I am the self-professed Tamagotchi expert here at Gizmodo, and I’ve been tasked with ranking all the Tamagotchis from best to the best.
Tamagotchis recently came back into the cultural zeitgeist thanks to the movie Turning Red, which reminded us how virtual pets were a quintessential part of Millennial upbringing. The Tamagotchi “fad” never quite faded away, and the community is still thriving in Japan. Bandai introduces new ones to the U.S. every year, including the Tamagotchi Pix and varying nano-sized Tamagotchi, most branded with characters you love, like Hello Kitty and R2-D2.
So which ones are worth owning? I started collecting these things in recent years, and I’ve managed to amass quite a few different Tamagotchis dating back to the early 2000s. (Sadly, I do not have a 1996 original Tamagotchi.) Here are my picks for the best Tamagotchi of all time. Note that this isn’t a definitive list of every Tamagotchi, because there are dozens I’ve yet to collect. But if you are in the U.S., you can buy any of the Tamagotchi I mention here.