Review Tamagotchi mini

First of all, sorry for the late update, Ive had night duty so its thrown my while schedule off. Now for my little intro. I got this tamagotchi in a lot of 4 off ebay. Picked it up for a steal when you consider all the other pets I got with it.

Name:Tamagotchi mini (AKA chibi)
Manufacturer: Bandai
Produced:2004
Country of origin: Japan


Aesthetics:
This pet is definitely one that will appeal to the old school collectors, the look of this one hearkens back to the early days of tamagotchi. My unit is one of the variations of the original clock face design. This one has has the pink and blue clock face. When seen next to the original tamagotchi once thing becomes really clear, just how small the mini actually is.

The background is again another throwback to the P1 with the same pink and blue checkers design, just in miniature form. The mini was available in lots of designs ranging from those from the original tamagotchis to newer colours and paint jobs.

*Creatures*
The tamagotchi mini sacrifices some of its functionality with the loss of size, this is why only a handful of characters are available. As a result the Mini only has 4 potential adult stages. For those who know them by character names they are Kuchipatchi, Mametchi, Masktchi,and Nyorotchi. Ive been running this unit while Ive been at work so, with the sound off i tend to ignore it a bit so i seem to get nyrotchi pretty regularly. For those who don't know the character names, its the most unhealthy potential adult.
Because this is more of a tribute to the older generation tamagotchi, its unfair to judge this tamagotchi on the originality of its characters. However as far as a faithful representation of the older gen characters, they are perfect down to the pixel.


*Icons*
As part of making the screen as small as possible, the icons are completely gone from this unit, instead all control is performed with the first button its used to feed, clean and medicate the pet and will respond differently depending on what is on the screen ( if the pet has made a mess, push the first button and it will clean it, if it is sick it will medicate and if it has neither, it will bring up a two option food/snack menu.


*Sound and Sound quality*
The sound is pretty nice on this pet. Similar to the original tamagotchi for button push noises but without the games there's not a lot of variation in the sounds.



Game-play:
Game play in the mini is pretty straightforward care, The mini was more sold as a fashion accessory so the care for the Mini is really easy,as I previously stated. Entertainment isn't really needed in the same way it is in the P1 but happiness is needed in the form of candy the same as the P1 and P2.

* Life stages*
The tamagotchi mini has the shortest life cycle of any of the tamagotchis, going from hatch to adult in 24 hours, and has a lifespan of up to 2 weeks.This makes it the ideal V-pet for someone who only wants to run one on weekends or days off.
Because there is no meter to show how full or bored feeding and cleaning on demand is the only real way of getting the favourable characters.

*Buttons*
Tamagotchi mini keeps with the same old design of the 3 button unit, Whats interesting is the


*Resilience*
Because the Mini was marketed more of an accessory than a toy the pet will take a pretty big slog of neglect before it will die. I personally have left it approximately 10 hours only to find it so overfilling with mess and it very ill but not dead. It takes a heap of neglect, but Like any V-pet it does eventually die. I found that this is a bit better for those who don't like to invest a lot of time in a v-pet, particularly for those who find them hard to maintain.

Additional features:

Clock-Yes
Connectability-No
Sound on/off-Yes
Pause-No

The tamkagotchi mini is fun with little commitment to care required. Its great for short term care and for those who like the old school P1/P2 feel. I loved the ease of care and just the novelty of having this tiny little functional tamagotchi. Great way to introduce a V-pet to a child not quite ready for a more complicated V-pet.

May also enjoy: Tamagotchi P1 and P2
Pokemon Pocket Pikachu

3-in-1 Chicken Review

Here's my usual little intro for this pet. I'd never seen or heard of this pet before I purchased it from a stall at a local market. As usual it was more of an accident that I found it, but picked it up cheap I only paid maybe $5-$6 Australian.


Name: 3-in-1 Chicken
Manufacturer: Unknown
Produced:Unknown
Country of origin: Unknown


Aesthetics:
This Pet is in one of the cutest shell designs I've come across. Its a Little half hatched chicken design, with a comb from its head and little feet sticking out the bottom.The eggshell is white, with green speckles and pink buttons. The pink buttons always seemed out of place with the green, but this doesn't detract much from the visual appeal of the pet. This she design is available in another colour, with red speckles.

The background is a bit plain,with green bands along the top and bottom of the screen along where the icons are, but considering the colours of the rest of the toy, this it quite fitting. It was also available in 2 other shell designs with a penguin and a dinosaur.As was popular with V-Pets of the 90's it has an attached ball chain loop at the top to be attached to keys or other handy items.

*Creatures*
The characters in this game are cute but sometimes a little ambiguous as to what they are, partially because of their simplicity, partially because I'm not sure if the creatures are linear in their growth i.e the bird looks like a bird through all its life cycle (as i thought i had a bird but all of a sudden it changed to a dinosaur).
There are 15 available characters , 1 for each life stage of each of the three choices of egg. The three potential final characters are a penguin, a dinosaur and a chicken.


*Icons*
These icons are the standard pictogram's you find with any pet. They do have a fair bit of detail though, the alarm clock representing the "call" icon has little increments on the clock and even the bells and ringer have tiny little sticks attaching them.


*Sound and Sound quality*
The sounds are possibly the biggest downfall of this V-pet, Ive found they are a bit monotonous, and are a very dull sounding beep.Its a bit loud and thankfully it has an included sound off function, the main problem with this sound off function is that the pet when waking up with automatically turn it back on again and beep like crazy.



Game-play:
The game play is about standard for most V-pets of the 90's. It has one really interesting part of its game play, its the clock function. For this game the clock looses an hour overnight, and you have to put it back an hour when the pet awakes. Ive found that it can be a bit annoying, especially if like me, you use your V-pets to keep time.

I personally think this part of the game was because the clock function was designed a bit dodgy.
The games for keeping up the "Mood" gauge are a basic guess the direction game and a little more difficult "Rock, Paper, Scissors" game.
The gauges that show the standard of care have an interesting addition, as this includes the pet needing regular water.

* Life stages*
Upon starting up the choice of three eggs is given, you pick an egg and it will hatch into a standard little black blob character for the first stage of any of the choices, again this is a demanding stage and close attention it required.It needs food, water and play regularly, as well as one short cycle of sleep requiring you to put the clock back.

At any stage, playing with the v-pet is very easy particularly where you must push the button in relations to what direction the pet is facing, this is very very easy as the pet is slow moving and you can win it almost every time. The rock,paper scissors game is harder as you have to hit the button in time to stop the hand icon of the right choice to beat the stationary hands choice. The game play is pretty standard and doesn't change as the pet grows.

*Buttons*
This V-pet is a traditional 3 buttons unit, the first being menu, the second being confirm and the third being cancel. the first and third buttons double as directional buttons in the direction game.


*Resilience*
This pet is pretty difficult to kill, I did manage to neglect it to death once, but this was due to its clock function being out for a few days and it waking up in the night and not being checked and eventually dying. It is more demanding in its baby stage and therefore more susceptible to neglect. Any of the other life stages are a little more hardy and give you quite some time between getting sick and dying.

Additional features:

Clock-Yes
Connectability-No
Sound on/off-Yes
Pause-No

I really like the 3 in one chicken, its a bit more relaxed than most pets and I could take care of it at work on breaks and it would still be fine. Its a very cute, good quality pet and besides the clock and annoying sound, care of this pet is enjoyable.
Sound can be turned on and off but its a bit unreliable if you are up early and forget to wake the pet up and turn the sound back off. The fact that the pet has a max age of 119 makes it fun if you like a longer term V-pet.

May also enjoy:Tamagotchi P1
Nano pets
Gureichi alien