The iD L 4th is the newest edition to date of the colored screen Tamagotchis released in Japan. It has tons more characters, most of which are super duper cute and it has lots of features. Overall I would say that this Tamagotchi really isn't much different from the original Color Tamagotchi. I do like the shell design of the iD L's much better because they are prettier and less plain looking. The original Tamagotchi Color has a piece of plastic that goes over the screen and makes the shell design look more smooth. The iD L's are lacking the piece of plastic so the screen is more embedded looking into the shell. The screen is framed by a piece of plastic that is diamondy looking, the diamondy looking frame is framed by a silver painted oval. The back covers of the iD L slide off when you press a little button in back instead of being unscrewed like older Tamagotchis. The iD L is also rounder all over so it is more egg shaped, whereas the original Tamagotchi Color is flat on the bottom which is kind of weird looking, but is more stable when sitting on a flat surface. Bandai also released a 15th Anniversary edition of the iD L and it has different characters and games but is essentially the same exact game play as the regular iD L. They also released a version that has a character called Princess Spacey, but all the other characters are the same as the regular iD L. It might have different games but I don't know yet. I won't bother getting the Princess Spacey edition since it is more expensive and pointless to get anyway.

Here are some pictures of the ones I have:


Here is the regular iD L










Here is the 15th Anniversary Edition













Growth Charts:

The iD L growth chart can be found here: http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/338/5/a/tamagotchi_id_l_growth_chart_by_tamastargirl-d419p56.png

The 15th Anniversary edition growth chart can be found at tama-zone.com: http://tama-zone.com/index.php?showtopic=25165

Prices:
Right now the regular iD L's are still going for around $70. The 15th Anniversary editions are rarer so they are going from anywhere between $80 (if you're lucky) and $120. Princess Spacey edition is currently in the $90 range but I suspect the price will begin to go up after a few months like the 15th Anniversary edition did.

Tags: tamagotchi color, tamagotchi connection, tamagotchis

Octo-Pets is a vintage virtual pet that has basically the same programming as the Gyaoppi 9in1. It has almost all of the characters except for one (I'm not sure which one because I haven't compared the two). It does have a few more features. For one it has a fourth button, which the Gyaoppi does not have. The fourth button can be pressed down to view the pet's health meter and stats. Other than this the pet is basically exactly the same except for the shell-shape. I personally think the shell design is kind of cuter than the plain looking oval Gyaoppi. I give this pet a 10 out of 10.

Here are some pictures of the one I have, including photos of the game play:























Growth Charts:

Tags: multi-pets, octo-pets, virtual pets
Current Mood: contemplative

This is a very odd pet, indeed and definitely one of the most unique virtual pets I have ever played with. In fact I still haven't figured out how it works. My sister originally got this pet for about $8 in the 90's when pets were popular. She purchased it at a drug-store in Lancaster CA. We had no idea how it worked and were thoroughly confused by the directions, mostly because they were in Engrish :3 hehe Somehow my sister lost this pet (it may have been traded or given away or perhaps sold in a garage sale, who knows), so I decided to go on a hunt for it on eBay. After years of periodically searching and coming up with nothing I FINALLY found it (I spent a long time searching for the Octo-pet and the Lovely Bear, too). It was relatively cheap, somewhere between $10-20. Not sure of the price tag since I bought it about 3 years ago or so. I have since not played with it, but did turn it on briefly to see if it worked, which it did. After reading the directions I found that it had different growth charts depending on how you raised it. Your baby might turn into a good child or a rebellious punk, etc. There are 3 or 4 different types of children it can turn into apparently. It also has a unique feature in that it does not have the standard pixelated screen. The baby is made up of different lines and shapes that change its facial expression, hair and clothes as it grows. A very interesting concept to say the least. I plan on playing with this pet when I have more time to figure it out, because it is rather confusing trying to navigate it since it doesn't have the standard rows of icons like most virtual pets do. There are different modes that I need to figure out, etc, and even setting the time is tricky if you don't use the directions. The beeping is very low and soft and not that annoying. The shape is a bit ugly in my opinion. The Sweet Baby my sister owned had a sort of plainer logo on it, but this one is a bit more decorated in my opinion. Its still the exact same pet, though with all the same functions I believe. I look forward to trying it out when I feel motivated enough. I think the animations are interesting, although the pet doesn't really move around on the screen. Its a good pet if you are looking to experiment with something different than the standard two row menu, clock pet.

Here is a picture of the one I have. The package was too messed up looking to bother including it in a photo:







Growth Chart:

I will include this later when I take a picture of the directions.

