Amiibos....collector urge growing...

Wolverine359

I like them, they're colourful, they're cute, and they look great. If you don't like them, you don't buy them, simple as that.

RobbingBandit

Got a bargain. Splatoon Girl for €12 in CeX. Anyone wanna swap her fir Megaman Shulk or Ness.

CiDeRmAn

I collect the few I have for the look rather than the function.
I have the three Kirby ones, the three woolly yoshis and a few others.
Like many other things, no one is forcing anyone to buy these.
No essential gameplay is locked behind an Amiibo paywall, so why worry?
The one game that uses them in a big way, the Animal Crossing title, is using cheaper card based Amiibo.
So, nothing to get worked up about, unless it's really just venting frustration because its not the announcements that some people want.

smokingman

I just like having little gaming greats statues sitting on top of my projection screen tbh...that and the fact they're made by Nintendo is enough for me.

Oh, and Ryu is a day one purchase for me. He looks well cool!

murphyebass

Wolverine359 wrote: »

I like them, they're colourful, they're cute, and they look great. If you don't like them, you don't buy them, simple as that.

I agree with this and cidermans comments.

You don't want them don't buy them.

They're not functional and let's face it they are over priced but they're still nice and if you don't buy the whole lot it's not a terrible addiction.

CiDeRmAn

As models some are better than others.
I thought for sure, as an owner of a number of Game&Watches I'd jump at the relevant Amiibo but, no.
Same with the Duck Hunt pair.
I own Super Smash Bros but don't play it at all, my son does, and neither of us bother with Amiibo beyond unlocking the odd costume in MK8.

I think it would be far more of a critical move by Nintendo if they made the Amiibo critical to a game, especially a game where they serve no good purpose, and their use so far suggests this is the case.

But we'll see.
Perhaps the NX and whatever replaces the n3DS will put them to better use, until then I'm very happy to have a cool PacMan winking at me from my shelf!

FallSilently

The trouble is that both arguments have big detractors. Keep them for little extra things, as they are now, and people complain that they add nothing worthwhile. Make them more critical to a game, and people complain that they need to pay extra to get full use of a game they already paid full price for. That's a reaction that's already greeted the Inklings (single-player missions) and Shovel Knight (multiplayer modes).

I'm on the fence, but that's because I'm not coming from the gameplay side of the fandom. I collect these because I think they look great and they're characters I love (mostly). I don't even own a Wii U. What little functionality I've made use of was training them all up to 50 on Smash 3DS, but even then I just did it for the sake of it.

I think it's fair for amiibo to have more functionality, at least in the game they're intended for, BUT ONLY if the amiibo is easy to get. Only once scarcity is not a problem. And bundled exclusives are a joke - not just for me, but for people who buy the game from the Virtual Store. Downloaded Zip-Lash? Tough.

sligeach

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I collect the few I have for the look rather than the function.
I have the three Kirby ones, the three woolly yoshis and a few others.
Like many other things, no one is forcing anyone to buy these.
No essential gameplay is locked behind an Amiibo paywall, so why worry?
The one game that uses them in a big way, the Animal Crossing title, is using cheaper card based Amiibo.
So, nothing to get worked up about, unless it's really just venting frustration because its not the announcements that some people want.

Mario Party 10 while I don't think much of it has 3 Modes. Mario Party, Bowser Party and amiibo Party. That's 1/3 of the game and you have to have each of the 9 amiibo for the corresponding boards to play it.


Splatoon on launch day had costumes, weapons and challenges locked away on the disc. There was 45 challenges in total, You had to buy all 3 amiibo to get the full experience and were awkward to buy, especially the green Inkling.


There's other games too and as you say the forthcoming AC: aF, is the biggest offender. I don't think it can function at all without them or the cards. There's another problem, what if you want the content but don't want the amiibo? There's no alternative way of buying it.

And they're overpriced but then it wouldn't be Nintendo if they weren't.

Corholio

sligeach wrote: »

amiibo contribute nothing to gaming. Any functionality of amiibo can be done without them just by using the console, controller and if necessary a memory card. They're just a key to unlocking a door. It used to be that developers would have extra content or cheats as a reward for completing a game.

Now we've to pay for it and are told it wouldn't exist if it weren't for amiibo. I'm sure there are people out there, that just like gambling or any other addiction, that these amiibo are a problem. €1,500 is nuts for a bunch of keys. I've said it before, I've no problem with having merchandise but my problem is it unnecessarily imposing itself on gaming. It's the same with all the Collectors Editions and bundles. They're not doing them for our benefit. It's almost easier to name a game that doesn't have an amiibo bundle.

It's pure greed from developers. EA I seem to remember being one of the first to introduce DLC which didn't go down well. But then Activision found an acceptable way by giving a bit of cheap plastic in return and now Nintendo are sticking their hands in the pie. Sure llok at the Nintendo store or GAME, with preorders and the cheap tat they give away as an incentive to buy a game. Look at Mario Tennis, the game's so bad they're giving away a Mario plushie and a tennis ball to try and get buyers.

And I mentioned memory card earlier. They would be so much easier and functional. I bought a 32GB memory stick online last night, not for the Wii U mind. It cost €16 delivered. For €1,500 you get less <1MB of memory from all 97 amiibo altogether. 1MB! As a memory card, amiibo are awful. They've 8kb of memory, that can only record very basic things and can only store information for 1 game. So if you use it on another game, you've to wipe it clean. I think Nintendo copped onto that major downfall and have tried to avoid that. I think Smash Bros. is the only game so far that records data. But Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash will change that.

Bottom line, all companies are greedy and will push the limit of what customers find acceptable. And one last example of why I hate amiibo. Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival. For years fans have been asking for a proper AC game on Wii U. Instead we get that abominations that are AC: aF and that home designer game on 3DS. Those games only came about to sell amiibo. It's not out yet and it has 15 amiibo planned and countless cards and I wouldn't be surprised if they've double that yet to be announced. So that is a negative consequence of amiibo. Instead of making a quality game, they're more fixated on selling amiibo. And I bet this is probably just a trial run before a conveyor belt of Pokemon amiibo arrive on NX tethered to some fluff of a game.

Using the €1500 argument is nonsense. It's up to each person whether they want one or they want all of them, you could use that silly argument about literally any product where this is more than one of a collection on the market. It's a product which for me hasn't taken away anything from me by not having them. They are also small figures of Nintendo characters, not just a 'bunch of keys', some people like that. I liked a few of them and have them, don't see anything with that at all to be honest. Functionality was never the prime reason for amiibo to exist, if it was it would just have been cards from the start.

Don't see the problem with them to be honest, and if somebody has a 'problem' with collecting them and spending lots of money then they have much deep rooted problems that even you couldn't blame Nintendo for.

Banjo

I'm with Sligeach on this one. That feels as weird to write as it does to read

Smash Bros gets the balance right. The Amiibos give additional non-essential functionality - the ability to train up and customise your own personal instance of your favourite fighter(s) - but don't lock out any of the main game, and crucially none of the DLC either. You get a great feature for having an amiibo but it's a nice to have. You can have as much of the game as you want to pay for, with flexible options for how much you get. (One thing I'm not clear on - if you buy the Ryu or Mewtwo amiibo, do they unlock the appropriate DLC characters for you? Might change how I feel about them )

But it's all downhill from there, to various degrees. In most cases, and this is what really pisses me off, the Amiibos replace what should be microtransactions, turning them into macrotransactions (which used to be called transactions before smartphones took over the world) with disproportionately small rewards.

Splatoon is the one that really rankles ; Considering how thin the single player offering on Splatoon was in the first place, locking the challenge modes - which essentially double as training grounds for the non-standard weapon types - to amiibos was cruel and nonsensical. I'd be upset if they were made pay-for DLC given how much support the multiplayer game gets for free, but it'd be easier to take than having to import plastic effigies from Australia... Similarly there's extra game content for Mario Party, Captain Toad, Code-name Steam and the forthcoming Fire Emblem game that should be available to buy without having to sell a kidney and build a dedicated wing of your house to store the plastic.

There you have it : Amiibo are so inherently evil they made me come to terms with both Sligeach and Day One DLC in the same post. Burn them! For the love of god, burn them all!

I recently got into bed with Disney Infinity, and have 8 statues through various starter packs. Yes, they have their own paywalls but none of them are locking Gameplay behind a statue, just little digital cosmetic bits n bobs that might be nice to have but are not deal breaking.

(OK, that's not strictly true. Clearly every character and every playset is already on the disk. But considering what I paid for the disk, and the amount of content you get in exchange for the price of the playsets, I'm at peace with that.)

More importantly, with every statue I get that more tangible, tactile reward of getting to run around in a digital playground as say, Thor, throwing my daughter's Princess Merida off a race track and into the abyss beyond while cackling like a loon and being told how mean I am. In the corner of the sitting room Yoshi and Link are having a birthday party with Jack Sparrow and Sully; The cake came from an ELC set, it's not NFC compatible, but that's not the point. You can see in Link's eyes, he knows that at any second Thor could turn up to that party and one of the other guests will be leaving, but it won't be him...

Why Nintendo don't have a free-to-play game that uses Amiibo and steals ideas from Infinity, Minecraft, Lego City Undercover and Wii Sports Resort I don't know.

souleater3000

sligeach wrote: »

You mean handhelds, Kingdom Hearts has never been on a Nintendo console. And like you said they were spin-off handheld games.

They arn't actually Spin offs since every Kingdom Hearts game is canon and all of them put more towards to the main story as stupid as some of the plot points may have been *Cough* Xion *Cough*. They all happened within the timeline. Yes I do mean handhelds tho.

sligeach

souleater3000 wrote: »

They arn't actually Spin offs since every Kingdom Hearts game is canon and all of them put more towards to the main story as stupid as some of the plot points may have been *Cough* Xion *Cough*. They all happened within the timeline. Yes I do mean handhelds tho.

Yes that was wrong. I mean he's, what's the word, he's made guest appearances in other games. He's not been in his own FF series. Not you specifically but how does he figure in Nintendo's history? If anything he features in a bad way, being the star of the first FF since the franchise left Nintendo home consoles and never came back since. There's a million and one characters that deserve a place before him. Yes, people may like the character and he may be popular but this a Nintendo franchise and the characters are meant to have some ties. I love the Street Fighter series but I don't agree with Ryu either,

CiDeRmAn

Plenty of Final Fantasy games on the GC, Wii, DS and 3DS, only the WiiU lacked a new title.

FallSilently

Banjo wrote: »

One thing I'm not clear on - if you buy the Ryu or Mewtwo amiibo, do they unlock the appropriate DLC characters for you? Might change how I feel about them

The Mewtwo amiibo does not unlock the character. The DLC ones are all exactly the same deal as the regular ones.

And yeah, the big thing that separates amiibo from the other games-to-life franchises is the fact that amiibo doesn't have it's own game. With the others, you know you're buying the game board on the disk and then buying the game pieces separately. With amiibo, you should be buying a non-essential compliment to your existing, COMPLETE games.

CiDeRmAn

All they unlock so far is AI opponents you can train up, a minor extra treasure hunt in Treasure Tracker and a set of challenge missions in Splatoon, not to mention outfits in Hyrule Warriors and MK8.
None essential or adding to the core game in anyway.
In Splatoon masses of content have arrived free of charge since launch and in MK8 the fee for the dlc has added considerably to the original game. And there have been free options too, unlocking the 200cc and mirror tracks for those without the patience or skill to do so themselves.

It all compares quite well to the practice on the Sony and MS formats where considerable amounts of content is locked away, Batman Arkham series for example, as well as the worst example Ridge Racer Vita.

sligeach

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Plenty of Final Fantasy games on the GC, Wii, DS and 3DS, only the WiiU lacked a new title.

The likes of Crystal Bearers and the various Crystal Chronicles are not true Final Fantasy games. Reflected by most of their reviews, they were spin-offs worked on by their B teams. The first one on GC was probably the best.

CiDeRmAn

sligeach wrote: »

The likes of Crystal Bearers and the various Crystal Chronicles are not true Final Fantasy games. Reflected by most of their reviews, they were spin-offs worked on by their B teams. The first one on GC was probably the best.

It's a matter of perspective tbh, there are people who just haven't enjoyed the FF games on current gen consoles.
TBH, you haven't played those either, being a Nintendo owner only.
Between the DQ and the FF games there have been plenty of output from Square/Enix on Nintendo hardware.

souleater3000

Twilight Princess HD with amiibo is up on Smyths for order. And Amazon Germany at last check

Wolverine359

Mega yarn yoshi is available to preorder from Smyths for a nauseating €49.99.
http://www.smythstoys.com/ie/en-ie/video-games-tablets/c-824/nintendo-amiibo/p-15850/nintendo-amiibo-yoshi-s-woolly-world-series-mega-yarn-yoshi-green/
Also on Amazon.fr and Amazon.de for €39.99, works out about €46.50 from Amazon.fr with postage so might be worth ordering from there along with a few other items to offset the charges.
http://www.amazon.fr/Amiibo-Yoshis-Wolly-World-Yoshi/dp/B014VIKY5W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447841583&sr=8-1&keywords=Mega+yarn+yoshi

FallSilently

If I'm not collecting recolours and alternates, can I still be annoyed that Gold Megaman is a North America exclusive? Cuz crap like that is WHY I don't go for clones.

Wolverine359

FallSilently wrote: »

If I'm not collecting recolours and alternates, can I still be annoyed that Gold Megaman is a North America exclusive? Cuz crap like that is WHY I don't go for clones.

Is this definite?? Damn.
Yep I see the legacy collection isn't getting a physical release here, hike the US gets it And the gold amiibo, awwww.

RobbingBandit

Some Argos stores either have or can order Shulk in at the moment, grab him now while you can as he'll be gold dust in two weeks when Xenoblade X is released.

Banjo

http://www.amazon.co.uk/b/ref=BDE_UK_SWM?_encoding=UTF8&node=8741657031&pf_rd_p=758414907&pf_rd_s=nav-sitewide-msg&pf_rd_t=4201&pf_rd_i=navbar-4201&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0E7YPBW9DWJ0BDMBZCDM&gb_hero_f_100=p:18,c:all,s:available
Hope that link works

Ike and Duck Hunt amiibos go live for Prime in 10 mins or so, 40 mins or so for non-prime in a Lightning Deal. No idea what the price will be but may be worth a look.

R.O.B. at 2pm.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/b/ref=BDE_UK_SWM?_encoding=UTF8&node=8741657031&pf_rd_p=758414907&pf_rd_s=nav-sitewide-msg&pf_rd_t=4201&pf_rd_i=navbar-4201&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0E7YPBW9DWJ0BDMBZCDM&gb_hero_f_100=p:32,c0:all,s:available

Mii Brawler at 5pm
http://www.amazon.co.uk/b/ref=BDE_UK_SWM?_encoding=UTF8&node=8741657031&pf_rd_p=758414907&pf_rd_s=nav-sitewide-msg&pf_rd_t=4201&pf_rd_i=navbar-4201&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0E7YPBW9DWJ0BDMBZCDM&gb_hero_f_100=p:44,c:all,s:available

Obviously there's other stuff - if you or your mrs is preggers, think about the Angelcare monitor and pressure mat tomorrow morning or the MacLaren Quest buggy (great after about 6 months).There's a Digitech Whammy pedal at 8:40am tomorrow for the guitarists that don't party too much on a friday. Dangermouse on DVD tomorrow at 9:40am. A selection of knives and tools that Bear Grylls was happy to put his name to but would never actually use himself. But these aren't Amiibos so I don't know why I bring them up...

sligeach

RobbingBandit wrote: »

Some Argos stores either have or can order Shulk in at the moment, grab him now while you can as he'll be gold dust in two weeks when Xenoblade X is released.

Xenoblade Chronicles X has no amiibo compatibility. Thank God. Probably not surprising given the games audience. The same way Bayonetta 2 and Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water don't either. X may not be an 18's plus game but as I've said before, that's who'll mostly be playing it. The amiibo's biggest market is kids.

Star Lord

sligeach wrote: »

The amiibo's biggest market is kids.

I'd argue that it's nostalgic fans/collectors with disposable income.

Dozen Wicked Words

Star Lord wrote: »

I'd argue that it's nostalgic fans/collectors with disposable income.

Or nostalgic fans with kids, which is why I'll probably end up getting a few "for the kids"

Banjo

Well, take 500 kids who play Nintendo and find 1 who knows who the hell Shulk is, outside of a Smash Bros context maybe.

Maybe this is the critical disconnect between how Nintendo perceive themselves and how the real world sees them?
They made a console for families back when the kids were interested and the parents were not. The world grew up but in many ways those kids and Nintendo didn't. So now they're making a console for families where the parents are interested and the kids are not....

souleater3000

Anybody pick up any of the new amiibo today? I got Falco, Tom Nook and KK. Seems like we can't get Isabelle here without buying the new Animal Crossing game which is a shame

Star Lord

I'm sure Isabelle will be available on ebay and adverts soon for an extortionate price.

sligeach

Or you can wait 6 months in the hope that Nintendo release it separately like they did in the past week with the Inkling Squid amiibo in Europe.