There’s been a dearth of new, major releases for us all to talk about, so why not take the time to talk amiibo? Are you buying them? Are you using them? Do they just sit on your shelf and look pretty?
Me? I have one single amiibo. Boring, plain old Mario. The one in the process of shooting off a fireball. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this: I’ve yet to scan it into a single video game. I think that’s partly because I don’t play much Smash, but also because I’m pretty sure it’s either sitting in the back seat of my car or lodged inside an enormous box of LEGO.
Basically, by 2-year-old son has commandeered my amiibo. It belongs to me in name only. My son loves Mario for some reason and as soon as I brought home the amiibo it was game over. Literally.
Generally, I understand the appeal of amiibo. Five or so years ago, with my own space and money to burn, I might even have collected them. Right now? They don’t really fit into my life in any real way. They’re too cheaply made for collectables, too rigid and inflexible to be toys for children. Their prime use is video games, but only one video game really integrates them into core play. Maybe in the years to come Nintendo can make amiibo a must-have part of its eco-system but, for now, I don’t feel the need to expand my collection beyond the Mario amiibo lodged at the bottom of my son’s box of LEGO.
Comments
24 responses to “Community Review: amiibos”
I have a few, was going to at one point collect them all, then got sick of them being sold out on launch day and nintendo saying they wernt gonna make certain ones again, so now i’m only going to keep my favs.
I think they’re stupid and yet I own two. They get used occasionally with Smash Bros but are too strong for any of us to beat.
I was going to give them 0/10, but I’m so susceptible to marketing that I’m changing that to 11/10.
I’ve got a couple. Nothing special. The supply issues are a bit silly.
What do these actually do in games? I would like a Mega Man one for my desk.
Not much. The functionality changes game to game. For instance in Smash Bros they have sort of an AI profile linked to the NFC chip which you can level up to 50, making really strong AI characters that think differently based on how you train them. Meanwhile in Hyrule Warriors and Mario Kart 8 they just sort of unlock minor DLC like weapons and cart parts.
The Mega Man one looks cool but I think if you want a Mega Man figure specifically you can get better ones. Amiibos are decent quality and they’re cheap, but when it comes to Mega Man there’s way more out there. There’s the TrueForce Mega Man X, and while I’m not a huge fan of the eyes on the Mega Man D-Arts do a pretty wide range of Mega Man stuff (I have to hold myself back since buying one will open a floodgate that ends with me being broke, but I’m tempted to buy their Mega Man just for the Met that comes with it). He’s got a decent range of model kits too. Just remember to search for Rock Man as well, since a lot of this stuff is Japan exclusive.
TBH though, with Hyrule Warriors its not just unlock weapons, but you also get random mats, rupies and weapons per day per amiibo, including the rarer, harder-to-get mats.
Or a single rupee 4 times 🙁
I love how you get the whole big fanfare of “jyan! jya jya jya jyaaaaan!” aaaand its a single rupee…
I’ve run a few amiibo tournaments with some friends (Kirby never wins…), the bonus content in some games has been a bit of fun, I’ve taken a bunch of excellent photos of them (a few of them are actually nicely detailed in terms of shaded painting and texture), and I put my commbank nfc sticker on captain falcon so I could buy stuff at supanova with him.
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c201/Cubits1/IMAG1748_1_zpsdzvczqja.jpg
For any one thing they’re probably not worth it, but all together it’s enough to justify the price for me.
I never bought the sonic or mega man because they don’t have any chance of a future. Also, their poses sorta suck.
But, those are two I have! :'(
Training an A.I. Smash bros character sounds like loads of fun.
Just kidding.
It’s just like playing regular smash?
I suppose.
I haven’t been able to find any. I really want the Kirby and Villager, but I haven’t seen them in any store AT ALL. And not just Kirby / Villager – I haven’t seen ANY amiibos on the shelves anywhere. 🙁
Had to preorder Kirby from EB Games and bought Villager from someone else that got given it but didnt want it
Physical tangible proof of some of the weird things that go on in modern gaming circles wrt Nintendo.
‘Nintendo is boneheaded’
‘Nintendo is obsolete’
‘Nintendo is bankrupt’
Meanwhile, Toys-to-Life (stupid term) is conceived, the most odious sort of price-gouging yet, the more popular mega-sites largely ignore them and what they they entail. Spyro needed the work.
In a year where Nintendo produces some of its most technically sound and forward-thinking software to date, all people seem to care about are amiibo.
Imagine if everybody suddenly ignored PS4’s praises simply because Sony have not managed to make the Vita exactly the same sort of success other pocket-gaming have been. Perhaps, like the Vita, it’s just another type of success?
To say nothing of the dishonest practises at the retail level, staff are blatantly removing stock intended for paying customers from circulation and putting them on ebay. What is the story there?
There’s a gag in Toy Story about Buzz Lightyear toys actually – “retailers were short-sighted etc etc”
I’ll no doubt be howled down so I’ll leave it with a jab at the little blighters – this planned ‘NES/SNES demo’ thing where they unlock a level or two of a VC game for free is damned stupid.
I bought Luigi and Toon Link and that’s probably where it will end. I scanned them into Mario Kart 8 to unlock some Mii Costumes but now they just sit on my desk looking kind of cool.
If we get a pile of games that make good use of them then I probably still won’t buy any more figurines, but rumour is that Nintendo will release a card version of them so if it’s worth getting them then I’ll just get that version because they’ll take up less space.
I don’t understand what they are and I don’t think Nintendo do either.
I own them all.
I have all of wave 1 and did have plans to buy all of the ones Nintendo released in the future, but they’ve really shot themselves in the foot by only doing one production run of certain ones in each wave.
if you don’t pre-order or line up before a store opens on launch day you’ve basically got no chance, that is unless you’re willing to pay the exorbitant prices the eBay scalpers charge.
Been seriously thinking about selling all the ones I’ve got, because there’s no point trying to collect them until Nintendo sort out the availability issue.
I’ve ended up with 4, but that’s as far as I plan on going (unless a new wave with some I want comes out).
For a reasonably detailed little figure that also has some functionality in games, I think they are pretty good value. I’ve been using mine to fight each other in smash for equipment farming 🙂 Will be interesting to see how other games implement them.
http://nintendo247.com/win-a-gold-mario-amiibo-from-nintendo247/
So far Mac’s the only one I’ve taken out and trained up. It was fun having to work out new ways to try and beat him as he got stronger, it really helped me to get better in the end. It’d be great to go through with the rest of them and do that, to better learn how to use other characters. But you know. “One day” 😛
I initially bought only Kirby because I was curious to buy one and see how they work with Smash Bros. I scanned it in and was pretty unimpressed and was content to not buy any more because as you say, they’re too cheaply made to be decent collectables, and they don’t have posable joints to work as decent action figure toys, but then wave 3 came out and I saw Bowser in the shop and that it was decently made so I bought it. “I’m surprised that one was left!” said the sales clerk. The next day I went to Kmart and saw that they had Rosalina and Megaman and they looked pretty decent too, and that’s where my Amiibo itch began.
That said, I’ve no interest in some Amiibos such as Link with his urine column or Zelda with that purple blob running down her leg. Eww. So I don’t feel the need to collect *every* Amiibo. Just the ones I like.
Give me Ganondorf or I riot.