While I cannot say for sure what EA’s design goals for SimAnimals Africa were, I know what I have experienced in terms of differences from the original: on the good side the game is much better looking, and the controls and camera are much smoother. However, they have failed to take away the tedium, and while the DS version was much better in the original, they have toned down the DS experience so that now neither version is very good.
The core game play remains the same – you are playing a ‘god game’ where you control a small chunk of Africa that contains a variety of environments suitable for containing a wide range of native African animals. Your larger goal is to keep all of the regions under your control happy; and to do that you need to keep the animals in each region happy; and to do that you need to dive into each area and work on the balance between different animals and make sure the right plants are there in adequate quantities and so on. Sounds like loads to do, right? Sadly it fails to live up to the promise.