May 29, 2011 (continued)Oceangotch
Well, I haven’t played with a vintage Tamagotchi for months and I haven’t played with this particular one in years. I purchased this for a fantastic price ($36…it’s a shame that we can’t get prices like this anymore =/ ), in 2007 from a fellow member (though I didn’t know it at the time). This is my favorite design out of the Japanese Oceans.
I put in a brand new pair of batteries and before setting the time, I snapped a few pictures of what it looks like after putting in the batteries and before setting the time. A couple of sea creatures can be seen floating around. It’s very adorable.
I proceeded to set the time. One thing about the vintage Tamagotchis that’s different from the modern ones is that the egg hatches 5 minutes after the time is set, rather than a minute or so after. When the egg hatches on the Ocean, there’s an animation that shows a pulsating egg floating in the water, which begins to swirl in the ocean and eventually, a baby character appears. I’m not too great at describing such things, so what better way to do so than showing it via a video? Mind you, this is my first Tamagotchi video so go easy on me. XD I apologize for the shakiness of it all and it’s not the clearest thing ever, but I think you might get the picture of what the “hatch” animation is like, for those of you who haven’t seen it before. I recorded it using the built-in webcam on my computer, rather than using a regular camera, hence the odd angle at which I shot the video.
>>>CLICK HERE<<< for my hatch video.
So here’s my baby! I decided to call him Poseidon, after the Greek god of the sea. There’s only one type of baby character, Planktontchi (bet you can guess what type of sea creature he is XD).
I’m going to go through every icon and tell you a bit about each.
Health meter: Here is where you can check the stats like age, weight in grams (the Oceangotch doesn’t start gaining weight until after it evolves into a toddler), water purity/clarity level (remember that these little guys float around on the “screen” which is set up to look like it’s in the ocean, so in order to keep your character healthy, the water needs to be clean…more on this later), hunger level, happiness level, and discipline meter.
Food icon: He was born hungry and unhappy, as expected, so I made sure to feed him (the meal appears to be a kebab of sorts; the snack is an ice cream cone). He drops hearts fairly quickly. The hunger hearts seem to drop much quicker than the happiness hearts. I’d say that in the baby stage, all the hunger hearts empty within 15 minutes or so.
Game Icon: Besides making sure that Poseidon didn’t starve to death, I played the game with him to keep him happy. The game is pretty simple. There are two treasure chests on the screen and the objective of the game is to guess where the treasure is hidden (press A to select the chest on the left, and B to select the chest on the right). As is with most vintage Tamagotchi games, you need at least a 3 out of 5 to win the game and increase happiness hearts. On occasion, you’ll find an octopus in one of the chests. More on that later.
Toilet Icon: This is used to clean up poo, as usual. It also cleans up the water when it starts getting dirty, as indicated by the water purity/clarity meter shown under the status meter. In this meter, there are 4 skulls and they are normally un-shaded, to signify that the water is clean. The more skulls that are shaded in, the dirtier the water is. One would need to press the toilet icon to “flush” the water. If one skull is shaded, for example, the toilet icon needs to be pressed once, and so on.
Calling/Discipline Icon: This icon is used whenever the Oceangotch calls for attention and it won’t accept food or play the game (discipline). If you pay attention enough, the Oceangotch will call so many times that the discipline meter will be filled in one day. After that, it stops calling for discipline (unlike the Osutchi/Mesutchi Tamagotchis, which continue calling for discipline even after the meter is completely full). This icon also serves as a calling icon for when a polar bear is about to attack, that bully.
Luckily, the Oceangotch beeps when this happens. If you hear a beep and see that your Ocean is snoozing, not paying attention to the fact that there’s a polar bear on the edge of the screen, press A and it will highlight the calling icon immediately (meaning you don't have to scroll to it). Your character should then be slightly alerted (as indicated by the "?" next to the character's head). You would also need to tap the screen to further alert your Ocean and scare away the polar bear. The Oceans are equipped with a motion sensor for this purpose (Tamagotchi Angel/Angelgotch, Devilgotch, Morino also have motion sensors).
If you leave it that way long enough, the polar bear will attack. If you press the A button but don’t tap the screen, the polar bear will still attack. I have a picture of that here.
Yes, I injured my poor Poseidon in the process and no, don’t ask me to do it again for a clearer picture!
If you let your Ocean get mauled by the bear, it comes back onto the screen all woozy-looking and a skull will appear, letting you know that you have to administer medicine. If you press this icon while no discipline or calling is needed, this happens:
Medicine Icon: This is used whenever your Oceangotch gets sick either naturally or because of the polar bear attacks. I’ve found that if you let it get too sick, sometimes you have to administer the medicine 6 or 7 times before the skull goes away. One other thing to note: if your Ocean becomes sick while the attention icon is lit for discipline, discipline before giving meds because the skull won’t go away until that’s done.
Lights Icon: This is used to turn off the lights when your Ocean is sleeping. More on lights, perfectly summed up in this statement (from mimitchi.com):
“From 6 am to 7 pm, the screen is lit by the natural sunlight of Planet Tamagotchi, so the screen will be lit regardless of whether the light is on or off. At 7 pm, the sun suddenly sinks, so that the screen will be plunged into darkness. But since your tam may still be awake, you may wish to use to Lights On function to keep the screen brightly lit. However, when your tam beeps at you and goes to sleep, you should turn out the lights for it... unless, of course, it's in trouble."So that’s pretty much it! I spent most of the day feeding him, playing games, disciplining, and dodging scary polar bears. He evolved into the toddler, Kuragetchi (the jellyfish-looking character), as you have seen above.
This Tamagotchi is very needy. I’ve never raised one past the toddler stage, so here’s hoping my luck will change during this short summer break of mine. If I’m unsuccessful, I do have one short break in August after my summer session to try again. Phew, long post! Questions, comments, feedback? Let me know! Thanks for reading!
P.S. In other related news, I made an Ebay purchase today. Not another Tamagotchi this time, but something equally as cute, in my opinion. More on that later!
