Tamagotchi Plaza features a colourful cast of Tamagotchi characters and minigames.
Tamagotchi Plaza sees Bandai Namco Entertainment bring the shop simulator series Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop back in the modern day, with a familiar cast of characters assembling for colourful new minigames. Don’t get it twisted, however; this is not a life simulator game in the vein of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, despite its looks.
Tamagotchi Plaza is, in fact, a game of minigames. Players explore Tamahiko Town’s many shops, and complete minigames in each shop to collect Gotchi points and improve the town. There’s a thin story drawn over this repetitive gameplay loop to justify all the minigame-playing and town-upgrading, but it only serves to get in the way of this game’s cute characters and somewhat engaging minigames.
Levelling up Tamahiko Town
I had a lot of catching up to do before writing this review. Like many others, my first and last brush with the Tamagotchi brand involved the legendary egg-shaped handheld devices of the same name, which rose to popularity back in the 90s and early 2000s. The concept was simple: here is a little device that houses a cute animal, which you can care for by feeding, eating, and playing with them.
Of course, most of my Tamagotchis died–as did the fad as a whole, now reduced to pricey re-releases in the corners of toy shops and supermarkets mining for nostalgia. When Tamagotchi Plaza was announced, I got a little more excited than I should’ve been at the prospect of the brand's big return. Was this going to be an Animal Crossing-like life simulator with Tamagotchi characters, or a Nintendogs-like pet simulator?
Tamagotchi Plaza is neither of these things, however. Instead of being a straightforward pet simulator like the original Tamagotchi handhelds, this is a spiritual successor to 2005’s Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop, which is a shop simulator. Don’t expect any pet simulation here; it’s all about playing shopkeeper by running around Tamahiko Town and completing assorted minigames. As it turns out, the franchise has long evolved beyond its initial handheld trappings, and has now become a Sanrio-like collection of cute mascot characters–I had simply missed the boat on the whole thing.
The story picks up in about as surreal a manner as one might expect: the player is kidnapped and brought to Tamagotchi Planet by the gaudily-dressed Prince Tamahiko. After being introduced to the residents of Tamahiko Town, they are given a task: they must upgrade all of the town’s shops to prepare for an upcoming Tamagotchi Festival, which ends up being the endgame goal.
The campaign, if you can call it that, is a poor excuse to simply get players into engaging with its various minigames. It only rears its ugly head via the game’s overly expository prologue, and then again in tedious pages of text messages and conversations. The characters of Tamagotchi Plaza aren’t nearly as interesting as they are cute, so perhaps it’s for the best that most of your time is spent playing shopkeeper rather than talking to them.
Tamagotchi minigames galore
Tamagotchi Plaza’s gameplay loop is incredibly straightforward. Players will find various shops around the Tamahiko Town hub to visit, which house various minigames. Each shop has a Tamagotchi character who asks for the player’s help to complete tasks specific to their shop. For example, Shykutchi is a gym bro who needs the player’s help to help town residents keep fit. Neliatchi is a tailor who makes clothes that specifically cater to the townspeople.
To help out these shopkeepers, players will have to partake in a laundry list of minigames. In Shykutchi’s Personal Training Gym, they have to complete quicktime events to help town residents complete crunches, squats, and similar exercises. Milktchi’s Afternoon Tea shop is much more laidback by comparison, and simply has the player decorate an afternoon tea set to suit each visitor’s wants.
Most of the fun Tamagotchi Plaza has to offer can be found in its early hours, when players are discovering each of these shops and playing their minigames for the first time. Some of them are actually a lot of fun, in a poorly-animated, old Facebook game kind of way. I enjoyed assembling and sending drinks to customers in the Night Pool shop, and creating dresses for Tamagotchi characters in the Tailor shop.
However, not all of them are winners. The Personal Training Gym’s quicktime events are arduous and confusing, and there are overall one too many decorating minigames that spoil the illusion of variety here. The minigames are nothing spectacular on their own, and can become repetitive very quickly when played back-to-back. All that being said, watching adorable Tamagotchis turn into jacked gym bros did get a laugh out of me.
The player’s objective is to play as many minigames as they can successfully, and thus earn Gotchi Points to upgrade shops and get Tamahiko Town ready for the Tamagotchi Festival. Racking up Gotchi Points does satisfy a certain itch in my minigame-addicted brain, but I do wish that these minigames were a bit more complex. Perhaps a higher level of difficulty or more variety would have kept me from feeling like I was spending my time going around in circles.
Ultimately, what kept me coming back was my desire to see these adorable characters do their quirky thing. The minigames–which encompass the bulk of Tamagotchi Plaza’s gameplay loop–were not as engaging or replayable as I wanted them to be.
Verdict
Tamagotchi Plaza is not the best Tamagotchi game ever made–that honour can only be bestowed to the Tamagotchi handhelds of yore, whose legacy will long outlive the many Tamagotchis I essentially murdered growing up. This is a cute game that might only be worth checking out for diehard Tamagotchi fans, as the repetitive nature of its gameplay and mediocrity of its main story can only be stymied by the cuteness of its protagonists.
The Tamagotchi characters are cute enough to deserve a better game than this. At least I kept them alive this time.
Tamagotchi Plaza is now available on Nintendo Switch for US$39.99 and Nintendo Switch 2 for US$49.99. We received a copy of the game for this review.
