Tamagotchi On Wonder Garden Embraces the Alice in Wonderland Motif

A new Tamagotchi On variant is heading to North America. Bandai Namco will release Tamagotchi On Wonder Garden, which samples a bit of the Tamagotchi Meets Fantasy model. Essentially, it ditches the Arabian Night and Princess Palace locations and their exclusive characters/items/attractions, but keeps everything from the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland-inspired areas. While it is disheartening to not have everything in the corresponding Tamagotchi Meets, it does build on both the prior Fairy and Magic while playing up its theme.

The first difference starts right when you kick off the Tamagotchi On Wonder Garden life cycle. There are two baby forms different than the ones from Fairy and Magic. All baby boys start out as Hoshinokotchi, which is a little blob in a star-shaped hat. Likewise, all little girls begin their life cycles as Lovekotchi, another new “baby” design.

That’s not the Alice in Wonderland-themed part kicking in early, though. That comes in the child stage, where boys can become the club-themed Mitsuclovertchi or spade-themed Mochispadetchi and girls might evolve into a heart-themed Pureheartchi or diamond-themed Himedaiyatchi. The Queen of Hearts had her card-themed soldiers in adaptations, after all, and this taps into that, with later “teenagers” falling into the shared stages with other Tamagotchi On models and beginning to show genes inherited from their parents.

In your character’s day-to-day life, things are mostly similar to the other Tamagotchi On models. The two new minigames are Dressmaker and Library. The former is a button-mashing game during which you press A as many times as possible to fill a gauge and make a dress. Library has you working in a library and keeping track of how many books have been checked out and not returned yet. There are some new items in the store too, like a 700G Bookshelf Hat, 500G Feather Pen, and a 1300 Alice Picnic room style.

The Tamagotchi On Wonder Garden model’s one new location, Wondergarden, is the clearest reference. After I had reached the third generation of characters and applied the Alice in Wonderland-like Alice Picnic theme to my room, I unintentionally unlocked the new land. I wanted the twins I was raising to visit their pet. Instead, they ended up going to Wondergarden and opening up the town where Yumemi-Alice and Kirarihatter live. As their names suggest, the former is dressed like Alice and the latter as the Mad Hatter.

Wondergarden itself has a Wonderpark area where you meet characters, an Alice Shop with items, and a Card Paint area. The shop has themed items, like a Rabbit Salad, Cat Cake, Wonder Horn toy, and Card Hat. As for Card Paint, it temporarily changes your color, including your outline. This washes off with a bath and isn’t permanent, however. Also, Yumemi-Alice and Kirarihatter’s appearance in the Wonderpark is random, but both are there and waiting to play and become friends (or eventual spouses).

Tamagotchi On Wonder Garden is an update that embraces one theme. Unfortunately, it really only does focus on that one and excludes the others present in the Tamagotchi Meets Fantasy. If someone didn’t grab the previous Fairy or Magic model, it’s a good opportunity to opt into this more advanced line, which involves genetics through breeding with in-game characters or ones met through the mobile app or other Tamagotchi On/Meets models. But people should definitely be aware that it isn’t exactly identical to the similar Japanese release.

Tamagotchi On Wonder Garden will be available on July 26, 2020.