Tags: sweet baby, virtual pets

Giga Pets are another form of Virtual Pet that was released shortly after the original Tamagotchi. The features are in English and Giga Pets were manufatured by Tiger Electronics (now owned by Hasbro, I believe). Hasbro recently came out with a newer edition of Giga Pet but with completely different features, and animations and it hooks up to your television set, I assume for more advanced game play. I do not own any of the newer editions, but I do have a few vintage Giga Pets. The old style of Giga Pet originally had the Nano Pet programming with all of the exact animations and features. Then for some reason the company changed the pet. The characters were the same (dogs, cats), but were animated differently, and they came out with new characters (koalas, monkeys, Disney, Rugrats, etc). They functioned a little differently in that you raised one animal (just like the Nanos) instead of an alien that is always shifting shape (the Tamagotchis). The sounds were different, too. For instance, the monkey made a real monkey noise instead of just chirping like virtual pets usually do. As a result of this new programming game play also became more difficult. It became very hard to keep the pet's happiness up. It gets fatter the more you care for it. The skinnier it gets the sicker it usually gets.I found that playing with it more and feeding it less treats kept it healthier and happier for longer. If you let all the levels go down it is exceedingly time consuming and difficult to get everything back up to a healthy state. That said, Giga Pets are very unique and I do like the game play. If you pay close attention to the pet all day then it doesn't become a problem. There is no pause feature on the older Giga Pets and they were one of the first pets that gave you the option of naming your animal, which is something the Tamagotchi didn't incorporate until the newer connections came out in the 2000's. The characters take a very long time to grow. It takes a few weeks to reach adulthood. It was also one of the first virtual pets to come out with a "training" feature. Eventually they also came out with multi-gigapets where you could raise more than one animal/character at a time. Overall, I give this pet an 8 out of ten for uniqueness, cute characters, and interesting shell designs.

Here are some pictures of the Giga Pets I own:

Little Mermaid



Rugrats (this one has a backlight feature and legs you can pull out so it stands upright)




Compu Kitty






Price:

I got my Compu Kitty for $15 I think (sketchy memory obviously). I also got the Rug Rats Giga for $5 since it was used (still works). Good deals. Normally you might find these for $30-60 now depending on the Vintage Giga Pet you want. For instance puppies and kitties, which were more common, might be less expensive than a Koala or a Chimp or a Bit Critter. The Little Mermaid Giga is going for $34 which isn't too bad in my opinion. You are always bound to find at least 3 or 4 Compu Kitties at any given time on eBay, so hold out for a cheap one :)

Tags: giga pets, virtual pets
Current Mood: cheerful

The Nano Tamagotchi is essentially the second version of the Chibi/Mini Tamagotchi. It has a few more characters and a different shell design than the first version. It does not connect to other Tamagotchis since it is supposed to be more vintage style. I have not played with this yet because I already know that it doesn't have very many different features from the original version, so I don't see any reason to open it. I will keep it mint in package for collection purposes. Overall, its a very pretty design. Its interesting because the shell shape is slightly rounder and thicker than the original, which I find cool since its more like a real egg this way. I'm not sure why they did this since it hasn't been much more enhanced, but perhaps they figured it would be cuter and could be used as a phone charm if they changed it up a little. I got the snow-flake design because it was the prettiest and most sparkly :) I'm pretty certain that Bandai only made a Japanese version of this Tamagotchi, but they did make an English version of the original Chibi, which is known as the Mini in English speaking countries.

Here is a photo of the one I have:







Growth chart:
I do not have a growth chart, but there aren't very many characters anyway and the it only transitions straight from infant to adult in a day.

Tags: nano tamagotchi (chibi v2), tamagotchis
Current Mood: blank

The Tama-Go is the newest American Tamagotchi to date. It is meant to emulate the newer Japanese Color Tamagotchis. The only problem is that it seriously fails by comparison. Firstly, it is a HUGE Tamagotchi, which I found disappointing. There's no way I could carry this thing around in my purse to play with it regularly. Even the Japanese color Tamagotchis, which are relatively big, are not nearly as huge as the Tama-Go. What's even worse is that it doesn't even have a color screen! You would figure that all that bulk would mean something, but apparently not. I'm not sure what the heck Bandai's reasoning is for the lack of updated features and the bulkiness, but I was disappointed. If they weren't going to give us all the perks, then why bother making something so huge? I did not play with this Tamagotchi, but I got it because the reviews on Tamatalk.com were fairly positive. I feel like it was a waste of $23 (I bought mine at Toys R Us). As for the actual game play, I don't remember much about it because I only played with it for a few minutes after opening up the package when it was first released, but I was very underwhelmed, to say the least. There was nothing interesting about this Tamagotchi. yes, the screen resolution was improved over say the v4 or v5, but it seemed pointless to have improved resolution when they hadn't updated the screen to color. If they aren't going to update the screen to color then I'd rather stick with the vintage style pixelations. Maybe other people don't care about this, but I was disappointed. All of that said, it is still a major improvement from other Tamagotchis. it has some enhanced features over other versions of Tamagotchi that I'm sure other people will find impressive, especially if they haven't played with a Japanese Color tamagotchi, but if you have tons of experience Tamagotchis you might be saddened by this release :( If they had designed it to be as compact as a v5 then I would have been far more impressed, despite the lack of features that the Japanese version contains. I have to say, though, the characters are fairly cute, which works in its favor, all else aside. Another thing that I found utterly ridiculous was the concept of attaching a figurine on top just to unlock different features. I do not approve of this concept because its basically a ploy to get consumers to purchase more accessories in order to access the full abilities of the pet, instead of just including them from the get-go (very punny). While connection Tamagotchis have always sort of been this way (you have to purchase another Tamagotchi or find someone else to connect with in order to mate them together), I think this simply goes too far and is clearly just plain manipulative on Bandai's part.


