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)



Reptar (also from Rugrats, and functions exactly like the other regular Giga Pets)




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

I'm not the only person in our family who has a Tamagotchi collection. My younger sister has one as well! Although, hers isn't quite as big or diverse as mine :P However, she does have some pets that my collection is lacking, so I thought that I would ask her if I could take a picture of her collection and post it up on the site :) She said yes, so here it is!



In the top row (from left to right):

* Looney Tunes Giga Pet: this pet has multiple characters. I'm not sure if you choose one from them or if you take care of all of them at once (like the Rugrats Giga Pet).
* The second pet is her Alien Giga Pet, which is one of the Giga Pets with the original programming. It functions much like the Nano Baby, except it only has one game.
* The third pet is called a Tata Puppy. I'm not sure if there are any other animal versions such as a "Tata Kitty" or something like that, but its a very cute, simple pet, and is very reminiscent of a P1 or P2 Tamagotchi. The animations are also very adorable. We've actually never played it the whole way through, though :(
* The fourth pet is a Lovely Bear, which you can find a review for here!
* The fifth pet is a very odd frog virtual pet. We've never played it the whole way through either. I think its in Japanese which made it a little confusing. Maybe I'll ask her about trying it out sometime so I can do a review on it.

Second Row:

* The first is a Dinkie Dino and is a staple for any collection. She got a cute white color. One of the best pets ever :)
* The second is a Pikachu Pedometer pet. She got it when they first came out. They go for pretty expensive now on eBay.
* The third pet is an American V2 connection, which she is currently letting me borrow. Its a very cute design.
* The fourth pet is a V3, which I think I may have bought for her. Its a very cute design too.
* The fifth pet is a V4, which I somehow managed to convince her to get.
* And the 6th one is a very crummy virtual pet. It doesnt have any good features on it and just shows a head doing nothing. It won't even show the pet eating, and it dies very easily if you make a simple mistake.

Third Row:

* The first isn't a pet, but it is a Nano Salon. Its sort of a matching game in the shape of a makeup compac.
* The second is a Talking Nano. They are very annoying so I wouldn't recommend getting one.
* The third is a Nano Puppy that I gave to her, and the fourth is a Nano Baby that she bought.
* The fifth isn't a pet, but a virtual baby that dances randomly. I'm not sure it does much else. I think its just called a Diaper Baby or something.

Just for the fun of it, here is a picture of her Giga Pet Alien :)

Tags: sister's collection, tamagotchi connection, vintage tamagotchis, virtual pets
Current Mood: amused

Nano virtual pets were one of the most popular virtual pets when Tamagotchis were first released. They were mostly popular in the U.S. I think. I had an orange kitty at one point, but gave it away for some reason. I only just bought another one to add to my collection. I can say that the Nanos were popular for a reason. They had two games and the characters were cute and could last for a very long time. I once got my nano kitty up to 28 years (28 days in human time) I think. Recently the company re-released them, but didn't really change anything. It looks like they slapped together all their spare parts and just sold all the old ones they had left over in my opinion. I still think Nanos are great, especially the original ones. At first they came in three characters: kittens, puppies and human babies. After awhile they started coming out with a bunch more characters like rabbits, horses, fighters, etc. Nanos also had a connection version (which I do not own).



Here are some pictures of the ones I currently own. Two kitties and a puppy. The most recently obtained one is the orange Nano Kitty (which came out before the other two in my collection). It's European and more sparkly than the original one I had! I will post a picture of it later :) :

price

Got my Nano Kitty for $25 I think. They now run anywhere from $30-150. There are a lot on eBay, even the originals, so I'm not sure why they aren't less. Get the cheapest one possible. I would recommend getting the older ones because they aren't as shoddily slapped together.

Nano Growth Charts

Still trying to find the growth chart for this one. Sorry!

