June 16, 2024, 8:20 am | Read time: 3 minutes
The Tamagotchi embarked on an impressive journey to become an electronic cult toy in the late ’90s. But only now has a mystery surrounding the Tamagotchi been finally solved.
Who doesn’t know them, those small electronic eggs with tiny displays where virtual pets needed care and attention? Tamagotchis hit the market in the late 1990s and quickly gained a large following worldwide. Today, they are considered a nostalgic cult, and there’s actually something new to report: A fan has solved a mystery about a Tamagotchi almost 30 years after their introduction.
This Was the Mystery in the Tamagotchi
Over time, new variants and special editions of the Tamagotchi appeared. In 1997, a special model was released in Japan to celebrate the release of the monster film “Rebirth of Mothra 2,” allowing owners to meet the characters Moll and Lora.
These two characters are the reason a mystery around the Tamagotchi developed. Moll and Lora were actually just NPCs, or non-playable characters, whose role was to heal the Mothra-Tamagotchi when it got sick. However, it was once rumored that a battery glitch made it possible to control them directly–but how this worked was the subject of much online discussion.
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How Fans Can Play Moll and Lora
As reported by “WinFuture” citing “404 Media,” a Tamagotchi fan with the username rhubarb_pie has now discovered how to actually access Moll and Lora. He published a very detailed guide on Discord, which “404 Media” shared as a screenshot.
This guide includes numerous “extremely obscure” steps, and the entire process reportedly took about three weeks–which the user simply described as “absolutely brutal.” It’s no surprise it took nearly 30 years to figure out this method.
Other Secrets Also Revealed
This was only possible because the ROM, or read-only memory, for the Mothra-Tamagotchi recently surfaced online. This allowed rhubarb_pie to study the programming code closely. Even with the complete guide in hand, the fan’s conclusion is: “Looking at it now, it seems like a bad urban schoolyard legend about a video game. But it’s real.”
The corresponding post has received enthusiastic reactions from the fan community. Many thought the mystery of the Tamagotchi in “Rebirth of Mothra 2” would never be solved. Additionally, another user points to another character that supposedly existed.
Incidentally, rhubarb_pie has uncovered more secrets and documented them in the guide: Apparently, with the right strategy, you can make your Mothra-Tamagotchi immortal. Curiously, it’s also possible to unlock a kind of “living,” playable grave instead of Moll and Lora.