Neopets Shoyru NeoPen: Get Your NeoWork Done NeoFast With Your NeoPet NeoPen
Written: May 15 '06
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Pros: A fun thing to have around, removable Shoyru figure, refillable, trophy games, note function.
Cons: Retired item, hard to find, extremely small screen.
The Bottom Line: The screen is small and some of the games are a little difficult to beat but it is a lot of fun.
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| Freak369's Full Review: Neopet Red Shoyru NeoPen |
Being a Neopet addict I had to try and track down one of the Shoyru NeoPens. I usually check the website for new products and must have missed these when they were added to the product line up. After having several of the handheld games and liking them I decided to start looking for these locally but found that any place that did sell them had long since gotten rid of them. eBay was the next place I started looking but there was no way I was going to pay upwards of $30.00 for one of these. I may be a NeoJunkie but I’m not NeoInsane ... at least not yet. Eventually I found someone that was selling one for $15.00 so I arranged to buy it. Three weeks later it still didn’t arrive and when I started emailing the person they never replied. Yeah, I got ripped off. Then fate stepped in, someone emailed me and asked me if I was still looking for a Shoyru NeoPen. She saw my post on an off site NeoFan board and contacted me; she wanted $20.00 but we struck up a deal for some of the Mc Donalds Neopet plushies that were part of the Kids Meals. I swapped her ten of the plushies for the pen, postage included. Thankfully I didn’t get ripped off the second time around and ended up with a pretty nifty pen!
Hasbro Neopet Shoyru NeoPen
In a lot of ways this is like the handheld games that were put out by Hasbro and Thinkway; you get games to play, a Neopet to care for, petpets to buy and a burlap sack [the equivalent to you Safety Deposit Box] to store things in. The screen isn’t all that large to it will take some time getting used to all the different icons that appear on it. The functions are controlled by two separate sections of the pen; the right side near the bottom of the pen has a twist section that you use to scroll up and down with and the back end [where the Shoyru figure is located] where there is a clicker button. Tiger Electronics and Hasbro recommend this for kids ages eight and older because of the possibility of a choking hazard [not for use by children under three under any circumstances] from the small Shoyru figure that can be removed from the back of the pen but in all honesty, I can’t see anyone under the age of ten having much luck with this. Aside from the small screen some of the games require a lot of different actions to complete tasks and earn points. When you power up the unit the first time you will have to select some important information about your new pet. A name, how they greet others, gender, date and what your pet likes to do are the questions you will have to answer. Once you have made the selections it gives you a scroll through of the information and you have to confirm it in order to enter Neopia.
On the screen there are some icons that will be familiar to you if you have any of the other hand held games. They include, sleep, bank, shop, hospital, burlap sack, trophy, face, book and food. To active these sections just scroll to them and click on the button. Once you have played for a while and have saved up a enough points you can opt to buy a petpet but I would hold off on doing this until you have played some games, increased your pet intelligence level by reading it books, boosting defense levels and it has a good health level. That way you have more petpet choices available to you. The petpet goes into your burlap sack and you have to go into that mode to play with it, it is not attached to your pet in the same matter as it is at the website. Also, when you buy toys for your pet, you can only use them a few times before they disappear. This seems like a rip off to me but I just write the reviews, not create these things. One thing that really bites about these hand held games is that they are demanding. You have to feed your pet three times a day to keep your happiness level up and there is no NeoLodge option like at the website. If you aren’t keeping up with your pets needs, he or she will let you know with an occasional frown on its face or a few beeps or chirps. You also need to remember to put them to bed, this isn’t done automatically. Forget for more than a few days and your happiness level goes down the drain.
Games
There are six games on this pen and they are all trophy games. That means that you have to play and beat all the levels in order to obtain the trophy. Someone said that if you unlock all the levels and get all six trophies you get a code [Rare Item Code] that you can take to the Space Station to get a rare item. Since I haven’t beaten all the levels yet I can not say for sure if this is true or not. There is no mention of a Rare Item Code being awarded in the instruction manual but sometimes TNT [The Neopets Team] like to toss in things like this as an extra bonus. To earn the trophies for these games you have to play the different levels, complete them and get the high score. On the last level of each of them you have to earn at least 4,000 NP to get the trophy. Needless to say, you can spend a lot of time trying to do this so make sure you have extra batteries on hand in case it starts to die on you. It would be a real shame to have worked so hard to try and beat the trophy level only to have everything wiped out.
200M Peanut Dash: Wow, this is one of the hardest games to play because you have to do a series of movements with the controller to toss the peanut then to get the Pubbyblew to chase after it. I have never had much luck at this game and most of the time when I try to play it I end up getting frustrated with it.
Korbat’s Lab: This is a simple game that is a lot like Pong; just bounce the ball to the boxes at the top of the screen to break them. Potion bottles will drop from time to time, make sure you catch them because you never know what will be in them. There are a handful of powerups that you will want to watch out for; ones to shrink you, enlarge you and add an extra life. These are a little hard to see on the screen so make sure you are familiar with them before you start playing.
Igloo Garage Sale: This shouldn’t be confused with the section of the site where you can purchase things at a discount, this is the condensed version of the Igloo Garage Sale game that you can play to earn points. It’s a pretty easy game; all you have to do is catch things as they drop to earn points. Carassa throws the items down and you control Mika to catch them. Drop any one item and the game is over but stay away from the piano, that will also end the game.
