OM21: Tamatown Tama-Go Review

I've finally managed to grab the new Tamatown Tama-Go toy! The Wave 2 collection has begun to appear at Target, oddly only $10, compared to the Wave 1 set that was $20. To go along with this, I also bought a Sebiretchi Gotchi Figure.

Please note: I'm reviewing the toy on its own, without the inclusion of the PC compatibility.

Shell

This Tamagotchi manages to be bigger than the others of the previous line and yet somehow feel lighter. It's made to an identical shape of the Tamagotchi iD from Japan, with the exception of the top portion having a section to insert the figures. There's an FCC warning label on the side of the shell, which is unusual; there's never been a warning that large on a Tamagotchi toy before. Usually there's just a warning symbol of a garbage can with an X over it.

One thing I do enjoy is that the top, clear plastic portion of the screen can be removed, and the decal on the inside can be removed or replaced at will. You can even flip it over to the white side and decorate it if you'd like. Decals are sold alongside the Gotchi figures, and each one is different. Collect them all, I guess? Another thing I absolutely love is the new buttons. Like the Tamagotchi Plus Color, the buttons are now made of hard plastic, which is a huge step up from the older, rubber buttons included in the older toys.

The biggest disappointment so far is that the toy runs on two AAA batteries, but they're not included. The Japanese Color, iD, and iD L all come with those same batteries, so why not the English variation? Disappointing, Bandai.

Growth Cycle

This is one of my biggest complaints about the toy: the growth cycle is far too short. It takes one hour for the baby to become a toddler, and a day for it become a teen. But then, it takes only one day for the teen to become an adult. Negating the 24 hours spent sleeping, that means only 24 hours are used to determine what adult character you get. Even the Music Star gave the teen stage an extended period, so why is the growth so quick this time around?

The growth chart:

Chart property of Tama-Zone.

It's nice to see some old favorites returning alongside new ones - plus an American toy FINALLY gets to see Necktietchi - but I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't like the inclusion of ChaMametchi and Kikitchi as adult characters. It's really creepy, especially since the Tama-Go can connect to the Music Star and V5 series, which include those characters as teens. It's even worse this time around with including Ringotchi and Nonopotchi as adults. Please, Bandai; just because a character is popular doesn't mean you should push their age up so kids can see them more often. They should stick to being teens.

Games, Food, Items, House Redecorating

I'm putting these three under one category since Bandai has as well. You'll see what I mean in a moment.

The Tama-Go includes a new type of screen that allows different shades of the pixels, which means there can now be backgrounds for your Tamagotchi. The background is different every time you reset the toy, and you can remodel your home by clicking the "Play" icon and selecting "Remodel". It's a nice feature, but it's limited, as you'll soon see...

Meanwhile, the shop feature is very disappointing. As in previous toys, you can only view up to four different items at a time, but this time around, you can only buy food. Food and home renovations. That's all you're allowed to buy. But the Tama-Go does have items...

Meanwhile, there are two games that your Tama-Go can access from the Game Center. One is "Shoot the Bug" and the other is "Long Jumper". One involves riding a little space ship and shooting little bugs that crawl toward you, and the other entails your Tamagotchi running down a line and trying to jump across gaps. Both games are bland and boring.

So how are all three of these problems resolved? The Gotchi figures.

Top: Variations that come with the toy. Bottom: the ones sold separately.

Once you connect a Gotchi figure to your toy and access it from the menu, special features are given to you. For the ones provided with the toy, it's just one extra game. For the one sold separately in stores, they provide one or more games and different foods (and, for some, items). It's a cute and innocent feature at best and a money-making scheme at worst. No Tamagotchi before this one needed to have in-game items available as a separate purchase. Why this one? I purchased the Sebiretchi figure and it only game with two new games. The Mexican food items it included couldn't be added to the Tamagotchi's inventory; they could only be bought and eaten right that second.

Also, the Tama-Go keeps track of how many figures you connect to it. I'm not sure what happens after you connect them all. Is there some sort of reward? If you tried, let me know in the comments!

"Friendship" and Death

This Tamagotchi takes a radical new look on the concept of how to kill your virtual pet. Your Tamagotchi pretty much no longer has to worry about food. If his or her hearts are empty for too long, they will literally feed them themselves. In all previous versions, not feeding your Tamagotchi or making it happy would give you a "care mistake", a hidden counter inside your Tamagotchi that determines how soon your Tamagotchi will die, and accumulating too many will make your pet pass away.

On this toy, however, your primary concern is your Tamagotchi's level of "Friendship". If THAT gets to zero hearts for too long, your Tamagotchi will get fed up, pack its bags, and leave. It doesn't die anymore. It just leaves. So essentially, the only way to end your Tamagotchi's life cycle is to be a huge jerk.

