Review: Littlest Pet Shop Winter (NDS)

Littlest Pet Shop Winter features the famous diminutive creatures from the popular cartoon and toy franchise that young girls eat up. There's a variety of small, adorable animals with bulging, watery eyes that are practically inviting you to take care of them. Upon beginning the game, children are presented with three different animals of the Littlest Pet Shop variety. There isn't a choice between which pets to adopt, so you automatically receive a puppy, a kitten, and a rabbit. Once the pets arrive via the in-game train, there are a few different things to do.

Naming your pets is a must, and then you're free to explore the game's default, springtime world. Though it is named Littlest Pet Shop Winter, you don't actually get to that world until certain conditions have been met. While in the Littlest Pet Shop world, you can either dress up your pets, buy new items or playsets for them, check their status, or adopt more pets by using train tickets. Navigation of the area is done via the DS stylus, though it does feel very awkward. Pets do not often respond when you drag the stylus across the screen, and when they do it's at such an awkward angle that you completely miss where you intended to venture in the first place. This is one frustration younger gamers will likely complain about, but seeing as there is not too much movement required, it's easy to overlook.

The bulk of the gameplay revolves around minigames that generate kibble for use in the game's "Meow Mart." The games include simple tasks such as coloring images of the various pets up for adoption, balancing on a rolling ball, or blowing bubbles to propel pets into the air so that they can catch treats. Earning kibble is imperative to success, so you must play the mini games, often repeatedly, in order to make real progress. None of the games provide much of a challenge, but you can choose between easy, medium, and hard to adjust the difficulty depending on the age of the gamer. We found the minigames to be entertaining at least for a half hour or so, even though they do begin to grate on the nerves - there are only a handful of different games in the rotation.

The general welfare of the pets is not at all difficult to maintain. Every so often they may need to be scratched or given the occasional bowl of food. Nothing to worry about, of course. They won't die, and they won't run away, so there will be no crying youngsters to worry about. Later on in the game you can control up to 20 different pets, each with a different look and species. Featured are polar bears, monkeys, rabbits, dogs, cats, and bears, to name a few.

Graphics are really nothing to write home about, but are appropriately perky and pastel for younger gamers to enjoy. The pets themselves are saccharine sweet creations that elicit plenty of "Awwws" from onlookers. Cutesy pet sounds will ring out at random intervals as the pets frolic about the landscape, but like the music it's all fairly generic.

All in all, this is a very rudimentary children's title. However, it will provide some hours of entertainment, especially for young animal lovers who enjoy mini games. We presume that's the majority of many small girls. For what it is, it should make that special child in your life happy, at least for a little while. Older gamers, it's understandable if you want to just walk right on by.

Rating: 7 / 10

Words by Brittany Vincent