You ever just wanted a furry little friend by your side when you were younger, but maybe your Mom or Dad just said no? That it’d be too much responsibility, or you aren’t old enough to care for another living being..?
Well, that’s where games like Little Friends: Dogs and Cats come in. This niche lil’ genre of games are pet simulators, and they are as sad as you can imagine… But hey, I understand kids fucking love cats and dogs, and you can surely get this for someone who’s around the ages of 5-12 and they’d probably really enjoy it.
But as it stands, this game is just really boring and I really love games where you essentially just have to take care of an animal. Tamagotchis, Nintendogs and even the dumb Pokemon mini-games like Pokemon Amie are my jam.
Well anyways, you start the game and you get to choose a furry little fella – I got myself a pretty little Shiba that I named Dumby; Dumby is a playful girl who is always very curious, and my heart absolutely melts when I see her. That’s one thing this game does kinda right – The animals are really goddamn cute… But then again I am the kind of person who gets giddy at the idea of petting a dog. Anyways, you start learning all the different things you can do with your puppy, and as you do them you level up and get access to even more stuff to do! Too bad levelling up is a chore, and you wanna put the game down sooner than you want to actually do anything new. You can feed your animal, pet it, brush it, take it out on walks, and enter them into competitions. All of these things are slightly amusing the first time, but the second time you question why you’re even playing the game.
I’m not trying to be harsh or anything with this game either; it’s very cute, and once again, could be really good for a kid… I’m just saying I’d also rather play with my real cat who doesn’t even love me instead of this virtual canine of lies. The one thing this game had going for it was being able to dress up your animal – I fucking love cute little doggos in skirts, so you know I made Dumby the prettiest princess in all the land.
You can also decorate your house which is another fetish of mine in gaming, so you know I tried my hardest to save up money and make my house look fresh as hell, but when you realise it takes a ridiculous amount of money just to buy a carpet in this game and the only way you can get money is doing more boring stuff with your animal… You just kinda want to drop everything and play Tetris 99… Which is what I did – I’m not kidding; like, 6 times while trying to write this review.
Another good thing about this game is that it looks pretty nice – It kind of has an outdated Nintendogs look, and I’m not sure if that was intentional but the art style is cute enough that I didn’t mind how old it looked… And well, when it comes to audio I think after an hour of listening to the elevator music that is this game’s soundtrack, I don’t want to listen to anything else other than the highest frequency white noise I can get my hands on.
I’ve been really mean to this game I realised – I’m sorry Dumby, I still love you even though you are the most boring virtual creature on this planet. Why couldn’t you be a Pokemon or something? Mom never loved you, y’know. Anyways, this game is kind of a boring mess and totally not worth it if you’re looking for something that can actually keep your attention for longer than ten minutes… Though it might be really good for a really young kid who has an obsession for dogs and cats.
There are probably a ton of better pet simulator games that I’m not aware of, so maybe dig a little deeper if this is the first thing you find when looking for one – Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pet my real cat until he shreds me like a piece of paper.
I give Little Friends: Dogs and Cats a: