Nintendo Amiibo Final Design Revealed
Nintendo has been hard at work finalizing the designs for their upcoming physical toy line, Amiibo. The gaming press was given hands on time with the new plastic figures for the first time since their unveiling at E3 earlier this year. Amiibo is Nintendo’s next effort to increase their visibility on shelves coming into the all important Christmas shopping season.
The Amiibo toy line is Nintendo’s take on the successful interactive figurines that became popular with Activision’s Skylanders and Disney’s Infinity properties. The key difference between Amiibo figurines and the competition is that Amiibo will not be limited to just one game. The figurines, based off characters from Nintendo’s various franchises, will interact with multiple games across multiple Nintendo devices. The 3DS will also be receiving support for the Amiibo at some point in 2015.
At launch, the figurines will only interact with Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U, which releases on November 21, but support for other titles is forthcoming. Confirmed titles that will include future support include, Mario Kart 8, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Mario Party 10 and Yoshi’s Wolly World. Other titles that have not been confirmed include Hyrule Warriors and Super Smash Bros. for 3DS.
Eurogamer released their coverage of the Amiibo today focusing on the physical presentation of the figurines as compared to the original figures presented in June at E3 2014. The changes for the figures deal mostly in the physical support for the figures as well as the quality of the textures and paint.
The first major change in the finalized Amiibo figurines is the removal of the thin, clear plastic support for characters that were airborne in their pose such as Link and Fox. The supports are now a thicker, colorized plastic column that attempts to match the color palette for the character. Characters like the Wii Fit Trainer, who has one foot on the ground, now has a rather large semi-opaque grey plastic leg support added. Characters who are firmly standing on their own two feet, such as Mario, remain unchanged.
Another element that has been changed is the amount of detail of various Amiibos, such as Princess Peach. The designs are less intricate and painted on rather than indented into the plastic. Mario’s denim overalls have lost their texture and rather are a more flat blue and sports a simple outline around the garment.
Nintendo’s Amiibo itself is reported to work without issue and looks to deliver the promise of having a trainable character fight alongside you in Super Smash Bros. The first step is to have the character tied to a Mii character on your Wii U. Once that is accomplished, the Amiibo is leveled up by “feeding” it power-up items that are found during the various modes within Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. As your Amiibo levels up to the cap of 50, the stats on the character can be increased such as attack, defense and so on.
It is still too early to tell if the Amiibo will help propel Nintendo’s Wii U into the public mindset again and spur encouraging sales for the Christmas shopping season. With only one game available to use the Amiibo figurines on, we will have to wait for the other titles to have support patched in or to be released to gain a full view of the picture Nintendo wants us to paint with their new plastic toys.
[Image Source | Nintendo]