Here are some pictures of the one I own (includes size comparisons):





The Angel tamagotchi is one of the smallest pets available





Here is a character chart:

Tags: tama-go, tamagotchi connection, tamagotchis
Current Mood: calm

The Devilgotchi is a Japanese version Tamagotchi that came out in the late 90's. It is considered to be one of the rarest Tamagotchis of all time, and normally sells for hundreds of dollars on eBay. I did not pay hundreds because I am a good bargain hunter, but I can tell you that finding one in good condition for under $100 is a major feat (which I happened to accomplish :P). So far I have not played with this Tamagotchi extensively, but here are a few of my observations. The sounds on this Tamagotchi are some of the most annoying that I have ever heard from a virtual pet, BUT to its credit, it is a fairly quiet virtual pet. I think the reason the sounds are so grating to the ears is because well... its a Devilgotchi. Its not supposed to be pleasant XD Its basically supposed to be the opposite of an Angelgotchi, if you hadn't gathered already. It has devil characters, or little demons, whatever you want to call them. I have to say that after looking at the growth chart most of the characters are not especially cute, but it definitely makes for a good masculine virtual pet. Too many times I have heard the question "Aren't Tamagotchis are girl toy??". No, they are not by definition a "girl toy", but they do come in masculine and feminine designs and themes. Tamagotchis are a unisex toy, meaning they weren't originally geared toward a particularl group of people. They are simply a digital game that was meant to appeal to both boys and girls. The Devilgotchi, however, definitely has some masculine appeal, but in a cute way. The design I got is black with purple trim and silver wings. Ideally I would have liked to have collected the pink version, but obviously you can't be picky because these things are so rare and frankly I'd rather buy the black one for under $100 than the pink one for over $100. Overall, it seems as if the functions of this Tamagotchi are not particularly different from any other Tamagotchi I've played with. I'd say that the Santagotchi has the most unique features out of all the vintage pets, so the Devilgotchi stays within the lines when it comes to feeding, playing with and raising a pet. The buttons are easy to push and the functions are very responsive. If you remember the lag of the Angelgotchi, you'll notice that the Devil is much faster. I have not played with this Tamagotchi much because there wasn't anything motivating me to yet, so I'll save my rating for later.

Here are some picture of the one I have:








Devil-Angel comparison





Growth Chart



(Note: If any of the images belong to you, please message me so that I can credit you ASAP.)

Tags: devilgotchi (devil tamagotchi), tamagotchis, vintage tamagotchis
Current Mood: cheerful

This is a list of Tamagotchis I don't own, but I wish to collect one day.

Yasashii

V5.5 Celebrity Tamagotchi

Japanese Royal Family Tamagotchi

Aqua Palz (dolphin)

Monkey Giga Pet

Koala Giga Pet

Bit Critter Giga Pet

ID L 15th Anniversary

Hanerutchi 2





and that's about it. I'm not too intent on collecting anything else, but if I get the chance I will one day.

Tags: wishlist
Current Mood: calm

Introducing the V6 connection Tamagotchi, also known as Tamagotchi Music Star! My friend and I decided to nickname this one "The Stressed Tama". Why? Well because apparently Bandai decided to add a new meter which indicates when the character is stressed out. So now not only do you have to worry about hunger and happiness, you also need to worry about keeping the stress down. Seems a little superfluous to me since there's already a happiness meter which indicates whether or not the tama is happy or unhappy *shrug*. In addition to the new meter, not only does the Tama get stressed, but we found ourselves getting stressed just playing with it. "Why?" you may be asking again. Well because there are just too many menus and options on this tama. Not only does your cahracter grow up and mate, it also forms a band, practices it's intrument, goes to music school, and actually has to get tested and graded O_O Whoever came up with the idea to send a Tamagotchi to school was crazy in my opinion. Kids have to endure school everyday as is, so what makes Bandai think that kids want to send their pets to school in the game too? We play with Tamagotchis because we want a vacation from school XD That's my opinion anyway lol



Not only did we find some of the stuff extremely hard to navigate because there were too many menus, the buttons were very unresponsive. We had heard this complaint from other people about the V6, but we bought the V6 anyway just to give it a fair shot. Unfortunately, the critics were right :( It usually takes me at least 2 tries to get a button to do anything on this Tamagotchi. That said, it's the same thing with the v4.5 that I have, so I've been able to put up with it in the past. Oh well.



