Favorite features from past and present tamas

Hey all, just wanted to have a discussion on your favorite features from past and present tamas. 

Each Tamagotchi edition adds and takes away features, which makes them all unique! Sometimes I really miss some features that might have been in an older generation, and wish they would bring them back!

I'll start it off, my favorite feature from Tamagotchis is mail / gotchi king. I loved getting mail on my connection, and donating to the gotchi king and him being relevant in the game was pretty interesting. I wish they would bring that back some day, but it's one way connections are so unique so I wouldn't mind if they didn't at the same time.

I miss "ugly" Tamagotchis, which goes hand in hand with my other missed feature of there being actual consequences for poor care (if you do badly, it's only logical that you'll get an unhealthy evolution who won't live for very much longer once they reach adulthood), and also there being a complete life-cycle including death.

Nowadays, it's super-easy to get the best-care characters and they've even adjusted the remakes of the originals to add this in, there are no weird-looking creatures because everything only fits into a certain category of aesthetically-pleasing, there's no real consequence for poor care, and the critters are nigh-on immortal.

The one that gets me the most is the downplaying and virtual removal of the "ugly", badly-behaved evolutions, though. Where are all the toupee-wearing-blobfish, duck-snakes and bird-plants that helped to define these toys back in the 1990s?

Since the Gen 1 and Gen 2 got a re release I'm pretty much sorted. They were my favourites. That being said I do love the Catch music note games and some other new features.

Penguin-keeper said:

I miss "ugly" Tamagotchis, which goes hand in hand with my other missed feature of there being actual consequences for poor care (if you do badly, it's only logical that you'll get an unhealthy evolution who won't live for very much longer once they reach adulthood), and also there being a complete life-cycle including death.

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Yes! This is what I was going to post. I love all the strange designs present in the earlier editions of the franchise, which is some of the reason why I tend to collect/run those rather than getting the color versions. Their designs are ultimately more memorable. Like what you said, the consequences of poor care are meaningless now if every evolution ends up being conventionally cute.

I don't know if I can call this "gone" per se since it recently made an appearance in the Gudetama Tamagotchi, but I like how in some of the vintage editions there were dangers/other Tamas trying to eat your pet. It just has a unique charm to me. It made the Tamagotchi planet feel like it had a complex environment. The Tamagotchi Ocean went too far with it and made it nearly impossible to get a good care character, though. I think it was done well for the Gudetama release, which makes me hope they'll consider adding in this feature again.

decepticoncrown said:

Their designs are ultimately more memorable.

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Not to go too far off-topic here, but this article, which contains a snippet of an interview with the Pokemon character-designer Ken Sugimori, gives a good insight into why that is.

In Pokemon's case, Pokemon is a more or less gender neutral franchise (it used not to be though) so the balance of designs is important, however Tamagotchi in japan is a heavily girl's franchise now (...and it used not to be!). That's probably why they keep pushing the cute factor. Though some less memorable characters do fall into the ugly-cute category, and it's the characters that nobody wants- usually male characters in versions like P's and and iD L. I remember nobody liking the male charactes in these versions. However due to the mixing thing it's meaningless now, though there are a few "pure" characters that do fall under the ugly-cute too. No duck plants sadly, though.

That said, it's super funny to see people have a complete aneurysm when they get an "ugly mix" as if it was the end of the world. It's almost sad. 

Personally my favorite feature will always be the preschool-school-work system from the v4-v4.5, and also Entama and Uratama. They're two different systems but mixing them together would have been nice. From newer versions I enjoyed the dressing up feature. Oh, and also the items! I think they were the best in the Connection era. Simple but at least almost every one had a different animation, while most color tamas just go for a set of stock animations with different items. Very few have their unique animations... and even when they do I think they're a bit over the top. Sometimes I just want a simple jumping rope animation! 

Jhud said:

In Pokemon's case, Pokemon is a more or less gender neutral franchise (it used not to be though) so the balance of designs is important, however Tamagotchi in japan is a heavily girl's franchise now (...and it used not to be!).

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Oh, I know. I was just referring to the "memorable" factor from the time when Tamagotchi was more neutral, there.

Jhud said:

That said, it's super funny to see people have a complete aneurysm when they get an "ugly mix" as if it was the end of the world. It's almost sad. 

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That is bizarre, in its way. I think that I'd be the opposite!

While I'm here, I thought of another couple of features, though one isn't from the Tamagotchi line, but instead from many Gyaoppi-based virtual pets, that I simply feel would've been nice to have in a Tamagotchi.

The non-Tamagotchi one is fast-forward, so that you can speed up the early stages of raising a pet if you've done it a million times before.

Back in the realm of Tamagotchis, things like weight making a difference is another thing that I miss (I don't think that it's in the more recent ones). Again, it's another care-consequences thing - I feel that it's an important mechanic to have in a virtual pet

From the old tamas I miss the skills in the V4 & V4.5

I personally believe it was one of the best features bandai offered, because you can determine what tamagotchi you can get and what job you can go to based on these skills! and actually kind of build a personality/character for your tama!

for the current models I LOVE that you are now able to mix your tamagotchi and mess with the genes to make your dream tama  

Blue pixels in the Uratama. 

I miss being able to go to school and get jobs. If they could add those features to the next gen and keep the previous important features like the mixing and the app, that'd be a perfect Tama for me.

Being able to grow plants which gave you special items/food in the IDL.  Also having care mistakes influence growth was nice, but I understand how that was scrapped for the m!xing feature.  I also miss the little tags that came with the V1, 2 and 3.

I hope I'm not too late in replying to this, but I found this topic incredibly interesting. Here are some things I've liked from previous iterations (some of which people have already mentioned):

- More gender-neutral designs: Today it's so obviously targeted towards young girls and it sucks that boys (or other people who just aren't into super girly things) can't carry a current one that isn't super feminine. I think the constant rainbows, hearts, and glitter is driving away a lot of possible consumers.

- Weird/Ugly-looking creatures: I feel like a lot of the new designs look waaaaay too similar. So many of them have giant heads, sparkly eyes, and cute, poofy hair/fur. I feel like we don't need them to look super humanoid, I want more weird ones like these :kusatchi:  again. Give me something that has to slither or roll around instead of walking, you know? 

- Secret characters: I love the addition of "genetics" that they implemented in the Tamagotchi ON because of the nearly endless possibilities it brings in how your Tamagotchi can look generation after generation. However, I miss having the possibility of a wildcard character to randomly appear, or having to reach an extreme goal of some sort to get something really cool. I think it makes things way more interesting in general.

Drop Catch is always a great source of entertainment. I enjoyed Select Get on the Tamagotchi Friends, despite not having a clue how to play when I first got my tama. I thought that all features in the V5 were awesome, especially the use of the "Travel Channel" as oppose to the normal "Pause" function.