Another Nintendo Direct online presentation came and went, and we are left with the indescribable joy of knowing that amiibo are no longer confined to plastic casings and sub-par DLC tie-ins. You might be of the mind that the larger news in the presentation had something to do with Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. or even Fire Emblem, but you’d be so terrifyingly, child-scarringly wrong that a conversation with you would be like licking an ice-cream cone and finding finger nails inside. No, the only real news of the day was this:

So long as you aren’t mistaking that nefarious hand for trying to squirt a poo out onto his Gamepad, you’ll likely come to the conclusion that the plush Yoshi is actually an amiibo. You’d be right. Are you getting it now? Does the world seem brighter today than it did yesterday? Stuffed animals have begun to communicate with the computers.

This Yarn Yoshi amiibo, which comes in three colors, is a tie-in to the upcoming Wii U game, Yoshi’s Woolly World. Both the game and the amiibo release in the fall. Popping that adorable little guy on the Gamepad will unlock a clone Yoshi that follows you around during play, which you can lap up and toss around in egg form to make the platforming easier.

Aside from the train-your-amiibo functionality you get in Super Smash Bros., this is the best use of the figures yet. But that isn’t to say the Nintendo Direct wasn’t flush with other exciting amiibo news.

Super Smash Bros. Wave 4

Perhaps the most ho-hum and also the most exciting, a new wave of Super Smash Bros. amiibo are already up for pre-order, due for release on May 29. Though previously revealed, here they are again with the new additions of Greninja and Jigglypuff:

(Robin, Lucina, Charizard, Wario)

 

 

(Ness, Greninja, Jigglypuff Pac-Man)

Importantly, three are exclusive to certain retailers, as has been the case sporadically in the past. You can only get Ness from Gamestop, Jigglypuff from Target and Greninja from Toys”R”Us. We don’t have a link for the Ness amiibo because, reportedly, the pre-order rush crashed the entire website, so Gamestop took the listing down. Don’t expect nabbing any of these figures an easy task.

Now that we have a relase date for Wave 4, Nintendo naturally let loose some new announcements for more waves down the line. Regarding Super Smash Bros., the following were revealed with tentative release dates spread throughout 2015.

Due July 2015 (Palutena, Dark Link)

Due September 2015 (Ganondorf, Olimar, Dr. Mario, Bowser Jr.)

Splatoon

In addition to the above Super Smash Bros. amiibo, Nintendo revealed three new amiibo tied to the third-person shooter Splatoon, all of which are also due out on May 29. You can buy the amiibo as a pack of three, or the two humanoids separately.

These three amiibo represent another cool integration into the respective game, unlocking new single-player levels and new gear when you touch them to the Gamepad. These also mark the first amiibo with characters completely new to the Nintendo universe, rather than the fighters who make up the classics roster of the Super Smash Bros. series. Their level of success at retail will be a strong indicator towards Nintendo’s long-term amiibo plans.

amiibo Tap: Nintendo’s Greatest Bits

The explosive popularity of the amiibo has lead to the assumption that amiibo-centric software would be released at some point across Nintendo’s consoles. The first fruition of that notion is amiibo Tap: Nintendo’s Greatest Bits, a slight little program that grants you access to demos of classic games when you tap your amiibo in. Here’s the rundown:

Strangely, the games you get have nothing to do with the amiibo you’re using. They’re randomly assigned, but permanent once activated. In other words, this is just another of the many ways Nintendo has come up with to get people interested in buying the classics all over again. Here’s to waiting for a real amiibo game in the future.

Nintendo also revealed a third kind of amiibo, separate from the regular plastic kind and the world-changing yarn variation.

Yes, that’s a card amiibo, a thing that takes all of the fun out of the entire amiibo concept. The first will be of the Animal Crossing series, compatible with a new budget 3DS title called Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. You design homes for various Animal Crossing characters, using the amiibo cards to unlock new characters, and you do it happily.

As always, you can head over to Nintendo’s official amiibo website for all the up-to-date information. Be warned, the website has been chugging since these latest announcements. Try to hop past the opening screen via a Google search to get in if it’s struggling, or you can just head straight to the lineup page.

Finally, here’s the Nintendo Direct with all the goodies, from amiibo to new Super Smash Bros. fighters and even a new, super fast mode for Mario Kart 8.

The Yarn Yoshi amiibo, New Super Smash Bros. Wave and More amiibo Updates

A couple of weeks ago we ran a piece detailing everything we could about Nintendo’s amiibo lineup. We knew then it was a success. Today, we know that the NFC figurines have ascended success and entered the realm of company staple.

The numbers are rampantly good, according to Nintendo, which means the amiibo figurines are here to stay. Another slew of figurines has been announced, along with new details about amiibo compatibility with released and future games alike.

