The Frugal Blog

Functions

This pet has all of the normal functions that you'll find on other Gigapets, but they've been customized to match the unicorn itself. Here's a rundown of your menu options:

1. Feeding: Normal food is a slice of cake, while your snacks are shakes
   
   


2. Lights: Lights can be turned on and off to put the pet to sleep. The screen for this is pretty cute; your unicorn will lay down underneath a huge rainbow.


3. Games:
   
   
   
   • Catch the coin: Coins will fall from the sky one at a time, and you must press (and HOLD, don't TAP!) left or right to catch them. It'll start with 10 at first, and if you're successful and win, the next time you play you get an additional coin added up to a max of 20. When you lose, the count resets.
     
     
   
   
   • Hurdle jumping: Your unicorn will run to the left or right, and you must press the corresponding direction button to jump over them when they appear. At first you will need to clear 10 of them, and if you win, the next time you play you'll have an additional hurdle added, up to a max of 20. When you lose, the count resets. Additionally, when you jump in the hurdle game, you can see little rainbow lines coming out the back of the horse It's not in color, but I appreciate how they captured the essence of the art and it's completely clear what's going on.
     
     
   
   
   • Sky island hopping: This one will be locked to you until you max out your unicorn's stats, at which point it'll turn into an alicorn. Once it has wings, you can play this game, in which you hop across islands in the sky. This game is much harder, and you don't get anything additional for winning, but it is fun.
     
     
   
   


4. Medicine: Calls the ambulance when the pet is sick. I have to admit I didn't use this option much, because the pet is pretty easy to take care of.
   
   


5. Clean: Cleans up the unicorn's poop, which is shaped like cupcakes, or lets you brush its mane and tail.


6. Stats: Shows your overall score (an aggregate of all the pet's stats), Health, Happiness, Discipline, and Age/weight. These are all calculated on a scale from 0-100, but the activities are pretty liberal with their point allocations, so don't worry, it's not that much of a grind.


7. Tricks: These are the tricks you can teach your pet. The first option is "Rewards," and you can press the right button to go to "Tricks." There are three tricks: Back Legs (rear up on hind legs), Horn (Shoot stars from its horn), and The Dab (IT DOES A DAB), which is my favorite. My teenage child has informed me that this is "stupid" and "cringe," but I think it's hilarious and I don't care. Dab on, my little pet! At first, the pet won't perform the right one, but with repeated positive reinforcement, you can train them to do the correct one. One of these days, I'm going to try and purposely train my pets to do the wrong trick, just to see if it's possible. I'll be impressed if the code allows for it!
   
   


8. Discipline: This is the discipline function. It functions like the other stats on a meter, and needs to be done unprompted to keep it filled. It's probably one of my least favorite things about these pets.


9. Alerts: Unselectable, this is your indicator that your pet needs something.

Graphics

One of the things I've mentioned I love about these pets is that the screens are incredibly clear and easy to see, something that the Tamagotchis still struggle with. This one is just as pretty to look at as the doggie I reviewed a while back, and the animations on it are clear and easy to read. The unicorn is very active during the day, and will not only walk back and forth, but will also look back at you and gesture, and sometimes even performs some of the tricks you can teach it! If you leave the pet for a while, it will show the pet's sleeping screen to save on battery, but you can wake it back up by pressing any of the buttons.

Sounds

The sounds on these things are really impressive for the size and simplicity of them. There are separate noises for running, neighing, brushing, eating, and successfully completing an objective in the games. They're all clear and easily distinguished, and they sound great. I really wish there were more pets that had clear sounds like these--the beeps from classic P1 Tamas and others are cute, but get boring quickly. It would be nice if they could incorporate some of the more sophisticated ones.

Gameplay

If you like other GigaPets, especially the newer ones, you'll like this one as well. There are no stages, which is normal for these, but I enjoy them nonetheless and I feel like everything else about them is very well done. The fun in them is keeping their scores up everyday and watching the nice animations on them, and just letting them keep you company. For those of you who like seeing your pets grow, though, this one will probably not be your favorite. To be honest, aside from one particular feature, the pet will play the same from day to day, whether that's on day one or day 30. Just about the only change you'll see is that when the pet's score goes above 90, it will turn into an Alicorn and allow you to play the third hidden game. This doesn't stay indefinitely--once the score dips back down it will downgrade, but you can always make it change again by upping its scores with the usual care options.

One thing I have to commend Top Secret Toys for, however, is that they're actively working to remedy this problem. The Gigapets Pixie, which I'll be reviewing soon because I'm running it right now, has a small but engaging evolution tree, so you have an incentive to play through the pet more than once and keep it going for a while. The soon-to-be-released Floppy Frog remake (which I've pre-ordered and will also be reviewing) is supposed to have something similar, so I feel like they're trying to expand the pet functions as the line sees more success. Since I love the pets for what they are, even the unchanging ones, this is just icing on the cake for me. I'm excited to see what they come out with in the future, and I feel like they're well set to give Bandai a good run for their money if they keep it up (maybe Bandai will actually improve their screens!)

As a final note, I've taken a few videos of different things with this pet, if you're interested in seeing it in motion. Check them out on my Peertube instance here:

• Unicorn tricks


• Various other functions