My Universe-Pet Clinic Cats & Dogs Review (Switch)

Game: My Universe – PET CLINIC CATS & DOGS
Genre: Simulation
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam & PS4)
Developers | Publishers: it matters games | Microids
Age Rating: EU 3+ | US Everyone
Price: US $29.99 |EU $39,99 |  UK £35.99
Release Date: February 9th, 2021

Review code used, with many thanks to Microids

My Universe PET CLINIC CATS & DOGS joins My Baby, School Teacher, Fashion Boutique and Cooking Star Restaurant in the My Universe series. A while back Yvonne reviewed My Universe: Fashion Boutique, and now it’s my turn to become a vet and help out some poorly cats and dogs.

Customise your Character

The game opens with customising your character, you’ll have the choice of either male or female. You’ll also have a few choices of hair, skin colour, and clothes to choose from to make your character look presentable. The choices aren’t vast but at least they are there to customise your character.

You have been tasked with taking over a vet clinic from Grandpa Henry who has retired. You’ll get to name your new Vet Clinic and set to work healing the sick and injured cats and dogs.

Treat Poorly Cats and Dogs

At the start of the game you only have a waiting room and examination room available to use, but as you progress through the game more rooms become available.

Once you open the door to the clinic the first patient arrives with their owner. You can greet the animal and pet it so it’s not feeling too nervous coming into the clinic. Then you lead them into the examination room and get to work discovering what ails them.

Evaluation and Treatment

Evaluation and treatment of an animal happen through a set of mini-games. You evaluate what is wrong with the patient and then treat their illness. You’ll be listening to their heart and matching heartbeats to determine if they need some medicine. If they do need medicine you mix up some herbs and pills for the poor animal. Or you could be looking for fleas using a magnifying glass and then removing said fleas. Tending to wounds on a dogs leg, cleaning it, applying cream and a bandage.

Mini-Games

Most of the mini-games are timed, and you get scored on how long you take to treat an animal. If you have done well, the patient will leave you a gift as they are discharged from the clinic. Gifts can be anything from coins to items to decorate the clinic with. The coins are used to increase the clinics level. Once you have collected enough coins you move up a level and you can open a new room in the clinic. Opening a new room gives you another place to treat an animal and a few different mini-games to play.

Level Up the Clinic

The mini-games are enjoyable to play, however, after the twentieth time of using a stethoscope to check an animal, it gets a little repetitive. But since the game is geared towards a younger audience I’m sure they will delight in the repeated treatments. Thankfully as you update your clinic and gain more rooms the variety of mini-games change slightly and this helps with the repetitiveness.

As your clinic grows in size and new rooms are opened, you also gain an outside area, a play park for the animal. Along with a staff room, janitors room, and a pet bath where you can give a dog or cat a bath. I have to say when I gave a cat it’s first bath it went a lot more smoothly than I expected it to considering cats don’t particularly like water.

Different breeds of Cats and Dogs

There are ten cat and ten dog breeds to get acquainted with. Each featuring different fur variations. From a Labrador to Corgis to magnificent Huskies. Cat breed such as Siamese, Persians, and even Bengals all make an appearance. They are all well animated in their movements and their behaviour. You can pet every dog and cat and watch them roll over for tummy scratches, which is quite sweet. Petting the animal also raises their health bar a little and if you’re successful in treating them the health bar will fill up completely.

Decorate the Clinic

You can decorate the clinic with items such as trophies, flowers, vases or even shelves. It is limited to three or four items in one room. It is a simplistic decorating function however I can imagine any young child would be happy to be able to decorate their pet clinic.

My Universe – PET CLINIC CATS & DOGS is quite structured in the way it plays. There isn’t much free rein for the player to do as they wish with the clinic. The game holds your hand a lot and tells you what steps to take, this isn’t a bad thing as the game is definitely aimed at a younger audience.

Visuals and Controls

Graphically the game looks good, with its cartoonish looks with lots of bright colours.  As I’ve mentioned the animals are lifelike and have all the mannerisms that cats and dogs have.

The music is nice with a few different music themes playing as background music. It won’t win any awards for outstanding music score but it’s fine for what it is.

My Universe PET CLINIC CATS & DOGS is easy to control using the joy-cons, there are a few touch screen controls on the game. However, it isn’t fully touchscreen controls. It’s a combination of both control systems. I played the game using the joy-cons and it all worked well.

Conclusion

The My Universe series is designed specifically for kids excited to jump into their dreamed adult life. My Universe PET CLINIC CATS & DOGS holds true to the rest of the My Universe games and is a great addition to the series.

I can imagine younger gamers would love to be a proud owner of a Pet Clinic, happily treating poorly cats and dogs.

Final Verdict: I Like It