Tags: nano, virtual pets
Current Mood: busy

These came out around the time of the original Tamagotchis. They are by Sanrio, the company that produces Hello Kitty collectibles. The aim of the game is to get Hello Kitty ready for her big date. Depending on how she starts out, you need to either help her lose weight or gain weight. She also needs beauty sleep or her date will think she's ugly. If you don't take care of Hello Kitty's needs, her date will reject her and she will never get a boyfriend. I have never played this the whole way through because I found the whole concept to be a little silly and confusing. That said, the Hello Kitty is cute, so whatever floats your boat. Also, you can't find these in English. They are only in Japanese I think. Which makes things even more confusing lol Oh well, it's a nice addition to my collection.



Here is a picture of the one I currently own:

price

My sister got this for about $12 I believe. She gave it to me so I'm not entirely sure. Right now I see one on eBay for $65. They are kind of rare, so I don't think you'll find them very often.

Tags: hello kitty, sanrio, virtual pets
Current Mood: bouncy

I purchased this Lovely Bear early last year and have since not had much time to play with it. But yesterday I started it up to see what its like and write a proper review. Firstly, this virtual pet is a bear character. The packaging claims it can live up to 99 years old (i.e. 99 days). It has all the basic virtual pet functions including statistics meters, four different types of food (burger, candy, noodes, soda), a rock-paper-scissors game, a "give affection" option, discipline (studying), shower (for cleaning up poop), weather control, lights, and medicine. The bear comes in different colors (I've owned one with a pink bear and the one I currently own is brown).

Things I like: I think the actual character is very cute so far. It has not grown (because I took the battery out after playing it for a couple days), but the baby was adorable. I also enjoyed how the animations show the bear actually eating each food, opening his mouth and putting the food inside and chewing. The bear also wiggles its butt really cutely indicating it needs a shower. When the pet beeps, it just makes a single little chirp instead of going on and on like a vintage Tamagotchi does. The pet not only has a clock, but also has an alarm clock option as well. The sound can be turned off. I like how the "discipline" entails studying, rather than just simply punishing the bear so its sad. After the bear studies, it shows happiness. When you give the bear affection it shows a balloon and some flowers and then shows the bear happiness animation. The overall design of the shell is cute, and the background design is pretty like a vintage Tamagotchi's background design.

The things I didn't like: Even though there wasn't as much beepig, the beeping was really loud, and when going through menu options and playing with the bear and feeding it, the sounds got really annoying since they were so loud. Fortunately it only beeps once when it needs something. Even though there is a clock, the bear does not seem to follow any coherent sleep routine. The bear went to sleep at 4pm the first day I started it up. Fortunately it stayed awake all night, but the next day it went to sleep at 1pm in the afternoon, and then when it woke up it was awake all night when I was trying to sleep and couldn't take care of it. I figured this might just be a glitch with the programming, so I tried switching the time to 12 hours ahead of schedule to see if that would help, but the bear still did not go to sleep at night. As a result of this incoherent sleep schedule I decided to stop playing with the bear since I couldn't possibly keep up with its needs when I'm trying to sleep. Another thing I didn't like is that when the bear needs something it does show the "request" icon in the bottom right corner, but the bear never shows on the screen any sort of animations that indicate whats wrong. Last time I played with it I went through ever single option twice trying to figure out what it needed. I almost gave up and was feeling really frustated, but then figured out that it needed a shot twice. There was never any indication that it needed a shot other than the request icon. I did not like the rock-paper-scissors game because you can choose what both sides will use, so it seems like a pretty pointless game. When you feed the bear, the only thing that fills its hunger hearts is the burger, so I'm not really sure why the food options are there to begin with.

I give this pet a 3 out of 10. Its cute, but game play just isn't that great, sounds are unjustifiably annoying, and its difficult to figure out what the bear needs without a lot of unnecessary effort.

Here are some pictures of the one I currently own:







Pricing:

I bought this on eBay for about $6. I haven't seen very many of them on eBay in the past. Maybe one other time and it was really thrashed. Fortunately, I managed to get one in really good condition for fairly cheap. Sadly, I do not recommend buying this pet. It was a pretty big disappointment.