I don't mind this feature; I think it's pretty creative. But why completely rule out death? That was the Tamagotchi's main grab back in the 90s: if you were a poor caretaker, it would die. People literally cried over digital, plastic eggs, and online graveyards were erected so people can memorialize their lost Mametchis and Kuchipatchis.

You think losing a Tamagotchi is bad today? Try hearing their last heartbeats.

It's really upsetting that with every generation, Bandai keeps trying to sugarcoat the concept of death for Tamagotchi, when the entire point of the toy is to prolong the pet's life until the inevitable. Bandai, if you're listening, please reconsider how you approach this subject in future toys.

Final Views

This toy is just...okay.

Don't get me wrong. I've loved Tamagotchi ever since they first made landfall in the United States far back in 1997. I've enjoyed Tamagotchi toys old and new. But this one doesn't feel like a proper Tamagotchi to me. Caring for this toy is far too simplistic, and the features that should naturally be included are instead exported into $4 mini-figures.

Despite that, they're very basic and fun, and the new house remodeling feature is a very nice touch. We might never get a color-screen toy, but this comes pretty close. The character choice is surprising and pleasing, and the animations are adorable to boot.

If you can afford the toy and the additional figures, go ahead and pick them up. But if you want a toy on its own, I'm not sure this is the right Tamagotchi for you.

~ OsuMesu21

OM21: Lots of Tamatown Tama-Go Info!

So it's been an exciting few weeks over at Tama-Zone. Ra, a moderator, and Binary, an admin, were both sent the new Tamagotchi directly from Bandai, and have both been keeping logs of them. There's a whole lot of fun new features on the Tamatown Tama-Go, and it's certainly shaping up to be interesting for both old and new fans...

Toilet Training

A feature fans have begged for finally arrives! Through the Tamagotchi's life, they will need to be punished or praised, which brings up their "Training" meter. Though now, if you catch your Tamagotchi about to use the bathroom, selecting the "Toilet" icon right before will increase training too. Once your Tamagotchi makes it to adulthood, they'll be able to go to the bathroom all by themselves!

Overfeeding

A rather humorous nod to the Mesutchi and Osutchi, as well as the Family pets (V5, Celebrity, Royal). Ra describes it as such:

Another interesting thing is, I decided to try and see what would happen if I maxed out her weight. Her weight was already pretty high, so I kept feeding her snacks to bring it up. A really funny thing happened as soon as it reached 99! She started shaking, and suddenly bloated up! Then she just sat in the middle of the room with her enormous belly, drooling out the corner of her mouth, and refused to do anything!

I was starting to get a little nervous, as I didn't know how I was supposed to get her weight down. She wouldn't let me click the door icon, nor the discipline. In desperation, I started to try and click all the icons, and finally the medicine icon worked. She began shaking again, and pooped her weight down!

So for those of you planning on stuffing your Tama with snacks to keep it happy... be careful! :P

Shop

Just like in the Music Star, Nazotchi runs the shop. The TMGO does not feature any items at all. However, it does offer a variety of foods and home renovations.

Home remodeling not only changes the living room, but the rest of the house as well! It's an actual improvement over the Tamagotchi Plus Color, where each room would be a separate cost.

Marriage

If your Tamagotchi marries a character from the Dating Place, the partner will move in. After 24 hours, a new baby will be born, and the parents will leave the following night, leaving you to care for the child.

Age Counter Glitch

One slightly unnerving issue has come up with the TMGO: the age counter. Changing the time on the clock screen will reset the internal age counter back to where it was from the beginning of the day, and connecting the toy to TamaTown.com for an extended period of time freezes the counter. In both cases, the age number remains the same while the Tamagotchi itself continues to age.

While this doesn't affect the Tamagotchi's growth, it prevents the "Dating Place" from appearing when the Tamagotchi reaches adulthood. Typically, a Tamagotchi adult is ready to marry after 72 hours, or 3 years on the age counter. But with the age counter frozen, the Tamagotchi will have to wait longer to marry, and risk evolving into Ojitchi or Otokitchi.

Videos!

Want to see the Tamatown Tama-Go in action? Check out the awesome videos below!

Links!

Ra's Tamagotchi Logs - lots of detailed information on the Tama-Go, and first-person accounts on it. With much credit to him for most of the images you see above! :)

Binary's Tama-Go Logs - details and pictures, and even includes a pic of the TMGO taken apart!

Bandai's Official Tamagotchi Page - recently updated for the TMGO, with more coming soon, including a wiki!

OM21: Tamagotchi Flashback: Mesutchi and Osutchi

Hello, everyone! With the launch of the Tamagotchi Movie in the US and the Tamagotchi iD in Japan, I thought it'd be nice to go over some of the Tamagotchi history that made the toys what they are today.

