Now don’t go into this thinking that you’re going to get something on the level of Untold Legends, because at its heart Neopets is definitely geared towards a younger audience. The difficulty level typically reflects that, and simplicity in some of the artwork and designs isn’t going to push the PSP to new heights. There’s a minimal amount of depth and customization you can find, like various weapons and gear, and an easy to handle leveling system. You can also assign different items to “hotkeys” making them instantly accessible in battle, which is a staple of the genre presented here.

While Petpet doesn’t excel in anyone one area, it does contain bright and colorful graphics (yet some bland character models), slightly catchy yet at times annoying music, and simple but addictive combat. You can easily spend a lot more time playing than you might suspect, and it’s easy to be drawn into the game based on the sufficiently written story and dialogue. Also, a limited online mode is provided that allows you to fight against other users, with the added bonus being that you can carry over skill points won in this manner over to your regular single player game.

There are a few areas that could have used a bit more work, like the above mentioned character models. While the environments are pretty lush, the characters themselves all come off a bit drab in appearance. It’d be nice to see a bit more attention to detail put to work here. Also, the menu screens are a mess. They’re organized to the point of over doing it, especially when you think about who the target audience for this game is. It’d be much easier to drop a few categories off the list and simplify things like inventory for the younger users. Also, for a series based in the “virtual pet” genre, there’s not much of that to be seen here. Fans of the franchise might be disappointed to find that out, and it’s an odd thing to see left out of when its something that would seem to be integral to the brand. It’s not that it couldn’t be worked in at some point, but it would appear the developers didn’t want to clutter things up. The game could really do with the diversion though, as there’s not much in the way of side quests or mini games to be found.

All in all, Neopets is a pretty good title for the younger audience of PSP owners out there. It provides an adult style of gameplay with but set in a non-adult world that most parents could find little to complain about. However, for the older gamers out there, Neopets won’t serve as more than a passing distraction at best. There’s plenty more out there that’s been recently released that would serve your money better than this title, unless you’ve got some young ones in the house that could use a bit of appeasing.