I ended up returning my Uni yesterday and ordered the iD L Princess Spacy instead.
There are some cool features I
do love regarding it such as the rechargeable battery, the cuteness of taking your Tama on a tour, Tamawalk itself, that they used physical buttons, social media posts from your Tama, and the whole personalities concept/"UniTama".
That said, despite how awesome the features I mentioned are.. I just overall found it lackluster and "boring" compared to any other Tama I have played so far! It also just feels more.. empty, somehow? For example, the sleeping screen for the Uni just shows your Tama in an essentially empty bedroom .. but on the Pix, Meets, etc, the rooms have decor and furniture and feel more.. lived in. Even just small details like that are abundant in the other versions but not in the Uni.
I don't like the forced limitedness of items either and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Like the whole passport is a cute concept, but none of us overseas fans outside of Japan will ever get our hands on any of that without having to pay an arm and a leg for the physical sticker realistically, or get lucky if someone puts the item up in the Tama Fashion shop. Some of those sticker codes can only be used 3 times, as well. So if you own multiple Tama, end up resetting your device, etc.. well, too bad I guess!
And, I'm not really a big fan of the
required online connectivity for the core functions of it/quality of life features.. For example, if someone bought one right now but couldn't update it any time soon/didn't have access to internet - they would be stuck with a Tama with no volume control, since it was an update that fixed that. Whereas every other Tama is good to go out of the box, with at most needing a singular purchase of a Tamaphone to add extra content or translations that are free online.
Edit to add: also forgot to consider the fact the Uni cannot be paused or turned off. For a lot of people this in itself is a huge deal breaker, and was a big detractor for me as well. I work 2 jobs and though my M-F allows me to have them with me at my desk, there are still periods of time and on the weekend I'm unable to play with them properly so at the very least with every other model I can take the battery out myself.
Overall, though the concept was very promising - I found the Uni a let down for what I personally want and enjoy out of a Tamagotchi device. I'm having a lot more fun even just with my Pix, and am waiting for my P and iDL (and Tamaphone!) and I suspect I will have a more enjoyable experience with those.
That said, your mileage may vary as you may want different things out of your Tama! If something more low maintenance and easy to find, and like the "vaporwave" aesthetic which is prominent on there - the Uni would work very well. I'll be keeping an eye on future shell releases and updates they put out and it's potentially one I could see myself buying again depending on price and features they add!
), It doesn't need batteries ( so much easier ), and probably more things I forgot.
