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Littlest Pet Shop - Spring is the latest in a series of Nintendo DS pet sim games based on Hasbro's Littlest Pet Shop toy franchise and animated television show. Like all games in the series, the goal in Littlest Pet Shop – Spring is to adopt pets and bring them the Pet Plaza – one of four worlds that you'll end up unlocking – to lavish them with love, attention, food, and adorable accessories like caps, sunglasses and dresses.
In addition to the new Spring theme, this latest game boasts six exclusive new pets: a lop-eared bunny, fox, Jack Russell terrier, dwarf bunny, a porcupine and a new kitty, as well as four brand-new mini-games including Snack Sort, where players use the stylus to guide blueberries and strawberries into the correct bowls. By playing mini-games, players earn "kibble," the game's currency, which can be used to adopt more pets, purchase new accessories and toys, and buy new playsets which unlock more mini-games.
The game is controlled through a combination of dragging and tapping the DS stylus (to move the pet, for example), and pressing the controller buttons. Each of the mini-games offer three levels of difficulty to accommodate players of various skill levels and reflexes. In Ball juggling, for example, a ball is passed back and forth between four pets with the player have to press the buttons at just the right time, easy mode limits the play to one ball, while hard mode introduces up to three balls into the playfield at once time. Other mini-games range from volleyball to coloring in pictures to having to repeat patterns of buttons on the screen to cause a swing to move back and forth.
Players can switch between the pets they've adopted on the fly, and can zoom in on any of them to give them some one-on-one attention, such as petting them (rubbing them with the DS stylus) and feeding them (clicking on a food bowl), which improves their cleanliness and happiness and makes them more inclined to want to play – which is how you get access to the mini-games that allow you to earn Kibble.
The pets - which include a variety of kitties, puppies, bunnies, horses and other animals – are all super-cute, and the game boasts 120 accessories, 34 playsets, two toys and 54 goals to complete, which isn't a bad time investment given that you have to play a lot of mini-games in between to earn the necessary cash.
The game also offers a multi-player component where friends who also own copies of the game can play against each other. In Party Hall mode, players can plan a party by setting the date and choosing up to six mini-games, and then inviting friends to join. When the time arrives, these friends will receive an invitation on their screen and can click on it to participate. Any of the 20 mini-games mini-games can also be played with friends over a wireless connection via the in-game arcade.
Littlest Pet Shop - Spring is not as polished, nor are the animals as expressive and interactive, as Nintendo's Nintendogs (which is still, after several years, the golden standard of pet sim games on the Nintendo DS), but the addition of entertaining mini-games that can be played with friends via the Nintendo DS's WiFi connection, help to prolong the game's appeal after all of the pets and accessories have been collected.
