First Impressions:

Dogz starts out by giving you a choice to  play as female or male, and a name. Two questions determine what type of puppy you like; energetic, big or small. Then you enter the pet-shop, where you choose which puppy you want. There are three shops to look through collections of puppies.

This is a super cute little game. It will tide you over until you can pick up a DS and get Nintendogs, or wait for the GBA version which I understand is in the works.

Graphics:

The graphics are cartoonish and resemble Poke´mon style of drawing. It is pretty enough but there is little variety, and it does get dull after a while.

Sound/Music:

The sound track and effects on this game are nothing special. Most of the sound effects you have heard before if you have played other Game Boy titles.

Gameplay:

It is a pet sim. Where you mainly do repetitive gameplay that involves teaching your puppy to sit, stay, go to bed and use the litter box. As time goes on you get to take the dog for walks. The gameplay is solid but static. You are tied into this timed daily routine of breakfast, going to school, a little time to do one or two moves with the puppy then it is dinner and bed time. This goes on throughout the weekdays. The weekends have more latitude for free time. But there is the usual intrusion of a visit to the vet every saturday.

Some of the elements of the game don't consist of good dog training habits either. The only way to encourage the puppy to use the litter box is to scold it when it poos someplace bad. There is no way to show it where it should go. Positive reinforcement and praise works better with dog training, and it would have been wiser to teach that ethic to kids in a game like this.
The game’s cycle is that you need to feed and groom the puppy. Then tidy up by picking up items and vacuuming. There’s just not enough to do. You can't sit on the bed, or the sofa with the puppy. The TV and CD player only work marginally. Dialog screens pop up unwanted when you are trying to rush to get something done before you run out of time, you are told to pick up garbage off the floor repeatedly. Once you train the dog for three weeks more options come in and thankfully and the daily timer is turned off. The problem with that is three weeks of game time takes several hours or even days of real time to accomplish. some people might not be willing to spend that much time on the tedium necessary to get to the next phase of the game.

Overall Impression:

This is a fine little game. It isn't earth shaking, but it might keep a person occupied for a good while before she gets bored with it. It is designed fairly well enough, but the the gameplay lacks ingenuity. The three Mini-games are pretty lame. Run Puppy Run!, Puppy Reversi and Puppy Quiz don't help much and that is a lost opportunity.

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

n/a