The ever growing collection!

While it hasn't been long since I last Posted the number of Tamagotchis I had, the number has grown in leaps and bounds! At the moment I have more than 200 Virtual pets in my collection, with the number growing by about 10 units per fortnight. Most of this I get from eBay which lets me get many more, of different varieties, for much cheaper than if I were to buy them retail.

I sware my neighbours think I'm doing something illegal with all the suspicious overseas packages arriving every other day!

Some of my most notable recent acquisitions were the holy grail of most collectors the bandai "Devilgotchi". For a while there it was impossible to find, with one cropping up on ebay every few months and they were snapped up in minutes! Most recently there is a spate of sellers on eBay. Ive spotted 5 in the last three months, and if i had the cash I would have bought them all, But alas, I must settle for the one I have for now.

I also purchased a Arukotchi pedometer pet, but due to recent tragic events in Japan I am unsure of if I will ever get that one. :(

I also go to a local retro toy dealer, a little more expensive than ebay but for the convenience of being able to pay cash and have the unit in my hot little hand immediately is worth the couple of extra dollars.

Another recent purchase is I bought 2 Tamagotchi Connections from Canada (eh?). As here in Australia we only have the Tamagotchi Connexion available, it was cool to be able to get these. While most people don't know the difference, the US and Canada Connection units are different in a few ways, but the difference I was most interested in was the Connection has the Debug option.

For those who are unfamiliar with Debug or Debugging, this is the process of modifying your tamagotchi by opening it up and tinkering with the circut board in such a way that that the "junk" programming left over from the early stages of the Connections production become available and playable. Sounds awesome but the downside is that if its not done right you can fry the board and make is unusable, this is why i have purposly left out the instructions ( I dont want the blame for people cooking their tamagotchis). Plenty of good instructions and demo videos can be found on the web.

Anyway I managed to get my tinker on and now have a debugged tamagotchi. Its pretty cool as i picked an adult character to start with, which means I could have it with me at work and it wasn't as demanding as if had started it from the baby stage. I will have to buy a few of the other debuggable versions and have a bit of fun with them .

Within the next week or so I plan to review one of the many Giga pets variety of pets, which will be interesting as it will be my first review of an American made pet and the Devilgotch (or Devilgotchi) and maybe do a comparison between the Angelgotch and the Devilgotch!

Kerro kerro Keroppi

To begin with I got both my Keroppi pets from separate sellers on Ebay, I got one brand new in packet for about $10 Australian, the other out of pack for $5 australian. This is a bargain for just about any V-pet, but as these have become rarer in the past couple of years the ones i have seen listed recently on eBay sell for around $60. I must warn anyone who wants to buy this pet that it is only available in Japanese. However translated instructions are available online and it is pretty easy to work out how ton play it just by trial and error

Name: Kerro kerro Keroppi

Manufacturer: Yujin
Produced: 1998
Country of origin: Japan

Aesthetics:
This is a pet more likely to appeal to lovers of the Sanrio brand, its bright and cute and features Keroppi, the little frog boy of Sanrio fame. The Kerro Kerro Keroppi pet comes in two different colours , a baby pink opaque plastic shell and a clear light green shell ,both with a little picture of Kerroppi himself and yellow buttons. This pet is interesting in that while most have a nice coloured backing picture, this one does not. This I because the Character takes up most if not all of the screen at any given time in is lifecycle. At the top there is a small loop with a ball chain to attach to keys etc. The shape of the shell is also notable, in a time where a majority of pets were egg shaped this one is shaped nicely to both hold and for play.

*Creatures*
The Keroppi pet has as the name suggests Kero kero Keroppi from the Sanrio franchise, this is interesting as most Sanrio pets feature Sanrio’s most famous character Hello Kitty, In this way this pet is quite unique. There are only 4 available characters to end up as and all are Keroppi side characters. The characters only become separate in the final stage so there is not a lot of change in what character you may end up with. The animation for the character is also limited to only its face. There are also some guest appearances by non playable characters den-den and teruteru. These characters are very cute but don’t realy change much throughout the life cycle.


*Icons*
The icons for this pet run across both the top and the bottom of the screen. The LCD for them is quite thin and can be at times hard to see. They are the basic pictograms but can be a little hard to interpret, which is difficult when the game is only available in Japanese. After a while you realise that the rice ball is food etc. It just takes a little bit of exploring to remember which does what.


*Sound and Sound quality*
This is pet is one of the more quiet I have played the beeping isn’t exactly loud, you can’t hear it if it is in your pocket or in your bag. This i feel is why you need to invest a lot of attention into this pet as if you do not check regularly there is a big chance you may have missed its call beeps. The sound is nice and cute though, not too high pitched or annoying like some pets can be.

Game-play:
Game play for the Keroppi pet can be a little difficult, The rate of growth of the character is determined by a pie graph and its demand calls. When you first pick your egg you will need to feed it, exercise it and to alter the water temperature etc. Each of the options will increase the percentage on the pie chart, do nothing or drop the percentage on the pie chart. Choosing right often makes the difference between advancing the character and starting with a new one. It takes a few go’s to learn what works best in which stage. For each time the pet calls out you can only adjust each different option once (i.e only feed it one lot of food, don’t feed again if the meter doesn’t advance until next time it calls) or else your meter will drop. The game is great for people who can only invest one day per week into playing with the pets as the short lifecycle. Unlike most digital pet this pet only allows you to play with the pet to entertain it once you have already raised it to its adult stage.

* Life stages*
The Keroppi pets life stages are very unique to this pet. The Keroppi pet plays out one full life cycle in one day. It goes from Egg to tadpole to tadpole with legs to your final character within one 12 hour cycle. At the beginning of the day you will pick one of 5 available eggs, picking the egg randomly selects what characters you are more likely to get. Be very careful in the Egg stage as i find this is when your character is most likely to die without any warning. The characters appearance doesn’t really change that much until you get your final character. The final character will end up as either Keroppi himself, Ganta , Kyorosuke and Noberun.

*Buttons*
Keroppi pet plays with the usual 3 button format, however it is a little confusing, while most three button pets run with A to scroll through selection, B to select and C to cancel selection, the Keroppi pet uses B to cancel and C to select. Being that I am so used to the usual system I would get frustrated as I would frequently have to scroll back through the icons as I had cancelled out of something i wished to select. The buttons are otherwise great, nice and responsive.


*Resilience*
Keroppi is a pet you have to invest a lot of attention into, It will not stand up to even the slightest of neglect. As only one character can be raised per day the risk of running out or time to raise a character is high if you continuously let your character die. This is one you are better off playing when you have time to care for it.

Additional features:

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

All together I like the Keroppi pet for the fact that it is a good pet for the day off or weekend. You don’t need to invest a week trying to get a character but it does require you to have the spare time to be looking after it. It can be difficult to raise a character but it is quite rewarding when you do manage it.

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