This is another one of those times where codes for eShop games went out and I picked the one that sounded the least offensive, or perhaps the most interesting from my perspective. It involves dinosaurs, after all. Thankfully, this one didn’t turn out to be a tower defense game, but instead a hybrid pet simulation and a mini-game collection with cartoony baby dinosaurs. It is not fun, and you should not play it.

You start your journey by crafting a pet dinosaur, choosing its type, changing the head, trying different body colors and patterns, and giving it a name. For some reason, I went with a bipedal horned dinosaur that looked something like a hatchling Styracosaurus. After you get your stupid-looking cartoon dinosaur home, it’s time to keep an eye on all its “need” bars. You’ll have to do everything for this dinosaur, because, like any sim game, he can’t do anything himself. You’ll tell him when to eat and drink, when to go to the bathroom, when to sleep, and when to bathe. You’ll have to bathe him. You’ll take him to the vet and perform an incredibly simplistic virus-shooting mini-game.

You’ll go shopping for clothing and accessories for your… dinosaur. You can humiliate your pet DINOSAUR by dressing it up like a clown or a pilot. You can buy different kinds of food and water, each of which has its own effects on the little guy’s “need” bars. You can also buy furniture for your already furnished home. The sim aspect of this game is dreadful and I hated dealing with it. The shopping seems like it was pulled from an entirely different game.

Thankfully, there is SOME gameplay here. Your pet dinosaur loves simplistic activities like puzzles, memory games (flip two matching cards), “spot the difference,” a variation on slide puzzles, and two truly terrible platformer-based exercises in futility. Those first three are mildly entertaining. Completing the games faster nets you more stars—your goal appears to be to earn as many stars as possible during the game. You can also teach your pet tricks by drawing on the touch screen and then competing in competitions, which involve a few tricks and a few mini-games. The game’s driving force are quests, which include busywork like “get through so many hard puzzles,” or “dress up your dinosaur as Santa Claus.” The trick is that some aspects of the quest are locked until you complete OTHER quests. Eventually you’ll be forced to play through the mini-games you absolutely hate, which is when I stopped playing.

Overall, this is a terrible game. The sim aspect is a chore, half the mini-games are awful (the other half are tolerable in their simplicity), and the rewards are so uneventful that you’ll lose motivation to continue the second you have to play a mini-game you dislike. And it’s not like your dinosaur ever grows or changes, so there’s no feeling of progression. It’s 100 percent chore boy B.S.