Tags: lovely bear, virtual pets
Current Mood: blah

I decided to take some pictures of my collection a couple days ago. I have a lot more virtual pets than I thought I had, but I also don't have as many as I thought ;) Hopefully the money will start rolling in soon so that I can continue :) I haven't bought any new virtual pets in... just over a year :P

My very first Tamagotchi (not first virtual pet) was a Tamagotchi Angel. My mom bought it for me when I got really good grades on my report card. I had already owned other virtual pets in the past, but this was my first Tamagotchi, and what better way to start than with an Angel? Sadly, when I was in 8th grade a few years later I restarted my Angel, but then i forgot to take it out of my pocket and it was put through the washing machine :( After that my dad bought my sister and I each a pink Tamagotchi Angel. Mine was an American one in the American packaging, but I accidentally left it at a friend's house and I never saw that friend again because he lived really far away. Then my sister gave me hers (the pink one below), but I accidentally dropped it in a bucket of fish water about 4 years ago. So I have really bad luck with Angelgotchis lol Fortunately I have a whole new collection of Angels now :) Here are the broken ones I still have:



I decided to take three separate pictures of my entire collection since I don't have a whole lot of space on the floor in my room. The first picture is of all my non-Tamagotchi Virtual pets.


*In the back row is an "Elapet", which I didn't like. I bought it a long time ago when I was sick and didn't have any other toys to play with because they were all bagged up until I got better. The elepet would have been a fine pet to play with, but every time I would set it down it would just restart, so it became frustrating to play with and I gave up on it. Fortunately it was only $3 at the time because it was when virtual pets were going out of style. I kept it for spare parts in case my other virtual pets get damaged since tehre is no way for me to play with it anyway.

*The middle pet in the back row is a "Sweet Baby". It is unlike any other virtual pet I have ever seen. It doesn't use traditional pixels, but instead has shapes and lines that combine in different combinations to form the character as it grows. I'm not sure how to play with it because I haven't had time to use it since I bought it. Now that I have time I will be trying it out soon. My sister originally owned the exact same pet which she also bought for $3 back when virtual pets were going out of style. Later she either lost it or gave it away. I saw the exact same pet and bought it on eBay for nostalgic reasons :)

*The third pet in the back row is my Gyaoppi 9in1, one of my favorite virtual pets by far. I had bought three of this exact same pet around the same time I bought the other two in that row, each for $3. I gave two to my siblings, and kept the other one for myself. Later I gave that one to my other sibling. About 4 years ago I found it on eBay again and bought it for nostalgic reasons :) I would have preferred a different color, but I guess grey was the only color the seller had.

*The fourth pet is the Multi-pet 8in1. This was the second type of virtual pet I ever owned. Originally I had the heart shaped version, but I think I either traded it or gave it away for one reason or another. About 6 years ago a former friend gave me the one you see above.

*The two pets in the long packages on the left side I bought on eBay a couple of years ago. They restart every time I set them down, just like the Elapet, so I never got to raise them. At least I got some batteries out of the scenario, though, and the pets were only $5 each, so no big deal. They are a dinosaur and a duck character. Its too bad because they would have made cute watch pets.

*In the second row is a green pet, which I think was called "Cute Pet". It looked interesting and it was pretty cheap, so I bought it on eBay. I think it is similar to Tamagotchi characters from what I can tell.

*The white heart shaped pet is an "Electronic Pocket Chicken", which looked sort of similar to a Dinkie Dino with the icons going up and down the side. I still haven't played with it, but I will eventually when I put a review up. I bought it on eBay for pretty cheap.

*The Yuki Pengin was bought on eBay for pretty cheap. It is one of my favorite pets.

*The yellow Dinkie Dino was given to me by my sister, which she had gotten when she was younger when virtual pets were in style.

*The Aqua Palz pet on the right side is a Dolphin that I bought on eBay for pretty cheap. When I received it the batteries were dead, so I didn't get a chance to play with it yet.

