Petz Fantasy is the latest in a long line of Tamagotchi inspired games on the DS. The game is filled to the brim with bright colours and very cute big-eyed fantasy animals. Warning: If you don’t like cute games you should stay well away from Petz Fantasy. The music lacks variety but that’s par for the course in this type of game. Young children will no doubt like the creatures but I don’t feel the structure of this game leads itself to longevity.

The biggest problem I have with this game is that it’s very repetitive. Your pet has three meters, one for hunger, one for cleanliness, and one for happiness. You fill these meters by completing specific tasks. To fill your hunger meter you play a mini-game which involves filling in the outline of your pet’s favourite food. You’re not required to fill in 100% of the food meter and that’s a good thing as it can be a bit fiddly and going outside the line decreases the time you have to complete the task. The mini-game for cleanliness involves spraying your pet with a hose as it jumps in and out of holes, a bit like the Whac-A-Mole arcade game but with less mallets. The happiness meter is filled by playing a game with your pet using toys. The aim is to throw a toy into a basket held up by a creature. Throwing a tennis ball into the basket is perfectly natural but throwing a maraca into the basket feels silly and there really should have been a separate mini-game for each of the toys.

Once you fill the three meters you take your pet to a magical land for a different type of game. The aim is to collect tokens as your pet flies through the sky. Sliding the stylus across the touchpad will move your pet around as you attempt to collect as many tokens as possible before the finishing line. Your final score will depend on how many tokens you collected plus how much time was left on the clock at the end. You are awarded a bronze, silver, or gold medal depending on your score and a gold medal comes with the bonus of unlocking a new pet. Items for your pets, such as clothing, can also be unlocked by playing the flying game.

Petz Fantasy is all about the pets which may seem obvious given the name but there isn’t too much appeal beyond that. There’s a decent variety of pets on offer but only if you replay the game enough times to unlock them all. Because of the repetition this title isn’t going to appeal to everyone. This is probably best suited to picking up every so often, playing for a little bit, and unlocking the items and creatures over time. Playing this game for an extended period of time in one sitting will result in boredom. I appreciate this title is aimed at children but there are better examples on the market.

4/10

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