In the late 1990s, Tamagotchi was big. The virtual pet took the world by storm, and while the fad died down, it never fully went away. Even today, the Tamagotchi virtual pets are still being made both as an app on smartphones and in their original stand-alone configurations. Like many toys, the property did spawn a video game series, and while most of them remained exclusive to Japan, the Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop series made its way internationally on the Nintendo DS. Tamagotchi Plaza is the next game in the Corner Shop series and marks the first time that the series has had an international release since 2007. This time, it appears on both the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

Right off the bat, the first thing to note is that this game has an upgrade path. Players who pick up the game on the original Switch can pay $10 to get the game upgraded to the Switch 2 version, and both games are priced accordingly, so those who are upgrading won't pay more than those who went straight for the Switch 2 iteration. Considering that an upgrade path from Switch to Switch 2 for some games isn't guaranteed, it's nice to see this for a game that came out shortly after the release of Nintendo's latest console.

Despite the nature of the game series so far, there is a light plot associated with this title. Tamagotchi Planet is about to celebrate Tamagotchi Fest, but a decision hasn't been made yet on which locale will host the event. As an earthling, you've been abducted by the Prince to help Tamahiko town become the prime candidate for the festival. To do that, you need to raise the profile of the town by improving each of the businesses so that the King will be impressed enough to let the town host the festival. It's a fine premise, but no one will ever say that there's any real depth to the plot.

After selecting a Tamagotchi to be your assistant of the festival committee, you go around to the town's various buildings to see what jobs are available. This can range from making sushi to performing dentistry to participating in rap battles. Each job takes the form of a minigame, and completing one gives you a rating of up to three smiley faces in addition to some money. In total, the game offers up to 12 different jobs if you're playing on the original Switch and 15 if you're playing on the Switch 2.

Right off the bat, the game suffers from a number of design decisions that sap away the inherent fun of the premise. The most baffling is the decision to not have any tutorials or instructions for the minigames. You're expected to figure out everything on your own, from the buttons to press to the actions you need to perform — and everything in between. There isn't even a set of instructions to look through via a pause menu. If you've played other minigames or mobile games of this type, then you can quickly pick up what to do but, when you consider that the intended audience for this is rather young, the lack of instructions is going to be frustrating when just about every other minigame compilation feature some kind of instructions at the beginning. The only good thing is that, while three-smiley face ratings will net you more progress toward getting that building upgrade, even a one-smiley face performance will get you something, so you aren't losing anything by being terrible at the games.

Once you figure out how the minigames work, they are mostly fine. The games are of a decent length and challenge level; the complexity constant increases as you upgrade each of the 15 buildings alongside upgrading the town square. The problem is that the structure of the games is completely off. When you select a job, you get a seemingly endless parade of characters coming in, so while the tasks you get vary between each Tamagotchi, the games get very repetitive rather quickly. There is multiplayer, but the fact that it is limited to just two players doesn't offset the repetition of each game. The surprising thing is that you can exit the games at any time and not lose any progress, but that's never made clear in the game. Thus, you feel like it is necessary to finish the parade of customers before the game kicks you back to the town map, and consequently, games feel like a slog to go through.

The seemingly endless nature of each minigame feeds into another gripe with the game: its overall grindy nature. While you gain funds to upgrade buildings at a decent rate, checking up on your progress at the town hall reveals that your actual progress rate is woefully slow. You get the idea that you need to work tirelessly toward a goal that seems like it'll take ages to complete, and that's already on top of the fact that the minigames seem like an endless parade of repetitive tasks. What should be a fun journey toward getting the festival to town ends up feeling like work.

There's really not much more to the game besides this. The only other activity you can do is go around town and try to talk to the various residents to get their picture entries in your album. There's roughly over 100 different Tamagotchi in the game, and each one has quite a few different pictures to obtain, but the drive to collect those pictures is barely there. This is partially because you can't actually converse with any of the residents. You pass by them, they have a line or two to say, and that's it. Without any real way to interact with them, the player can't make any real connection with the various Tamagotchi, so unless you get some joy from merely seeing them in your town, there's no reason to get excited when you finally get a picture of them in your library.

When it comes to the game's presentation, it is appropriately cutesy. The environments are colorful, albeit fairly basic for this generation of consoles. The amount of visual flair is very limited. The Tamagotchi themselves look cute, with some being outright weird, but don't expect any mouth animations when they speak. The game moves at a very high frame rate, at least on the Switch 2. As far as audio goes, it has a good soundtrack, but there's nothing that will get stuck in your head. The voices are limited to something akin to digital chatter. It's fine overall.

In the end, Tamagotchi World is fine, provided you're willing to live with a number of caveats. The premise is fine, as is the implementation of the jobs in minigame form. The lack of tutorials is odd considering the young age of the intended audience. Additionally, the slow, grindy nature of the game can only keep you occupied for so long before the whole thing becomes boring, especially since there's nothing else to do besides these minigame jobs. If you're a fan of Tamagotchis, then this may be amusing for a short while, but everyone else looking for a solid set of minigames would be better served playing a number of other similar titles from the original Switch library.

Score: 5.0/10