Super Smash Bros. Wave 4

It turns out all the amiibo released thus far have been of the Super Smash Bros. collection all along, made clear by the fact that Nintendo is repeating some of the amiibo figurines in the new Super Mario collection. More about those in a second. For now, these are the new Super Smash Bros. amiibo being released sometime in the spring.

(Robin, Lucina, Charizard, Wario)

 

 

(Ness, Pac-Man)

Super Mario amiibo Line

Five of the currently existing Super Smash Bros. amiibo are receiving new models in what Nintendo has dubbed the Super Mario line-up. There is one brand new addition, Toad, who might just be considered the cutest of them all. All six are set to release on March 20 alongside Mario Party 10. Mario, Peach, Luigi, Yoshi and Bowser will all retain the same exact game compatibility as their Super Smash Bros. counterparts.

(Mario, Peach, Toad, Luigi)

(Yoshi, Bowser)

New amiibo Games and Expanded Functionality

If you want to cut right to the chase, head on over to Nintendo’s amiibo website, which saw a dramatic improvement in readability. It details the release date and game compatibility of every figurine in one, easy to use chart. Newly announced compatibility is as follows:

The Wii U’s Mario Party 10, out March 20, will technically read every amiibo, according to the chart, which will allow you play a minigame to unlock new content. However, only Bowser, Mario, Peach, Luigi, Yoshi, Rosalina, Donkey Kong, Wario and Toad figurines will do something far more cool. With them, you’ll get access to the amiibo Party mode, which uses special, character-defined game boards to change the experience. You can also use any of the nine mentioned figurines as your character in-game.

Nintendo is planning on releasing amiibo/Mario Party 10 bundles. So far we’ve only seen a Mario one.

It’s worth mentioning right now that because Mario Party 10 actually writes data onto those nine amiibo, you’ll have to erase ‘Super Smash Bros. for Wii U’ data already on there. An amiibo can only store data for one game at a time. Right now, though, only Mario Party 10 and Super Smash Bros. actually do that. Every other game simply takes note of which amiibo is currently on the platform and does something independent of any data on the chip itself.

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, out on Feb. 20, will grant you in-game abilities dependent on if you use Kirby, King Dedede or Meta Knight. Only those three are planned for any kind of compatibility.

Yoshi’s Woolly World, which is still sitting on a release window of “first half of 2015,” will indeed have amiibo functionality. That’s still all we know.

The final Wii U game of note is the already released Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, which will only read the Toad amiibo, enabling a sort-of Eye Spy side-quest, hiding little Toad images to find throughout the game’s existing levels. If there was ever a time to be a Toad fanatic, this is it.

Next up are the 3DS titles. Remember, the New Nintendo 3DS XL, which is coming to North America on Feb. 13, has an NFC reader inside, much like the Wii U’s Gamepad. Anybody who wants to use an older model 3DS with his or her amiibo will need to purchase the NFC adapter add-on.

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS amiibo functionality will behave exactly the same as its Wii U counterpart, reading any amiibo figurine except Toad, once the game is patched in February. Oddly, Nintendo hasn’t quite said whether an amiibo will require different data sets for the 3DS and Wii U versions or if they share date. Hopefully it’s the latter.

Code Name S.T.E.A.M., the real-time, turn-based hybrid action game from the same studio behind Fire Emblem and Advanced Wars, reads any Fire Emblem amiibo. That’s the currently released Marth and Ike, and the wave four amiibo Lucina and Robin. You’ll get to use any character you have in battle, which is a pretty substantial benefit for a game so dependent on its diversified characters. Here’s a trailer for that.

So that’s about it. All of this information came from Nintendo Direct that aired on Jan. 14. Check it for a lot more about Nintendo’s 2015 line-up in general, including a new Fire Emblem game and some Wii classics being ported onto the Wii U.

Everything About Nintendo’s Latest Wave of amiibo Figurines

Nintendo’s amiibo platform, those little NFC-enabled Marios, Links and other franchise mascots, is proving to be a real, actual thing that people care about. Turns out it doesn’t matter that their functionality in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is basically inessential. It doesn’t matter that their functionality in the very few other accessible games is limited to the point of moot. In the end, people just wanted to collect some sweet Nintendo figurines direct from the video game company itself.

These things are flying off the shelves, but don’t worry if your niece, nephew, husband, wife or child has suddenly developed an irrational and seemingly unfounded need for a tiny version of some random dude named Marth, or something called a Wii Fit Trainer. That panicked sweat of ignorance shall wash cleanly away. We have you covered. This is the 2014 “how to amiibo” guide, starting with the three known waves of amiibo figurines, the first of which may already occupy a space on your desk.

