the game.
However, the cuteness only lasts for so long. This is definitely not a game you can sit for hours and play, nor does it have a lasting effect, which is really the only weakness the game has. There are only so many things you can do in the game with each puppy and really the only way to prolong it is to adopt and train more. There are plenty of breeds to unlock, but getting all of them will take a lot of time.
As for DS connectivity, there is the bark mode, where you can hop on wi-fi and hope to find another trainer. If you do, you and their puppy can interact and even trade. This is a really nice option if you’re around others with any of the Nintendogs versions.
This game is incredibly cute and fun to play. With many breeds to choose from and unlock, plus contests, there are a lot of things to do with this game. But since it’s essentially the same as the other versions, just with different starting breeds, there isn’t anything really new brought to the game. Even with the cute furry pixels playing and barking, the lasting appeal of the game is fairly small. That’s not to say that Nintendogs: Dalmatian is a bad game; on the contrary. It is easily a game that anyone of any age and game skill can play and enjoy.
Special thanks to Allison Guillen and Nintendo for providing a copy of this title.