Now you can work at a pet store with Pups and Purrs Pet Shop.  Do retail themed mini-games like scan barcodes, clean the floors, and stick on prices as well as take care of pets.  All sorts of cats and dogs are waiting for you to play mini-games to brush, feed, and play with them.  And when they’re ready, you can find forever homes for them, too!  This is actually a sequel/spinoff to a game I reviewed a couple of years ago called Pups and Purrs Animal Hospital.

There are two main modes of play: Story Mode and Work Mode.  Work Mode lets you play any of the mini-games you’ve unlocked separately, but you’ll probably spend most of your time in Story Mode, which is the main part of the game.  The first thing you’ll do is design your character and choose what outfit she’ll wear.  Although most of the time you wear an apron so it doesn’t matter much.  Then at work there are AM and PM shifts, but sometimes events come up that take up most of that time, so there’s really no rhyme or reason.  But they’ll usually give you a chance to play at least a couple of mini-games each day.

There are two main types of mini-games.  The first are retail themed.  Here you’ll do things like move a vacuum cleaner left and right to clean the floor, tilt a scanner so it reads the barcode when checking out, or sticking on the correct price stickers.  The other mini-games let you take care of pets.  Those have you brushing pets, feeding them, cleaning them, and playing with them.  When you do well on a mini-game you can unlock harder versions.  The mini-games play a lot like what you do in Cooking Mama.  You’ll earn stamps the better you do at these games, and when you get enough, you’ll level up and can advance the story and unlock new tasks.  Surprisingly, none of the mini-games use motion controls this time.

You can place pets in a playroom or display areas, and depending on where they are, they’ll earn stars.  When they have enough stars, they can be bought by customers.  You can dress the cats and dogs up in outfits and accessories to help them stand out.  Later on, customers can even request different breeds of pets and you can order them through a computer.  At the end of each day, you’ll earn money based on how well you did, and you can use that money to buy outfits and accessories for your character as well.

I did have a few small problems with the game.  It can get a bit repetitive and I wish the days lasted a little bit longer so you can do more things.  You can also only select to be a girl character.  Guys like pets, too!  But otherwise, this is a fine store and pet simulation for younger gamers.

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or objectionable here.  Even though the game is fully voiced, it’s all in Japanese so reading skill is still a must.  Too bad they couldn’t translate the voices. Pups and Purrs Pet Shop is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews