Amiibo: How they could be used

In my last post I ranted a little bit about Amiibo usage in Hyrule Warriors. In fact it upset me so much, that I intend to boycott all Zelda Amiibos for the time being. Samus will feel a little bit lonely next to my Garp figurine, but so be it. But I'm the last person, who just rants, without providing some sort of thought for solution. So here are my ideas for Amiibo Integration in different games.

Hyrule Warriors:

Yes I know that this game is already released and the Amiibo support is also already revealed, but Hyrule Warriors is the only game, so far, which does it wrong in my opinion. Amiibos should enhance and support a game without feeling mandatory. But in Hyrule Warriors case this is just the case. Weapons have a huge impact on how you play with a character and are a big part of this game. So by binding one weapon exclusively to an Amiibo you create the need to buy this figure. Because it's literally the only way to obtain the spinner weapon.

So how could these figures be used in Hyrule Warriors? There are several possibilities. The first is the way the others are used. Giving you weapons, rupees and materials. Another possible use would be costumes like in Mario Kart. Of course these two possibilities are pretty standard, but they would be nice enhancements.

An even better use would be a variation of the Smash Bros. usage of Amiibos. If you use a supported Amiibo (Link, Zelda, Shiek, etc.) in Hyrule Warriors you call this character to help you. It would attack the enemy, conquer keeps and collect materials for you. You could also equip and train this character and take it to your friends to help them too. And it doesn't have to stop there. If you want added challenge you could summon your character as an enemy. This would increase the challenge, but also yield better loot.

I think this would be a great use of the figures and enhance the game without feeling mandatory.

Splatoon:

The first idea that springs to mind regarding Amiibo and Splatoon would be accessorizes to individualize your characters. We already saw that there are many different inklings, so this would be a nice touch. Buy a Mario Amiibo and get his clothes, cap, mustache, etc. to decorate your inkling with. Maybe you could go even further. Add sigils or emblems to decorate your weapons and headquarters with.

Just don't add weapons or things like that which are tied to Amiibos.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker:

It was announced earlier that this game will also receive Amiibo support and to be honest I'm not sure how this could work. Captain Toad is a pretty basic game so I don't have many ideas on which you could expand the Amiibo integration. The only idea I came up with would be an integration of Mario Amiibos, which were also characters in Super Mario 3D World. When you use that Amiibo you can race it in several levels and if you beat it in every level you unlock this figure as a playable character in the game. Of course the wouldn't be able to jump, but it would be nice to play as Rosalina.

But... this would be the worst possible integration of Amiibos. Locking up characters behind their figurines is a big no go. However this is the only way of Amiibo integration I came up with. So lets hope that Nintendo is more imaginative than me, or we would get Hyrule Warriors 2.0 with this game. And I would really hate it if I had to boycott the Toadette figurine (which they will announce hopefully). That girl is just to cute.

Yoshis Wooly World:

With Yoshi there are also not so much way of Amiibo integration. A wool version of Amiibos would be to cost intensive to create I guess, and it would also be locked character DLC, which is the worst possible outcome, as I mentioned in the Captain Toad section. So from the gameplay which was shown to us I guess that Amiibos will take the part of second player if you don't have anyone around. Touch the gamepad with your figure and summon a second Yoshi to help you.

Also racing would be another option. Maybe exclusive to the Yoshi Amiibo. When you use the Yoshi Amiibo it will race you on different or all stages. Beat it to receive stamps/medals/concept art. It would add another layer of challenge and long time motivation to this game. You could even save your own record times on your Amiibos, take them to a friends home and laugh at him while he tries to beat you.. or cry if he actually does.

Xenoblade Chronicles X:

So far Xenoblade didn't get conformation for Amiibo support, but I'm pretty sure that from now on nearly every big Nintendo title will get it. So how could it work in Xenoblade? My first thought was optional hunting missions which reward cosmetic awards. The game looks like your Hero will receive a great deal of customization. So this would be a nice integration. Kill the Mariosaurus to produce clothes out of his hide. Something like that would be nice. They could also add a Shulk skin for your character if you own the Amiibo.

Zelda:

Zelda will receive Amiibo support. There is no doubt about it. But how will it look like? Well this question only Anouma can truly answer, but I'll try my best. It's pretty hard, because we don't know anything about this Zelda yet, except that it will be open world and probably have a random dungeon order like A Link between Worlds.

I personally like the enhance difficulty approach which I detailed with Hyrule warriors. Amiibos could summon Shadow Links which hunt you, but also reward a ton of rupee/collectibles.

Of course Nintendo would also need to offer the possibility to summon a helpful Amiibo. This would create a nice offer of choice.

If you have problems with a dungeon or fight you could use Amiibos to help you, but if you're a Zelda pro and want more challenge, then summon some Shadow Links to spice things up.

So these are my basic ideas for Amiibo Use. I think these would enhance the games, but don't feel mandatory. Of course Amiibos are DLC in some way and all this ideas could be integrated into the games directly. I would also prefer this, but so far Amiibos don't look like a ripoff. I bought Samus today and she is well designed and processed. And as long as they keep the benefits of Amiibos a bonus I think these figures will be a nice bonus.

But what are your thoughts about them? Do you like/ don't like them? And how would you like to see them integrated into future Nintendo titles?

And as always

thanks for reading

Amiibo: The good, the bad and the ugly

Splatoon looks awesome!

