AniMates

 DS
User Score
2.8

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 4 out of 5
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  1. ninjaguy454
    Jul 6, 2020
    4
    Animates cannot decide whether it wants to be a virtual pet game or mimic The Sims. The gameplay seems to indicate the latter in an empty way as you are spending the entire time managing needs and pretty much controlling your AniMate's daily functions.

    Typically the point of a virtual pet game is to have an AI pet you take care of. They can entertain themselves for a time (although will    Animates cannot decide whether it wants to be a virtual pet game or mimic The Sims. The gameplay seems to indicate the latter in an empty way as you are spending the entire time managing needs and pretty much controlling your AniMate's daily functions.

    Typically the point of a virtual pet game is to have an AI pet you take care of. They can entertain themselves for a time (although will need some stimulus after a while) can eat and drink on their own given they have their servings dished out. Maybe you can manage their diet, train them, teach them some tricks. You can play with them and so on. Does AniMates do any of this? No, not really at all.

    In AniMates, you are in fact supposed to be taking care of a digital pet, but you are pretty much controlling the digital pets interactions. They do not move unless you tell them to. If you don't control them, they essentially wither up and die. There is no interaction between you and the pet, since you basically take on both the role of caretaker as well as the pet.

    Outside of the flaws of the game's own mechanics, it plays dreadfully slow. I hadn't witnessed any technical bugs with the game. Only complaints are how slow it plays as well as the poor camera angle that you seemingly cannot adjust.

    The music and sound are of low quality, but other than that it's inoffensive. Nothing remarkable

    The graphics are passable for the time it released. More akin to cell-shaded 3D graphics. They're alright.

    There are many other games that set out to do the same thing and do it better. So I really cannot recommend this to anyone, or even their children looking for a real pet replacement.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
33

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 4 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 4
  3. Negative: 3 out of 4
  1. NintendoWorldReport
    20
    This game may entertain your kid for about ten minutes, but the slow pace and lack of any real reward system means that Little Billy will put it down and be off chasing a butterfly before you know it.
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  2. Cheat Code Central
    70
    While snuggling up to a handheld video game system may still not be better than cuddling a real kitten, kids are a lot more likely to find success convincing their parents to let them take home a budget priced DS title like Animates over the real-deal.
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  3. IGN
    20
    It's really just awful. There's no reason for anyone to go anyway near a copy of Animates, which, if you weren't convinced of enough already, also features a couple of programming glitches that can cause your creature to clip through parts of the environment.
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