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IGN Review of Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop
Bandai's Tamagotchi had a good couple-year run as a quick-lived fad, ending like many fads do with thousands of me-too clones drowning the innovator. The little pocket toy that enabled kids to raise a pooping blob of pixels until death can still be found today, but it's not nearly as popular or sought after as it once was back in the late 90s. That's not stopping Bandai from continuing and branching out the universe into new territories: Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop for the Nintendo DS isn't a virtual pet, or at least, that's not its main focus. It's much more fleshed out than the simple two-bit feed-and-clean experience with a crazy and amusing art style, but even with more stuff to do, it's more tedium than fun.
The whole concept behind Tamagotchi Connection is that you're now in charge of a series of shops. Your chosen Tamagotchi creature wears many hats in this game: dentist, beautician, chef, jewelry maker. In actuality, though, you're doing all the work while your Tamagotchi rakes in the dough.
Take, for example, the Takoyaki shop, where the task is to create these delectable dumplings that the Tamagotchi critters seem to love. Grease up the pan, dump some batter down, drop in a squid, sprinkle in some onion, ginger, and croutons, spread out the cooking balls, flip 'em over, dump 'em out, and garnish them with sauce, fishflakes and seaweed. Then…do it all again. And again. And again. The challenge is to do this all correctly and quickly in order to make the customers happy and expand your store. Fun? Eh.
Then there's the Spa. Customers come in and beg for drinks and soap. You drag and drop the appropriate items onto them to appease their tastes. Keep the fire going to heat the water, and pump in some cool liquid when things get too hot. Then…do it all again. And again. And again. Keep doing this until you've earned enough to expand your spa to do this all again. And again. And again. Fun? Eh.
We've also got an Accessory shop, where customers will beg for a brooch or necklace of a specific shape, and it's your task to match up the proper jewelry shapes with the desired silhouette. This is a little more difficult, ending up like something you'd find in Nintendo's Brain Training DS game coming soon since it's all about pattern recognition. Most of the time you'll get it right, but the occasional goof-up will happen when misinterpreting a circular gem for a mushroom bead. Fun? Eh, but we're getting there.
In the dentist's chair you can play Drillmeister and help the Tamagotchi critters with their dental hygiene. Brush away plaque with the same color toothpaste, and drill into a cavity and remove the critter that's causing the gap in the first place. Patch up mouths over, and over, and over, and you'll earn enough cash to build up the dental office to do everything again and again. Fun? I'll have to say "a bit" on this one.
There are several other shops to unlock and open up, and most are just about as fun as the jobs they're trying to portray. Some games have made a hell of a splash combining chores together…Animal Crossing, anyone? But in the case of Tamagotchi Connection, the payoff in doing all these mini-chores isn't as high, as it's just to beef up your Virtual Pet section of the game. That's right, there's a real Tamagotchi here to take care of and feed. But you can also make him happy with a better room, a nice assortment of food, and an arrangement of clothing, all of which is purchased through the money earned in the Shops.
I suppose this type of game is appropriate for the namesake, as the original Tamagotchi toy sold by the gazillions with a few simple tasks: feed, clean up poo, and play "look left or right." At the very least, Nana OnSha's continuing the legacy with a series of tasks that are befitting these goofy little creatures, following that blueprint left behind by the ten dollar keychain. And the heavy focus on the wireless functionality of the DS in Tamagotchi Connection works well to fit the viral nature of the Tamagotchi namesake; players can send and receive presents between their Tamagotchi critters, and the game rewards them anytime they send a copy of the game's demo to another system.
Though I'm not a fan of the tedium many of these mini-games seem to drag out, I do absolutely love the presentation of Tamagotchi Connection. The game is light and airy in its atmosphere, with a graphical style that relishes in the fact that it just doesn't care. Characters are happy little blobs of whatever, and after learning that the development team worked on the Parappa the Rapper series for Sony, you can easily see that same influence on the visual attention. The audio also receives the same relaxed treatment, with a wonderful, mellow soundtrack accommodating the tasks, as well as oddly surreal vocals used for everything from the chatter of the Tamagotchi to the sound of scrubbing teeth. The mini-games won't make you smile with the work they put you through, but it's hard not to grin seeing and hearing them as they're played out on the DS.
