Nintendo’s amiibo are kind of great

Back in 2014, Nintendo announced something called amiibo. At that time, there were two things gamers were more than thirsty for: collectibles and DLC. Both were giant businesses and Nintendo made things a lot easier by combining the two.

Amiibo are small, plastic, and in most cases, remarkably detailed statues of characters from various video games.

What started out as mostly just Nintendo characters like the Mario gang, Animal Crossing critters and the cast of Legend of Zelda, quickly progressed as Smash Brothers got crazier and more and more games got into the amiibo… game. Shovel Knight, Pokemon and more suddenly saw a bunch of amiibo figures. Depending on who you ask, I have a relatively big/small collection of 75 Amiibos.

But they’re more than just statues. The circular bases underneath these little guys contain a remarkably tiny NFC chip that allows it to send a signal to a Wii U, 3DS or Nintendo Switch.

What they do has been a bit controversial. Let’s say I have a Wolf Link Amiibo from Twilight Princess. In Super Smash Brothers, the Amiibo will allow me to make a CPU version of Link that I can train and send to fight other people. It’s a fun little one-off. But if I have The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild I can actually use it to summon a wolf that fights alongside me.

While, personally, I think that’s cool as hell, a lot of people have lauded Nintendo for what they claim is putting certain things behind a “paywall”.  Some people claim that if these features are in the game, they should just be in the game, period.

Here is why I disagree. But before I do, let me point out that I don’t think people who disagree with me are wrong. It’s just my opinion so hear me out.