It seems fair to say that games based around caring for animals are aimed at a younger audience, specifically those looking to pursue a career as a vet. With this in mind, and using the likes of Nintendogs as a comparison, you’d expect a game titled ‘Pets Hotel’ to be filled with bright colours, fun animations, and a simplified interface. Lots of sparkle, flair, and cute touches. Instead, we get an experience with a central colour scheme consisting of various shades of brown, and an interface that while easy to use lacks any personality whatsoever.
Coming from the studio behind such games as Ship Graveyard Simulator, Car Detailing Simulator and Monuments Flipper, we should have perhaps expected something straitlaced all along. They were clearly trying to tap into the luxury nature of pet hotels – fine establishments where pets are pampered – but it simply comes off as drab and uninteresting. Grey walls, cream cushions, and wooden tile floors don’t do much to arouse the imagination.
The concept alone is sound enough. People call reception to book their animals in for a stay – cats, dogs, turtles, rabbits, and tropical fish – and then they must be looked after attentively before handing them back and receiving a modest sum for your care. Every animal needs to be fed, given water, cleaned, played with – which involves a brief mini-game – and petted a couple of times a day. You’ll also need to take dogs outside for exercise, answer the phone, adjust prices, and buy supplies such as food. A day lasts around 15 minutes, or you can end it instantly – ideally when every chore is completed and the animals are content.
Later, it’s possible to hire receptionists and animal carers, meaning you don’t need to drop everything and dash to the phone every time it rings. Assistant AI isn’t the brightest (they were once observed spinning in circles and standing idly) but they’re able to get most jobs done, such as picking up poop, refilling water bowls, and returning animals.
Challenge Mode presents four pre-built hotels, and gives thirty days to achieve a high reputation and return a set number of animals in “good condition.” This is the main mode, taking a few hours to play through and with a bank account to balance. Then there’s the Free Mode, in which you can start from scratch and construct a hotel using pre-built rooms, or start with a sample hotel that can be customised. The customisation aspect is a pleasant surprise, allowing you to expand your hotel, add new facilities, and recolour various objects. It is perhaps too clunky and complex for younger gamers though. At one point I wanted to sell a surplus aquarium but try as I might, I couldn’t find the option.
Indeed, Pets Hotel isn’t ideally suited for children. The first port of call when receiving a guest is to register them on the reception’s computer. This should be a breeze – a couple of button presses at the very most. In reality it’s needlessly complex. Names must be manually entered correctly using the Xbox’s on-screen keyboard and the number of days added for their stay. How do you know how long an animal is going to stay for? Well, that’s something mentioned during the preliminary conversation, and never again. If you forget, you’re left to guess and must painstakingly input the pet’s name again each time. I can imagine somebody downloading Pets Hotel for their child, only for them to become frustrated to find it isn’t immediately accessible. Using the in-game tablet is far easier, at least, and any item purchased is added to your inventory instantly.
The day-to-day operations aren’t too laborious either. If you have a full hotel, the daily chores can be engaging, heading from one room to the next and attending to needs. Petting involves rubbing a creepy, oddly positioned, hand over each animal until a gauge changes, cleaning bowls sees an awkward ten-second animation play out, and each mini-game lasts under a minute involving gauge juggling or pressing buttons in good time. When performing most actions a five second pause occurs while the animal gets in the correct position to be petted or lifted, which gives the experience a very mechanical feel.
More positively, the dog bathing aspect has some graphical flair with textures changing from wet look to clean. The animals themselves look reasonably realistic too, blurry textures aside, and have a handful of animations each. Take the dogs outside and they’ll roll over and bark; cats will curl into a ball before resting. Occasionally you’ll also hear meowing because a food bowl is empty, which is about as amusing as the experience gets.
Before penning this review, I had sunk almost five hours into Pets Hotel, and after the awkward introduction phase, I found it moderately compelling for a couple of those hours. Although clunky the majority of mechanics work the way they should, and the controls have been mapped to the controller competently. For context, past simulators from the same publisher have received rough console conversions, rife with glitches and botched controls. Nevertheless, Pets Hotel still comes off as soulless and, more damningly, a bit pointless. Even in Challenge Mode, with its thirty day limit, I felt like I was going through the motions, never working towards an ultimate goal. As for being soulless, this fails to come across as something the developers wholeheartedly wanted to create.
The construction aspect may appeal to budding architects, but when examined as a whole, it feels misguided. I don’t think I’m wrong for expecting something called ‘Pets Hotel’ to be a little goofy. Not even the paintings of famous cat memes hung on the walls can compensate for a glaring lack of personality.
Ultimate Games’ Pet Hotel is out now on Xbox Series. A PC version is also available. Coming soon to PS5.