Nintendo Super Smash Bros. Zelda Amiibo Nintendo, 2014
Day #1,691: April 27, 2017
Super Smash Bros. Zelda In Amiibo Land, Princess Rescues You
Super Smash Bros. Amiibo Wave 2 Amiibo
Item No.: No. NVL C AAAQ USZ Manufacturer:Nintendo Includes:n/a Action Feature:Works with Super Smash Bros. and a lot of other stuff Retail:$13.99 Availability:December 2014 Other: Suddenly Scarce
The Super Smash Bros. Zelda Amiibo was another figure I bought when it was cheap a year or two ago. Nobody was buying her, or many others, so it went on sale - why wouldn't I buy one? Interestingly the figure stayed somewhat cheap until the release of Breath of the Wild, in which she can unlock unique items like gems, food, and special bows. I assume this counts as cheating, but it's an amazing application of a phenomenon/legend of an old Japanese game called Barcode Battler, in which fights were determined by stats generated by a barcode. You could buy cards, or use consumer goods. Legend had it one kind of soup worked really well, so there was a run on that kind of soup for a short time. Similarly, Breath of the Wild helped to raise the profile of all Zelda-specific Amiibo figures and most stores are out of everything - especially the older ones from a few years ago.
Complete with his golden base Zelda is a decent, shiny figure. With her base, she stands about 3 1/2-inches tall and has no articulation. Her costume is specific to Super Smash Bros. which itself was modeled after Twilight Princess.
She was a bit of a slower seller for a while, so when stores had 2 for $20 sales she generally stuck around with Link, Mario, Pikachu, and a few others. One arm is outstretched so you get a look at her fingers and opera gloves, but also the surprisingly ornate dress. You can see little embroidered bits along the bottom, as well as subtle layers of fabric around her hands. She has brown boots visible under her dress which come complete with painted soles. Not only that, she has gold armor with painted blue gems and a swell tabard with a painted pattern over it too. The eyes are surprisingly expressive with black outlines and multiple colors, and if that wasn't enough you can see a gem in her gold tiara too. Nintendo put some serious bank in paint on this one.
In Super Smash Bros. Wii U, Zelda has multiple costumes in various colors. She also can be trained to be a support character, but I cracked her open for Breath of the Wild so I can get a bunch of stupid food items to experiment with cooking. Is it cheating? Maybe. But hey, I have it, it's neat, and it's certainly fun enough to see food fall from the sky once in a while. Going through a daily Amiibo grind is sort of surreal though - I don't know if it's really helping the pacing of the game.
It's kind of amazing to see how Nintendo has managed to create a market which it can manipulate. If older, unsold Amiibo figures exist it can deliver a new game which can use them for a cool bonus and fans will run out to buy the figures. This Zelda was mostly gone by the time it was discovered what she could do, but now if you find one you'd probably be a a smidgen more likely to buy one than not. If you already wanted one - and you probably did - now you've got a reason to throw down for an unlimited supply of a luck box of sorts. A real, tangible item that offers digital goods is a heck of a sharp idea and I hope Nintendo does more stuff like this in other games. Who wouldn't buy something like this for the upcoming Secret of Mana collection, or a new Dragon Quest game, or some other craziness? It's a marriage between two of my favorite hobbies, with figures that keep on giving gifts in new games. One hand washes the other, and cleans out my wallet.
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