Scanning for upgrades: If Amiibo worked in real life

So, Nintendo announced that Super Mario Odyssey will be compatible with every Amiibo figure and card released to date. That’s crazy!

But it got us thinking about what all those different Amiibo do. About how we’d use them in the real world, if we could. Many Amiibo give out costume changes, which is great and all. Some of those more special effects could have decent benefits…

Bokoblin – great at barbecues

Most stuff the Bokoblin Amiibo spawns in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is raw meat… Except for the Bokoblin Guts, which sound less tasty. But we’d be happy to take the Raw Prime Meat, and the Raw Gourmet Meat, to our next BBQ.

Yeah, we know other Amiibos activate in-game item drops. Any BotW character that drops food would make cooking easier. What we like about Bokoblin is that it only spawns meat. You know (more or less) what you’re getting. No chance of ending up with an Armored Carp instead. Can you imagine how long that’d take on the grill?

Fire Emblem characters (and others) – more moolah

Alm, Celica, Corrin, and Roy Amiibos all increase your Moolah if scanned into the Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash game.

Actually… so do a lot of characters. And the first 4 series of Animal Crossing cards. This isn’t a rare effect. Probably done to make people want Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash. We’d never heard of it.

But anyway, what’s that you say? Free money? Yeah, we’ll take that effect in real life, please! It’s a quick way to make cash. And it works once per day per character scan, so imagine how rich you’d be in a month.

It’s great when Amiibo characters have decent effects in games other than their own. Doing the default ‘character costume swap’ feels kinda lazy. In-game cash is way more useful.

Splatoon 2 Inkling Boy – swim like a ninja

Scan this boy to unlock the Squinja Mask, Suit, and Boots. These items are exclusive to this Amiibo, and can’t be made with Murch’s gear tweaking ability. The Inkling Boy from the original Splatoon spawns Samurai gear when scanned into Splatoon 2. Which is also super cool.

Based on how the costume looks, being a squinja’s pretty much like being a ninja. Except… that you look more like a squid. We see what you did there, Splatoon.

The squinja boots unlock a swimming speed boost when equipped. And we decided that’s the effect we want most. The ability to power through water like a human speedboat. Is it too late to sign up for the Olympics?

Any Yarn Yoshi – our enemies will be eaten

Do the Yoshi’s Woolly World yarn plush figures count as proper Amiibos? We hope so. Because every colour spawns a Yoshi sidekick for the game. These’d be nice to own just as huggable plushies, to be fair.

We’ve got fond memories of Yoshi games on the N64 and Gamecube. What we remember most is that we didn’t always have to jump on our enemies, or beat them up. Nope. Yoshi ate them instead. With a cute ‘nom’ sound effect.

Having a real Yoshi as a pet would be super convenient. We’d never have to swat a fly, or trap a spider/cockroach/NHK representative under a glass, ever again. Saw a cockroach? Nom it. Moth in the wardrobe? Nom it. Neighbour’s tiny dog yapping too loud? Nom it. (We’re just kidding about that last one, we swear.)

Scan one and see – then scan another, and one more…

Feel the special effects of any Amiibo by ordering it direct from Japan with DEJAPAN. We can help you get brand new, rare and Japan-only Amiibo figures online.