©2006-02-07, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The whole concept behind Tamagotchi Connection is that you're now in charge of a series of shops. Your chosen Tamagotchi creature wears many hats in this game: dentist, beautician, chef, jewelry maker. In actuality, though, you're doing all the work while your Tamagotchi rakes in the dough.
Take, for example, the Takoyaki shop, where the task is to create these delectable dumplings that the Tamagotchi critters seem to love. Grease up the pan, dump some batter down, drop in a squid, sprinkle in some onion, ginger, and croutons, spread out the cooking balls, flip 'em over, dump 'em out, and garnish them with sauce, fishflakes and seaweed. Then…do it all again. And again. And again. The challenge is to do this all correctly and quickly in order to make the customers happy and expand your store. Fun? Eh.
Then there's the Spa. Customers come in and beg for drinks and soap. You drag and drop the appropriate items onto them to appease their tastes. Keep the fire going to heat the water, and pump in some cool liquid when things get too hot. Then…do it all again. And again. And again. Keep doing this until you've earned enough to expand your spa to do this all again. And again. And again. Fun? Eh.
We've also got an Accessory shop, where customers will beg for a brooch or necklace of a specific shape, and it's your task to match up the proper jewelry shapes with the desired silhouette. This is a little more difficult, ending up like something you'd find in Nintendo's Brain Training DS game coming soon since it's all about pattern recognition. Most of the time you'll get it right, but the occasional goof-up will happen when misinterpreting a circular gem for a mushroom bead. Fun? Eh, but we're getting there.
In the dentist's chair you can play Drillmeister and help the Tamagotchi critters with their dental hygiene. Brush away plaque with the same color toothpaste, and drill into a cavity and remove the critter that's causing the gap in the first place. Patch up mouths over, and over, and over, and you'll earn enough cash to build up the dental office to do everything again and again. Fun? I'll have to say "a bit" on this one.
There are several other shops to unlock and open up, and most are just about as fun as the jobs they're trying to portray. Some games have made a hell of a splash combining chores together…Animal Crossing, anyone? But in the case of Tamagotchi Connection, the payoff in doing all these mini-chores isn't as high, as it's just to beef up your Virtual Pet section of the game. That's right, there's a real Tamagotchi here to take care of and feed. But you can also make him happy with a better room, a nice assortment of food, and an arrangement of clothing, all of which is purchased through the money earned in the Shops.
I suppose this type of game is appropriate for the namesake, as the original Tamagotchi toy sold by the gazillions with a few simple tasks: feed, clean up poo, and play "look left or right." At the very least, Nana OnSha's continuing the legacy with a series of tasks that are befitting these goofy little creatures, following that blueprint left behind by the ten dollar keychain. And the heavy focus on the wireless functionality of the DS in Tamagotchi Connection works well to fit the viral nature of the Tamagotchi namesake; players can send and receive presents between their Tamagotchi critters, and the game rewards them anytime they send a copy of the game's demo to another system.
Though I'm not a fan of the tedium many of these mini-games seem to drag out, I do absolutely love the presentation of Tamagotchi Connection. The game is light and airy in its atmosphere, with a graphical style that relishes in the fact that it just doesn't care. Characters are happy little blobs of whatever, and after learning that the development team worked on the Parappa the Rapper series for Sony, you can easily see that same influence on the visual attention. The audio also receives the same relaxed treatment, with a wonderful, mellow soundtrack accommodating the tasks, as well as oddly surreal vocals used for everything from the chatter of the Tamagotchi to the sound of scrubbing teeth. The mini-games won't make you smile with the work they put you through, but it's hard not to grin seeing and hearing them as they're played out on the DS.
©2006-02-07, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved