{"id":14536,"date":"2016-01-22T00:01:51","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T00:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=14536"},"modified":"2016-01-13T15:49:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T15:49:56","slug":"the-mini-games-of-animal-crossing-amiibo-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/22\/the-mini-games-of-animal-crossing-amiibo-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mini-Games of Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AC_BOX\"<\/a>Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival is a Wii U game that came out late last year. It\u2019s a video board game featuring Animal Crossing characters, and you use Animal Crossing Amiibo figures to play it.\u00a0 You must scan them on the Wii U gamepad to roll dice, save your individual progress, heck; you can\u2019t even start the game without first scanning an Amiibo.\u00a0 But there is a little more to it than that.\u00a0 Along with the board game, there is a selection of eight mini-games you can unlock that use the Animal Crossing Amiibo cards that are primarily used in Happy Home Designer.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t read too many reviews online that go over these games in detail, so I\u2019ll do that now since I like covering mini-games.<\/p>\n

But first I\u2019ll talk about the board game a little more. Up to four can play, but you\u2019ll need AC Amiibo figures, one for each player.\u00a0 You can either set a time limit, or play out a full month in the game, each round of turns lasting a day in the month.\u00a0 Each month has different activities like in the main games, and the board is set up in a town.\u00a0 When you land on a space, you can earn or lose happy points and\/or money.\u00a0 You can use money to buy items that\u2019ll help you get more money or happy points, like buying turnips on Sunday and selling them at a higher price later in the week, for instance.\u00a0 Some days, other characters will come into town to change things up.\u00a0 At the end of the game, whoever has the most happy points, wins.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a BAD game, per se, but it\u2019s certainly disappointing especially after seeing how awesome a 3-D Animal Crossing game could be with the Mario Kart 8 DLC.\u00a0 And the game requires no skill whatsoever to play.<\/p>\n

After the game is over, your happy points are turned into Happy Tickets. You get one Happy Ticket for each 100 happy points you earn by playing the board game.\u00a0 You can also earn happy points by playing the mini-games, too. \u00a0\u00a0So what can you do with Happy Tickets?\u00a0 Well, you can decorate the game board with houses and other items, which I don\u2019t think change anything at all (aside from making a new path on the board).\u00a0 Or you can use them to buy and unlock the mini-games.\u00a0 These mini-games use the Animal Crossing Amiibo cards to play them, and the game even comes with three special cards.\u00a0 Although many of the games require more than three, so that doesn\u2019t make any sense.<\/p>\n

You can use the cards for other things, too. Scan them on the menu screen to have more animals walk around your plaza, and you can also scan them into the board game town to live there and walk about as you play.\u00a0 Each card also has a dice number on it, and you can scan them in if you want to roll a certain number.<\/p>\n

While we\u2019re on the subject of the cards, I wanted to show you all something I got for Christmas. It\u2019s a binder for my Animal Crossing cards.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit small and not as nice as I thought it would be, but it was pretty inexpensive.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a picture:<\/p>\n

\"CARDS1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are what the cards look like when you put them in the binder. I have to say that most of my cards came from a good online friend that I\u2019ve known for quite a while.\u00a0 I won\u2019t say who it is, but if you are that friend and you\u2019re reading this, thank you so, so much!\u00a0 You know who you are!<\/p>\n

\"CARDS2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, let\u2019s take a look at the mini-games you can unlock that use the cards!<\/p>\n

Acorn Chase<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a single player game, and requires 3 cards. When you scan the cards, three characters appear in a line and must gather all the acorns in a top down viewed field and then head for the exit.\u00a0 To move or change direction, you must scan the correct card.\u00a0 Each of the three cards represents a direction: left, right, or forward.\u00a0 The tricky part is that the directions don\u2019t change, no matter which way you\u2019re facing.\u00a0 So if you\u2019re facing left, you still want to use the \u2018forward\u2019 card.\u00a0 To make matters worse, a lawn mower with Resetti\u2019s head on it slowly chases your team, and if it bumps into one of them, the game is over. It\u2019s trickier than what it sounds like.<\/p>\n

Mystery Campers<\/strong><\/p>\n

This logic game is also single player only, but requires six cards. Four of the characters on the cards will be in tents, and you must guess which ones.\u00a0 When you scan four cards, they\u2019ll tell you how many are correct, and how many are close.\u00a0 Use these clues to figure out which animal is in which tent.\u00a0 You get ten tries in all.\u00a0 I usually would get it in six tries or less, so it\u2019s not too hard.<\/p>\n

Balloon Island<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 to 4 players can enjoy this simple mini-game, and you only really need one card, unless you just want to use more characters. It doesn\u2019t make a difference.\u00a0 Anyway, when you scan a card, that character will appear floating over an island with some balloons.\u00a0 When you release the card from the scanner, the character will drop and bounce on balloons floating above the island.\u00a0 You get points for popping balloons, and if you land on the target on the island, you\u2019ll get a score multiplier.\u00a0 You get three turns to do this, and whoever gets the highest score, wins.\u00a0 Of course, there\u2019s not really any way to predict how you\u2019ll fall, so it reminds me of a cross between a pachinko machine and Monkey Target from the Monkey Ball games.<\/p>\n

Quiz Show<\/strong><\/p>\n

An Animal Crossing quiz show sounds like a good idea, but boy are these questions hard! One to four players can go at it, and each player needs their own card.\u00a0 A question will appear on screen, and you must scan your card when the spotlight is over your character.\u00a0 This can be hard since the only scanner is on the Wii U gamepad.\u00a0 Then you must select the right answer on the pad.\u00a0 If you get it wrong, you\u2019ll lose the next turn.\u00a0\u00a0 But be careful because these questions can get hard!\u00a0 You might have to know what a certain animal\u2019s phrase is, or what kind of fish is pictured, or how big a bug is, or if a painting is fake or real!\u00a0 Like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, you can scan other cards a certain number of times to get a lifeline.\u00a0 But you don\u2019t get that option in single player mode.\u00a0 Also, single player mode is timed.\u00a0 I\u2019d enjoy this game more if the questions weren\u2019t so hard.\u00a0 Nintendo should make a trivia game about their characters and series.\u00a0 I bet that would be fun!<\/p>\n

Fruit Path<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one is a two-player game. You each pick three cards, and that character on the card will move the number of spaces of the dice on their card.\u00a0 If they see any fruit, they\u2019ll pick it up for points.\u00a0 The farther you go, the more fruit you get.\u00a0 Now, you\u2019d think you\u2019d want to just pick cards that have high dice numbers, but that can be dangerous.\u00a0 Along the path are pitfalls, and if you have too much fruit in your basket and land on a pitfall, you will fall in and lose a big chunk of your fruit that you\u2019ve collected.\u00a0 Whoever has the most fruit at the end of three turns wins.<\/p>\n

Amiibo Card Battle<\/strong><\/p>\n

When my brother Jeff was younger, he loved card battle games like Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic, etc. So he was a bit intrigued about this one, even though it\u2019s not much of a card battle game.\u00a0 The game takes place inside Katrina\u2019s fortune telling tent.\u00a0 Two players pick six cards.\u00a0 You can pick the same cards, though, so you only need six.\u00a0 You\u2019ll pit each card against each other one at a time, and you can only use a card once.\u00a0 The winner of a battle is determined by who has the highest number on the dice symbol on the card.\u00a0 And if there is a tie, it\u2019ll be determined by the rock, paper, scissors symbols on the cards.\u00a0 So you\u2019d think to pick the cards that have the highest number on the dice, right?\u00a0 Well, in the middle of the table is a crystal ball, and it\u2019ll show a Zodiac symbol each turn.\u00a0 And if an animal card has that same Zodiac symbol, they\u2019ll have an advantage.\u00a0 So there\u2019s an element of randomness to it.\u00a0 Whoever wins the most battles after all the cards are used, wins.<\/p>\n

Desert Island Escape<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is probably the most robust of all the mini-games! It\u2019s a single player game where you scan three cards and those characters will be on a desert island trying to escape.\u00a0 You\u2019ll move around the island in a strategy board game hexagonal format, and try to find three logs and a sail on spaces so you can leave.\u00a0 But you also have limited food and a certain number of days (turns) to do it, so you have to watch out.\u00a0 Each character has specific skills.\u00a0 Some are good at fishing; some can move more spaces, and much more.\u00a0 For instance, Resetti can dig to a faraway space, and Tortimer can sleep and give up one turn in order to move a bunch of spaces in the next turn.\u00a0 You can also find items to make tools that will make it easier to gather food and such.\u00a0 But most of it depends on luck, as most actions are spinner based.\u00a0 But there are multiple islands and difficulty levels, so there\u2019s a lot more to this game than meets the eye.<\/p>\n

Resetti Bop<\/strong><\/p>\n

And the last game is a single player variation on Whack-A-Mole. A player uses three cards, and you\u2019ll scan those cards to whack mechanical Resetti\u2019s when they pop out of the left, middle, and right holes.\u00a0 But be careful because each mole also has a rock, paper, scissors symbol on it, and even if you scan the right card, you can still lose points if your card has a symbol that can lose to whatever the Resetti one has.\u00a0 So you have to be on your toes!<\/p>\n

Conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all the games. While I can\u2019t really recommend this game to anyone unless you\u2019re a huge Animal Crossing fan like me, I still wanted to write this to let everyone know there\u2019s more to this title than just the board game part.\u00a0 In the comments section, let me know if you\u2019ve played this game and what you think of it.\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival is a Wii U game that came out late last year. It\u2019s a video board game featuring Animal Crossing characters, and you use Animal Crossing Amiibo figures to play it.\u00a0 You must scan them on the Wii U gamepad to roll dice, save your individual progress, heck; you can\u2019t even start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14538,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14536\/revisions\/14538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}