Recently I was contacted by UbiSoft via the Clever Girls Collective and asked if I, and more specifically Miss A, would like to review a new game for the Nintendo DS. Well, Miss A takes after her father, and the girl was sold at DS. The fact that the game turned out to be about taking care of cute little bunnies was just icing on Miss A’s proverbial cake. Have I mentioned the girl wants to be a veterinarian? Yes, I understand that most girls her age have similar career aspirations – but Miss A is taking it pretty seriously. Yesterday at the ReptileFest they had an “Ask A Vet” station set up and Miss A proceeded to grill them about her prospective career. Their best advice? When she gets older, to volunteer at a local animal hospital and see if she still wants to do it for a living.
Well, Miss A won’t be volunteering at an animal hospital anytime soon, but thanks to Petz BunnyzBunch, she does get to care of her own bevy of bunnies. When the game first arrived in the mail she was so excited to play it that she actually turned down the chance to go out with her dad for a dinner at Steak N’ Shake. Translation: she was really into the game.
Here’s Miss A trying to explain to me a bit about how the game works and what she likes about it:
And now, I’ll let Miss A take over from here with a bit more in-depth review of the game:
This game taught me that taking care of bunnies is more work than I first thought, I need to feed them and bathe them and play with them alot, and make sure they take lots of naps!
I earn money by playing mini games which lets me buy food, toys, furniture and more bunnies! My favorite mini game is the obstacle course where I lead my bunny around the room by shaking bells. My least favorite mini game is the box game where I have to get my bunny to throw toys into their matching boxes. If I could make up my own mini game for my bunny to play it would be a combination of the four mini games where the bunny has to find an egg and to get there he has to go through an obstacle course, and on his way through the course to find the egg he will have stop and play instruments according to a pattern and sort toys into boxes. I would really like it if there was a way to have all my bunnies play a game together, maybe hide and seek.
There are lots of different types of bunnies to choose from – 10 different breeds – and if they are in a pink box they are a girl, and if the are in a blue box, they are a boy. I like that I get to name each of my bunnies myself. Some of the names I have chosen are Bun-Bun, Chippy, Patch, Snow and Moon. Right now I have eleven bunnies. you are allowed to have up to 20 bunnies (a boy and a girl of each breed). don’t like that you can give your bunnies up for adoption – that is sad to me, I love them too much to give them away. If I could change something, I would make it so you can have as many bunnies as you wanted.
I really like it that they purr when you pet them, and I like that they show you how different types of bunnies have different favorite foods and toys. Even if two bunnies are the same kind of bunny, a boy bunny may have different favorites than the girl bunny – and I thought that was very interesting.
As you earn stars and hearts by playing the mini games and taking care of your bunnies you can move up in rank, right now I am a Keeper. which I think is pretty good. I would have liked some chart that shows me all the different ranks I can be and what it takes to move up a rank. It would also be nice to know what the different ranks mean – I really didn’t know what the difference between an apprentice and an attendant was. Explaining that somewhere in the game would be helpful. (NOTE FROM MISS A’s MOM: I totally agree! I would really liked to know what the different levels were, and how many points, etc it took to move up a level. This information, if available, did not appear easily accessible.)
I spend most of my time playing the mini games, so I would really like it if there were more than just four mini games. I like buying toys for my bunnies the best, and really don’t like buying the furniture because I really don’t like the way the furniture in the shop looks – I like what the game starts with and really didn’t want to change it.
My friend has real bunnies and I thought the bunnies in the game did a pretty good job making the bunnies look like real bunnies, and in fact are more fun than real bunnies because they are more playful!
If you’re looking for something to put in your child’s Easter basket that will last longer than the cheap toys in the holiday aisles at your local SuperMart, and is sugar-free, you could do worse than picking up a copy of BunnyzBunch.
Petz BunnyzBunch is available on Amazon.com, and is currently part of the 2 for $40 promotion at Toys R Us.
While Ubisoft provided me with this game to review, the opinions I’ve expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint. Ubisoft, Clever Girls Collective
and I promote Blog With Integrity.
Melonie Johnson 