Visiting my Nintendogs After 20 Years

The first game I owned on the Nintendo DS was Nintendogs, and I happened to have two different copies. I remember how I really wanted the Chihuahua and Friends one, because as much as I loved the Labrador and Friends one, I was desperate to have a German Shepherd. Blame the fact that I used to have one that I absolutely adored when I was a kid.

I remember spending hours running around, cleaning my dogs, playing with them, and just training them to be great at Agility competitions. Admittedly, this probably made me feel more in control, considering at the time the only well-trained dog we had was a particularly demonic West Highland Terrier. Our other dogs were wonderful, and I played with them a lot, but they knew how to embrace the chaos. Nntendogs just allowed me to have it, so my dogs were basically just puppies forever.

That way, I’d never have to say goodbye, right?

Except one day, I just… stopped playing. Other games caught my attention, and I obviously had my real pets. I had my dogs and my cats, so they had the priority. So one day, I just left them alone.

I thought about starting a new game for the 20th anniversary of Nintendogs, but then I thought, no. I should face my fears head-on. I should accept that I need to see my dogs and see how they’ve changed. Plus, I needed to go back to my child self’s time capsule and go back to the old days and see just what hyperfixation I named them at the time. I somehow already know that it was the name of a Naruto character, but I need to know.

So, I opened up my Nintendo 3DS and cracked open Nintendogs for the first time in 20 long years. And upon signing in, I found that, of course, two of my dogs had left home forever. The only one left was my German Shepherd, Yuusuke. Why did I name him Yuusuke? This is the question that plagued me. I looked at my competitions, and saw that it made sense for me to have a Gaara and an Edward, but why Yuusuke? Gaara is self-explanatory; he was my favourite Naruto character when I was 12, and Edward, I want to say he was named for Edward Elric (the last time I signed in, though, was apparently in 2008. I’m sorry Edward, I know who you were really named for. I understand you leaving completely).

While the name Yuusuke plagued my thoughts, I washed and bathed the enigmatic dog. Did I make an original character? Who are you, Yuusuke? Then, I fed the poor, starving boy, threw him a ball, entered him in a disc throwing competition, and overall, just fussed over him a little bit. Upon looking around at the things you could do in the game, I questioned how I spent so long playing it. What kind of hyperfixation was I dealing with as a kid?

Playing it again, I was reminded of some of the frustrations I had. Using my 3DS, I struggled to blow bubbles at Yuusuke. I forgot just how much time I spent trying to make my accent clear to my microphone. It’s as though I forgot that Nintendogs was basically a game that let you go nuts with the original DS’s features. At the time, they were pretty revolutionary, if still annoying, but this? Technology has changed so much, it was hard for me to keep playing for longer.

Revisiting Nintendogs for the first time in all these years really made me think. While it had been a while, I considered just how popular it was. Me and several of my friends would play the game, but only one of them ever played with me through the wireless connection. Looking at the reception of the game, it’s rare to see one that has a perfect 40/40 on Famitsu Magazine, and I can see why. But, like with many games, it hasn’t managed to perfectly survive the test of time.

It’s also interesting to note that Nintendogs was also the second-best-selling Nintendo DS game of all time, surpassing all Pokémon games and even Mario Kart DS. Many of the players were girls, and honestly, it’s not really a surprise. After all, I remember my older brother showed little interest, but I do believe he got my copy of Labrador and Friends while I enjoyed my Chihuahua and Friends edition. My best friend of that age was a boy, and he used to play online with me, but primarily, it was a very feminine game, where you were tasked with looking after your pets. It was essentially a cosy (until your dog won’t sit and Archie and Ted won’t stop talking about it — then it wasn’t), game where you could just look after dogs.

However, once more games launched on the DS, it’s safe to say that Nintendogs couldn’t catch up. In 2011, the sequel, Nintendogs + Cats was released, and compared to the over 20 million units sold, it only sold just under four million. While Nintendogs still has a great legacy for showcasing the features of the DS at launch, with how much games have evolved since then, it’s now a relic of a bygone time.

But, maybe I’ll drop in every now and again. I don’t want Yuusuke to get too lonely.