A simple glance at the cute-yet-frightening boxart of Plushees for the Nintendo DS and you might be tempted to group it with the multitude of low quality kids' games that have suffocated Nintendo handhelds for years. However, despite its appearance as a stuffed animal themed minigame collection, it manages to overturn poor expectations with simple and light goal-oriented gameplay. Plushees, despite its inadvertently unsettling exterior, is actually a solid choice for the right age group and may very well captivate budding gamers of the eight-and-below set.

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Plushees' premise is simple: through the power of imagination or dark magic, stuffed animals have come alive and are naturally in need of love and companionship that only you can provide. To do this you must purchase plushees carnival-style with tickets earned from the game's two main modes, Arcade and Plushee Play. It will take a lot of play, as the 25 plushees you can purchase in the Plushee Store cost anywhere between 200 and 1000 tickets and run the gamut from monkeys to dragons.

Once you earn the plushee of your dreams you can use it in the game's other major mode, Plushee Play. Plushee Play includes four games: Simon Says, Jump Rope, Hide-n-Seek, and Butterfly Catch. Simon Says is like the memorization game of its namesake, only in this iteration you select which plushee acted out the correct command that either you or the computer selected. In Jump Rope you can make your plushee hop in time in two ways, either by tapping it in time or by drawing prompted patterns on the touchscreen, the latter of which is more frantic and fun. Hide-n-Seek might be more accurately likened to a game of tag and features your plushee as it runs around trying to hug other plushees by choosing the correct icon of the other plushee on the touch screen. Butterfly Catch is somewhat broken, as it is very difficult to perceive the depth of the butterflies your plushee is chasing around the screen; luckily, the game is lenient and you don't have to be too close to catch them. You earn points instead of tickets in this mode, but earned points can be converted into tickets, so these games still have incentive to be played. While the games in Plushee Play are a bit deeper than the arcade games, the arcade games still have a simple, general appeal that these lack.

Plushees' presentation is adequately cute. The stuffed animal cast isn't overly sweet, but certainly sport a classic soft, rotund look. When the game uses 3D environments, such as the one used in Hide-n-Seek, it's very simplistic but adequate. Special mention must be made of the techno track in the music selections: this trance-like tune is catchy but seems hilariously out of place given the game's context. The game also features a multiplayer option should you find another player with a Plushees game card.

Of course, given that Plushees is about earning stuffed animals and playing games with them, it certainly won't be appropriate for an older child who has already been introduced to a franchise like Pokemon. While some of the games are generally fun and somewhat addictive, such as Alley Ball or Ka-Plinko, the subject matter of the other modes might only be appropriate for children age eight or younger. But, given the straightforward goal-based nature of the game, Plushees still manages to stand out in a kids' market overcrowded with licensed games of questionable quality - and at only $20, Plushees is even easier to recommend to parents confused by the overwhelming mediocre choices available to young gamers.