Digital Pet Redux- Tamagotchi: ‘Round the World Review
Robots,
artificial intelligence, artificial life and mankind’s various attempts
at creating some semblance of life have always fascinated me. As a
child I yearned to build robots and had plenty of toy robots. As I grew
older, I tried in vain to program crude artificial life in BASIC. When,
virtual pets came on the scene, I definitely hit the fanboy stage. I had a Tamagotchi before almost anyone.
Tamagotchi has always been the original in my eyes, the original and
the best. I still find myself buying new iterations of them. (Soapbox:
Give the US the Tamagotchi Plus Color!) Namco Bandai has taken the Tamagotchi name to various places in the past few years and now it’s arrived on the iPhone/Touch.
Clearly I’m a geek when it comes to the virtual pets. Unfortunately, Tamagotchi: ‘Round the World
for iPhone/Touch is not what it should be. Namco Bandai has mostly
stripped the recent Tamagotchi games (not the virtual pets) of what made Tamagotchi so
revolutionary, artificial life simulation.
simplistic side-scrolling Animal Crossing and the goal is to raise not just a single Tamagotchi but a whole planet! Doesn’t
sound necessarily bad, right? In fact, the general concept is a great
one! Well, unfortunately it just doesn’t do things right.
The game is
split up into missions. You start with one of the Tamagotchi, Mametchi,
and unlock two (only two?) others as you play. The gameplay consists
mainly of running around tending to the various lifeforms on the planet
called Gaiatchi. Tending to the living geyser Gaiatchi means cloud
Gaiatchi will be made, which in turn makes rain for the plant-life
Gaiatchi. Unfortunately, this ecological give and take is about as
simple and dull as it could be.
You must entertain, do rain
dances for, and believe it or not, even poop (for fertilizer) on the
various Gaiatchi to help them survive. The fatal flaw is that tending
to the Gaiatchi is done with dull uninspired minigames featuring little
variation. This wouldn’t be so bad if the planet was a living breathing
world with several types of Gaiatchi all exchanging and having effects
on eachother but it isn’t. Geysers get bored or contaminated with poop
and don’t emit clouds. Trees need water (via clouds), poop and even
entertainment. Eventually trees drop seedpods or fruit. That’s about
it. Each mission usually requires you reach a certain goal, such as eat
two fruit, grow a seedpod, etc. It just isn’t fun. There’s too little
life, the Gaiatchi rely almost solely on your Tamagotchi, and the
minigames used to take care of them are boring and repetitive.
The
worst part is that this game comes off like a free browser game while
costing $5.99 USD and doesn’t really fit anyone. I doubt it will hold
younger gamers’ attentions for long especially with the slightly clunky
interface and generic minigames. Adults will find it far too simple and
repetitive and yearn for more depth to the disappointing artificial
life simulation attempts. The visual and aural charm of the Tamagotchi
universe and the collection aspects (unlocking the two other Tamagotchi
and collecting stamps for a stamp book) just can’t save Tamagotchi: ‘Round the World. Please,
Namco Bandai, bring back and enhance what made Tamagotchi so unique!
I still have my tamagotchi keychain from 1997. Batteries are long dead though.
It makes me wonder who the audeince was for this game.
Namco, you break my heart. This could have been so cool.
Try pocket god people! It’s similar in concept and they give updates all the time. Oh, and it’s 99 cents! My kids and I love it.
The graphics look really good! Too bad it’s a baby game.
Cmon it’s got a buck-toothed planet Earth. That’s worth a C grade right there 😉
Yeah, because every baby I know has an iphone.
I tried the demo and agree, the games just sad.
Alright, I’m not getting an iphone if the games are like this one.
You mentioned flash games in the review? Are there any good tamagotchi-ish flash games out there?
No there’s plenty of great games, just this isn’t one of them.
LOL. Yes, they are cute.
And he/she/it has a mohawk.
Thanks for the heads up, Tide!
Does Namco have any modern properties? Seems like they are milking the old stuff- from compilations, Katamari, and the old fighting games like Tekken and Soul Caliber.
Yep, they are still churning out pac-man games for christsakes.
Seems that way. In their defense, Pac-Man C.E. and Galaga Legions are really good. I want a Breakdown sequel!
I don`t know about browser-based virtual pets but the Grow series at http://www.eyezmaze.com/ is what this game possibly should have been like. They`re not pets though.
Give me a Rolling Thunder remake ala Bionic Commando, and a Point Black compilation for the Wii, and I will love you eternally, Namco!
OK, I understand that you like Tamagotchi because you are a fan of robots, but what about those who like animals and their parents don’t let them have one? It’s sad that they choose the easier way, their sons and daughters might have become Tucson veterinarians if they learned how to treat an animal.