I’m going to bake a cake. It’s not something I’d normally do, but Tamagotchi Corner Shop 2 and its cake making minigame have inspired me. After I bake it I’m going to ship it to the fine folks at Dimps, Corner Shop 2’s proud parents. And why not — they deserve it. They obviously worked really hard at making this game the best they could. I think the cake will be triangular and chocolate flavored, with mint frosting circles, and I’ll plop a big strawberry directly into the center.

If I’m required to make this cake using the game they developed, however, things won’t go as planned. What is supposed to be a triangular mint-strawberry cake will contain all the proper elements, but they’ll have to settle for a strawberry that’s way off center; and they’ll have to settle for mint blobs and scribbles, since it’s impossible to draw a damned triangle with the stylus in this game. I’m sure they’d also give me one star out of three because the cake didn’t meet their specifications, even though the interface makes it more a matter of luck than skill to create a perfect cake. It’s because of this that I’d slip in some arsenic a laxative, because after playing this game it’s clear to me that Dimps deserves it.

Dimps has done nothing of note in Tamagotchi Corner Shop 2. Usually I’d say that’s a shame, but there isn’t even framework for a decent idea in this game. The story starts with your digital pet opening up a mall. The stores found in the mall represent the minigames that comprise Corner Shop 2, but it stands to reason that these stores would close within a day if they were to open in real life. This premise is beyond idiotic, even by Saturday morning cartoon standards. Why a digital pet would open up a mall to offer services to his equally digital friends is beyond my understanding — what need does a computer program have for clean construction equipment? It’s demonstrated here that Dimps needs to work on original ideas; rubbing something on the touch-screen until it sparkles was introduced with Feel the Magic and got old in Nintendogs.

Aside from the lack of originality, the other issue is that the minigames simply aren’t fun and do everything possible to impede your ability to do a good job. Take the cake making minigame I mentioned earlier on: the MSPaint style tools don’t work responsively and there’s absolutely no way to correct errors — an in-depth recipe for frustration. Also making things worse is what’s happening on the top screen. The characters have conversations that are represented through text-bubbles. These text-bubbles usually cover up the diagram of what your cake is supposed to look like. This wouldn’t be an issue if the game didn’t require you to be so precise in matching the picture with such imprecise tools, but adding more negative aspects to a game already lacking playability was probably a bad design choice.

There isn’t an aspect of Tamagotchi Corner Shop 2 warranting a purchase, or even a play through for anyone of any demographic. It’s easily one of the worst games on the DS and represents almost every negative gameplay element people were afraid of when the DS was announced. If my calculations are correct, Dimps should be getting my cake now, so hopefully we won’t be seeing another entry in this terrible series.