But enough about my hype for this game. Let's get to the topic I want to talk about.

In this weeks Nintendo direct some of the Amiibo features of other games got revealed and I'm pretty torn about it.

When Amiibo was announced I couldn't really grasp the concept of the figures. How would they add value to our games without being hidden DLC. But their usage in Smash Bros. calmed me. It made sense, added value and wasn't mandatory.

So on Wednesday the specified the Amiibo support of two other games. Mario Kart 8 and Hyrule Warriors. And while Mario Kart 8 falls into the Smash category, although not as good, the problem lies with Hyrule Warriors. In Mario Kart 8 the supported Amiibos unlock costumes for your Mii. It's a nice feature to give your driver a little more personality, and added value for any Amiibo owner. But I wouldn't buy a figure just because of that. It follows the principle of enhancing the game without being mandatory.

In Hyrule Warriors on the other hand Amiibos are hidden DLC. All these fears and bad thoughts I had after the first introduction to the concept reemerged. It's only one game so far, which is not to bad, but we need to let Nintendo know that we're not okay with this or it will expand to more games. If you own a Zelda or Link Amiibo it will unlock an extra weapon for the related character. Different weapons make a huge difference in Hyrule Warriors. You have an entirely different moveset, which turns the character basically into a brand new one. So adding a new weapon, which can only be obtained by buying Amiibos, is the worst this concept could become. DLC. Fans who want to enjoy the whole of Hyrule Warriors now need to buy the Link Amiibo. Nintendo just blatantly lied to us with their their statement that Amiibo will enhance gameplay, but not be DLC.

In the last couple of months Nintendo has been on a roll with DLC. They've done everything right, which you can do right with this concept. Because of that it hurts me to see them doing this. If we don't want Amiibos to become hidden DLC, we, as fans, need to protest against this. Let Nintendo know over the Miiverse. Write them. The spinner should be included without the need to buy an Amiibo. Instead the Amiibos could fulfill their original purpose of enhancing the game without being mandatory. I read the idea of summoning a ghostly helper through the figurines. Or offer special costumes with them. There are many possibilities, but don't make the mandatory DLC. This will probably generate short therm profits, but by doing that you erode the customers trust into your products.

Let's all hope that this is a one time slip up and that there is NOT more to come.

Also the ugly:

picture source:NintendoEverything

and as always

thanks for reading

Quality of Life

Last week Nintendo presented their quarterly report and apart from a most welcome profit report the first news about the quality of life program seeped through. Of course this is only one stone of many, which will in the end make up the quality of life program, but it gives us an outlook of what we can expect. And from a technological standpoint it's very impressive. Satoru Iwata presented the idea of a sensor, which will monitor your sleeping behavior. Your heartbeat, the frequency of your breathing and other things will be recorded and analyzed. And the impressive thing is, that all of this will work wireless. You don't need to hookup yourself to the machine. The collected data will then be streamed into a cloud service and analyzed there. This cloud service will make up the core of the quality of life program. All of this sounds pretty good to be true, but the be also completely blunt, I don't care. I'm a fan of Nintendo, but I'm mostly in for their awesome games. But in our health obsessed society and especially in Japan I can see them doing very well with this service. But it's not for me and I accept that. Because of that I found the reaction of some other Nintendo Fans pretty hilarious. Some comments sounded like they were forced to buy the quality of life service. Just like, if you're a Nintendo Fan you have to buy ALL of their products. Well Nintendo also owns some Love Hotels, so I hope you and your partner are in the mood.

This is, of course, complete bullshit. I'm a huge Nintendo Fan. I absolutely love Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Metroid and all the other franchises. But there are also Nintendo franchises I've never got into. Pikmin or Animal Crossing for example. They just don't interest me. And the same applies to the Quality of Life service, because I'm pretty satisfied with my lifes current quality level.

But this doesn't mean I'm following the news about Quality of Life closely. Because one thing worries me. Satoru Iwata said that this new venture won't affect the traditional games making business. It will be a third pillar next to the handheld and stationary consoles. Hmm when have I heart that the last time? Ohh right... When the DS launched, it should be a third pillar and not a replacement for the Gameboy. We all know how this turned out and this knowledge always lingers in the back of my head, when talking about Quality of Life. What if it is another huge success, just like the Nintendo DS? Will Nintendo then abandon the traditional game sector to fully persuade this more successful market?

To be honest, I don't think so. Satoru Iwata is a game developer. I can't see Nintendo abandoning it's identity under him, but what is a real possibility is they drive back their output in that field. Coupled with the already bad 3^rd party support their systems have (and lets just assume that this stays the same in the next generation) this could turn out to be a huge problem, probably forcing them to abandon (at least) their home console business. And that is something I don't want to see happening. I think one of the main reasons for Nintendo Games to be as good as they are, is their own platforms. Their consoles are tailored exactly for the needs of their own developers. It's a great strength of Nintendo (and of course a weakness in regards to third party developers) and with loosing that Nintendo may take Segas route. And we can agree that no one wants to see this happening.

So in conclusion I think that the Quality of Life service is a good idea and the first information sounds pretty impressive. But I also hope that it doesn't become a huge mega success like the DS or the Wii. A moderate success that turns it into the third pillar for Nintendo, but not the main pillar. This should always be the games business.

And as always

Thanks for reading