A 27-Year Old Tamagotchi Mystery Has Been Solved (404media.co) 12
A 27-year old Tamagotchi mystery was solved this week when a collector figured out how to unlock secret characters on the Mothra Tamagotchi, released in Japan in 1997. From a report: A Discord user named rhubarb_pie found out how to unlock the "Moll & Lora" twins as playable characters, which were previously seen in the handheld pet-raising-simulator as medical nurses who healed your character when it was sick. The Tamagotchi Wiki states they had previously been obtained through a "battery glitch," but rhubarb_pie figured out how to unlock them as playable characters through the normal course of gaming.
As a reminder, Tamagotchis are virtual pets made by Bandai and introduced in 1996 that were incredibly popular at the time and inspired a ton of clones. There have been many different versions of Tamagotchi since its original release, which included the Mothra Tamagotchi, which was tied to the Japanese release of the movie Rebirth of Mothra II. Mothra is a giant flying moth that exists in the Godzilla cinematic universe. There is an entire community of Tamagotchi collectors, enthusiasts, and reverse engineers, and for several decades players had wondered whether Moll & Lora could be unlocked as playable characters on the Mothra Tamagotchi. "After years of debate whether this was even possible, I have proven that, in fact, you can raise the Twin characters Moll & Lora on the Mothra," rhubarb_pie wrote in a lengthy guide to unlocking the characters posted on Discord Wednesday. "The ROM for the Mothra was dumped about a month ago and I figured out how everything worked by studying the code."
As a reminder, Tamagotchis are virtual pets made by Bandai and introduced in 1996 that were incredibly popular at the time and inspired a ton of clones. There have been many different versions of Tamagotchi since its original release, which included the Mothra Tamagotchi, which was tied to the Japanese release of the movie Rebirth of Mothra II. Mothra is a giant flying moth that exists in the Godzilla cinematic universe. There is an entire community of Tamagotchi collectors, enthusiasts, and reverse engineers, and for several decades players had wondered whether Moll & Lora could be unlocked as playable characters on the Mothra Tamagotchi. "After years of debate whether this was even possible, I have proven that, in fact, you can raise the Twin characters Moll & Lora on the Mothra," rhubarb_pie wrote in a lengthy guide to unlocking the characters posted on Discord Wednesday. "The ROM for the Mothra was dumped about a month ago and I figured out how everything worked by studying the code."
Umm ok (Score:3)
I admire the hacker ethos, but couldn't someone just ask one of the Tamagotchi developers how to do it?
Re: (Score:3)
first step: find who is Tamagotchi developers that worked on that
second step: being able to find him/her and ask for it
third: he/she being able to say
forth: they even remember about it
Solve all those steps and you can do that, but the first is hard, second may not be possible (dead) or also hard, third, may be legal reasons they can refuse to say or simply they want to keep secret, forth, 26 years later, they may not even remember anymore
on the other hand, it could just be writing a email to the company and
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Japanese people tend to be quite private, and at that time it was common for credits to use pseudonyms to prevent rival companies poaching staff. Not that the Tamagochi had any credits, as far as I'm aware.
Normally someone would have dumped the ROM and disassembled enough of it to find out how this works, but the ROM in a Tamagochi is part of the self-contained chip that runs the whole thing, which itself is a chip-on-board under a black blob of epoxy. Not impossible but rather difficult to extract firmware
No. (Score:2)
couldn't someone just ask one of the Tamagotchi developers how to do it?
You could try but... when they remembered, they were still employed and under NDA and by the time they aren't employed by the company, they don't remember. Nobody is going to bother remembering a trivial feature they added to a child's toy they worked on decades ago.
Re: (Score:2)
My daughter loved those as a kid (Score:4, Interesting)
I started to say something snarky, but then I realized I still watch anime so maybe I shouldn't cast stones.
(Actually, looking back, one of the things I enjoyed about being a dad with a young kid was having an excuse to watch cartoons with her)
What a disappointment (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
So...How do you do it? (Score:3)
Not that I have one, but now I'm kind of curious. I tried viewing the article, but it's behind a paywall
Re:So...How do you do it? (Score:4)
Not that I have one, but now I'm kind of curious.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tamag... [reddit.com]
What debate? (Score:2)