To start, I'd like to talk a bout about the Osutchi and Mesutchi toys, which were released only in Japan. These were fairly popular and, while sold separately, they were made with matching pairs in mind. They laid the basic groundwork of what would become the Tamagotchi Plus (aka Tamagotchi Connection / Tamagotchi Connexion) nearly 7 years later. Like the modern toys, they had 10 icons and could mate and produce offspring, leading into more generations.

The Osutchi was the "Male" egg and the Mesutchi was the "Female". The baby and child characters were the same for both genders, but teen and adult characters had many differences to make them stand apart, yet resemble a "couple". There were four groups of characters (TMP1, 2, 3, and 4), and each group had their own unique characters and foods. There were also three "neglect" characters: Debutchi, a character so fat that he filled the whole screen; Sutebotchi, the male neglect character who can never fall in love; and Tsuketchi, the female version of Sutebotchi.



The game (shown in the video above) was a very basic version of the "Flag" game, which would later appear on the V3 and V4. The toys did not have any money involved, but did require discipline and keeping weight low. These toys were definitely not as forgiving as modern Tamagotchi toys.

Also, a prime difference between these and the modern Tamagotchi was how they connect. The Osu/Mesu could only connect when it was time to marry, and used a metal port instead of the modern Infrared port. Also, the marriage and birth process was far more detailed and exciting than the modern process. I'll get a video up as soon as I can.

If you'd like to see the Osutchi and Mesutchi characters, look down below! This was the very first growth chart I've ever made. Alternatively, you can check out Binary's chart on Tama-Zone which includes character artwork and updated names.

Tamagotchi + Color - New Colors!

You've probably already heard about this. The above is a picture showing the new TMGC+C designs that have been released this month. Note that this is not a new Tamagotchi + Color version. It's the same as the one I've been blogging about; the only difference is the new colors....I love the yellow one :)

Familitchi - well nothing to do but wait

Well, as I've written in yesterday's post, the local toy store will be receiving it's consignment of Familitchi next week... :( this wait is taking longer than I thaught. Anyway, Another of my famous 3D images ;) This time it's Hinotamatchi (btw, hinota means fireball in Japanese). Be back soon, and to all those who already have a Familitchi: you guys are soooo lucky!! I can't understand why we still don't have the Tamagotchi V5 in Malta, usually they get here way before the US start selling them. Please leave comments, tell me about your Familitchi, is it good? is it fun?
Oh and here are the US V5 designs...to those wondering: yes I took them from TamaTalk hence the watermark, they're not really theirs to keep since these are designs issued by Bandai America and I'm sure that I'm making them a favor by advertising the really cool design they have to offer ;). I have just emailed Bandai and they should send me a picture of the US designs cos I'm feeling guilty that I took them from Tamatalk. Aanyway, Enjoy!

CYA!

Tamagotchi Familitchi

Another video I found on YouTube. I don't know who posted this, but a big thanks go to him/her for this vid. This is a rather long clip with loads of stuff happening. As you can see the user is using stuff bought from the TV shopping channel. For all those still unfamiliar with the Familitchi, the shop is no longer available, instead you buy things from the shopping channel...I don't know much about this since I haven't got my tamagotchi V5 yet...but I'll be getting 2 of them any time now :D :D. I'll keep you guys posted. See you :)

Tamagotchi V5 - no Mimitchi

Another 3D image, this time it's Mimitchi! This character has been a long time favorite, and I know many people who really like this character too. Mimitchi First appeared on the P2 tamagotchi and has appeared on newer versions as well (Tamagotchi version 1 - 4). we won't be seeing Mimitchi anymore since she's been dropped from the Familitchi characters :(
I don't know if I've included this link before...here's a link to tamenagerie with all the V5 characters. Please note that there is a secret Famitama family which is not included in this list. It includes characters with a space theme. I'll try to find pictures of them, if I do i'll post them. CYA! :)

Tamagotchi V5

As promised here is another 3D image I created: Gozarutchi!! You'll find this character on the Familitchi / Tamagotchi V5 as well...actually there's a whole family of Gozarutchis now :D I currently have this character on my V4s right now cos I did not take good care of them. I took bad care of both of them on purpose cos I was trying to get Debatchi (I never had this character). Anyway, enjoy the picture. I'll post another tomorrow. Please leave comments (link at the end of each post).

Tamagotchi V5 - US Designs

Tamagotchi V5 - US Designs

Just a quick post...for those living in America and who still don't know: Bandai America has finally released the designs that will be available in US stores. I found these on TamaTalk. To see them just click here. As always there is a bigger selection of designs in America (12 for now) than in any other country. Personally I think that the colors are a bit too flashy, I like the simpler colors released in Europe and Japan.
On a different note, I'll soon be posting a photo of my whole collection of Tamagotchis so check back soon. I know that this blog is a bit dry for now, seeing as I still don't have my Familitchi yet, but I promise that once I get them I will treat you with loads of photos and details. Till then ...cya :D