Do you remember the constant scream of your Tamagotchi? The way it would demand constant attention, and would die if you had the audacity to leave it unattended for more than 5 minutes? Somehow, that horrible loop is more fun than Tamagotchi Plaza—a middling collection of minigames loosely based around the Tamagotchi franchise, which dares to ask: What if you could perform oral surgery on a Tamagotchi?
Tamagotchi Plaza
Developer: Hyde, Inc.
Price: $39.99
Platform: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), Nintendo Switch 2
MonsterVine was supplied with a Switch code for review
Here’s the setup: You’ve been abducted and whisked away to Tamagotchi planet. The Tamagotchi, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that you’re in charge of preparing their city for an upcoming festival. Now you might be thinking, how do I accomplish this? Well, by doing jobs, collecting points, and bringing new Tamagotchi into town.
The “jobs” are really minigames. Each is based on real-world jobs, ranging from running a spa to an incredibly outdated rap battle arena. The games are simple, usually based around dragging a cursor across the screen and performing a simple task or motion with the controller. The most upsetting of these is a dentist office, where you get to live out your childhood dream of awkwardly using a joystick to drill into a Tamagotchi’s tooth and fill in their cavities. Each of these minigames takes about 2–3 minutes to complete, and be prepared to repeat them a lot.
You’re here to make the town look nice, and to make it look nice you need points, which you get from completing jobs—over and over and over again. The rewards are minimal, and the actual changes you make to the town square are minimal, making the whole ordeal feel like an exercise in futility. Sure, you can make a statue or two, but is it really worth it?
Is Tamagotchi Plaza Worth Playing?
The game also functions as a Tamagotchi collector, where you slowly bring more Tamagotchi into town, any of which can be used as a player avatar. But there isn’t much to them other than their looks. There aren’t any gameplay benefits to switching, and there isn’t much of a personality difference between them. Sure, you see them walking around town, but they don’t have much to say or really add anything to the town—just another face full of teeth for you to drill into.
The Final Word
There really isn’t much more to say about Tamagotchi Plaza. It feels like a throwback to the cheap cash-grab minigame collections of the Wii era—a game trying to skate by on name recognition and little else. Who needs fun when you have a Tamagotchi, right?
MonsterVine Rating: 2 out of 5 – Poor
