Aquarium by DS: I kept seeing and hearing people say this is what the DS has been missing!! REALLY?? are you SURE? Cause yeah its neat and all.. but after you set up your aquarium its almost like having one of those VHS tapes you could buy at Urban Outfitters a few years ago with an aquarium for your tv.. or like that TV channel they had when I lived in the dorms at the University of North Texas up in Denton.. a television channel that was a just a loop of a video camera set up in front of someones aquarium going continuously all day and night.
You have 5 aquariums of different sizes, small to large, and you can change the sand and plants and rocks inside of them. Some are salt water, some just plain old water. By changing things such as sand you change the acidity, which means you need different fish. You can also change the temperature and light strength.
Now comes the fun part! Adding fish! You get bunch of different types of fish to choose from and can put up to 10 fish in each aquarium. Now pay attention to if the fish are tropical, like acidic water, saltwater, cold water, etc. because you need to put similar fish together in the aquariums. I didnt pay attention to that the first time. My fish all had complaints about being too cold or hating the acidic water or stuff like that.
And then one thing they didnt tell you: what fish eat other fish. I didnt really think about that even though Ive seen fish eat each other in real life many times due to poor judgment after catching minnows and starfish and other things at the beach. So half of my fish ended up being eaten by a big red lion fish I had. Oops.
The fish can have babies, so dont fill you tanks all the way up with 10 fish, leave room for babies! Although I was disappointment with that part. In real life baby fish are cute and tiny, but these were exactly the same size as the older fish.
At that point I was bored and I cleaned my aquarium and fed the fish and tried to make them happy by changing the temperature and acidic sand. I didnt really care if my fish at each other. It was kind of cool to watch them eat each other actually. It became my temporary goal.
Conclusion: Fun for 10 minutes, half an hour max. I looked at it a couple days later and a couple days after that and most of my fish were dying of old age (after 3 days? really?) or eating each other. I give it a 3.
Fantasy Aquarium by DS: Very much the same as Aquarium by DS, just with different animals and sea life. Everything works the same way as far as changing temps and acidity, etc. You just have larger (much much much larger) fish tanks and different creatures.
I made a few different aquariums. One had killer whales, penguins, sting rays, turtles and dolphins. The killer whales immediately ate all of the penguins and turtles. Oops again!
I didnt spend as much time with this aquarium. I played around to see what they would eat. Both games have lots of food choices and you can kind of mess around to see what different fish like. The red lion fish liked the meatballs, but still ate other fish instead.
Conclusion: I still wasnt impressed with this version of the aquarium game. Im not sure who these are supposed to be marketed towards. Maybe people who are desparate for something to occupy their time? Or people who absolutely love love love fish? Not sure. Maybe kids would find it fun, but dont completely count on it. Still give it a 3.