It’s been a long time coming, but Nintendo finally took the lid off its wonderful new box of toys this morning during its E3 address. They’re called “Amiibo/”, and the basic idea is that they’re turning all of our favourite Nintendo characters into playable action figures that also augment gameplay in a number of upcoming titles beginning with the Wii U’s Super Smash Bros. out this Christmas.
Speaking in video released alongside the announcement this morning (see above), Nintendo’s Bill Trinen gave a quick rundown of how the toys are going to work come Super Smash Bros. time.
Judging by his description, they sound a lot like Skylanders, Activision’s popular line of toys and related video games that birthed the entire “toys to life” hybrid genre for kids…and grown-ups that still like to play with toys, of course.
Basically, you’ll tap an Amiibo figure against the Wii U GamePad, which will read the thing with its nifty and as-yet relatively unused NFC tech. Once you do that, the character will appear in-game and you can use them the way you normally do to pummel your enemies.
Trinen said nothing about the Amiibos being essential to the Super Smash Bros. experience, so it doesn’t sound like the toys will be required to unlock any characters in the game. Rather, they add additional value by allowing you to earn experience and customise the characters as you play with them.
You don’t even have to control the toy once you activate it in the game either. Trinen said that the Amiibos can be introduced as allies to help you with a fight or opponents if you want a good sparring match. Or you can just set two toys against each other and watch them have at it.
All of the tiny statuesque figures will absorb data from the Wii U they’re being played on, so you can bring them over to a friends house or travel with them without losing any of your progress. It almost sounds like Nintendo is using the toys as a clever kind of remote storage — because we all know how frustrating it is that the Wii U still doesn’t have robust cloud saving features.
The Amiibos aren’t specific to one game, however. Or even one platform — there’s also an adaptor coming for the 3DS that will allow mobile-friendly Or even one platform. Trinen concluded his address by saying the Amiibos will also work with other Wii U games including Mario Kart 8, Mario Party 10, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, and Yoshi’s Woolly World.
Please, god, let this mean that Nintendo is going to make a woolly stuffed animal version of the Yoshi Amiibo, because that last game looks so freaking adorable I almost had a heart attack watching the trailer.
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19 responses to “How Nintendo’s Amiibo Toys Will Work In Smash Bros. And Beyond”
Psh. The only frustrating thing is that memory cards have mostly been killed in favour of internal storage. An internet connection isn’t everywhere that I game, but me and my pockets are.
I haven’t tried it yet, but can you save data to a USB stick?
Dunno, I haven’t tried it yet either 😛
I don’t have a Wii-U and never been interested in Smash Bros… But I think I’m gonna collect these figures…
Bit of concern on this.
New zelda, mario kart 8 and smash bros has me really interested in grabbing a Wii U… but if these toys add extra abilities to any of these games then I’m out.
The last thing I want to do is lose to some kid online who tapped his childrens figurine of yoshi onto his controller at the right time during the final lap in MK8.
I’m certainly not going to regress back to collecting toys so I can stay competitive.
No offence to anyone who does – and its probably a brilliant move by Nintendo if they are trying to lock down the child market – but its a shame because they have been bringing out such quality titles lately. As a PC user… the Nintendo seems to be the best value for money console at the moment. My PS4 is gathering dust.
This wont happen, like a normal race in MK8 you cant just change characters on the last lap of a race further more, check the video out below, it explains how they will work, I don’t believe they will be playable characters.
It only explains how they work in Smash Bros. The video says they’ll work differently in each game – they will need to considering characters like The Villager, Link, etc aren’t in MK8. So at the moment we really have no idea how they’ll work in Mario Kart, Party or anything else.
This is true, althoughI highly doubt they will allow you to switch characters on the last lap of a race, if i am incorrect I will gladly eat my words.
Though I’m sure my opinion wont be popular on a blog devoted to video games.
Just remember that there are a lot of customers out there who are happy to play video games in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s etc… but collecting and playing with toys is another matter.
Perhaps MK8 / SSB matches/servers where the toys are deactivated.
I don’t know, I’m probably alone on this.
Nah, you’re not. Nobody likes “pay to win”. Well, other than those who only care about winning I guess.
I have my reservations about it too, but I really doubt that they’re going to implement it in such a way that that throws the balance of competitive play like that.
Those figures look incredibly well made. The paint apps are gorgeous. One thing I never liked about the Disney Infinity toys was how cheap they all looked… If they can pull off that metallic Samus for a decent price, I am THERE.
Some of the Disney Infinity models looks good, the Jack Skelington one for example is brilliant but I agree these do look better. Between the flames on Mario, the metal on Samus and the even the pastal-style colours of the Wii-Fit trainer, I’m really excited to see these. Personally hoping for a Charizard or Megaman one
I don’t really get how the figures will be able to “absorb” information since they’re using NFC and they need to be right next to the Gamepad to be read/write data – this is why Skylanders has the Portal of Power (so it can write to the figure whenever it needs to because they’re just sitting on the NFC reader).
I think you guys are misreading this by thinking Skylanders etc. So far amiibos sounds like a companion pet that holds your personal data that you can bring with you, and works across multiple games. That sounds insanely cool to me.
Yeah, you’d need a part where you have to write the data back to the figure when you’re done playing. Though I guess it’d be done in such a way that the data stays with the game until you next scan it in so it won’t get lost if you forget.
I agree with this, also in the Amiibo video on Nintendo.com says
” When you touch your Amiibo to the WiiU gamepad, That character will appear in the game to do battle while you cheer it on from the sidelines”
Doesn’t sound like you get to control them at all the video goes on to explain
“There are many ways to engage these characters in battle, You can pit them against other figures, you can face off against them yourself, they can team up and fight along side you and they may even be able to beat up your friends for you”
Not once do they mention you take control of the character, if someone can show me evidence otherwise I would be on board but at this point, they seem like a cool addition but not what the article makes them out to be.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odUjMhc6YgU#t=118
I think that’s the point though. If you got to control them in any way, leveling them up and so on, it would lead to a Pay to Win environment. This way it’s just a fun gimmick, along with a cool looking statue 😛
I agree the last thing I want to see is a pay to win model brought into Nintendo.
I am hoping they work as I understand it otherwise they will just be OP, and I hope Nintendo wouldn’t let that happen.
@thumpist I very much agree with how you’ve interpreted it, definitely doesn’t look like you use it or control it in any way. Kind of reminds me of the old Digimon devices back then where you train them up and fight your friend’s Digimon.
I am very much against this, as I know I’ll buy them all. I’ve always been a sucker for Smash bros and now official merch that works ingame? So long wallet D: