One of the worst things about traveling is how little I get to see my cats. When I'm home I often take breaks from writing to go squeeze one of the loveable fur balls, but I just can't do that in San Francisco, LA, or wherever the heck I'm visiting. But the next best thing is a virtual pet, not exactly furry and cuddly, yet it's all that I've got, so I've achieved limited amounts of comfort playing Nintendogs and now Bandai and Nana On Sha's Tamagotchi Connection Corner Shop, a sweet little game that allows me to interact with a cute little creature and busy myself with all sorts of entertaining mini games. It's not particularly deep and there's plenty of lost potential, but whenever I need a pick-me-up it always makes me smile.

The old Tamagotchi toys were quite morbid because neglect almost always led to death, but shoveling poop and supplying sustenance to your little friend isn't really the focus of Connection Corner Shop. Rather, it's all about assisting your little buddy with all sorts of tasks around town. The goal is to operate eleven different types of businesses and satisfy customer demands to the best of your ability. Doing this (or failing miserably) always results in your customer giving you money called Gotchi, which is the game's official currency. You can in turn use that to purchase food and clothing for your Tamagotchi as well as various pieces of decorum for its room.

When you begin you have the option of selecting one of the following three Tamagotchi: Memetchi, Mametchi, or Kuchipatchi. You're then whisked away to your little pal's room which at the onset is quite barren but you'll hopefully decorate it later. Displayed on the bottom screen is your Tamagotchi and there are three options displayed over its head: Care, Shops, and Demo. Care allows you to pamper and feed your Tamagotchi as well as dress it up, change the music (the soundtrack is fantastic, by the way), and access various secrets by inputting cheat codes, downloading local items, and wirelessly sharing presents with your friends. You can even send a demo of the game to someone else' DS, and each time you do this you'll receive one Gotchi.

There are eleven different types of shops and they're spread across Patchi Forest, Mame City, and GuruGuru Town. The goal is to continuously perform the same task until this shady looking dude shows up, and if you successfully iron his shirt, bake his cake, or do whatever else he asks for he'll suggest that you should expand and build a much larger shop, and what's really cool is he actually gives you the money (5000 Gotchi) in order to do this, but that's just another reason why I love this game; the positive reinforcement. No matter how bad a job you do your customers always treat you with respect and kindness. Everyone's just so happy that their karma puts me in a good mood. In fact, the game actually creates this psychological effect where, if I fail to perform a specific task I'll actually feel really awful about taking a critter's money, so the game does an excellent job making me feel responsible for and proud of my work in a way that mirrors helping an old lady cross the street. There's just something incredibly warm and welcoming about it.

As for the shops, here's a detailed list, broken down by area.

Patchi Forest

Takoyaki Shop: Customers come here for baked goods and you have some interesting options. You can spread oil onto the pan, pour the dough, add ingredients such as green onions, ginger, and croutons, and top it off with fish flakes and seaweed, among other things.

Spa: Those Tamagotchi sure are demanding little guys. While at the spa, you need to pay attention to various icons that appear over their heads and then perform a matching task, so if it's a green cup you need to click Drink and locate a similar matching beverage, then drag it over to them. But you'll also need to chop firewood to keep the fire going (that warms the bath), add water, add bathtub powder, and select the perfect shampoo.

Accessory Shop: Customers ask you to create necklaces or brooches and you can decorate them with different types of stones, nuts (cherries, strawberries, and grapes as well), and thread.

Florist Jeweler: This one's very similar to Accessory Shop except you have crystals and flowers instead of stones and nuts.

Mame City

Dentist: Even a Tamagotchi can get a cavity and it's up to you to cure what ails them. You can brush their teeth, drill the cavities, inject their gums, and provide them with implants. But what are especially weird are the ugly little creatures that must be gently pulled from their mouths and tossed into trash bins. They're just a tad bit freaky.

Cleaners: Smelly Tamagotchi create stinky clothes and you'll need to wash them. Add detergent, strain remover, sew holes, iron them, and do other neat things. It's cool because you get to spin the washer with the stylus and smooth out all of the wrinkles with the iron. Plus, the sound that the washer makes is beyond cute.

Music Club: Put on a concert by tapping a set of instruments on the touch screen. The game displays what instruments and patterns you must follow beforehand and then you just repeat it, though it's not as easy as it sounds.

Dental Salon: This shop is all about maxillofacial surgery. Tamagotchi come in and request special designs on their teeth and you need to satisfy the goals by applying glaze, brushing their teeth, adding accessories like diamonds, four leaf clovers, ribbons, hearts, and musical notes, and giving their choppers sweet silver designs.

GuruGuru Town

Beauty Salon: This one's really cool. Basically, Tamagotchi come in to get new looks and you can actually move around pieces of their face. But you can also add make-up, eyebrows, eye lashes, and various accessories like glasses, hats, and jewelry. It really screams Mr. Potato Head and I love it.

Bakery: Flex your artistic flair by designing various cakes. Customers enter and request a very specific type of cake and you're charged with copying the "perfect image" as best as you can. Options include flavor (Melon, Vanilla, Mint, Chocolate, Banana, Strawberry), topping (leaf, candle, mushroom, strawberry, star, flower), cream (same as flavor), icing (green, white, blue, red, yellow, pink), and finally knife, which...umm...cuts stuff.

Flower Shop: In this game, you need to create bouquets. Options include color and type, scissors, wrapping, ribbon, and decoration. It's actually quite enjoyable, in part because unlike some of the other tasks, this one allows you to be a little more creative in the sense that the only goal that you need to satisfy is the requested color and size of the bouquet.

All of these mini games are enjoyable but it doesn't take long to upgrade each of the shops, and while the challenges become more complicated they're not varied enough, meaning that you're going to be repeating the same tasks again and again, which is one of Connection Corner Shop's biggest problems. It just gets old too fast, and after pimping out my room and adding two stories to each shop I was left wanting more, but Tamagotchi doesn't provide much else to do. I have the option of hunting for secret codes and wirelessly sharing items with friends, but that's not exactly something that holds my interest for more than ten minutes. And what makes the game even more monotonous is the low level of interactivity that I have with my virtual pet, which is pretty much limited to tickling. I suppose I'm just spoiled by Nintendogs, Myamoto's game that lets me speak to my dog and play games with it. Having played that for the past few months, something like Tamagotchi is somewhat disappointing because I was expecting the evolution of Nintendo's puppy game.

Although its options lack depth I'm still drawn to Connection Corner Shop for several reasons. First, and foremost, it makes me feel good each time that I boot it up, so it's hard to deny guaranteed happiness. Furthermore, eleven mini games means that I'm going to focus more on specific ones at a single time which makes the others worth coming back to. Also, I'm absolutely enamored with this game's presentation. Its graphics are simplistic, composed of bright, cheery colors, and this is all combined to give Tamagotchi a unique visual appearance. But its audio far surpasses the eye candy. Nana On Sha's done a marvelous job with this game's soundtrack, which is high-spirited and charmingly catchy.

Despite its candy coated exterior, Tamagotchi Connection Corner Shop is appropriate for all ages. But it's definitely not the second coming of virtual pets, nor is it as captivating as the original Tamagotchi toys which were released several years ago. It's merely a good DS title that's worth buying because it's incredibly stylish and fun in small doses. As for it being a good travel companion, it's not going to replace my copy of Nintendogs.