The goal of this Tamagotchi is obviously to become a music star by practicing your instruments and practicing with the band members you meet in the music school. Admittedly, after fiddling around with the Tamagotchi I got used to some of the new features and I do kind of like some of it. Some menus are reorganised nicely (despite there being too many), Bandai brought back the original shop (just looks a little differently and your tamagotchi actually walks out the door to go shopping), and they also brought back the discipline and praise features, which I am happy about. The BIGGEST improvement in this version was the LACK OF ANTENNA. I was so relieved to see they finally got rid of the antenna on this version because aside from the v3 and Keitais, antennas really bug me and I think they look ugly. I can't say too many positive things about the shell designs sadly. I didn't really see any designs I liked, so I opted for the least ugly one (in my opinion anyway) *sigh*



Other notable things I liked: The screen of pixels extends all the way to both sides just like on the v5 :D I really like how the Tama has way more room to move around. You can adjust contrast like on the v5. Also, your tama doesnt get lonely on the screen because there are actually toys and instruments present at all times for him/her to play with. I thought that was a good idea and it was something I had been thinking about for a long time and wanted Bandai to add. I'm glad they read my thoughts on that feature. You can switch toys and instruments when you get new ones if you want. Super cute! There's also an actual trashcan feature. You could throw away stuff in the older versions too, but it was more difficult to do because the option was never expressly visible like on the v6. It actually gives you the option in the menu in this one.



Other stuff I didn't like: There are 3 games and they are kind of difficult :/ I like easy games that don't take too much practice or aren't too hard to figure out, but still super fun and challenging. Since response time on the buttons is awful, that made the games even more difficult to play. We're also thinking of calling the v6 "The Difficult, Stressed Tama" XD



Silly, silly Bandai *shakes head*



I give this version 3 and a half out of 5 Hitodetchis.



Here are some pictures of the one I currently own:

price

Got this one for $14.99+tax at Toys R Us. You can still buy them for about $17 on eBay right now, brand new in package :D Since its a relatively cheap Tamagotchi, despite all its drawbacks, I would suggest collecting it now before it gets expensive.

V6 Growth Chart

A chart can be found here at tama-zone.com ----> http://tama-zone.com/ar/t21193.htm

Tags: music star, tamagotchi connection, tamagotchis, v6 connection (music star)
Current Mood: cheerful

This is by far one of the best Connection tamas ever! You get to raise 3 characters on one screen as a family! Hence the chimney because it's like they live in a little house under one roof ^_^ They have 4 different games. Two of which you can play on a regular basis. In order to unlock the other two games you must have a father and mother figure present. Your tamagotchis grow up together, and eventually form their own families. You get different families depending on how your characters bond with eachother. It's a little confusing at first, but there are plenty of forums online where you can find information on how to get certain families.



What's new? Instead of a shop where you buy items, there is a shopping tv station on your Tamagotchi. There are three channels: 1) shopping, 2) dating show and 3) travel channel. When you go to the dating show at too young of an age, the Match Maker will yell at you and shut the tv off lol If you choose the travel channel, your tamagotchis go on a family vacation which is the same as pausing your regular Tamagotchi. You won't need to care for them when this function is activated because they are "away on holiday" so to speak :P Also instead of a discipline feature, there is a "family bonding" feature. When your tamagotchis beep for seemingly no reason it means they want to interact with each other. Depending on how you care for the family they will aspire to different talents such as intelligence or creativity doing art. It's really awesome. There's so much to explain about this version of the connection that it's not even funny. The downfall is that this newest version can only connect to other v5s. But on the plus side you can still connect to the brand new v5 website at TamaTalk.com just like with the v3 and v4. You can also input special passwords in your v5 to get free items. The best thing is that you can keep these items forever. Even food! Once again the antenna is a little annoying in my opinion, but all the new stuff more than makes up for it! :D



Here is a picture of the one I currently own:

price

Going for really cheap at $20-30 brand new. Auctions can be really cheap too. Just don't pay more than $17 if you do an auction cause then you may as well have just done Buy It Now.

Connection v5 Character/Growth Chart

(NOTE: If you own any of these images and would like them credited or removed, please contact me ASAP and I will comply with your request. Thanks!)

Tags: famitama (familitchi), tamagotchi connection, tamagotchis, v5 connection
Current Mood: chipper