Pterattack: A nice version of the full sized game that you can play at the website and even if you suck at it, it is an easy way to make some NP [neopoints]. You fly around shooting at the enemies and looking for weapon upgrades. The downside to this game is that you need to get 4,000 or more points to beat it and get the trophy. I am lucky if I can get 100 without getting killed.
Swarm: I played this one time at the website and a few times on this pen and didn’t do very well at either of them. It plays like an old school video game where you shoot invaders that drop down in rows but because the screen is so small and there are so many different things to watch out for, you get confused easily.
Volcano Run: You can play this game to make some quick NP but you better
know what you are doing and what items you need to pick up to get points. The crystals are worth points but you have to watch out for the fire balls and rocks. You can get power ups to help restore health if you are taking too many hits but you have to know what the different icons look like or you are going to end up picking up the wrong thing.
Other Functions
If you aren’t impressed with what they have crammed into this, there’s still more. There’s a calculator, clock with alarm, ability to toggle the sound off or on [sorry, no volume control], five levels of contrast so you can adjust the images on the screen, notepad, calendar and phone book. Now, this might sound like a nice assortment of extras but using them is another story. Take the calculator for example; to use it you have to scroll up and down a list of numbers then click the button then enter the next number then the equal sign. To me it’s easier to get a piece of paper and do the math that way. One thing that has really come in handy is the phone alert menu. You can program it to let off an alarm chirp at a certain time to let you know to make a call. Sure you can use the general alarm setting but if you already have that programmed for something else, using the one in the phone book is a nice alternative.
Battery
The battery does last a long time but you have to remember to keep an eye on the screen and the power meter, as I mentioned earlier, it would be a complete shame to have everything wiped out if you run the battery into the ground. In most cases the unit will not power up if the battery is getting ready to completely die; there is a meter on the screen so make sure you check it from time to time. You will need to replace this with a CR2032 watch style [flat] battery that you can pick up at Wal-Mart or Radio Shack for a few dollars. I had this for about two months before I had to change the battery and I played with it for about a half hour a day trying to earn NP and get used to the games. There’s no way to say exactly how long the batteries will last because everyone is going to use this differently.
Ooh, What’s This For?
If you ever let someone else play with this and you hear them say those words, make sure you grab it back off them. There is a small recessed reset button on the back of the pen. Press it and you will be asked if you are sure if you want to reset the pen to the original factory settings. Click the button and everything you have stored - high scores, accumulated items, neopoints, pet information, food, intelligence levels, will be erased. It is almost impossible to accidentally have this activated since you have to slide something small and thin, like a bent paper clip, into the hole but that doesn’t mean that a curious party won’t stick something in it to see what it does. This should only be done as a last ditch effort to reset the game if it freezes or something major happens to it. Again, if you elect to use the reset button, everything will be erased and you will have to start over from scratch.
Price
When these were being sold the had a price range from ten to twenty dollars. According to the Neopet website you could have picked them up at selected stores like Limited II for about twelve dollars. Are they worth it? Well, to me it is a really nice thing to have around. Even if you don’t play the games all the time or try to get trophies, it is still a Neopet collectible. I ended up swapping someone ten of the McDonald plushies from the Kids Meals for this pen so it was worth it since I used gift certificates to get the Kids Meals ... and those gift certificates came from reward programs so all in all, it was a pretty sweet deal. Of course I did get ripped off on the first one that I tried to order but that will be the last time I make a deal like that with someone. If you come across one of these in a store and it’s at a reduced price you should jump on it. The price on these is only going to go up in time so if you hold on to it for a year or so you might be able to double your money.
End Game
Just like at the Neopet website, your pet won’t die if you neglect it but with this hand held version if you don’t care for it for fourteen days it will pack up and leave. You do get some warnings before it leaves but after the third one, it is gone. Your scores are still safe and items you own are protected but you will have to get a new pet. That means intelligence levels will be lost and you will have to go through the set up process again. Unlike the website you can only have one pet at any given time [you can have four at the website] so if you get bored with your pet this is one way to get a new one but you are still going to have a Shoyru. You can change the name of your pet by going into the setting menu so if that is all you want to change, you don’t have to let it ‘die’ in order to simply change the name.
The Bottom Line
This comes with one refill ink cartridge in case you go through the first one. After that you are on your own so make sure you take one of the empty ink sticks with you if you are going to try to find new ones. One very bizarre thing to this is that if you have the pen nib exposed or in the open position the game will not activate. This is something that really needs to be stressed to people in case the nib is partially exposed, they may think that there is something wrong with the pen and try to use the reset button to fix it. If you have trouble with the game not turning on make sure that the pen tip is completely inside the barrel. As far as using this as a pen it is nice but the larger size of it makes it cumbersome to use for extended periods of time. Beside that, people see it and start asking you questions about it then eventually ask to try it out. People won’t admit to being members of the site but when they see this pen and the adorable Baby Shoyru on the tip of it, they always make comments about it. Hey, I am an adult and I am at the site almost every single day ... there’s nothing wrong with being a NeoAddict!
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2006 Freak369
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And the editorials ...
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The Neopets Primer: Getting Stared On That First Million!
The Neopet Primer II: Making The Second Million!
So You Want To Get Rich At Neopets? Quests, Quests & More Quests!
Spoil Your Neopet! Get Them Their Very Own Petpet!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): see review
Type of Toy: Other
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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