Pets Hotel Review (PC)

Picture this: you’re working the check-in desk at some soon-to-be prestigious hotel. It’s Friday night, and, according to the strung-out businessman who owns a corporate headquarters, his labradoodle could do with some well-deserved pampering and a place to rest for the next couple of days. But, there’s a problem: the guest list is full, and, rather inconveniently, there just isn’t enough time to sand down all of the nails in the complex, nor are there enough bubbles to cleanse the matted furs of the, shall we say, dirtier street cats. Oh, and let’s no forget the fact that there are also several turtles that could do with a good old-fashioned scrub down, too. Suffice it to say, the forthcoming weekend is shaping up to be the busiest you’ve seen since its grand opening. But, this is Pets Hotel, and it’s your job to elevate its reputation — no excuses.

It doesn’t take much to figure out how Pets Hotel works. Matter of fact, it’s about as paint-by-numbers as you could probably imagine… Fledgling hospitality expert acquires keys to a vacant patch of land; overpaid workers offer cash in exchange for your R&R services. It’s all very The Sims Pets in that regard, minus the fact that there are no individual aspirations to chase outside of the cliche task of becoming a local legend in the animal welfare community. And that’s it. Naturally, there is building to be done, maintenance to be carried out, and of course, pets to feed with a silver spoon. That’s Pets Hotel, in a nugget-sized envelope: Nintendogs with a subtle hint of Hotel: A Resort Simulator.

If you’d like to hear more about Games Incubator’s latest pet-centric endeavor, then be sure to read on as we gradually unpack it, piece by piece, scale by tail.

Feline Fresh

If you’ve even the slightest idea of how The Sims’ relatively complex (albeit universally recognized) stepping stone system works, then you’re in for a real treat with this one. As it turns out, Pets Hotel isn’t all that different in that department. Like Electronic Arts’ powerhouse series, the game effectively uses a lot of the same top-down building elements—a grid-like design that allows you the flexibility to build walls, quarters, and essentially create cozy environments for the sentient beings in your world. The only major difference between this and The Sims, of course, is its setting. Alas, there are no families to raise in this field of work, nor are there any brash reminders for you to pursue a career in biochemical medicine, for that matter. No — Pets Hotel doesn’t have any of that.

At its core, Pets Hotel is more or less akin to the same caliber as the likes of Supermarket Simulator, or just about any bog-standard simulation game that offers a generous mixture of DIY elements and an array of simple pampering mini-games. Think of it as a slightly more complicated model of a Tamagotchi, only with a much, much larger playground for you to utilize and upgrade, and not to mention an additional squadron of fluffy friends for you to take care of. That, really, is what Pets Hotel aims to capture: a wide-scale space in which critters can interact, recuperate, and ultimately thrive. And the best part is, it’s you who is responsible for their general welfare and overall health.

Ding, Ding

The goal of Pets Hotel is all rather straightforward: lay the groundwork for a roaring hub of an animal welfare network, and build enough of an income to gradually expand its reach into other, more lavish territories. From cats to dogs, fish to turtles, each unique species that you invite into your bustling hotel more or less comes with a different set of requirements that you must fulfill, most of them often involving a certain keystroke or simple prompt. Take dogs, for example; nine times out of ten, a dog will require a handful of rather basic things: the occasional walk, a bit of catch, and a well-needed grooming to keep them from feeling neglected. Likewise, a cat isn’t all that different than the average hound; a bit of tender love and care, and perhaps a bit of interactive attention is more than enough to keep their needs in check.

As you progress deeper into the campaign, you’ll eventually begin to unlock better options—custom decor for your hotel, interactive toys to introduce to the playful pets in your stead, and more space for your nocturnal friends to explore during the twilight period, for instance. To that end, Pets Hotel is very much a rags-to-riches sort of ordeal. In a typical day (that’s fifteen minutes of real time, mind you), you’ll find yourself checking in a few animals, seeing to their everyday needs, and earning a bit of cash to invest in various projects on a back office bulletin board. Aside from those tasks, there are also some financial duties to consider—ordering items, adjusting prices, and hiring AI workers to help ship the workload, for example. Nothing particularly new there.

Be Our Guest

If you were to take a leaf out of Nintendo’s famous library of animal-centric sandboxes (take your pick — there are plenty of ‘em), then you would no doubt find an infinite wealth of vibrant colors, booming personalities, and all sorts of magical bits and bobs, to boot. Sadly, that isn’t quite the case with Pets Hotel; if anything, it’s color palette and set design is more, I don’t know, muddy brown and yellow. And that’s a shame, really, given that the target audience is—and this is open for debate—children under the age of twelve or thirteen. What I mean to say here is that, while there are some nodes of a whimsical exposition, the vast majority of the game’s components are mostly without any magic of flair.

There’s another issue that needs to be raised here: the AI, or the workers that flesh out your rota and eat up your paychecks. To cut a long story short, it just isn’t worth the hassle; it’s actually a bit of a headache, to be fair. Like so many other simulation games that have failed to crack the code, Pets Hotel also struggles to find ground in its AI system. For example, if you hire a colleague to help with the usual admin tasks, like answering phone calls, or filling food bowls, you may come to find that, rather than simply doing what they’re supposed to, they will essentially roam around in circles and waste away your resources. Don’t get me wrong, they do have the capacity to make your life a little easier, but with an AI system that’s rife with one too many technical hurdles, it isn’t noticeable.

Verdict

I’ll be honest, I’m sort of on the fence about this one. On one hand, I’m partially inclined to believe that Pets Hotel is a great simulation game with a whole lot of heart and vigor. But on the other hand, I can’t help but ponder the possibility that it might’ve been a better game should it have spent a while longer in the oven, if only to splash a bit of extra elbow grease on its most notable downfalls.

To put it bluntly, Pets Hotel isn’t quite as well-oiled as its competitors are; in fact, it has its own share of hairballs that could certainly do with a fair bit of attention. From its somewhat janky AI to its wooden characters and irregular routines, the game itself does frequently struggle to provide an engaging gameplay experience that’s consistent with its own mechanics. And, rather disappointingly, a lot of these errors are further lauded by some rather unfortunate technical issues and a significant lack of polish, too. But then, perhaps that’s just me choosing to nitpick here; miraculously, the game does also have its own collection of positives to celebrate, too—a generous selection of decorative items, upgrades, and toys, for example.

To say that Pets Hotel is a bad game just wouldn’t be entirely accurate. It isn’t a bad game; it’s a simulation game that just so happens to bear the same iron cross as a lot of its competitors—a cross that has since become somewhat famous for being lauded by mediocre graphics and paper-thin personalities. Even still, I can safely say that, as far as solid pet simulators go, Pets Hotel clearly has more than enough room to accommodate even the most ambivalent of guests. That has to count for something, right?