Amiibos – Mother Figuring Them Out Edition

So, these things:

I have a long-standing relationship with Nintendo to where I can not only name you every character they’ve released in Amiibo form (Link is NOT Zelda and Samus is a girl!), but I can “Do the Mario” and swing my arms from side-to-side better than most.  And, even though I’ve had a strong desire to own that bitchy Yoga Instructor, I have avoided Amiibo figures like they were a zombie threatening my life.  Every time my kids would see them in the store, I’d quickly serpentine around the area to make them focus on mommy being crazy rather than these figures.  I mean, we’ve already sunk several thousand dollars into Skylanders 1-4 and Disney Infinity 1-2, how could Nintendo do this to my wallet too?!

My initial impression was the the figures only work with Super Smash Brothers, just as the boxes suggest.  However, I’ve found that the compatibility of the Amiibos are actually much more expansive than I would have guessed.

I was lured over to a display for Mario Party 10 this weekend, and I noticed that some of the boxes included a Mario Amiibo figure.  Well, hey, if they work for multiple games, maybe these are a superior purchase over more Skylanders and Disney Infinity guys.  But then, I look over the included Mario and realize that he’s very different from the one pictured above.  He’s just doing his fat-plumber-pride fist bump, with no fireball attached.

For the first time, I’m intrigued enough to really, thoroughly look at the Amiibo display.  Oh, look, there’s Sonic (that’s right, Nintendo did buy him!) and Mega Man and, and, and, several figures with different variants, like Princess Peach, Luigi, and Bowser.  But, why are they re-releasing variant figures for so many characters that have only been out for a few months?

I made the clerk at Target come over and talk to me about the differences.  Unsurprisingly, he, like most of our local Target employees, was no help and couldn’t answer anything about it.  He kept redirecting me to the touch screen tv for Amiibo, which I kept pointing out had not been updated in a while, so these new figures weren’t being explained.

Thanks to the internet, I ended up at the bottom of the matter (or at least close to the bottom).  Mario Party 10 is releasing a number of Amiibo variant figures as some kind of special edition.  Well, that’s not exactly accurate, I’m not positive if the Mario Party 10 figures are limited, or if they will replace the Super Smash Brother ones completely.  What I do know, though, is that a number of the older figures are starting to drop in price ($10 from $13.99 for Peach, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong, just from what I saw in the store).  That suggests replacement to me, but who knows what those guys in Nintendo are planning!

I also learned that the old figures are interchangeable with the new figures, at least in terms of what games they work with.  I expect that this means the plastic character molds are different, but the bases are the same, or at least nearly identical.  Actually, let me share the Nintendo compatibility chart, because I was surprised at the number of games Amiibos work with – http://www.nintendo.com/amiibo/compatibility/

PLUS, super-magic-happy-bonus news, the figures will work with select games on the New 3DS XL.

So, with all this new information, I decided to jump on the figures that were discounted.  I’m not sure what fresh Hell I have just started for myself, but I’m curious to see where it goes.  With how the Amiibo system appears on the surface, they won’t be forcing you to buy all new figures/worlds/traps/etc with each game release, which, in my book, makes Amiibo a superior figure set to collect.