Star Wars Giga Pets Rancor by Tiger Electronics

I was living in Japan when the original Tamagotchi came out, and it was something of a sensation for a while, even at the high school where I taught English. I’m not ashamed to admit I had a couple myself. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s basically a little keychain with a simple LCD screen that shows a “digital pet.” You have to take care of it by feeding it, cleaning up after it, etc., and it stays running all the time. It’s not just a game that you can pick up and play for a few minutes. You actually start to feel a bit like there’s a little creature in there depending on you.

Tamagotchis came out around 1996, and this product came a year later. With the “Special Editions” of the Star Wars trilogy coming out that year, it must have seemed like a natural to combine Star Wars with Tamagotchi. Tiger Electronics actually made three Star Wars Giga Pets: Yoda, R2-D2 and the Rancor. (They also made the laughing Jabba the Hutt keychain I wrote about last year.)

It’s pretty similar to one of the original Tamagotchis, with the exception of the Rancor at the top and the vaguely sci-fi styling. There are a number of symbols at the top and bottom of the screen that indicate when the Rancor needs something. If you feed it, you see a Gamorrean Guard falling into the pit to be devoured. Give it a treat, and Oola falls into the pit instead. You can do a few other things like “play” with it by sending an armed guard to spar with it, or even clean up its poop. [2017 Edit: I made a full video review of this, which you can see below.]

1997 isn’t really that long ago, but somehow this seems ancient compared to something like a DS or iPhone game. I’m not sure today’s kids would be interested. I do kind of like how they were able to fit the Rancor into the digital pet concept, though.

Here is a PDF of the instructions to give you a better idea of the commands that you could use. Click the image to view it.