TheYatagarasu

I'm thinking about all the things I still need to pack for Japan, as well as worrying a little because I've never had to be away from Mr. Yatagarasu for months at a time. Also sipping my Earl Grey tea and thinking about how weird this brand of tea tastes compared to the one I usually buy. Blekk.

A CORNER SHOP POST YAAAAY ALL the nostalgia. Okay, so, I'm assuming you already know that they are basically a collection of minigames - not much of a "story" involved. You run shops with your Tama partner and you can expand them. Yup. The games also quite simple - I was around 11 or 12 when the first one came out (I think?) and could tell that the game was targeted to a younger audience than me! But I enjoyed childrens' games and still do to this day so I had a lot of fun with them. The best advice I can give is don't try to expand just one shop all in one go, as you'll get tired of the repetition and get bored of the game Corner Shop 3 is my favourite, as they added quite a few cute features, and a refreshing selection of shops - the gardening shop and piano school were really fun. In Corner Shop 1 and 2, you choose either Mametchi, Memetchi, or Kuchipatchi as your business partner and run the shops with them - but in Corner Shop 3 they added Violetchi / Furawatchi (whichever you prefer... ), and you have the option to switch Tama partners anytime. They also added a cute little "journaling" feature where you can scribble down your innermost thoughts (though those thoughts have to be confined to the length of a tweet or so ). There is also a park that you can decorate and grow flowers in - your shop customers will visit and you can see what they have to say. You can also create unflattering Tamagotchi avatars of your friends and they can come visit you in the park too! Also, they released a couple other Corner Shop games for DS in Japan that we didn't get here, that you can emulate if you're interested. I think even with little knowledge of Japanese they would still be fun.

I use the teeniest, tiniest flathead screwdriver I have (0.5mm, I think) to pry out Mini batteries - I slip it under the bottom left corner like KB said! I haven't noticed the screwdriver scratching up my Tama, and I tend to fret about these things, like you! Then again, not to sound un-modest but I've gotten good at these things - I have very gentle hands because I work at a microscope most of the day, moving the tiniest pieces of plant tissue around with tiny forceps and needles... Also, to be quite frank, the Mini battery slot design is kinda bad. It's like they don't want you to get the battery out without scratching the thing up.

Yeah, the primary cause of plastic yellowing is UV light exposure. But the thing is, even short, intermittent periods of UV light exposure over the years, like if a school kid brought their Tamagotchi outside with them at recess, or someone left the Tamagotchi near a window where it just gets an hour of sunlight a day, etc. can kickstart the chemical reaction that causes the plastic to yellow. The plastic polymer can also start breaking down simply due to age, causing it to yellow a little, and that's really unavoidable. Although, the yellowing is usually to a much lesser extent than that caused by sun exposure. The thing is, strong, direct sun exposure can wreak havoc with LCD screens sometimes, so if you are asking because you are thinking of buying a sun-damaged vintage Tamagotchi, I would ask the person selling you the Tamagotchi to show you that the screen functions properly! A more modern Tama won't have nearly as much of a problem as the old ones - plastics are no longer made with the chemicals they used back in the '80s and '90s, and don't turn yellow nearly as quickly.

*high fives you* Me too! Takes me FOREVER to finish any Soulsborne game though because I hardly ever have time to sit down and play games. Though Bloodborne is going a little faster than expected, turns out I'm much better at it than Dark Souls Also finally getting around to playing Dishonored 2. I loved the first one and so far I'm not crazy about the sequel, but we'll see if it grows on me. Oh, and Mr. Yatagarasu and I are picking our way through the Adventure mode of Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition - it's brainless fun for when you want to mash buttons indiscriminately.

Like Hoky and Knighttchi's Ballad (is it ok if I call you KB? ), I'm into a LOT of things, but don't actively participate in most fandoms because people on the Internet can be rude, elitist, cringey, or all of the above. Heck, people can be that way in person - I've been to some pretty hideous fan gatherings. And like you said, Raichuu, there are darker sides to every fandom and I try to avoid those as best I can, because...ick o_o; The only fandoms I participate in actively are Tamagotchi, Splatoon, Elder Scrolls, and the Soulsborne games...but I'm also WAY into Game of Thrones, Pokemon, Harvest Moon, "spooky" or mythical type dolls (Monster High, Enchantimals, etc.) and a loooot more I'm autistic, so I need an outlet to share my interests and hobbies (read: ramble on and on about them to most people's displeasure), but I do that in person rather than within fandoms. Thankfully Mr. Yatagarasu and my best friends are all autistic themselves or have autistic siblings, so they're more than happy to listen.

I vote Charm!

I played the Tamagotchi Corner Shop DS games and because of that, I think that Tamas talk in Animal-Crossing-esque "badabadabadabada" gibberish noises But oh my goodness, I've had this plushie for almost 2 months and only found the squeaker after I read this thread. Now I'm annoying Mr. Yatagarasu with it. I don't think I noticed it because I have the Mametchi plush and the squeaker is in the middle of his face, not his body, and I wasn't going around punching Mametchi in the face...

I'm incredibly excited for Dark Souls Remastered for Switch. The horrible PC port of Dark Souls was my brutal, laggy, frustrating introduction to "hardcore" gaming - and I loved every minute of it. Although the trilogy reached its height of aesthetic excess and gameplay refinement with DS3, the OG Dark Souls is still the best Dark Souls in my opinion. I'm so stoked to play through it all over again in a format where my character doesn't look like Neanderthal Man and doesn't occasionally clip through the floor in one of the game's most difficult areas, and where the camera won't randomly zoom in on the boss monster's behind during a really tense fight

I'm gonna jump in on this and run my iD, I think!

I actually love the QPet Plus Color. My sister bought me one as a gift, thinking it was a legit Tama. I didn't tell her it was a fake, of course. I was surprised she was actually supporting my Tamagotchi obsession after knocking it for 20 years It's the only non-Tamagotchi virtual pet I own, and even then it's still a Tamagotchi of sorts, I guess It's really quite impressively detailed, for a fake - there are many activities that you can do with your little impostor Tama The features are not the exact same as the Plus Color but they were clearly trying. The character sprites never fail to make me laugh. They're all clearly the characters from the actual Plus Color, but they're all just a little bit....off, in that "u tried" sort of way that only bootleg stuff can achieve. As I recall, the manual comes in Chinese only, but you have the option to run the QPet in either Chinese or English. There's some awkward English translations but it mostly makes sense! On the downside, while I haven't had any problems with mine, I've heard that they're not the most durable, so I don't take it too many places with me. The games are also not very fun - one of them is a slow and awful version of the Plus Color apple-catching game, and another is a MATHS GAME. Whoever decided to mix maths with Tamas is evil The sound is also incredibly bad with these - tinny and muffled, but thankfully you can turn it off.