At the time of publication, wave two amiibos are releasing at seemingly random days in random retailers across the U.S., likely wholly dependent on the availability of stock from store to store. Be assured, by Christmas the dust will settle. At this point, though, due to their surprising popularity, a pre-order is almost a must in order to ensure you get the one you want, no matter the wave or the place.

How to Choose

Every amiibo costs $13. Not coincidentally, that’s just a tiny bit less than most Disney Infinity and Skylanders figures on the market. Unlike those two groupings, the Nintendo choices are slim to the point of navigable for even the most out-of-touch relatives and, in the most important twist on the NFC figurine business model, Nintendo’s figurines have the potential to work with any games published on an NFC-enabled Nintendo console. Right now that’s just the Wii U, but next year the 3DS is getting a purchasable adapter and an entirely new model of the device, dubbed the New Nintendo 3Ds (and an XL version), which will ship with native NFC compatibility.

The grand conclusion of all this nonsense is you can worry far less about whether you bought the right thing to work in the right way, because even if it doesn’t, it could in the future, especially for anyone with a modicum of interest in new Nintendo games and consoles. However, there are ways to be more right than wrong when making your choice. Nintendo’s done the heavy lifting for you on this one, providing a fairly robust amiibo rundown on its own website, detailing which amiibo work with which games.

As you’ll see, the only three games the amiibo communicate with at all right now are Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Hyrule Warriors. More importantly, some amiibo grant you a showy costume for your Mii racer in Mario Kart 8 while others do nothing at all.

The Hyrule Warriors situation is, let’s say, less compelling, dispelling meager upgraded weapons upon NFC contact and nothing more. If it’s a way to enhance a video game you’re looking for, the only real option is Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, which actually plops down a virtual version of your amiibo into battle with or against you. The more he or she fights, the better he or she gets, so it’s a bit of a train-your-pet mini-game with a dose of violence. The persistence of the character, that your Donkey Kong or Captain Falcon is the same one every time he drops into the game, is the real interesting bit. Hopefully, future games will make as strong an effort, because Mario Kart 8 and Hyrule Warriors are just check marks on a list right now.

The future Wii U games already confirmed for amiibo connectivity are Mario Party 10, Yoshi’s Woolly World and Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, while the already released Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker will eventually receive a patch to enable its own amiibo features, though what those features might be for any of these games remains a mystery.

Where to find Store-Exclusive Amiibos

Much like any other physical, store-bound video game release, those nasty little retailer-exclusive offers are cropping up at an alarming rate. Wave 3, specifically, is set to split four amiibo among four retailers. Lucario and all his Pokemon-enabled kid friendliness is headed to Toys ‘R Us. Shulk, representative of the super video gamey Xenoblade series, will only be available through Gamestop. Meta Knight of the Kirby franchise is going to Best Buy.

And Rosalina, the latest core Mario character out of the Super Mario Galaxy games, shall grace Target with her eminence. Lucario is likely to prove the most popular of these figures, so start to get emotionally ready to enter the cave of color known as Toys ‘R Us, either a heaven or hell depending on your psychological age.

When in Doubt, Search eBay

You may have found your way to this article for a reason other than gift giving to yourself or others (no judgement). Indeed, it’s the land of Ebay that might’ve propelled these amiibos to their current level of marketplace prestige. The influence is two fold. First, the Samus and Peach amiibos have both shipped with unique and rare manufacturing errors.

Two Blaster Samus!

You’d be very lucky to stumble across, in your local Best Buy or Target, a Samus amiibo with two blasters, one on each arm, instead of the standard one. You’d be even luckier to find a Peach without her legs. Both of these have sold for thousands of dollars through Ebay auctions. That’s thousands, up from the original $13.

There’s now a flurry of listings for many other amiibo models on Ebay, desperate to reproduce the result. Some Fox amiibos have shipped without his eyepiece, and some Marios have shipped without painted hair. These “defects” range from the cool to the ridiculous to the completely fabricated.

No legs!

There are even a collection of people who seem to have simply shaken the box until the amiibo is upside down within the packaging, claiming a defect of their own making. It’s a wild west right now, only to get more absurd as waves two and three hit the market.

The other half of the Ebay equation is the current ambiguity surrounding Nintendo’s stance on whether certain amiibos, namely Marth, Wii Fit Trainer and Villager, will be manufactured at all following this holiday season. Through hazey statements on the subject and flat out conjecture, it seems Nintendo’s waiting to see if their popularity warrants further investment.

The ironic turnaround, of course, is if Nintendo decides to completely discontinue any amiibo, it’s value is bound to immediately skyrocket on the second hand market. Without an official word, though, it’s the waiting game for the opportunist in all of us. Try to imagine which amiibo you’d be least likely to buy and maybe that’s the one you should. But nobody really knows at the moment.

Search Amazon for  Amiibo Deals

Ben’s Guide to Choosing and Finding Nintendo Amiibos