Petz Beach Review for Nintendo 3DS

Two new titles joined the Petz line of video games for the Nintendo 3DS – Petz Beach and Petz Countryside. In choosing which title to review, Petz Beach naturally felt like a better fit for our California-based family.

I was provided with a complimentary download of the game for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Petz Beach Review for Nintendo 3DS

While one would expect a Petz video game to focus mainly on the raising of animals, Petz Beach is more of a role playing game in which your pet (that you train and care for) happens to accompany you during your adventure in a coastal beach town. This synopsis will give you a basic idea of the gameplay.

In Petz® Beach, players and their Petz can complete quests, meet new villagers, explore, and expand their community. Petz Beach is a beautiful ocean vista with white sands, towering palm trees, and exotic ocean-themed Petz, including dolphins, polar bears, and penguins. Along the way, you’ll interact with 28 breeds of dogs, 6 breeds of cats, and over 200 in-game collectibles!

Since care for the pet takes the backseat, the game does seem to start off a bit slowly. It’s only after the player has gotten used to the navigation, completed some quests, and built up some virtual money to spend that Petz Beach starts to get really interesting. That’s when you have more things to do and areas to explore.

We found this out the hard way. My daughter only played the game for a short period of time and got bored so quickly that she only skimmed the surface of the game actually included. When I got my hands on it and started unlocking some of the new features, she immediately ran over and started to want to play. Her interest was reignited when she found out her pet could help fish, catch bugs, dig for other kinds of treasures, and more. Some actions require you to hold the 3DS with both hands and either raise or lower it. For these, I suggest that you hold both screens tightly so you don’t accidentally pop one off (tension can be pretty high when you’re trying to catch critters).

Quests can get a bit monotonous with having to be the courier of items between villagers. Fortunately, some offer nice rewards in return. According to Munchkin, you do need to watch out for that mayor though.

The mayor of the town follows you around. So when I get out of a store, I turn around and “AHHHHHHHH!” The mayor appears out of nowhere and will be standing right in front of me!

Graphics are about the same as in older versions of Petz games. The pets looks pretty good but everything else, such as the landscape and collectibles, is unpolished and somewhat choppy. The villagers just look plain odd, almost like primitive Miis. There is the option to use voice commands but it didn’t seem to work well for us.

You know those prize machines where you put in a coin, turn the knob, and a plastic bubble with a toy inside pops out of the chute? Well, you can get tokens to use in a prize machine in the game. These contain small animal collectibles and it’s just plain fun getting new ones 🙂 When you get new collectibles or find certain items, it unlocks fun facts. So, kids get to learn and have fun while playing which is a total win-win in my book.

Ideal Ages for Petz Beach

Parents will want to be aware that there is quite a bit of reading involved. The characters just make these “meep-meep” noises as the text is displayed on-screen so you will either want to sit with your child as they play or they should be able to have read well on their own. The navigation can also get a bit confusing.

For these reasons, I’d say Petz Beach is best for kids ages 7-10. Pre-teens might like the game as well but not with as much enthusiasm as the younger set will.

Game download provided for review, part of my participation as an UbiStars official blogger for UbiSoft titles. All opinions are my own.