Title Purr Pals Date 05.07.2007 Genre Simulator Platform Nintendo DS Developer Brain Toys Publisher Crave Entertainment

Intro
Purr Pals is a virtual pet sim, like Nintendogs. Also like Nintendogs it has realistic graphics instead of cartoonish ones. There are 40 cat breeds to choose from and most are pretty distinctive and very decent representations of real cat breeds.

Gameplay
The main game involves you taking care of your cat. You have to play with it, pet it, feed it, clean its litter box, and brush it. There are a bunch of cats to choose from and you can get more cats as soon as you earn enough money. You earn money by taking care of your cat and by playing mini-games. Money can be used to buy stuff for your cat, like food, litter, hats, toys, glasses. The hats and glasses are cute. The cat interacts with every toy differently. You can also use money to decorate the house, buy new food bowls and beds for kitty. The cats are fun, they run around, jump all over the furniture, meow at you, do lots of stuff that you'd expect cats to do. Playing with them is a lot of fun as is just watching them.

The main problem with the gameplay is how fast your cat's needs rise. You brush your cat, 10 minutes later it needs to be brushed again. Same thing for food (which isn't cheap either) and play and petting, the later two being not as annoying. Your cat needs rise when the DS is turned off and when you're playing mini-games which means that a vast majority of your time will be spent constantly brushing and feeding your cat. Unlike Nintendogs when you fed your dog 2-3 times a day, washed it every few days – kind of like in real life – then you could spend the rest of the time playing with the dog. Purr Pals forces you to constantly tend to kitty which means that you have to stop actually fun things, like playing with the cat, to brush it yet again.

There are also 4 mini-games you can play. The mini-games have a music cat-karaoke type game which is adorable and a fast way to get money, a very frustrating basketball shooting game, a simon-says game and a balloon shooting game. These are fun (except for the basketball) but apart from the music game won't get you much money and you'll probably get tired of them if you overplay them. Also, you have to scoop litter – which is about as much fun as it is in real life.

Graphics
The cats are cute. They're called kittens but the models resemble adult cats more. You can customize your cat's hair color, eye color and give them neon-green whiskers if you want. The background is not ugly but nothing to get excited about. You only get one model of a house and you can tweak it a bit with different walls/floors/carpet – problem is that all them look pretty much the same so you can't do too much. Also, when your cat is less than 100% clean, it looks like it has fleas on it. This is gross and will happen even if you brushed its coat a minute before.

Story
You have cats; you take care of them, that is it.

Sound
Most of the sound is ambient noise and this is done well, music isn't bad but this isn't the kind of game than needs lots of music. Cats meow and purr pretty realistically which makes the cats seem more realistic.

Replayability
There isn't anything to unlock. You can save money to buy stuff for the house and cat which gives you more incentive to play it but eventually, the constant brushing, feeding and litter-scooping will bore even the biggest cat lover. The mini-games extend the gameplay a bit.

Overall
This is a cheap Nintendogs knock-off. Its not bad, its not good. If you're expecting the quality of Nintendogs, you will be disappointed. On the positive side, its cheap, the cats are cute and the mini-games are amusing.

Game Score

C-

Reviewed By: Contributed