To be honest, this Cats Academy has absolutely nothing new to offer in comparison to Nintendogs. The goals in both games are exactly the same: keep your animal healthy and happy to win prizes and money. Of course everything has had a visual remake, but fundamentally there is no difference to be found.

The first time you put the game into your DS you’ll get about $100 at your disposal with which you get to buy a kitten and the first lot of supplies, although, this depends on which type of 40 cats you decide to take home since there are some species which will cost you your entire fortune, like the Persian for example. Because of this, it seemed quite logical to me to pick one of the ‘budget models’ to start with instead of using up all my money at once.

Once you’ve chosen your pet, you can really get started. Eventually, you’ll notice there’s not much money left after buying the animal. So, the first thing you’ll need to do is earn some cold cash. There are several ways to do this, you can participate in shows where you’ll have to display your cat in front of a jury or you can play some mini-games. These money making possibilities don’t offer a lot of cash, so you’ll have to repeat them a couple of times before you’ll really be loaded.

There are four mini-games to have a go at: Alley-oop, Cupid, Copy Cat and Music. The first three really aren’t much better than the Pope’s bathroom-rituals. Music on the other hand managed to amuse me for about ten minutes! The game is based on making your cats sing some kiddy song. This can be done by touching the right orbs at the right moment with the Stylus.You could have a go at the rest, just to have an idea of what they’re like, but I can guarantee you this: once you have seen them you’ll want to pull the plug on the game and put it in the deepest hole you can find.

As I said earlier, you can also take your chosen fur ball to a show to gain some prize money, but to participate you’ll have to subscribe your cat at least one day in advance. To win a show there are two criteria you’ll have to fulfill. The first is the fact that your cat has to be as happy as it can be at the moment of the show. You can make it happy by fulfilling all its needs. These needs contain feeding, loving, playing with and cleaning your cat. At first you’d think there’s nothing wrong with that, but believe me, there is. Even while your DS is turned off, the cat’s needs will keep on getting worse. This would mean you’d have to come and check on your cat three times a day. If you manage to keep your cat happy until the start of the show, there’s another thing you have to take into account. To participate in the show, you’ll actually have to have your DS turned on. If you don’t show up on the game-day, you’ll forfeit the contest and obviously not have any money. On the other hand, if you do win, you’ll get some money to invest in your cat or perhaps a new kitten.