*The teal Nano-puppy is actually a Nano Kitty in a Nano Puppy box (I couldn't find the kitty box, so I just put it in a puppy box lol), and it was given to me about 5 years ago by my mom as a gift after my choir concert. She also gave me a Nano-puppy, which I gave to my sister, and my first Tamagotchi connection, which was a V2 :)

*The orange Nano-kitty, which is the vintage design, I bought on eBay for $25ish about 3 years ago or so. So its a very recent pet, but I did have the exact same pet a long time ago, which I gave to a friend because I got tired of it. Later I asked her if she still wanted it, and she gave me a Gigakitty instead, thinking that was the pet I gave her. I wasn't disappointed, but it was kind of silly lol

*The Giga pet Compu Kitty next to the Nano kitty is a pet I bought for about $25. The original Compu Kitty, which had the Nano programming back in the day, was the very first virtual pet I ever saw and played with. My friend let me borrow it. I was given one with the newer programming by another friend a few years later, as I stated above, but later gave it away to someone I think. A couple of years ago I bought the one with the newer programming on eBay. It is one of my favorite pets. Both the Rugrats giga and he Little Mermaid giga next to the Kitty were also bought about 2 years ago for a few bucks on ebay.

*The Toy Story virtual pet was a pet that was one of my sister's first virtual pets. Later she either traded it or gave it away or lost it. Then a few years ago I bought this one on eBay for pretty cheap.

*The bunny virtual toy was something I bought on eBay a couple years ago. To be quite honest I have no idea how it works or what its for. It just looked really cute and it was kinda cheap. It is a Japanese toy, so if anyone has any info on how it works, let me know! It is super cute :)

*The Hello Kitty pet was a pet that was bought by my dad on eBay for my sister a long time ago when we were in middle school. We had no idea how it worked at the time. My sister gave it to me a couple of years ago because she didn't know how it worked.

*The Keroppi pet was a pet I bought on eBay about a year and a half ago for pretty cheap. I had been eyeing it for quite a long time... probably 10 years, but didn't buy it until recently.

*The Honey Bear in the bottom right corner is a pet I bought about a year and a half ago. Originally my sister and I had a pink one, which was given to us by our cousin. The one given to us was sort of broken, so I bought this one on eBay to see what it was like, but it didn't have a battery so I still haven't played with it. From what I remember it was pretty cute, though. We'll see when I put up a review about it.

I will be posting more pictures of my Tamagotchis later. For now this entry will just be about the broken Angels and my non-Tamagotchi pets

Tags: broken angels, my collection, virtual pets
Current Mood: chipper

When the Virtual pet craze hit it's peek in the 90s, Disney decided to jump on the band wagon and released a bunch of virtual pets with Disney related characters. Toy Story was one of those movies. This virtual pet has 3 characters you can play with. "The Claw" randomly selects one for you to raise: 1) an alien, 2) an alien duck or 3) an alien pooch. They are all pretty cute in my opinion. I think you can pause this one. You have to constantly clean the air supply because they are on a space ship lol You also have to keep your character fit because it's hard to get exercise in outer space I guess. All in all I give it a 7 out of 10. I love the nice huge screen and the characters are cute, but the shell is a tad bulky and I don't think it has an actual clock for telling time. I'm not sure if the characters evolve or not because I never played with it long enough to find out.



Here is a picture of the one I currently own:

price

I got mine for about $15 if I recall correctly. I rarely see them on eBay but they generally go for $34-50. If they are not less than $30 then I wouldn't bother with this one because the seller is too expensive. If you REALLY want this virtual pet, hold out until you find one for around $15-20. It is a nice virtual pet to own, but if I had only found one for $50 I would not have bought it. That's just too expensive.

Tags: disney, toy story, virtual pets
Current Mood: amused

This is a Yuki Pengin, also known as a Dinkie Penguin. Apparently "yuki" means "snow". I presume it is by the same company who made Dinkie Dinos because they are almost exactly the same, except it's a different animal. It is a generic virtual pet that appeared on the market around the time the vintage Tamagotchis were released. This is one of my newer additions to my collection. The characters are way cute! The foods are a little more different than on the Dinkie Dino, but not much has changed. I like the outer shell design. The penguin shape is adorable ^_^ I also like the colors it comes in. These are hard to find sometimes. I would give it a 9.5 out of 10 just like the Dinkie Dino since it also lacks a pause feature, but everything else on it is awesome.



