So recently, Nintendo released another wave of their Amiibo figures. In the past, I was able to easily get all the Amiibo figures because I could reserve them at the nearby GameStop.  But for this last wave, GameStop decided to change their reservation process and have it be all online.  Even if you reserve them at the store.  So now I had to compete with the entire country, not just one place.  They WOULD have to do this on the wave that had the Amiibo I wanted most: Pac-Man!  I thought my Amiibo collecting days were done, but thanks to the graciousness of a good friend of mine, he drove me around to a couple of stores on the morning that the new wave of Amiibo figures would be released.  So I managed to get nearly all the ones I wanted!  So here’s a blog about them.  Will this be my last Amiibo blog?  Well, I guess we’ll just have to see what the next wave brings.  I would like to get Palutena, Zero Suit Samus, and Dr. Mario, and maybe catch up on exclusives like Meta Knight (not to mention upcoming Chibi Robo and Yarn Yoshi).  But we’ll just have to see when that time comes!

Anyway, so here are the Amiibo figures I bought still in their boxes.  We have Pac-Man, Wario, and Jigglypuff at the top, which I got at Target.  Jigglypuff was the exclusive figure at Target.  We could only pick two Amiibo figures at that store, which was lame, but luckily my friend let me buy his Wario that he picked out there.  The dumb thing was that when I want back to Target a few hours later to pick up groceries, they still had some Splatoon 3-packs, Pac-Man, and Wario Amiibo figures!

After that, we went to Wal-Mart and even though they had Amiibo figures in their computer system, they couldn’t find them in the warehouse.  A Nintendo sales person was there that I’ve known for a very long time, and she suspected that a crooked Wal-Mart employee took off with them.  That was a shame, but I did enjoy seeing the Nintendo sales rep again, and at Target I talked with a guy in line that I haven’t seen since high school and we still remembered each other!  Getting to talk with them and my friend who drove me around was definitely better than the Amiibo figures!  They’re the reason why I had so much fun shopping that morning!

Speaking of shady Wal-Mart practices, I also managed to get a gold Mario thanks to a former Wal-Mart/Sams employee.  She said employees were snatching up the gold Marios and auctioning them off, and she got me one for 20 bucks.  I don’t really like that they did that, but you can’t beat a rare Amiibo for 20 bucks.  I got the rest of the Amiibo figures in this picture at a furniture store, of all places: the Splatoon 3-pack, Charizard, and Silver Mario.  Anyway, sorry to go off on a tangent, but here are the figures in their boxes.

Obviously, Pac-Man is my favorite of the Amiibo figures.  In fact, when I went to Target later on that day, I picked up another Pac-Man Amiibo so I could have it in the box.  I have a big Pac-Man collection of things I’ve held on to even from when I was a kid.  So this will be great in the collection.  But I wanted one open Pac-Man so I can scan it and Wario into Mario Kart 8 to get the Mii racing outfits.  The Pac-Man one is so cool, it might even replace Toad as my main racer in that game!  Here is a closer shot of Pac-Man in the package:

Oh yeah, one last straggler.  On the afternoon of the new Amiibo release, Amazon was letting people order them in increments at certain time intervals.  I managed to get a Lucina, but by the time I got Robin into my cart, they had ran out within seconds!  Wow!  So now all I’m missing is Robin and the exclusives: Ness, Greninja, Meta Knight, and Lucario.  I guess if anyone has those figures and wants to give them a good home, let me know in the comments section.  Anyway, here’s Lucina:

So here are pictures of the Amiibo figures out of the box.  First we’ll do the main ones from Smash Bros.  From left to right we have Lucina, Wario, Pac-Man, Jigglypuff, and Charizard.

Next are the Splatoon figures.  When you scan these into the game, they unlock some extra single player missions.  I didn’t like that there was things in the game you couldn’t get unless you had the Amiibo figures.  So I wasn’t going to buy the game unless I could get the 3-pack.  I know some people would say I shouldn’t buy the game at all for that reason, but you know, it’s just a game and I don’t want to cut off my nose to spite my face.  So now I have the Splatoon game and it is very fun and might end up being my Game of the Year SO FAR when I write that blog sometime in July.  It’s an online shooter like Call of Duty, except you shoot ink and play as squid kids.  The thing I like about the game is that it’s very accessible and not intimidating at all, something Nintendo does well. A non-gamer could look at Splatoon and say, “I can do this!”  And it’s a great alternative for kids who want to play Call of Duty, but are too young for it.  So anyway here are the girl, squid, and boy Splatoon Amiibo figures:

And last I wanted to show off the details of some of these figures.  I like how the Splatoon boy and girl have their ink cans on their backs, and splats of ink on the base of the figure.  And check out Wario’s symbol on the back of his jacket!

Amiibo Tap: Nintendo’s Greatest Hits

And that’s all of the Amiibo figures I got this time!  Before I go, I thought I’d briefly mention a new free download on the Wii U called Amiibo Tap: Nintendo’s Greatest Hits.  What you do is scan your Amiibo figures on the Wii U gamepad and it lets you play a short 3 minute demo of one of their classic NES or SNES games.  If you scan the same figure again, you can play another short segment of the same game, like maybe a different level or boss battle.  There are tons of games you can get.  In fact, even with all my Amiibo figures, I only had a few left after completing the collection.  It’ll make you register your figures, too, so I guess that’s an easy way to do that.  It’s too bad that scanning the figures doesn’t unlock the WHOLE game, but I guess that would be too much to ask.  It’s just another way for Nintendo to sell figures and games on their Virtual Console, since there is a direct link to the eShop at all times here.  But I guess if you wanted to show your kids a short quip of the games you enjoyed as a youngster, this might be a good way to do it.  So I’ll conclude this blog by listing all the games on Amiibo Tap.  Thanks for reading!

Super Mario Bros.

Legend of Zelda

Kirby’s Adventure

Metroid

Super Mario World

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Kirby Super Star

Super Metroid

Super Mario Bros. 2

Super Mario Bros. 3

Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link

Balloon Fight

Super Mario Kart

F-Zero

Kirby’s Dream Course

Kirby’s Dream Land 3

Kid Icarus

Super Mario Bros 2 (JPN)

Excitebike

Donkey Kong

Wario’s Woods

Punch Out

Clu-Clu Land

Yoshi

Mach Rider

Wrecking Crew

Ice Climber

Pin Ball

Dr. Mario

Donkey Kong Jr.

Tags: Misc