Pac-Man Tamagotchi?!?
Two big game crazes, one from the 80s and one from the 90s, have come together in one weird combo! Pac-Man Tamagotchi! Yeah you heard that right. Only because Pac-Man maker Namco and Tamagotchi creator Bandai have merged is this whole thing possible! Of course you all know I’m a huge Pac-Man fan, but I also have an interest in the virtual pet key chain Tamagotchi, too. So you know I had to get this!
Here is a bigger picture of the box. I’m not sure where you can get this, but I ordered mine on Amazon.
The key chain is really small, even smaller than the regular Tamagotchi. See how it fits in my hand?
I got the ‘deluxe’ version that comes with a little rubber Pac-Man holder. I put it in so you can see it, but I didn’t try to cram it in all the way. And sorry the picture is a little blurry. I got a case of the lazies, but you get the idea. You could also pick from two different styles of keychain: black or yellow. I liked how Pac-Man and the ghosts showed up better on the black one, so that’s why I got it. Oh, and if you’re wondering about the background, that’s the top part of my Pac-Man mini barstool that I got for my birthday last year. It’s an official accessory for the Pac-Man Battle Royale arcade machine, so that was pretty cool!
So how does it play? Well it’s a bit more simplistic than the regular Tamagotchi. You don’t even get a menu screen on the bottom. The left button pulls up a menu and the middle button makes selections. The last button is used to cancel out of the menu and to check on your Tamagotchi’s mood. If your Tamagotchi is hungry, a swirly line will come out of its head, and if it is sad, a flashing circle will be there instead.
So if your virtual pet is hungry, select the fork icon from the menu and choose to feed it two things. Rice fills it up, and bonus fruit Pac-Man cherries make it happy. You can also make it happy by playing two Pac-Man themed mini games. The first one has Pac-Man on the right and you can choose to move to three different lanes with the first and second buttons. Try to be in the lanes with dots and avoid the lanes with ghosts. If you hit a ghost, the game is over.
The other game has Pac-Man in the middle and items will appear on the left, right, and above him. Press the corresponding button to eat dots and bonus fruit, but make sure to face away if a ghost appears. If you hit a ghost three times, the game is over. But if you eat a power pellet, the next ghost that comes up you can eat. If you last long enough in these games, the Tamagotchi will be happy. Sometimes you’ll even see a little mini version of the first Pac-Man intermission animation!
And that’s pretty much it. Sometimes the Tamagotchi will be chased by ghosts, and you can push a button to call out Pac-Man to send them away. And make sure to turn off the light when your Tamagotchi goes to sleep. Your virtual pet changes and evolves like it does in the regular Tamagotchi game. I have to say I was impressed with the Pac-Man sound effects and jingles in the games, but I don’t know if it would hold a kid’s interest for very long. But if you’re a fan of Pac-Man and/or Tamagotchi, you may want to get this. I’m a fan of both, so that’s why I got it! –Cary
April 20th, 2020 at 5:29 pm
But can you feed it power pellets?
It is pretty darn small.