Petz Fantasy 3D for the Nintendo 3DS
Petz and I go way, way back. I actually played the original Petz, in 1995, because I was under the delusion that if I could take care of a virtual dog, my mom might let me have a real one. The reality was under no circumstances was my mom going to let me saddle her with a pet that required 6am walks, but luckily for her we never got that far because I wasn’t a very diligent virtual pet owner either.
Things have changed a bit in the last 15 years
The latest offering in the Petz franchise is a 3DS title featuring mythical creatures in sparkling 3D. There isn’t a TV ad that I could find online, but here’s a quote from the marketing materials on Amazon:
Discover and take care of your very own realistic fantasy pets in an immersive and whimsical 3D environment full of floating islands, magical lands and snow-topped mountains. Nurture magical eggs that hatch into surprising pets, such as unicorns and red pandas, each with their own personality and magical powers. Bond with your fantasy pets as they react to you in 3D like real pets, teach them their magical powers, and train them to transform into objects to keep them secret from your parents!
The game has 20 different creatures, each of which hatches out of an egg you must unlock (you’re given four to start). Each pet is in one of four groups: fire, ice, flying, and speed. It’s a pretty standard premise: collect things so you can unlock more things and collect more things. In this case the things are called Stars an Orbs. Stars let you go on a journey to a Magical World, which are how you find Orbs.
Keeping your pet happy means playing mini-games with them. There are 6 mini-games you need to play with each pet: a feeding game, a basket toss game, chasing them around with a hose to wash them, hide and seek, dressing them up in funny hats/shoes, and petting them. They’re not very compelling the first run through, and by the time you’ve unlocked your 5th or 6th Petz you’ll be pretty tired of Mystical Fido snubbing his nose at what you’re serving for dinner.
Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against mini-games, I think the Wario Ware series is great. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it, and the mini-games in Petz just aren’t very fun. The good news is once you figure out what food, toy, and hose nozzle (what?) your pet likes, you can get through them a little faster.
While you’re playing mini-games, there’s this emotive… bear head… thing… that floats in the upper right hand corner of the screen. He’s never really explained, but he appears to be the omnipresent representation of your pet’s happiness.
Angry balloon is angry
Frankly, the floating bear head thing is kind of unnerving. Your pet can rapidly go from being thrilled with life to completely miserable even when you’re playing with it, according to the bear head, which makes you feel like a little bit of a failure.
The game looks good, but I’m still acclimating to the visuals on the 3DS so it’s hard to pass judgement either way. I did end up turning off 3D and just playing in 2D, the 3D didn’t seem to add anything and gave me a headache after a while. Parents of young children are warned that the 3D display isn’t appropriate for young eyeballs. There’s no clear reason why this is a 3DS game instead of just a DS title; it doesn’t utilize any of the 3DS’s new features besides the camera.
It all adds up to a pretty unmemorable title with cute 3D animals an lukewarm mini-games. There’s an AR card element to it, which may interest some players, but information about the cards is scarce online. I found one on Amazon and one in the back of the instruction manual, but no mention of them on the official Ubisoft website.
Gameplay – 2 Stars
Some of the “Magical world” minigames are fun, particularly the one for the speed Petz, but even that wears thin quickly
Replay Value – 1 Star
There’s not much to explore here, once you unlock all the Petz you’re pretty much done.
Artwork – 3 Stars
It looks pretty good, if a bit reminiscent of the Lisa Frank trapper keeper I had as a kid
Creativity – 1 Star
There aren’t any choices to make here, and picking out a hat for your unicorn does not count as creative.
Messaging – 3 Stars
The pet related games tend to be pretty middle of the road in terms of messaging – nothing offensive, nothing interesting, and this one is no exception.
I could never have the real Petz game, so I kept getting trial versions and trying to hack it. I wonder what that says about me as a pet owner?
Oh man, I played the original Petz too! Did you ever play Oddballz, the alien spin-off of the Petz series? That was some fun stuff.