Nintendo DS NintendoSpin.com / Reviews / Animates!

Posted on September 29th, 2007 - 2332 Reads

Rated Everyone Animates! Nintendo DS Review

-- Written by Clark Nielsen



 Raising an animal requires a fair amount of patience. This couldn't be any more true for Animates, a pet simulator that'll tax your tolerance for boredom like no other game before it. Let's clear this up right now to save you some time: Animates is boring. Granted, pet simulators aren't known for their gripping gameplay, but they are at least involving in that you want to take care of your cute, little animal, watch it grow up, and maybe teach it some tricks. The five different breeds of Animates are certainly cute, but interacting with them is unrewarding and incredibly slow.

On your Animate's birth, it is placed in a large field where you are supposed to direct its needs. When it's hungry, you lead it to food. When it's dirty, you make it play in the lake. But unlike Nintendogs, where many of these tasks were personalized by the use of the touch screen, interacting with your Animate is very basic. You do not get to pet them. You do not get to pick up food and hand it to them. The touch screen is still used, but commanding your Animate is done through a series of taps. Tap on the water to make your pet drink. Tap on the swing to make it play. This archaic structure prevents you from ever feeling very close to your pet, and that, on a system all about the touching, is inexcusable.

Touch control is also used to move your Animate, and this is where the game starts to become unplayable. You are supposed to tap the ground to move there, but Animates never walk very far before they sit down again. Getting them to move, then, turns into a nonstop tapping fest which is only exasperated by how slow they move in the first place. If Animates were real, we would joke about how a snail riding a turtle riding an Animate would say, "When is the ride going to start?" In other words, Animates are slow. Painfully slow. Sleep-inducing, even. I wanted to cry, because I was so bored waiting for my Animate to walk from one end of the field to the other just to use the bathroom. Yeah, that's a great idea. Put the bathroom away from everything else!

My hope was that, once he grew up, my Animate would also learn to walk faster. He didn't. In fact, growing up didn't do anything. I suddenly got the notice "Your Animate grew up!" but nothing about him changed, not even his size or body shape. What is the point of growing up, then? What is the reason for living at all? Aside from eating, drinking, and pooping, Animates like to play, so I guess that gives them some reason to keep kicking. You can tap on objects like a slide or a swing and watch them have fun without you, or you can enter one of five mini-games. These are simple endeavors, though, ideas that almost pre-date the DS itself. Since when was a game of whack-a-mole with only three moles ever fun?

Tired of all the trudging back and forth, I finally tried to starve my Animate. If he attempted to go for food, I would scold him (by tapping the scold button) to keep him in one spot. Eventually, all his need meters plummeted to zero. He hung his head low and basically looked like he wanted to die. Then I felt sorry for him. So the developers did a good job in making these animals cute enough that you care about their well-being. It just feels like a major obligation to keep them happy since so little about it is actually fun. At that point, are you really playing a game?

Final Comments:
Animates will change your life forever. It is so amazingly slow and boring, you will cherish and love any other game thereafter. Seriously, it's bad. All right, all right, I can accept that this is a kid's game. Kids have a higher tolerance for bad games, after all, and are able to find enjoyment in the least likely places. But why subject them to an inferior product from all the other pet simulators on DS? I would hate to see a kid playing Animates, because it is such a waste of his/her time. If kids are going to spend their childhood days playing video games, they should at least spend them playing good video games.

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