The world got to meet the first-ever “evolving toy” this morning… Rizmo starts out as a delightful armful of fur, and (if you give it the love and attention it needs) grows into a playful kid and then a fun, music loving creature. Coming from the creative minds at TOMY, Rizmo is a merger of features from three all-time favorite toys: the interactively friendly Furby, the nurturing of Tamagotchi, and the intrinsically suspenseful Hatchimals.
Kids can choose a Rizmo from three different colors: Berry, Aqua or Snow; and every Rizmo will develop its own musical style, but kids will only find out if their Rizmo will be a PopStar, HiphopStar, RockStar or ElectroStar when they have helped their new friend fully evolve.
When a new Rizmo is unboxed as a ball of cuddly fur it is just waiting for kids to sing and play. As kids “feed” Rizmo with music and other interaction, it will experience a magical evolution: learning new games, unlocking fresh play modes and more advanced interactive features with each evolution. And the Rizmo’s voice changes too, a kid Rizmo is better at singing and speaking than the baby, and the adult is even better than that. The evolution is more than just new skills, as Rizmo will physically change as it “matures”… first sprouting a shocking tuft of hair as it advances to kid Rizmo, and then a final, upright evolution with a huge toothy grin.
Image Credit: Tomy
Kids will enjoy all the games that Rizmo can play; starting with five modes as baby, including Rolling Rhythms, Record Songs (where children can sing to Rizmo and it will mimic the same song back), and a bedtime mode called Rock-a-Bye Rizmo, for the rare case that they might want to lull Rizmo to sleep. The final evolution of Rizmo unlocks two more play modes to continue and expand the fun.
Parents will appreciate that all these incredible interactive features come without the dangers of some other connected toys – Rizmo is completely, and very intentionally, connection-free. We were sent a pre-release review unit of Rizmo for the purpose of this review (all opinions are our own), and were particularly pleased that there is no risk of data being leaked, because there is no online connection or social media relationship with the toy at all.
Rizmo is available beginning this weekend at Target.com (we’ll update with a direct link soon) and other online retailers, plus retail stores around the globe.