Here is a picture of the one I currently own:

price

I got mine for about $10 I think :D It was pretty inexpensive, that's all I remember really. They seem a little more rare than the Dinkie Dinos, so you may have a little trouble finding one, and then if you do it might be going for a lot because some sellers think you will buy anything for any price. Just hold out until you find a cheap one is what I say :) You might not find the color you like, but it is an excellent virtual pet to own, regardless. Right now they seem to be going for $20-50, which isn't too bad. If you are careful you could get a nice used one for $20. Just make sure to ask the seller to send a picture of the pet in functioning order before you buy any used pet. And I would not recommend buying a really rare virtual pet if it is used because you might get ripped off.

Dinkie Penguin Growth Chart

I'm having a hard time finding the growth chart for this one. Let me know if you find one so I can post it! :D

Tags: virtual pets, yuki pengin (dinkie penguin)
Current Mood: dorky

The Dinkie Dino (aka Rakurakudinokun) is a generic virtual pet that was out on the market shortly after Tamagotchis first appeared. It has a bunch of cute dinosaur characters. Game play is a little different. All of the icons go up and down the side instead of across the bottom and top. The Pixels are also a tad bigger. It also has more buttons that do different things. Depending on what you feed it, it will follow a different growth pattern (carnivore, omnivore, and herbavore I presume). It is widely considered to be one of the best non-Tamagotchi virtual pets ever made because it didn't just copy the Tamagotchi but seemed to take a whole new approach. Some unique features of the Dinkie Dino include: air conditioning, school, and paper-rock-scissors. I give this Virtual pet a 9.5 out of 10 for having cute characters, a cute shell design, awesome features and unique navigation. The only thing that is lacking is a pause feature, because if you accidentally forget to give it a shot it will die kind of easily. It is not a difficult pet to care for other than that, though.









Here are some pictures of the ones I currently own:

price

There are quite a few Dinkie Dinos available on eBay right now running in the $50-70 price range, which is kinda high considering they aren't terribly rare (I've always seen Dinkie Dinos on eBay so its not like they are a chance occurrence). Be careful when buying from eBay because there are a lot of fake Dinkie Dinos. You can tell they are fake because their screens are noticeably smaller. If it doesn't have a nice wide screen then it is probably not the one you want. It's hard to tell because they come in exactly the same package. And whatever you do, avoid the ones that say "49 in 1". They are not Dinkie Dinos. Just crummy 49 in 1s with lousy options.

Dinkie Dino Growth Chart

(NOTE: Chart curtesy of tamenagerie.com.)

Tags: dinkie dino (rakurakudinokun), virtual pets
Current Mood: amused

This is a multi-pet. Meaning you can choose from 9 different animals to play with. Each animal has a different growth process and eats a different food. The games they play are all the same though and every other feature is the same as well, no matter which character you choose. I liked the fact that this virtual pet had an alarm clock on it. Also, if you hold down all three buttons you can see a history of all the animals you have ever raised and what age they passed away at. Very interesting. It also has a sleep meter. It actually fills up depending on how much sleep the animal gets. You can put the animal to bed anytime. It mostly goes to sleep at night though. The Beeping is very light and not as annoying as most virtual pets. The screen is big too. An odd thing about this pet is that instead of showing poops and sickness skulls next to the animal, it instead shows little icons up and down the sides to alert you. I enjoy this one a lot! I give it a 9 out of ten based on features and options. I think they could have designed the shell a bit cuter, though.



Here is a picture of the one I currently own:

price

I think I may have purchased this one online for about $10 a long, long time ago. I just recently bought another blue one for $25. At one point I saw these pets selling for $40 and they are also rare, so I wouldn't count on seeing them on eBay often. I would say anything around $30 or less is appropriate. Get them now because they are going up in value.

9in1 Growth Chart

Growth charts can be found on this page: http://www.scribbld.com/users/tamagotchis/tag/octo-pets

Tags: gyaoppi 9 in 1, multi-pets, virtual pets
Current Mood: calm